The Effect of Stepfamily Status on Impressions of Children's Report Card Information

Abstract

This study was designed to compare university students' perceptions of stepchildren to perceptions of children from intact, biological families. Two hundred and eleven participants were asked to view an 8-year-old child's report card. Participants were given background information that indicated that the child lived with his mother and father (or mother and stepfather). The participants were then asked to rate their first impressions of the child's scholastic, social, and emotional functioning, and make predictions about the child's behaviour in school. The results indicated that male (but not female) participants rated stepchildren less positively than biological children with respect to their social and emotional functioning. Scholastic functioning was not influenced by family status information, nor was the child's predicted behaviour in school. The results are discussed in relation to their implications for stepchildren in today's society.     

A Preliminary Investigation of Family Systems' Influences on Individual Divorce Adjustment

The influence of family systems variables on family member's divorce adjustment was examined in this study. Subjects included 36 families who had been separated or divorced only once, for 6 to 30 months, and had a child between 6 and 16 years old. The custodial parent completed questionnaires regarding family functioning, single parenting, occurence and subjective evaluation of specific post-divorce events, one child's adjustment to the divorce, and parental divorce adjustment. Data were analyzes using hybrid (stepwise/hierarchical) multiple regression analyses. Sixty-three percent of families were high on the Cohesion and/or Democratic family style dimensions. These family styles were related to healthier, more supportive family relationships and clearer, more direct, communication among family members. Approximately 30 percent of families were high on the Conflict and/or Laissez-Faire family style dimensions. These latter dimensions related less to healthy family relationships and communication styles. Notably, significantly poorer child and/or parental functioning were associated to these latter families. The impact of competent custodial parenting on child and family adjustment to divorce is discussed.     

Gender and Age Differences in Child Adjustment to Parental Separation

Abstract

The present study examined gender and age differences in adjustment among children whose parents have separated. Measures designed specifically to assess family functioning during the divorce process (the Divorce Adjustment Inventory-Revised, and Child Divorce Adjustment Inventory), along with a measure of self-esteem and interviews with children, provide an in-depth exploration of the experience of families during the transitional period of separation. Results indicate that (1) parents of girls reported higher resolution of the separation, (2) high self-esteem for girls was mediated by residential parents' high socioeconomic status, (3) older children exhibited higher adjustment than younger children, and (4) father-headed families indicated higher adjustment before and after separation. Using a model of divorce as a process, results are discussed in relation to findings from studies of post-divorce and pre-separation families to provide a more complete picture of the divorce experience and child adjustment to that experience.     

What Maisie Knew: A Child's Experience of Divorce

This is a discussion of how a fictional child, as portrayed in a novel by Henry James, attempts to deal with the complex relationships that follow a bitter divorce. The various strategies used by the child are considered, both as they are described by James, and in the light of today's psychological theory. The article challenges us, as adults, to think more deeply about the nature of a child's experience of parental conflict and separation.     

Conflict or Divorce? Does Parental Conflict and/or Divorce Increase the Likelihood of Adult Children's Cohabiting and Marital Dissolution?

The short- and long-term effects of family structure on child well-being remains a hotly contested area among both researchers and policymakers. Although previous research documents that children of divorce are more prone to divorce themselves, much of this research has been plagued by multiple data and analytic problems. A second problematic issue relates to whether it is the divorce per se that leads to increased divorce or rather the conflict that may precede the divorce. In this article we examine whether children who experience parental conflict and/or divorce are more likely to experience a cohabiting breakup or divorce as adults compared with children from low conflict and/or intact families. Our examination improves on past research by using a three-wave longitudinal data set and by controlling for predivorce family characteristics, including the conflict between parents before divorce. We extend previous research on the effect of parental conflict and divorce on adult children's likelihood of divorce by also examining the likelihood of a cohabiting dissolution.     

The gendered division of labor and family outcomes in germany

The literature on the predictors of the division of household labor continues to expand, but the effect of this division on family outcomes has not been explored. Using the German SocioEconomic Panel (N= 628), I analyze the effect of men's participation in housework and child care on the likelihood of second birth and divorce. Fathers' greater relative child‐care time increases couples' odds of second birth, attenuating the negative effect of mothers' employment. Husbands' relative housework time is insignificant in predicting second birth or divorce among couples with at least one child, but increases the likelihood of divorce among childless couples. This is evidence that the division of domestic labor affects family outcomes, but effects differ depending on the outcome and presence of children.     

Impacts of Parents' Divorce on Chinese Children

Abstract

The study examined the impact of parents' divorce on Chinese children's well-being. A Chinese theoretical model was tested using Structural Equation Modeling. The sample consisted of 940 Chinese children aged 6–16. The well-being of children from divorced families was compared with that of two-parent and widowed families. The results showed that children's academic performance mediated the negative impact of divorce on children's well-being. The societal discriminating attitude towards divorce and single-parent families had a strong negative effect on the children's well-being. Parenting skills of the custodial parent had more influence on the children's well-being than the marital conflicts prior to the divorce. Supports from the extended families counterbalanced some negative effects associated with divorce.     

