Intergenerational Programs Benefit Social-Emotional Development for Young Children and Older Adults

Abstract

Lifespan developmental psychology identifies both early childhood and late adulthood as sensitive periods for developing social-emotional skills crucial for wellbeing. The public seeks support for these developmental periods, structured social-emotional programs such as childcare and older adult social activities. However, policy solutions have yet to fully address the increasing need for social-emotional supports for the youngest and oldest members of society; policymakers meet economic- and workforce-related roadblocks. This review summarizes empirical evidence on how intergenerational, joint programs that bridge early childhood and late adulthood care impact social-emotional outcomes. Joint programming is a promising policy route to address the social-emotional needs of young children and older adults. Policy—including economic concerns, accessibility, and alternative policy options—can use empirical evidence on joint early childhood and late adulthood programs for social-emotional wellbeing. Evidence-based suggestions facilitate successful program design and implementation.

Keywords

early childhood late adulthood social-emotional development intergenerational programming policy

Social Media Post

Social-emotional skills are fundamental to wellbeing. People in early childhood and late adulthood life stages may need extra social-emotional supports; this need likely will increase in the coming years with demographic and economic shifts. Policy for joint early childhood and elder care programs could be a solution.

Key Points

Social-emotional skills are essential for wellbeing, academic and vocational success, and maintaining healthy relationships.

Social-emotional skills are especially vulnerable in early childhood and late adulthood.

Currently, the United States does not meet the growing need of individuals in early childhood and late adulthood to support social-emotional functioning.

Addressing social-emotional functioning for young children and older adults can be expensive, resource intensive, and less accessible for marginalized communities.

Joint early childhood and late adulthood programs have the potential to support social-emotional functioning, address economic burdens, and reach marginalized communities.

Not all intergenerational programs are created equal, however. Research-backed and contextually-sensitive implementation of joint programs will best ensure success.

In the United States, in 2012, 43.1 million adults were aged 65 or older. By 2050, that number will almost double to an estimated 83.7 million, and by 2030, at least 20 percent of the population will be aged 65 or older (United States Census Bureau, 2014). This growth will increase the need for quality elder care options, including social-emotional support (Ince Yenilmez, 2015), which are already insufficient to meet needs and are financially unattainable for many (Kröger, 2022). Needs for childcare are similar, with an estimated 60 percent of all children under five years old in the United States (US) regularly spending time in childcare settings outside of the home (Cui & Natzke, 2021; Monroe, 2020), which has risen to be the predominant child-care arrangement for children not directly cared for by a parent (i.e., more common than in-home babysitters or care by a relative). At the same time, trends in cost of living are increasing the need for dual household income and women in the workforce continue to increase, becoming less available as at-home caregivers (Herbst, 2023; Leonce, 2020). Childcare costs have also dramatically risen in the twenty first century, becoming more financially burdensome for parents and especially burdensome for lower-income and single parents (Herbst, 2023). This is particularly troublesome coupled with the rise of single-parent households, which have more than doubled since 1970 (Smock & Schwartz, 2020). Thus, continued increases in cost of living, childcare costs, women in the workforce, and single-parent households contribute to increasing demand for affordable, out-of-home childcare to support young children's social-emotional needs.

Yet, while the demands for economically viable childcare and elder care continue to grow, social programming for individuals in these age groups is often sporadic. Of particular concern, policy for promoting early childhood and late adulthood social-emotional development and wellbeing is insufficient. Most policy emphasis on developmental programming targeting social-emotional supports such as interventions, school programs, and therapies begins when children enter the school system (Bierman & Motamedi, 2015; Jones et al., 2017), leaving out early childhood (younger than five or six years old). Similarly, later life social-emotional supports are also limited (Lindgren, 2016), leaving older adults, defined as aged 65 years or older, vulnerable (Lin & Liu, 2024). Here, empirical evidence will suggest how to address these lifespan social-emotional challenges: joint early childhood and senior social-emotional programs. This is not a new policy suggestion, but a reemphasis on this promising format, supported by a review of recent research, and a call-to-attention of the increased need for policy to support social-emotional wellbeing of the youngest and oldest people in the US. Alternative policy options also appear.

