Children's and Parents' Observed Social Behavior in Stepfather Families

Abstract

SANTROCK, JoHN W.; WARSHAK, RICHARD; LINDBERGH, CmHERmYL; and MEADOWS, LARRY. Children's and Parents' Observed Social Behavior in Stepfather Families. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1982, 53, 472-480. The effects of remarriage on the parent's and the child's social behavior were studied by comparing 12 children whose biological mothers remarried with 12 children whose mothers were divorced but had not remarried and 12 children from intact, father-present families. Half the children were boys and half were girls, aged 6-11 years. Families were matched on SES and family size. Divorced and stepfather families were matched on age at onset of divorce, and children had been living in the stepfather family for a minimum of 18 months. The data consisted of videotaped observations of parent-child interaction; the parent's behavior and the child's behavior were coded separately. The most consistent findings suggested that boys in stepfather families showed more competent social behavior than boys in intact families, which corresponded with more competent parenting behavior in those stepfather families. By contrast, girls in stepfather families were observed to be more anxious than girls in intact families. Boys showed more warmth toward their stepfathers than did girls, while there was a trend for girls to show more anger toward their mothers than did boys in stepfather families. Divorced and stepfather children differed only in a trend for boys from stepfather families to show more mature behavior than boys from divorced homes. Mothers of boys in stepfather families did make more meaningful statements to them than the divorced mothers of boys. Few differences were found between divorced and intact families. It was concluded that the social behavior of children is not necessarily less competent in stepfather families than in intact or divorced families. The data suggested that such factors as parenting behavior, sex of child, and marital conflict in any type of family structure are implicated as possible explanations of the child's social behavior.