Caregiving across the Life Span

Caring for Children with Developmental Disabilities or Mental Illnesses

In early to mid-adulthood, many individuals become parents and take care of their children. Caregiving for children can be particularly challenging if children have chronic conditions such as developmental disabilities or mental health problems. In general, developmental disabilities are diagnosed at the child's birth or in early childhood, whereas mental illnesses tend to be diagnosed during the child's adolescence or early adulthood. Thus, caregiving responsibilities for children with disabilities begin at different stages of parents' lives. However, with the increase in the life expectancy of both parents and adult children with disabilities, it is becoming more common for parents to continue caring for these children even into old age.

Not only do parents of children with developmental disabilities or mental health problems bear the objective burdens of care, such as providing help in daily activities and managing their child's problematic behavior, but also they must deal with other problems associated with children's disabilities, such as additional financial burdens and emotional stress associated with the stigma of disabilities.

Parenting a child with disabilities takes a toll on parents' health and mental health. Parents of children with developmental disabilities or mental illness experience more physical symptoms and higher levels of depression than parents with non-disabled children. Nonetheless, variations exist in the extent to which children's disabilities lead to poor health and mental health among parents. A child's problematic behavior and poor health of the parent increase caregiving burden, whereas a better parent-child relationship leads to greater caregiving satisfaction.

Recent studies have examined the impact of having a child with disabilities on older parents' well-being, as caring for children with developmental or mental health problems, has become a lifelong responsibility for some older adults. According to Marsha Seltzer and her colleagues, parents in their mid-30s and early-50s of children with developmental disabilities have less frequent contact with friends than parents of the same age of unaffected children, although the difference at the later age is less pronounced. Parents in their mid-30s, but not in their early 50s, of children with mental health problems experience greater physical symptoms as well as elevated levels of depression and alcohol symptoms than parents of the same age of unaffected children in.

...