correlates of children's adjustment to their parents' divorces

Children’s divorce adjustment is examined, along with its social, familial, anal psychological correlates.

Correlates of Children’s Adjustment to Their Parents’ Divorces

Lawrence A . Kurdek Berthold Berg

Consideration of current divorce rates leads to the conclusion that an appreci- able number of chilclren will be growing up in single-parent-headed house- holds. Hetherington (1979), for example, reports that 40 to 50 percent of children born in the 1970s will spend some time living in a single-parent family. The sheer number of children affected by divorce warrants a close ex- amination of how children’s development is affected by dramatic changes in the family system, a:; well as of what factors are involved in optimal adjustment to these changes.

The literature relevant both to children’s divorce experiences and to factors related to children’s divorce adjustment is scattered in journals across the areas of developmental psychology, clinical psychology, family law, social work, and family sociology. Recently, Kurdek (1981) attempted to summarize this information from an integrative perspective. A major premise of this perspective was that children’s divorce-related experiences need to be understood

The authors would like to thank Marilyn Baumer, Nancy Hickey, and Donna Krile for their assistance in data collection and analysis.

L. A Kurdek (Ed ) Chddrm ond Ilzuorct New Directions for Child De\,elopmen!. no. 19 San Franiisco Jnrscy-Bass. March 1903 47

48

in terms of hierarchically embedded cultural, social, familial, and psychological contexts. Respectively, these contexts focus attention on (1) cultural beliefs, values, and attitudes regarding modern family life, (2) both the stability of the postdivorce environment and the social supports available to the re- structured single-parent family, (3) the nature of family interaction in the pre- and postseparation periods, and (4) the child’s individual competencies for dealing with stress.

While progress has been made in the integration of existing studies on the nature and correlates of children’s adjustment to parental divorce, little attention has been directed to the congruence among different sources of information on children’s divorce adjustment. Parents typically have provided assessments of children’s divorce reactions, while children themselves have not been interviewed routinely. Given evidence that parents and children’s sources of information may not be concordant (Fulton, 1979; Kurdek, Blisk, and Siesky, 1981; Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980), our efforts have been directed toward developing self-report divorce adjustment measures for children.

How children themselves appraise divorce-related events may be an in- tegral component of their adjustment (compare Dohrenwend and Dohren- wend, 1974). Previous studies of children’s divorce reactions (for example, Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980) have identified several areas of concern for children whose parents have separated or divorced. These include children’s understanding of divorce as an interpersonal process, their hopes for parental reconciliation, their fears of abandonment, their assignments of blame for divorce, their fears of negative peer reactions, and their negative evaluations of their parents and themselves. These themes have been incorporated into the design of the children’s divorce-adjustment measures that we shall describe in more detail below.

The first purpose of the present study was to assess the relationships between self-report and parent-report measures of children’s divorce adjustment. Because children’s divorce adjustment has often been inferred from ratings of general behavioral adjustment, a second purpose of this study was to explore relationships between children’s specific divorce adjustment, as assessed by the measures of interest, and children’s behavioral adjustment, as assessed both by parents and by teachers. Current data (Kurdek, Blisk, and Siesky, 1981) indicate only moderate overlap between these two spheres of adjustment.

Although Wallerstein and Kelly (1980) have offered detailed descrip- tions of children’s reactions at varying developmental levels to divorce, they found no clear-cut developmental trends or sex differences in children’s overall patterns of adjustment. Others, however (for example, Kurdek, Blisk, and Siesky, 1981), have reported older children to be better adjusted than younger children, and boys have been reported to experience more divorce-related problems than girls do (Hetherington, 1979). A third focus of this study was to examine age and sex differences on all measures of children’s divorce adjustment.

49

As mentioned earlier, Kurdek (1981) has organized correlates of children’s divorce adjustment into cultural, social, familial, and psychological contexts. Our final purpose here was to explore the correlates of children’s divorce adjustment from the latter three contexts. Of interest from the social context are both environmental stability and the degree of social support available to the custodial parent. Several researchers have suggested that the effects of divorce on children may be related to the kind and degree of environmental change occasioned by the divorce (Fulton, 1979; Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980). Thus, children’s divorce-related difficulties may stem from their per- ceptions of themselves as having minimal control over such life changes as a new residence, a new economic situation, and altered availability of both parents. Direct evidenoe on this issue comes from Stolberg and Anker (in press) who found that high degrees of environmental change were related to children’s depression, social withdrawal, aggression, and delinquency. In addition, Kurdek and Blisk (in press) found that high degrees of environmental change were related to children’s low self-esteem and to their problematic thoughts about divorce.

