Paired Maternal and Paternal Parenting Styles, Child Custody and Children's Emotional Adjustment to Divorce

Abstract

Parenting styles have been found to be associated with child development outcomes and these relationships are consistent across different family structures, including nondivorced, divorced, and remarried families. This research is often criticized because it has been conducted primarily with mothers, despite the recognition of fathers' important role in children's development. The current study was conducted to explore the combined contribution of maternal and paternal parenting styles on their children's psychological adjustment. Participants were 518 children between the ages of 10 and 18 whose parents were married and subsequently divorced. Children completed a measure of parenting and co-parenting (the Co-Parenting Behavior Questionnaire), a measure of self-esteem (the Hare Self-Esteem Scale), and rated their own adjustive behaviors with the Behavior Problem Index. Parents also rated their children's internalized and externalized behaviors with the parent from the Behavior Problem Index. Mother's and father's parenting styles were categorized into the four, distinct and non-overlapping, parenting styles (Authoritative, Authoritarian, Permissive, Absent/Disengaged) using the children's ratings of their parenting behaviors. Mother's and father's parenting style categories were then paired and yielded 235 mother-father pairs whose styles fell into seven combinations with sufficient numbers for statistical calculations. MANOVAs indicated that parenting style pairs influenced all of the adjustive outcomes. The healthiest children were those with at least one parent rated as authoritative and, in most cases, the presence of a parent rated as authoritative was found to mitigate the deleterious effects of both permissive and absent-disengaged parents. In contrast, children with at least one parent rated as absent/disengaged were found to have the greatest adjustive problems.