Being an older parent has its benefits
IF YOU’RE starting to get on the older side of motherhood and are unsure whether or not to try for another baby, a recent study may provide some encouragement.
According to the study in the journal Child Development, children born to older parents are better behaved.
The study looked at 32,892 Dutch children between the ages of 10 and 13.
The focus was on Dutch mothers because of their overall high maternal age at the birth of their first baby and relatively few teenage pregnancies.
The parents ranged between the ages of 16 and 68, and they studied the behaviours of their children according to themselves, their parents and their teachers. There was a focus on what they refer to as ‘externalising problem behaviour’ which are behaviours that are directed towards others of a person’s environment.
Some examples are bullying, vandalism and arson.
The article confirmed “a beneficial association between advanced parental age and externalising problem behaviour”.
The article suggests that “being a child of older parents can have substantial benefits, as older parents not only are often in a better socio economic position than young parents, thereby providing a more favourable environment for children, they also have greater life experience”.
It is also suggested that “older parents display more hardiness and tend to have less substance use and fewer mental health problems, hence score higher on parenting factors that promote health and development”.