Dataset Information

Adult Children's Daily Experiences With Parental Advice: The Importance of Life Problems and Relationship Quality.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Parents often provide advice to their adult children during their everyday interactions. This study investigated young adult children's daily experiences with parental advice in U.S. families. Specifically, the study examined how receiving advice and evaluations of parental advice were associated with children's life problems, parent-child relationship quality, and daily mood.

Methods

Young adult children (aged 18-30 years; participant N = 152) reported whether they received any advice and perceived any unwanted advice from each parent (parent N = 235) for 7 days using a daily diary design (participant-day N = 948). Adult children also reported their positive and negative mood on each interview day.

Results

Results from multilevel models revealed that adult children who reported a more positive relationship with their parents were more likely to receive advice from the parent, whereas adult children who had a more strained relationship with their parents were more likely to perceive advice from the parent as unwanted. Receiving advice from the mother was associated with increased positive mood, whereas unwanted advice from any parent was associated with increased negative mood. Furthermore, the link between unwanted advice and negative mood varied by children's life problems and parent-child relationship quality.

Discussion

Indeed, parental advice is not "the more the better," especially when the advice is unsolicited. This study highlights the importance of perceptions of family support for emerging adults' well-being.

SUBMITTER: Wang H

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8557851 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Adult Children's Daily Experiences With Parental Advice: The Importance of Life Problems and Relationship Quality.

Wang Haowei H Kim Kyungmin K Burr Jeffrey A JA Birditt Kira S KS Fingerman Karen L KL

The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences 20211001 9

<h4>Objectives</h4>Parents often provide advice to their adult children during their everyday interactions. This study investigated young adult children's daily experiences with parental advice in U.S. families. Specifically, the study examined how receiving advice and evaluations of parental advice were associated with children's life problems, parent-child relationship quality, and daily mood.<h4>Methods</h4>Young adult children (aged 18-30 years; participant N = 152) reported whether they rec ...[more]

PMID: 33001209

Similar Datasets

Project description:Adolescence is a vulnerable period for psychopathology development, and certain parenting styles are consistent and robust predictors of a broad range of mental health outcomes. The mechanisms through which maladaptive parenting styles affect the development of psychopathology are assumed to be largely social in nature. Yet, the social mechanisms linking parenting to psychopathology are unexplored at arguably the most important level of functioning: daily life. This study aims to identify the associations between three parenting styles, and the experience of daily-life social interactions. Furthermore, we aim to explore the extent to which these parenting styles and altered daily-life social experiences are associated with psychopathology. In this study, we recruited a sample of N = 1,913 adolescents (63.3% girls; mean age = 13.7, age range = 11 to 20) as part of the first wave of the longitudinal cohort study "SIGMA". Parenting styles (psychological control, responsiveness, and autonomy support) and psychopathology symptoms were assessed using a retrospective questionnaire battery. The experienced quality of social interactions in different types of company was assessed using the experience sampling method, ten times per day for 6 days. Direct associations between parenting styles and general quality of daily-life social experiences were tested using a three-level linear model, revealing significant associations between social experiences and different parenting styles. When interaction effects were added to this model, we found that maternal responsiveness and paternal psychological control mainly related to altered qualities of social interactions with parents, while paternal autonomy support was associated with better experiences of non-family social interactions. Finally, an exploratory path analysis highlighted how both paternal autonomy support and altered quality of non-family interactions are uniquely associated with psychopathology levels. These findings demonstrate the general and pervasive effects of maladaptive parenting styles, as parenting seems to broadly affect adolescents' interactions with different types of social partners in everyday life. Moreover, they illustrate a potential mediated relationship in which altered daily-life social interactions could drive the development of psychopathology. A stronger focus may be required on the role of altered day-to-day social experiences in the prevention and potentially, the treatment, of adolescent psychopathology.

Dataset Information

Adult Children's Daily Experiences With Parental Advice: The Importance of Life Problems and Relationship Quality.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Publications

Adult Children's Daily Experiences With Parental Advice: The Importance of Life Problems and Relationship Quality.

Similar Datasets

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