“The stakes are so high and it’s happening so fast”: Adult children’s perceptions of family role shifts during the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

During the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, families must communicate to assess and avoid risk. Given the specific threat of COVID-19 to individuals of advanced age, a crisis of this nature may trigger a role reversal for parents and adult children in the family wherein adult children lend emotional and instrumental support to their parents while suppressing their own needs. To understand if and how the COVID-19 pandemic has contributed to the role shifts of adult children, this study provides an analysis of interviews with 17 adult children. The results explain how emotional and instrumental support emerged in these families as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The interviews also highlighted adult children’s acute need to steer parents toward protective health behaviors, expanding understanding of role shifts and creating a new area of focus for practitioners interested in family communication during a crisis.