Final answer:
Relationships between aging parents and their children are commonly characterized by ambivalence, showing a mixture of positive and negative feelings. This complexity can sometimes exacerbate the risk of elder abuse, especially if the child caregiver has a financial dependency on the parent.
Step-by-step explanation:
In most cases, researchers have found that relationships between aging parents and their children are characterized by ambivalence. This term reflects the complex and often contradictory feelings that children may have toward their aging parents. On one hand, there is love and a sense of duty to care for parents who have aged, and on the other, feelings of burden and frustration that can come with the caregiving role. These relationships can be even more complicated if the caregiving child is reliant on the parent for some form of income, which may increase the likelihood of abuse, as stated by Kohn and Verhoek-Oftedahl (2011).