Parental conflict in intact families can seriously disrupt the lives of children. At the extreme it can undermine mental health, leading to antisocial behavior, depression and withdrawal, or other serious dysfunctions. In less extreme situations, the child may display milder behavior problems and experience difficulty in school, or in relationships with peers. Yet some children exposed to the stress of parental conflict appear to suffer no ill effects. Child Trends proposes to conduct a secondary analysis of data from the National Surveys of Children to examine hypothesis about the role of parent-child relations and childrearing practices in mediating the effects of parental conflict on children in intact families. The surveys comprise two waves of interviews with a nationally representative probability sample of children, and with their parents and teachers. The project has the following aims: 1) to describe the range in intensity, duration, and nature of parental conflict in intact families; 2) to determine the pattern of associations between these dimensions of conflict and a variety of behavioral and emotional outcomes in children; 3) to examine variations in these associations by age and sex of the child; 4) to examine hypotheses about how the outcomes are mediated by the relationships the child maintains with each parent, and by variations in childrearing patterns; and 5) to explore those variables which may account for the quality of the child's relationship with each parent. A detailed understanding of the mechanisms by which marital conflict affects children should be of practical as well as theoretical significance. The results will be of use to parents, clinicians and others who seek to ameliorate the harmful effects of family strife.