Defining Social-Emotional Skills and Development

Social-emotional skills are a foundational part of an interconnected system of self- and other-directed capabilities. Social-emotional skills include understanding and controlling one's inner mental states and understanding others’ mental states, including emotional and cognitive ones. Social-emotional skills also include understanding larger societal groups and social norms. Finally, they include understanding what improves one's individual wellbeing and social interactions (Monnier, 2015). More simply, social-emotional skills are interpersonal and intrapersonal capabilities that allow people to socially engage with others and to self-regulate (De Fruyt & Scheirlinckx, 2025; Malti & Noam, 2016). While many definitions and skills fall under the umbrella term (e.g., see CASEL, 2013 framework), the binding factor among them is their application; maintaining social-emotional skills upholds success in important developmental sequalae including people's ability to develop and maintain relationships, understand self and others, engage in collaboration, and perform well in academic and vocational pursuits (De Fruyt & Scheirlinckx, 2025; Mizokawa & Koyasu, 2015).

Social-Emotional Outcomes of Joint Early Childhood and Older Adult Programs: Evidence

Defining Intergenerational Programs

Intergenerational programs, sometimes termed joint programs, commonly bridge those in early childhood and late adulthood, participating in shared activities intended to be mutually beneficial (Young et al., 2026). Intergenerational programs can vary, but most involve education-focused, practical skill-focused, or art- and culture-focused activities (Martins et al., 2019) that can be summarized in four simple arrangements: elders caring for children, children visiting with and assisting elders, elders and children collaborating on voluntary activities, and elders and children participating in joint learning or leisure activities (Gualano et al., 2018). Activities can include reading together, working together to complete a puzzle, music playing or listening sessions, or arts and crafts projects, for example (Martins et al., 2019).

Evidence

Intergenerational programs, have been examined before and have shown positive social-emotional outcomes for both age groups in systematic reviews. A systematic review examined programs (published 1986–2020) with children under 6 years old and adults at least 65 years old (Wendland & Parizet, 2023). Across the 18 studies reviewed, the primary social-emotional benefits for children were increased positive behavior and attitudes toward older people, increased empathy, and improved behavior regulation. For the older adults, primary benefits included increased positive affect and social behavior (Wendland & Parizet, 2023). Older adults have also shown social-emotional improvements including boosts in self-esteem, wellbeing, and self-reported health in a systematic review of 27 studies that examined intergenerational programming (Gualano et al., 2018). Another similar systematic review (Giraudeau & Bailly, 2019) found participation in intergenerational programs was related to significant improvement in older adults’ mental health, physical health, and quality of life. In addition to the quantitative social-emotional outcomes, both parties have communicated enjoying intergenerational programming (Giraudeau & Bailly, 2019; Gualano et al., 2018).

Other research on joint programs has focused specifically on the young children involved. A recent systematic review of 13 intergenerational programs found positive impact on the social-emotional outcomes of children aged 1–6 years old, including children's development of self-control, decision making, and relationship skills (Banks et al., 2024). However, some results are mixed. Kirsh et al.'s (2021) study highlights how results are not always as expected. Kirsh et al. examined 3–5-year old's positive coping mechanisms and empathy after participation in an intergenerational program (2021). Over the course of a year, children visited older adults aged 65–100 years old in an elderly residential facility every two weeks for one hour, which included structured and unstructured activities (e.g., games, watching movies, reading stories). Children in the intergenerational program were compared to quasi-experimental control children who continued their regular preschool programming. Surprisingly, the children in the intergenerational group showed less empathy and prosocial behavior than the control group; however, the authors note that this is likely because the study was a single-time point study with data collected after the program, and they were unable control for baseline pre-test differences prior to the program. Possibly, some intergenerational program designs may have the opposite of the desired effects, or the undesired outcomes may be due to poor implementation or program attendance. Notably, boys in one intergenerational group coped better than boys in the comparison group. The authors suggest that intergenerational programming may therefore be particularly beneficial to boys in early childhood, who consistently demonstrate lower social-emotional functioning compared to girls (Kirsh et al., 2021).

Probably, intergenerational programs have been associated with advancing children's social-emotional skills in their earliest, malleable stages of behavioral emergence (Denham & Zinsser, 2014; Ruba & Pollak, 2020). In addition to supporting early childhood social-emotional development, intergenerational programs may be supportive of or help to preserve late adulthood social-emotional functioning and wellbeing because social-emotional skills can begin deteriorating and hinder social functioning during late adulthood (Bailey et al., 2008; Fantini-Hauwel & Mikolajczak, 2014; Khanjani et al., 2015). Therefore, in addition to considering intergenerational early childhood and older adult programs for their merits in reducing older adult social isolation and improving children's perceptions of older adults, intergenerational programs have the potential to be used to target critical social-emotional skill maintenance during the most sensitive lifespan periods.