Life Course Changes of Children and Well‐being of Parents

How do children's life course transitions affect the well‐being of their parents? Using a large panel survey among parents with longitudinal information on 2 randomly chosen children, the authors analyzed the effects of children's union formation, parenthood, and union dissolution on changes in depressive symptoms of parents. Negative effects were found for children's divorce, and positive effects were found for children's marriage and parenthood. Mothers suffered more from a child's divorce or separation than fathers. Effects depended in part on the parent's traditional family norms, pointing to a normative explanation of life course effects. Little evidence was found for explanations in terms of altruism or selfish motivations. In a more general sense, this article supports the notion of linked lives suggested by the life course perspective. This research provides stronger support for this notion than the few previous studies that have examined it.     

Conflict Patterns and Family of Origin Conflict in Newly Initiated Remarriages

ABSTRACT

The poor marriage material hypothesis explains the high divorce rate in remarriages as a function of the qualities of people who have previously been divorced. This study sought to test whether conflict in the family of origin and in the present marriage could substantiate the poor marriage material hypothesis by discriminating between couples in their first marriage versus those in a marriage with a history of divorce. A sample of 66 newlywed married couples, half in first marriages and half in remarriages, were recruited through marriage licenses and student referrals. Family of origin conflict discriminated between first and remarried couples. Namely, wives' exposure to interparental conflict significantly increased the odds that they were presently married to a husband who had previously been divorced. Differences between first and remarried couples' own conflict patterns were largely unremarkable with the exception of remarried couples seeing their partners as being more compliant and unassertive relative to those in first marriages.     

Psychosocial Well‐Being and the Relationship Between Divorce and Children's Academic Achievement

As an unprecedented number of children live in families experiencing divorce, researchers have developed increasingly complex explanations for the consequences associated with marital dissolution. Current accounts focus on changes to family finances, destabilized parenting practices, elevated parental conflict, and deterioration of the parent–child relationship, to explain the impact of divorce. A less studied explanation draws attention to children's diminished psychosocial well‐being following divorce. Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study—Kindergarten cohort (ECLS‐K) (N = 10,061), I examined the role of psychosocial well‐being in the relationship between divorce and children's outcomes. The results suggest that divorce is associated with diminished psychosocial well‐being in children, and that this decrease helps explain the connection between divorce and lower academic achievement.     

Young Children's Negative Stereotyping of Peers from Divorced Families

Abstract

Five to 7-year-olds assigned the negative item, on 6 of 7 bipolar pairs of items representing divorce stereotypes in simplified form, more frequently to a child stimulus presented as from a divorced family than to a child described as from an intact family. Negative stereotyping of young children from divorced families was evidenced most clearly by female participants. Gender effects were indicated for participants, child stimulus pairs, and for treatment conditions where participants responded to children from single-mother or single-father versus intact families.     

THE ECONOMIC CHOICE IN DIVORCE:

Abstract

Using the NELS data set, this study assessed whether parental involvement in children's education can eliminate the effects of parental divorce and remarriage on the academic achievement of adolescents. The results indicate that consistent effects for divorce emerged using the No-SES Model, both with and without the inclusion of the parental involvement variables. Similarly, consistent effects for remarriage emerged using the SES Model, both with and without the inclusion of the parental involvement variables. The significance of these results is discussed.     

Parental Divorce and Child Mental Health Trajectories

A process‐oriented approach to parental divorce locates the experience within the social and developmental context of children's lives, providing greater insight into how parental divorce produces vulnerability in some children and resiliency in others. The current study involves prospectively tracking a nationally representative sample of Canadian children of ages 4–7 and living with two biological parents at initial interview in 1994 (N = 2,819), and comparing the mental health trajectories of children whose parents remain married with those whose parents divorce by 1998. Results from growth curve models confirm that, even before marital breakup, children whose parents later divorce exhibit higher levels of anxiety/depression and antisocial behavior than children whose parents remain married. There is a further increase in child anxiety/depression but not antisocial behavior associated with the event of parental divorce itself. Controlling for predivorce parental socioeconomic and psychosocial resources fully accounts for poorer child mental health at initial interview among children whose parents later divorce, but does not explain the divorce‐specific increase in anxiety/depression. Finally, a significant interaction between parental divorce and predivorce levels of family dysfunction suggests that child antisocial behavior decreases when marriages in highly dysfunctional families are dissolved.     

Collateral Damage: The Lived Experiences of Divorced Mothers Without Custody

This qualitative study utilizing narrative analysis and grounded theory examines the history and experiences of 14 Canadian women who have lost custody of their children within a legal divorce process. Each woman's storied experience focused on themes of attachment and loss associated with involuntary child absence, legal abuse within the adversarial system, and judgment based on nonconformity to a motherhood ideal; physical violence and emotional abuse in the family system; access denial and parental alienation; stigma and lack of support services; and serious financial losses. Women's perceptions of their children's needs in the divorce process, mothers' responsibilities in relation to those needs, and the responsibility of social institutions to support mothers as parents were also examined. The study sought mothers' views about needed changes to the legal framework of child custody determination and other priorities. Implications for socio-legal policy are discussed, including a consideration of a rebuttable legal shared parental responsibility presumption as facilitating the most salutary postdivorce outcomes for women and children, as are guidelines for direct service provision.     