The availability of social support strongly affects health (Pilisuk, 1982), and social supports (designed to alleviate the stress that is related to environmental changes may offset the severity of children’s adjustment problems. Al- though a body of Ievidence indicates that adults’ divorce-related stress is mitigated by their turning to friends, counselors, relatives, and self-help organizations (Chiriboga, Coho, Stein, and Roberts, 1979; Raschke, 1977; Spanier and Casto, 1979), there is no direct evidence that the availability or use of such parental support systems is also beneficial to the children. It does, however, seem reasonable to expect that use of such support systems may enhance parents’ competence, thus enabling them to deal more effectively with children’s difficulties in adjusting to the changes incurred by divorce (Waller- stein and Kelly, 1980). In the present study, we related our measures of children’s divorce adjustment to information provided by their custodial parents about the degree of environmental change (changes in income, expenses, and time spent with the child, as well as whether or not the child had to adapt to changes in residence, neighborhood, or school) and about the degree to which social supports were useful in the parents’ own divorce adjustment.

Researchers interested in the familial context have attempted to iden- tify intrafamily factors that can predict the nature of children’s divorce adjustment. Taken together, the results indicate that adjustment problems in social, emotional, and cognitive development (compare Hetherington, Cox, and Cox, 1979a, 1979b) are unlikely to occur for children if the following factors exist: only minimal depletion of financial resources (Desimone-Luis, OMahoney, and Hunt, 1979; Hodges, Wechsler, and Ballantine, 1979; Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980), low levels of interparental conflict and hostility preceding and following the divorce (Berg and Kelly, 1979; Jacobson, 1978b;

50

Lowenstein and Koopman, 1978; Porter and OLeary, 1980; Raschke and Raschke, 1979; Rosen, 1979; Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980), cooperative parenting between ex-spouses (Clingempeel and Reppucci, 1982; Hethering- ton, Cox, and Cox, 1978; Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980), approval and love from both parents (Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980), authoritative discipline from the custodial parent (Santrock and Warshak, 1979), regular visitation by the noncustodial parent (Hess and Camara, 1979; Rosen, 1979; Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980), and an emotional climate that helps children discuss divorce- related concerns (Jacobson, 1978a).

Although there is little empirical evidence on the issue (Hetherington, Cox, and Cox, 1978; Kurdek and Blisk, in press; Wallerstein and Kelly, 1977, 1980), one would expect children’s divorce adjustment to be related, in part, to that of the custodial parent. What limited evidence we have supports this view. Here, we have explored the relationships between, on the one hand, our measures of children’s divorce adjustment and, on the other, socioecono- mic status, length of parental separation, the custodial mother’s divorce adjustment, the custodial parent’s level of current stress, the current degree of interparental conflict, and four dimensions of visitation by the noncustodial parent (frequency, regularity, amount of phone contact, and amount of contact specifically focused on the child).

Researchers interested in the psychological context have alerted us to the importance of developmental status in children’s divorce adjustment. Hetherington (1979), Longfellow (1979), and Wallerstein and Kelly, (19gO) have speculated that global age changes in children’s divorce reactions are probably caused by specific developmental changes in children’s abilities to appraise divorce situations, make sense of complex sequences of events, infer the motives and feelings of their parents, accurately assess their own roles in divorce decisions, and experience some degree of control over outcomes affect- ing their lives. Empirical support for some of these speculations comes from Kurdek, Blisk, and Siesky (1981). who found moderately positive correlations between children’s divorce adjustment, on the one hand, and interpersonal understanding and internal locus of control, on the other. We have attempted here to replicate these findings with the self-report measures of interest.

To summarize, the purposes of the present study were to interrelate measures of children’s divorce adjustment; to relate children’s specific divorce adjustment to parent and teacher ratings of their general behavior adjustment; to assess developmental trends and sex differences in children’s divorce adjustment; and to examine social, familial, and psychological correlates of children’s divorce adjustment.

