Bea Lewis

If you're grown kids still bug you, you are not alone. ...A new study finds that aging parents feel more tension in relationships with their adult children than the children feel about the old folks ..It's not that they don't care about us, it's just that we have more vested in adult kids than they have in us. (Ouch!) 

A study in the journal of Psychology and Aging found that while both parents and adult children are bothered by relationship tensions, the older the child, the greater the tension. Researchers at the University of Michigan Institute of Social Research looked at the parent-adult child relationship because it usually lasts longer than the relationship we had with our kids when they were growing up. 

 And while these relationships can be highly positive and supportive, they also can commonly include feelings of irritation, tension and ambivalence. Although most parents and their adult children experience at least a little tension, one of he biggest tension bug- a -boos is that of giving your kids UNSOLICITED ADVICE.

But that doesn't mean you shouldn't talk to your kids about problems or tensions you're having with them. It just means to use constructive ways to interact with them - to try to accomodate each others wishes and work toward finding solutions when problems arise and to accept and understand the other's point of view.

The old adage, "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all," is no longer good advice for parent/adult child relationships,'' said the researchers  "Avoidance doesn't work as a strategy for dealing with conflicts. It appears to make things worse."