Review
A meta-analysis on interparental conflict, parenting, and child adjustment in divorced families: Examining mediation using meta-analytic structural equation models

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2020.101861Get rights and content
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Highlights

  • Direct and indirect links between interparental conflict, parenting, and child adjustment after divorce were meta-analyzed

  • Using three-level modeling, most direct associations consistently showed small, significant correlations

  • The MASEM results showed that most parenting behaviors mediate the link between interparental conflict and child adjustment

  • Different patterns emerged for specific post-divorce parenting dimensions

  • Negative parenting behaviors related to post-divorce child adjustment more strongly than positive parenting behaviors

Abstract

Every year, parental divorce becomes the reality of many families. The aim of this meta-analysis was to identify post-divorce family processes to explain child functioning. Both direct and indirect associations between interparental conflict, parenting, and child adjustment were examined. After a systematic search for articles published before October 2019, we coded 2257 correlations in 115 samples of N = 24,854 divorced families. Analyses consisted of: (1) Performing multiple three-level meta-analyses to calculate the bivariate correlations between interparental conflict, parenting (i.e., support, hostility, structuring, intrusiveness, parent-child relationship quality, parent-child conflict, and role diffusion) and child psychosocial adjustment. (2) Testing four meta-analytic structural equation models in which parenting dimensions were examined as potential mediators. First, results showed that correlations between interparental conflict, parenting, and child adjustment were mostly significant, in the expected direction, and of small effect size. Second, parental support, hostility, structuring, intrusiveness, and role diffusion indeed served as mediating mechanisms underlying the persistent link between interparental conflict and children's internalizing and externalizing problems. This was not true for dyadic parent-child processes. Third, our findings hinted towards a stronger impact of negative versus positive parenting behaviors, and parental role diffusion was considered a particular risk in the context of post-divorce interparental conflict.

Keywords

Meta-analysis
Divorce
Interparental conflict
Parenting
Child adjustment
Mediation

Cited by (0)

Rianne van Dijk is a PhD candidate at the department of Clinical Child and Family Studies and the department of Youth and Family, Utrecht University. She received two master's degrees, both cum laude, in the research master ‘Development and Socialisation in Childhood and Adolescence’ (DaSCA) and the master ‘Clinical Child, Family, and Education Studies’. In her PhD project, she aims to examine processes that explain how and under what circumstances (recent) family disruption following divorce affects children's adjustment over time.

Inge E. van der Valk, who received her PhD at Utrecht University in 2004, currently works as an assistant professor at the department of Youth and Family, Utrecht University. In her research, she examines the associations between parental conflicts, divorce, and the adjustment of children and adolescents. She is currently engaged in various research projects regarding children from divorced and separated families, including feelings of belongingness, post-divorce contact and care arrangements, and the effectiveness of a parenting program for high-conflict families.

Maja Deković received her PhD at the Radboud University Nijmegen in 1991. After being appointed full professor at University of Amsterdam in 1998, since 2004 she works as full professor, and department chair, at the department of Clinical Child and Family Studies, Utrecht University. She is leader of the Utrecht Centre for Child and Adolescent Studies (CAS), an interdisciplinary research program that aims to explain how individual characteristics, proximal social relationships, and the wider social and cultural context shape developmental trajectories, with the ultimate aim to improve preventive and/or interventions to help children and families optimally develop.

Susan Branje received her PhD cum laude at the Radboud University Nijmegen in 2003. Currently she is a full professor, and department chair, at the department of Youth and Family, Utrecht University. Her work generally focuses on understanding the developmental changes in adolescents' relationships with parents, siblings, friends, and romantic partners and the associations with development of adolescent adjustment. She is also President of the European Association for Research in Adolescence (EARA).