Method

Subjects. Participants were drawn from a continuing study of children and divorce. All seventy custodial parents were mothers (mean age = 35.08

5 1

years), white, and middle-class; mean Hollingshead (1977) social status score = 45.16. The mothers had been married a mean of 14 years and separated a mean of 13.17 months. In order to ensure independence between mothers’ and children’s responses, only one child was randomly selected per family. The thirty-six boys and thrity-four girls had a mean age of 9.92 years

Child Meusures. Children completed four measures - the Children’s Attitudes Toward Parental Separation Inventory (objective measure), Under- standing the Divorce (open-ended questionnaire), locus of control, and interpersonal understanding.

Children’s Attitudes Toward Partntal Scparation Inventory (CAPSI). The CAPSI is a sixty-item objective measure presented in a “yes-no” response for- mat. Ten items are included in each of six scales-Peer Ridicule and Avoid- ance (“It would upset me if other kids asked a lot of questions about my parents”), Paternal Blame (“My father caused the breakup of my family”), Fear of Abandonment (“Sometimes I worry that soon I may be left all alone with no one to take care of me”), Hope of Reunification (“Someday the whole family will probably live together again”), Maternal Blame (“It was usually my mother’s fault when my parents had a fight”), and Self-Blame (“It’s probably my fault that my parents are unhappy“). Each response is keyed for adjustment, and a total score was derived by summing all the adjusted responses. Cronbach’s alpha for this score was .78.

Unahhnding-the-Divorce Questionnaire. This nine-item questionnaire tapped children’s children’s understanding of the word divorce (“What does it mean when two people get divorced?”), parental reconciliation (“Do you think your mom and dad will ever live together again? Why or why not?”), blame for the divorce (=DO you think anyone is to blame for your mom and dad not being together like they used to be? If so, who?”), parent personalities (What is your mom like?”), and friends’ reactions to the divorce (“Have you told many friends that your mom and dad don’t live together?”) Responses were keyed for adjustment, as described in our earlier study (Kurdek, Blisk, and Siesky, 1981), and a total score was derived by summing the. scores on each item. Perfect agreement between two independent ratings of all protocols was 96 percent. Cronbach‘s alpha for the total score was .50.

Locus of Control. The Nowicki-Strickland locus-of-control measure is a self-report scale in which children respond “yes” or “no” to forty items describ- ing situations with outcomes that are either internally controlled (attributed to effort or ability) or externally controlled (attributed to luck, chance, or fate). Responses are scored in terms of the degree of internality they reveal. Psycho- metric information may be found in Nowicki and Strickland (1973).

Interpersonal Understanding. After viewing a six-minute sound filmstrip about a boy’s interpersonal dilemma, children were asked twenty questions derived from Selman (1980), which covered aspects of understanding individuals as psychological beings (subjectivity, self-awareness, personality, and

(S.D. - 2.48).

52

personality change) and aspects of friendship (friendship formation, closeness and intimacy, tmst and reciprocity, jealousy and exclusion, conflict resolu- tion, and friendship termination). For each question, responses were coded as representing one of Selman’s five levels of interpersonal understanding. Per- fect agreement between two independent ratings of all protocols was 96 percent. Cronbach’s alpha for the total score was .70.

M o t h Measures. Mothers completed a general information sheet requesting information about the child’s age and sex, parents’ age, parents’ occupation and highest level of education achieved (used to compute social status score), length of marriage, and length of separation. Mothers also completed the Parent Separation Inventory (PSI), designed for this study, and the Personality Inventory for Children (Wirt, Lachar, Klinedinst, and Seat, 1977). The PSI is an objective scale made up of 124 items dealing with mothers’ divorce experiences and 162 items dealing with children’s divorce experiences. The following eight scores were derived from the PSI.

Children’s Attitudes Toward Divorce. Mothers rated the extent to which they agreed their children had problematic attitudes, as defined by the six CAPS1 scales (peer ridicule and avoidance, fear of abandonment, hope of reunification, paternal blame, maternal blame, and self-blame). A total score was computed by summing the scores for each item. Cronbach’s alpha for this score was .79.

