Postdivorce Relationships in Families and Children's Psychosocial Adjustment

Abstract

Divorced mothers and their school-aged children in 50 singlemother families and 37 stepfather families reported on mothers' expartner relationships, children's relationships with both parents, and children's well-being. A 2 (family structure) × 2 (gender) multivariate analysis of variance revealed a main effect of gender: Mothers with sons report higher levels of ex-partner relationship satisfaction. An interaction effect was also found: Boys in singlemother families report more acceptance and fewer conflicts than boys in stepfather families. Multiple regression analysis revealed that mother-ex-partner relationships are associated with children's problem behavior, whereas child-nonresidential father relationships are associated with positive aspects of children's well-being. The results indicate that family structure itself is not associated with child adjustment. What matters most is the quality of family relationships.

Difference, Choice, and Punishment: Parental Beliefs and Understandings about Adult Child Estrangement

“…Divorce has been shown to activate a number of interrelated stressors, such as the disruption of parental and intergenerational relationships, economic hardships, and relocation (Hakvoort, Bos, Van Balen, & Hermanns, 2011). Domestic violence has been shown to coexist with childhood physical and or sexual abuse in 40% of cases (Itzin, 2006), and has been shown to affect parents' ability to control emotions, organise their lives, maintain social support, and attend to children, which might, in turn, affect child-parent attachments (Cleaver, Nicholson, Tarr, & Cleaver, 2007).…”

A Longitudinal Investigation of Mothers' and Fathers' Initial Fathering Identities and Later Father-Child Relationship Quality

“…It is well established that high quality father-child relationships are beneficial to children in numerous ways (Amato & Gilbreth, 1999;Hakvoort, Bos, van Balen, & Hermanns, 2010) and that the absence of an involved father puts children at risk for negative outcomes in virtually every arena (Lamb, 2010;. However, not all fathers, resident or nonresident, have high quality relationships with their children, and fathers who lack romantic ties to their children's mothers are at particular risk of having poor relationships with their children, due to the numerous obstacles facing nonresident parents (Fox & Blanton, 1995;Nixon, Greene, & Hogan, 2012;Peters & Ehrenberg, 2008).…”

Commuting between two parental households: The association between joint physical custody and adolescent wellbeing following divorce

“…Most of these authors claim that family process variables are more important than the family structure per se. They argue that it makes no sense to compare custody types without incorporating family process variables (Hakvoort, Bos, Van Balen, & Hermanns, 2011;Kelly, 1993). According to Lee (2002) the infl uence of joint physical greater emotional security of children (Amato & Gilbreth, 1999;Davies & Cummings, 1994;Kelly, 1993;Troxel & Matthews, 2004).…”

“…The rather modest but consistent differences between children residing in two-biological-parent families compared to other family forms hold across several domains of wellbeing (Brown, 2010). When it comes to a divorce, children in single parent families are worst off due to reduced parental attention, lack of paternal role models, and reduced family income (Amato & Keith, 1991;Hakvoort et al, 2011). However, divorced parents may both contribute to fulfi ll their parental responsibilities, and post-divorce families may function in many respects as a healthy two-parent family (Amato, Kane, & James, 2011).…”