Early Childhood and Late Adulthood as Sensitive Periods for Social-Emotional Skill

Early childhood is a sensitive developmental period, including for social-emotional development. That is, young children's social-emotional skills are malleable and just beginning to develop behaviorally (Denham & Zinsser, 2014; Ruba & Pollak, 2020). During this time, social-emotional skills are most plastic (Gee, 2021), sensitive to context, and can be positively or negatively impacted by environmental inputs such as preschool quality, country resources, and neighborhood (Nakajima et al., 2020). Social-emotional development in early childhood has profound impacts on later life wellbeing including academic success (Guo et al., 2023; Hammer et al., 2018), career success, and relationships (Bierman & Motamedi, 2015). Therefore, children are set up for success with positive social-emotional developmental experiences in the early childhood years, and accordingly, copious evidence supports early childhood programming and education as promoting social-emotional development (Edwards & Denham, 2018; Yoshikawa et al., 2013).

Conversely, late adulthood has long been characterized as a period of increased vulnerability for decline, including decline in social-emotional functioning. Older adults’ social-emotional functioning may be vulnerable due to typical cognitive age-related decline (Kuiper et al., 2016; Piolatto et al., 2022; Reiter et al., 2017) or due to environmental-related changes such as increased isolation (Adekpedjou et al., 2023; Andrew & Rockwood, 2010). Furthermore, late adulthood mental and physical health are interconnected with social-emotional functioning and isolation (Vernon & Gage, 2016); therefore, older adult social-emotional programming may also have cascading effects to positively impact other areas of psychological and physical wellbeing. Given that early childhood is a sensitive period (Gabard-Durnam & McLoughlin, 2020; Wachs et al., 2014) and late adulthood is a period of increased vulnerability (Mah et al., 2022), joint programming can provide a platform to impart dramatic change in social-emotional development and maintenance—essentially, capitalizing on these life periods that are already ripe for imparting social-emotional change.

Intergenerational Program Policy as a Way Forward for the United States

Based on the current review, intergenerational early childhood and late adulthood program policy could be an advantageous approach to address social-emotional wellbeing of both age groups in the US. As previously discussed, a) social-emotional abilities are rapidly developing during early childhood and are most malleable during this time, and b) social-emotional abilities are vulnerable for deterioration in late adulthood, which can have negative impacts on daily functioning for older adults and their loved ones. Specific to the US sociocultural and healthcare structures, intergenerational social-emotional programs may be c) a cost-effective and pragmatic way to address early childhood and late adulthood social-emotional concerns, given the economic disparities in the US, and d) could provide access to social-emotional supports for marginalized and rural communities that typically have more limited access to care.

Economic Benefits

Intergenerational programs targeting social-emotional development may be a more economically viable solution than existing policy and programming. Early childhood care and older adult care can be a major economic burden on families (Chari et al., 2015; Herbst, 2023) and on public resources (Chari et al., 2015; Ince Yenilmez, 2015; Lee & Mason, 2011). Furthermore, the US currently does not have universal public healthcare, including programs that encompass social-emotional support. Personal older adult caretaking is a growing social healthcare sector in the US, but the workforce has not been able to keep up with demands and is projected to continue to be unable to keep up with demands without policy change (Foley & Luz, 2021; Ince Yenilmez, 2015). Some have projected that informal elder care (i.e., care provided by family members), which constitutes most elder care in the US, is less expensive than formal elder care options provided by skilled, paid workers (Chari et al., 2015); the same is true of informal versus formal early childhood care (Stevens, 2017). However, these projections are for older adult holistic health care (medical, physical, and social health programming) and are not specific to care centered on older adult social-emotional wellbeing. Likewise, while informal early childhood care may be immediately less expensive than early childhood care led by skilled workers, it may end up being more detrimental and expensive given the long-term economic consequences as poorer quality early childhood care can eventually lead to poorer quality, under contributing, adult members of the workforce (Stevens, 2017). Hence, economic advantages could be reaped at both at the micro family- and individual-levels, and at the macro community- and society-levels with intergenerational social-emotional policy.

