Family Process and Children's Functioning during Divorce

Abstract

A model of family process was utilized to predict children's emotional adjustment and behavior problems during parents' divorce, in a sample of 178 children. Predictors included preseparation marital conflict, quality of parent-child relationships, child temperament, loss of a parent, and postseparation parental conflict. Four dimensions of the parent-child relationship during divorce were assessed. The relationship between marital conflict and child adjustment was indirect, mediated by the parent-child relationship; that is, parents who had less marital conflict had better relationships with their children after separation, which in turn was associated with more adaptive child functioning. Children with more difficult temperaments had more positive relationships with their fathers but also had more problematic emotional adjustment.