Agreement between child and parent reports of children’s reactions to interparental conflict.

Abstract

Children's perception of interparental conflict is still a relatively unexplored research area. The aim of this study was twofold. First, we wanted to gain more knowledge about the relationship between child and parent reports of children's reactions to interparental conflict across three dimensions: Emotional Reactions, Involvement Reactions, and Avoidance Reactions. Second, we sought to clarify whether disagreement between child and parent reports was related to the interparental conflict severity. The sample consisted of 377 dyads/triads of mothers, fathers, and 11-year-old children (53.2% girls) recruited from the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study. Paired sample t-tests and correlation analyses were used to investigate the absolute and relative agreement between child and both parents' perceptions. Polynomial regression analyses with response surface plots were used to investigate whether absolute agreement between child and mother and father reports, respectively, was related to the interparental conflict severity. Overall, children reported significantly higher levels of Emotional, Involvement, and Avoidance Reactions than did both parents, and the correlations between the reports were low to moderate. The absolute agreement between child and parent reports was related to the severity of interparental conflict for Emotional and Avoidance Reactions in the sense that larger discrepancy was related to less interparental conflict severity. The findings indicate that parents do not fully grasp children's reactions related to interparental conflict. However, contrary to our hypothesis, when interparental conflict was more severe, parents' responses were more similar to children's responses. The importance of acknowledging children's self-reported reactions is discussed along with clinical implications. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).