Research from The Kids Research Institute Australia has shown that children born to older mothers fare well when it comes to behaviour.
The study, published in Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology, shows that as a mother's age at childbirth increases, the risk for behaviour problems in her child decreases.
The research, which used data from the Western Australian Pregnancy Cohort (Raine) Study, aimed to determine whether children's behaviour development was impacted by the age of their parents when they were born.
Information from more than 2000 families was used in the study, which is significant because it was able to look at large numbers of children across childhood and adolescence, from age 2 up to 17 years, and get first hand reporting from parents over more than two decades of their child's development.
Study author Jessica Tearne from The Kids says a trend in western countries for people to have children later in life has given rise to a number of studies looking at the impact on both their and their children's health and wellbeing.
"Whilst a lot of these studies have looked how older parental age relates to severe mental illnesses, not many have looked at how having older parents influences more general behaviour problems in children." said Ms Tearne.