Older Parents’ and Middle-Aged Children’s Communication as Predictors of Children’s Successful Aging

Abstract

The communicative ecology model of successful aging (CEMSA) examines how people’s language and communication surrounding the aging process (e.g., making age-related excuses) predicts successful aging. Using the CEMSA, this study examined how middle-aged U.S. American children’s and their parents’ age-related communication predicts children’s subjective perceptions of their own successful aging, via children’s aging efficacy. Three communication profiles emerged for children and their parents, namely engaged, bantering, and disengaged agers. Path analysis revealed that parents’ age-related communication predicted children’s successful aging, via children’s aging efficacy. Relative to children with disengaged parents, children with bantering parents were more likely to be efficacious with respect to their aging, which in turn positively predicted successful aging. The language and communication people observe from older family members may be consequential in shaping their aging trajectories for the better or worse.