Parental Authority in Divorced Families

This work examines the possible differences between divorced mothers and mothers of intact families in their inclinations to exert parental authority, and the possible relationship between the degree of parental authority and children's personal and social adjustment. For the purposes of the study, we developed the Haifa Parental Authority Questionnaire, which is a situation-depicted test based on a conceptual analysis of the construct of authority. The participants were 88 mother–child dyads, 56 from single (divorced) families and 32 from two-parent families. The results show that married mothers are more disposed than are divorced mothers to use their authority. Although adding family status and parental authority scores to the regression analysis yielded insignificant models for the two children's adjustment variables, the interaction between the variables was found to be significant. In the divorced family the more authoritarian the mother is, the worse is the child's personal adjustment, whereas in the intact family the more authoritarian the mother is, the better is the child's social adjustment. The results are discussed in the wider context of the mother–child relationship, the breakdown of the family's hierarchical structure following divorce, and the relationship of these factors with the exertion of parental authority.     

The Effect of Children's Family Type on Teachers' Stereotypes

The main purpose of this study was to investigate teachers' stereotypic perceptions of the effects of different family types on the functioning of children. Seventy-six Israeli teachers were asked to evaluate the academic, social and emotional levels of functioning of a fictitious fifth grade boy who was variously described to them as being from an intact, remarried, divorced or conflicted family. Three main results were obtained. First, teachers expected the child from the intact family to function better academically, socially, and emotionally than the child from the conflicted family. Second, teachers expected similar levels of academic, social, and emotional functioning in a case of both tne child of divorced parents and the child from the remarried family. Third, three dimensions differentiated beween teachers' expectations when the child was described as coming from an intact, remarried or conflicted family but did not do so as regards the child of divorced parents. These results are discussed in the context of teacher-student interactions and their potential to trigger a process of self-fulfilling prophecy. The findings are also considered in reference to the doubtful validity of studies in which teachers' evaluations are used as measures of children's adjustment to the divorce or remarriage of their parents.     

Urban and Rural Differences in the Provision of Health Insurance Coverage for Children of Divorce

Abstract

Using data from divorce case records in New Hampshire this study examined urban and rural differences in the provision of health insurance coverage for children of divorce. In the overall sample of cases (N= 474) results from a chi-square test found rural children (N= 123) to be nearly twice as likely to be uninsured than urban children (N= 351). Results from the logistic regression in the urban county found fathers' and mothers' incomes to increase the log odds of children having access to health insurance. Mothers' employment also increased the log odds of children being insured. In the rural county fathers' earnings and mothers' employment increased the log odds of children having access to health insurance. Pre-school age (0-5) decreased the log odds of children being insured. Implications for family practitioners in rural areas are discussed.     

The Effects of Divorce on the Academic Achievement of High School Seniors

Abstract

The divorce rate in the United States has climbed at an astounding rate during the past 80 years. Consequences of this change in family structure have impacted millions of children in a variety of ways. This study assessed the impact of divorce in relation to students' academic achievement. Two hypotheses were introduced reflecting expectations suggested by previous studies. High school seniors from a middle class school in a Rocky Mountain State served as the population for this study.

The results suggest that family structure impacts both the grade point average and attendance of high school students. Adolescents from intact families outperform those students from other family structures. One of the most surprising findings was that these results were most pronounced for females. Females were more negatively impacted by family structures due to divorce than were males.     

The Impact of Marital Quality,Divorce, and Remarriage on the Relationships Between Parents and Their Children

SUMMARY

This paper examines data from a panel study on the long-term effects of parental marital quality and divorce on relationships between parents and adult children. Attention is focused on whether these effects vary by age and gender of child as well as the theoretical explanations linking mother-father and parent-child relations. The relational quality between adult children (18-31 years old) and both mothers and fathers is examined from the perspective of both children and parents. Among intact families, parental marital quality has long-term effects on father-child relations, regardless of gender, whereas short-term effects are characteristic of mother-child relations and only perceived by mothers. Further, although divorce without remarriage hurts sons' relationships with both fathers and mothers, it hurts father-daughter relations even more. Mother-daughter bonds appear to be improved by divorce, with declines in income explaining a large portion of the tendency for divorce to affect father-child relations.     

Feeling Caught Between Parents: Adult Children's Relations With Parents and Subjective Well‐Being

Research on divorce has found that adolescents’ feelings of being caught between parents are linked to internalizing problems and weak parent‐child relationships. The present study estimates the effects of marital discord, as well as divorce, on young adult offspring's feelings of being caught in the middle (N =632). Children with parents in high‐conflict marriages were more likely than other children to feel caught between parents. These feelings were associated with lower subjective well‐being and poorer quality parent‐child relationships. Offspring with divorced parents were no more likely than offspring with continuously married parents in low‐conflict relationships to report feeling caught. Feelings of being caught appeared to fade in the decade following parental divorce. These results suggest that, unlike children of divorce, children with parents in conflicted marriages (who do not divorce) may be unable to escape from their parents’ marital problems—even into adulthood.