The parents also rated how stressful they find it to help their adult children, and how much they worry about their adult children, on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 being “not at all” and 5 being “a great deal.”
Finally, participants reported the amount of sleep they got each night. The wives reported sleeping 6.66 hours per night while the husbands slept about 6.69 hours a night.
The results included that for husbands, the support that they provided their grown children was associated with poorer sleep; conversely, the husbands slept more when their wives reported providing support for the kids. No such impact was seen in the women’s sleep.
However, for women, sleep was impaired by experiencing higher stress with their children. Stress levels over this issue did not appear to affect how much the husbands slept.
Overall, the study found that the giving of support itself affected the men, while stress over the support was what affected the women.
Seidel hypothesizes that the results may be a side effect of how involved many parents are with their grown children’s lives these days.
“Current research on young adults suggests that parents and children are maintaining high levels of involvement,” she said. “Although parents and adult children have always maintained some level of involvement, we do see an increase in what is often termed ‘helicopter parenting’ and ‘landing pad’ children.”
Seidel says that this trend along with the emergence of technology like cell phones and social media gives parents a deeper insight into what is going on in their adult children’s lives, which may lead to more cause for concern.
Parents can help themselves deal with stress by developing healthy coping strategies, which may include better eating habits, exercise, mindfulness, support groups, or therapy.
