Centered but not Caught in the Middle: Stepchildren's Perceptions of Dialectical Contradictions in the Communication of Co-Parents

Abstract

The researchers adopted a dialectical perspective to study how stepchildren experience and communicatively manage the perception of feeling caught in the middle between their parents who are living in different households. The metaphor of being caught in the middle is powerful for stepchildren and this metaphor animated their discourse. A central contribution of the present study was to understand the alternative to being caught in the middle and what this alternative means to stepchildren. Reflected in the discourse of stepchildren is that to feel not caught in the middle is to feel centered in the family. Stepchildren's desire to be centered in the family was animated by the dialectic of freedom-constraint, which co-existed within the contradictions of openness-closedness and control-restraint. These contradictions are detailed in the analysis, along with advice to parents from the perspective of stepchildren. Implications for the interaction of stepchildren and their parents are discussed.

An Examination of Privacy Rules for Academic Advisors and College Student-Athletes: A Communication Privacy Management Perspective

“…Further, we also find that, in many cases, there are consequences for any choices the advisors make in decisions regarding confidential information. We see that the advisors talked frequently about feeling ''caught in the middle''-feeling conflicted about loyalty to the student and to the institution (e.g., Afifi, 2003;Braithwaite, Toller, Daas, Durham, & Jones, 2008;Buchanan, Maccoby, & Dornbusch, 1991).…”

Exploring the Narrative Process: An Analysis of the Adoption Stories Mothers Tell Their Internationally Adopted Children

“…According to Braithwaite, Toller, Daas, Durham, and Jones (2008) "interpretive scholars seek intelligibility and understanding by identifying the similarities in meaning that phenomena or processes hold for the informants" (p. 36). Through qualitative methods, such as in-depth interviewing, researchers begin to understand the meanings participants assign to personal experiences as well as how they construct and interpret those experiences (Gerson & Horowitz, 2002).…”

A Social Relations Model of Everyday Talk and Relational Satisfaction in Stepfamilies

“…According to Bowen's work, anxiety or tension within a twosome leads the most uncomfortable partner to recruit a third family member to help dispel the tension. Take, for example, recent empirical evidence documenting children's feelings of being caught between parents in stepfamilies (i.e., Afifi, 2003;Afifi & Schrodt, 2003a;Amato & Afifi, 2006;Braithwaite, Toller, Daas, Durham, & Jones, 2008;Schrodt & Afifi, 2007). One of the conclusions drawn from this work is that despite similarities in the processes that foster triangulation, children from postdivorce families (including stepfamilies) continue to report higher levels of feeling caught than children in first-marriage families (Schrodt & Afifi, 2007;Schrodt & Ledbetter, 2007).…”