Emotional Intimacy and Children's Adjustment: A comparison between single-parent divorced and intact families

Abstract

The present investigation studies the levels of emotional intimacy within nonclinical single-parent families and intact families, and how these may relate to children's academic, social and emotional adjustments. Participants were 94 children of divorced families, 95 children of intact families, and their mothers (60 married and 58 divorced). The inventory of family feelings (IFF) and Kvebaek family sculpture technique (KFST) were used to examine subjects' emotional relationships with their family members. The results show significant differences between the divorced and intact groups on several measures of intimacy and adjustment. Most of these differences, however, are found to be small (as reflected by their small size effect). The only exception is with regard to the children's feeling of intimacy with their divorced noncustodial father. The quality of this dyad relationship also has a predictive power for the children's psychological, social and academic levels of functioning. These results are discussed in the context of divorced families' emotional boundaries and concerns over the long-term effects of parental divorce on children.