Other analysts have articulated the potential economic merits of intergenerational programs from a policy perspective. Scholars have suggested similar policies and highlighted analogous social, developmental, and economic benefits for other countries (e.g., Radford et al., 2018, for Australia). Australian public health programming has some of the best outcomes in the world (Dixit & Sambasivan, 2018). Likely, the US would benefit from intergenerational programs—perhaps to a greater degree than Australia—considering that the US experiences greater public health and economic disparities including elder care (Eaton, 2005) and childcare (Bradbury et al., 2019; Donato & Scotton, 2020), and that the US has larger early childhood social-emotional disparities (Bradbury et al., 2011). Access to early childhood and older adult programs can be cost-prohibitive for lower income families and marginalized communities. In addition to helping fill an economic and workforce gap, joint programs may expand access to social-emotional support services.

Marginalized Communities

Gaps in access to early childhood and older adult care may be most salient for marginalized and low-income communities (Bierman & Motamedi, 2015), racial or ethnic minorities (Allen & Hutton, 2023; Marshall et al., 2025), and immigrants (Morland et al., 2016). Globally, gaps in services for racial and ethnic minority communities appear in a wide range of public and private early childhood education (Magnuson & Waldfogel, 2005; Mendizabal-Espinosa et al., 2024), childcare (Nores & Barnett, 2014), healthcare (Pilni, 2025), and late adulthood healthcare (Jain et al., 2022), mental health programs (Jimenez et al., 2022), and access to residential and assisted living spaces (Frochen et al., 2019). Accordingly, marginalized groups’ development of social-emotional skills and associated wellbeing have been shown to lag behind that of majority groups (McCoy et al., 2015), most accurately termed opportunity gaps (Allen & Hutton, 2023), indicating the source of social-emotional discrepancies between minority groups when compared to the majority is due to a lack of access and opportunity for growth rather than being deficit-based (Quinn, 2025). Additionally, the infrastructural burdens of early childhood and older adult care weigh disproportionally on those dwelling in rural areas, meaning opportunity gaps and intersectional disadvantages can be even more pronounced in rural communities (Rahman & Sireli, 2025).

Pairing older generations with the new generations is not a new concept; the eldest have been supporting the youngest and vice versa for millennia in naturalistically occurring family structures (i.e., intergenerational households), particularly in cultures that emphasize intergenerational family living. For example, indigenous Latine groups in the US have intergenerational practices that inherently promote social-emotional development (Mesinas & Casanova, 2023). However, from a policy standpoint in the US, this structure has not been considered for its maximum potential. Societal norms in the US—such as the individualistic culture, occupational opportunities, and separate young and old community and living spaces—do not encourage intergenerational practices (Fang & Yang, 2023; Katz & Kaplan, 2022; Ruggles, 2007). Especially in the US, where the wealth, healthcare, and education disparities are large, the design and employment of intergenerational social-emotional programs may serve to curtail some disparities.

Designing and Implementing Intergenerational Programs: Limitations, Caveats, and Features of Successful Programs

General Program Design

Despite the advantages of intergenerational social-emotional programs, there are limitations and important caveats to consider before implementing policy. Previous employment of intergenerational program policy could serve as a guidebook and indicates a few key features of successful programs. The intergenerational program must be properly designed or it may have null effects or deleterious effects, such as the infantilization of the elderly participants and perpetuated negative stereotypes of the elderly by children (Wendland & Parizet, 2023). Built into the design of the program, trained staff and planning that accounts for the needs of both older adults and young children are essential (Wendland & Parizet, 2023). For example, in the implementation of the first year of a joint preschool and nursing home program, elders took on volunteer preschool staff roles (Holmes, 2009). The program's success was likely tied to careful planning and organization, including an orientation and training for the elders, the preschooler's curriculum celebrating diversity and including lessons on the experiences of the elderly, and offering regularly planned small and large group activities (Holmes, 2009). Additionally, the preschool and nursing home were in the same building facility, which was a major logistical advantage for program implementation success and emphasizes the need for transportation considerations.

