Factors Influencing Children’s Appraisals of Interparental Conflict: The Role of Parent-Child Relationship Quality

Abstract

The cognitive contextual model proposes that children’s appraisals of interparental conflict (IPC) can influence their adjustment. In addition, previous research revealed that interparental disputes may reflect on parent-child relationship that is linked with children’s self-blame and threat appraisals concerning IPC. However, there is a scarcity of research directly addressing the intervening role of the parent-child relationship on children’s appraisals of IPC. Thus, we investigated the mediating role of different aspects of the parent-child relationship (i.e., psychological control, warmth, and attachment security) in the link between IPC and self-blame and threat appraisals. Participants were 1,309 children, their mothers, and their fathers. SEM analyses indicated that higher IPC was related to higher parental psychological control and lower child attachment security, which in turn was associated with higher self-blame or threat appraisals. The pattern of relationships was similar across child and parent gender.

Distal and proximal family contextual effects on adolescents’ interparental conflict appraisals: A daily diary study.

“…Findings in this study underscore the impact of parent–adolescent conflict in shaping adolescents’ evaluations of IPC. This expands on existing work documenting correlations between harsh parenting and appraisals (DeBoard-Lucas et al, 2010; Selçuk et al, 2020), and demonstrates within-person associations between fluctuations in parent–adolescent conflict and adolescents’ active processing of IPC on a daily timescale, underscoring the importance of parents’ compartmentalization of IPC. On days when IPC occurs, parents are more likely to engage in conflict or harsh parenting with their children (Almeida et al, 1999; Kouros et al, 2014).…”

“…Parent–youth relationships also have been identified as important contextual factors for IPC. Close, supportive, and warm parent–youth relationships reduce risk for threat and self-blame appraisals (DeBoard-Lucas et al, 2010; Grych et al, 2004; Lucas-Thompson & George, 2017; Selçuk et al, 2020). Harsh, rejecting, and psychologically controlling parenting increases children’s risk of forming threat and self-blame appraisals (DeBoard-Lucas et al, 2010; Selçuk et al, 2020).…”

“…Close, supportive, and warm parent–youth relationships reduce risk for threat and self-blame appraisals (DeBoard-Lucas et al, 2010; Grych et al, 2004; Lucas-Thompson & George, 2017; Selçuk et al, 2020). Harsh, rejecting, and psychologically controlling parenting increases children’s risk of forming threat and self-blame appraisals (DeBoard-Lucas et al, 2010; Selçuk et al, 2020). Interestingly, findings vary: Sometimes providing support for mother (but not father)–youth relations, other times providing support for father (but not mother)–youth relations as context for IPC appraisals (e.g., Grych et al, 2004).…”

Children Exposed to Interparental Violence: A Study of Portuguese Children from 7-9 Years of Age

“…Exposure to interparental violence can impact the quality of the relationship between children and their parents (Pereira et al, 2020;Selçuk et al, 2020). Family stress leads to a poor parent-child relationship (Webb et al, 2018), and some studies indicate a higher probability of direct maltreatment (physical, sexual abuse, child neglect) of children when there is interparental violence (Boel-Studt & Renner, 2014).…”

Parenting strategies of 21st century adults

“…A study of the strategies used by parents and children to deal with the tensions in the parent-child relationship (Birditt, Rott & Fingerman, 2009) showed the following: parents and children who have reached adulthood tend to use more often constructive strategies for resolving tensions to the detriment of destructive or avoidant ones; stress relief strategies vary by generation, parent gender, ethnicity, education and age of the child; constructive strategies have been associated with increasing the quality of the parent-child relationship (Selcuk et al, 2020). The quality of the parent-child relationship as well as the time that children spend with both parents are associated with improvements in the cooperative relationship (Saini, 2019).…”