Group activity format versus purposeful pairing of older adult and child dyads is also an important program design consideration. Group activity formats worked well for Holmes (2009), but depending on the context, purposeful pairing of older adult and child dyads could work better than group formats. Exemplifying this, a randomized control trial assigned preschool-aged children to two intergenerational programs, a program that grouped older adults and children in one-to-one pairs, and another program where children and older adults met in a group format. Children in the one-to-one program outperformed children in the group program on multiple components of social-emotional functioning, including self-regulation, affect, and initiative (Wang & Wang, 2025). Lastly, applying a guiding framework to program development could be beneficial for achieving desired outcomes (Marshall et al., 2025), such as Newman and Smith's (2014) articulation of the framework of reciprocal and shared needs of the youngest and oldest to directly link the generations, or Young et al.'s (2026) adoption of social capital theory to situate how harnessing relationships across generations can enhance access to social capital and thereby elicit positive social effects.

Elder and Community Engagement

Elder agency could be a key factor in whether or not intergenerational programming is successful for older adults. In some programming, elders participate on a completely volunteer basis, opting when and for what activities to participate in. In other cases, elders may have less autonomy in their involvement (Wendland & Parizet, 2023). Elders may also play more of a traditional childcare role, shepherding the children and being considered as facilitators of the child-centered programming rather than recipients of the programming (Cohen-Mansfield & Jensen, 2017; Holmes, 2009). The type and extent of elder involvement may be connected or confounded with older adult social-emotional outcomes. Volunteer elders may be biased towards positive affect prior to participation, and elders who have limited agency over their participation may withdraw or become agitated, for example (Wendland & Parizet, 2023). Therefore, intergenerational programming may be most successful for older adults when they have autonomy around their program attendance and their type and level of engagement. Programs may also be most successful if they engage stakeholders from the relevant local communities because they understand context-specific needs and challenges. Engaging stakeholders from diverse and marginalized backgrounds can further this effort to better understand the barriers and enablers of program implementation (Marshall et al., 2025).

Alternatives to Intergenerational Programming

Alternative policy options to address the growing need for social-emotional developmental supports of young children and older adults could have public preschool and childcare programs separate from public senior social programming. One such route that has demonstrated success in promoting older adult social-emotional wellbeing is befriending programs, which match volunteers to older adults as a social companion (Gardiner & Barnes, 2016; Vernon & Gage, 2016); these are often intergenerational, pairing young adults with older adults (e.g., Sen et al., 2024).

A policy route that has long demonstrated success in promoting early childhood social-emotional development is Head Start programming (Lee & Kreutzer, 2021; McCoy et al., 2015). Head Start's chief goal is to provide early childhood education access to lower-income groups so that they may enter the K-12 school system having already gained the early developmental skills necessary to set them up for success in the education system (Morland et al., 2016; Nix et al., 2013). Despite its overarching success, Head Start has been criticized for its outcome disparities between children from racially minoritized backgrounds and White children (Lee, 2024) and for its lack of reach to many low socioeconomic status, refugee, and immigrant children, most of whom do not make the federal “cut off” criteria for entry into Head Start (Joshi et al., 2016). These separate programming options may achieve some social-emotional benefits such as improved emotion-regulation, positive affect, and social behavior, but are unlikely to affect positive change on children's attitudes towards older adults. Furthermore, from an economic standpoint, separate programming may be less cost-effective than joint programming.

Conclusion

As a research review indicates, intergenerational programs bridging early childhood and late adulthood would afford positive social-emotional outcomes for both children and older adults. Research findings promoting joint programming are not new. Policy is missing an opportunity to consider this format as a way to promote positive social-emotional outcomes during these developmental periods with heightened social-emotional support needs. The potential benefits from intergenerational programming are especially pronounced in the United States, as the late adulthood population continues to grow, demand for childcare and cost of childcare continues to rise, and economic disparities persist. Additionally, the social-emotional and economic benefits of joint programs can particularly benefit communities that have reduced access to childcare, healthcare, and elder care, including racially and ethnically marginalized communities, impoverished communities, and rural communities. Well-designed joint programming benefits not just the individual, but also may reach the family, neighborhood, and society. Joint early childhood and late adulthood social-emotional programming and policy is by no means a panacea; in fact, it is likely to reflect the same limitations as other social-emotional interventions and programs for early childhood and late adulthood (e.g., Head Start, befriending programs). Nonetheless, it may be another, underutilized route to address the growing need for social-emotional supports in early childhood and late adulthood.

Footnotes

ORCID iD

Megan G. Stutesman

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

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