Children’s Emotional Reactions to the Divorce. Mothers rated the extent to which their children displayed a variety of both positive feelings (personal growth and self-knowledge, increased happiness, independence and responsi- bility, relief from conflict) and negative feelings (loneliness, sadness, helpless- ness, confusion, guilt or self-blame, and nervousness) following the separation. A total score was derived by summing the scores for the positive emotions and the reversed scores for the negative emotions. Cronbach‘s alpha for this score was .81.

Environmental Change. Mothers rated the extent to which they had experienced changes in income, expenses, and time spent with their children in the post- versus preseparation period, as well as reporting whether or not the divorce had resulted in the the child’s needing to adjust to a new residence, neighborhood, or school. The total score was a summed composite of these six scores. Cronbach‘s alpha was .90.

Mothers’Social Support System. Mothers rated the extent to which friends, clergy, lawyers, counselors or therapists, relatives, ex-spouses, children, other separated or divorced parents, their own parents, their ex-spouses’ parents, people on the job, and people in organizations for separated individuals had helped them adjust to the separation or divorce. A total score was computed by summing the scores for each item. Cronbach‘s alpha for this score was .71.

Mothers’ Divorce Adjustment. Mothers rated the extent to which they experienced the same positive and negative emotions listed in their assessment of the children’s emotional reactions to the divorce (see above). Cronbach‘s alpha for this summed composite score was .77.

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Mothers’ Current Stress LeucLr. Mothers rated the extent to which the following had been problems for them since the separation: employment, career planning, legal matters, childrearing, friends held in common with the ex- spouse, new friends, finances, finding or affording a place to live, keeping a home, feelings of personal failure, relationships with their children, relationships with their own parents, relationships with their ex-spouses, sexual satis- faction, guilt, mental health, loneliness, feeling incompetent, physical health, and getting involved with someone else. Cronbach‘s alpha for the summed composite score was .87.

Current Intnparenhl Conzict. Mothers rated the extent to which they experienced disagreement or conflict with their ex-spouses in the child-related areas of discipline, dress and grooming, religious or moral training, running errands with or for the children, celebrating holidays with the children, celebrating significant events with the children, taking the children for recrea- tional activities, attending school- or church-related functions with the children, discussing problems with the children, taking the children on vaca- tions, making major decisions regarding the children’s lives, making daily decisions regarding the children’s lives, dealing with the children’s personal problems, dealing with the children’s school or medical problems, planning special events in the children’s lives, showing interest in the children’s accom- plishments and progress, talking about childrearing problems, discussing how the children were adjusting to divorce, discussing how both ex-spouses could best contribute as parents, and discussing finances (compare Ahrons, 1980); Goldsmith, 1980). Cronbach’s alpha for the summed composite score was .86. . Contact with the Noncustodial Father. Mothers indicated the frequency and

regularity of visits by the fathers, as well as the amount of phone contact the fathers had with the children and the amount of time the children spent alone with their fathers.

Mothers’ rating of children’s general behavioral adjustment was obtained from the Adjustment Scale of the Personality Inventory for Children (Wirt and others, 1977). High scores reflected many adjustment problems. Psychometric information on this scale can be found in Wirt and others (1977).

Teachm Measures. The teacher measure was Gesten’s (1976) Health Resource Inventory, a forty-six item measure of children’s personal and social competence. A summed composite adjustment score was used. Psychometric data for the scale are adequate and can be found in Gesten (1976).

Procedure. Data were collected in two ways. Forty-two of the families were seen by our project staff. Mothers completed their measures on their own, while children’s measures were individually administered. The remain- ing twenty-eight families were reached through teachers who were participat-. ing in a children-and-divorce workshop. These families completed only the objective measures (CAPSI, PSI, and the locus of control). Teacher ratings were sent directly to the teachers and were returned by mail to us. Because of missing data, the n’s in the analyses fluctuate and will be noted below.

54

Results

Intercorrelations of Children’s Divorce Adjustment Scores. The Pearson correlations among the two child-report measures and the two parent-report measures of children’s divorce adjustments are presented in Table 1. Correla- tions with age partialled out are presented in parentheses. All measures showed significant positive intercorrelations, even when the effects of age were partialled out. It should be noted, however, that the obtained correlations are not very high. T o facilitate later analyses, a composite children’s divorce-adjustment score was computed by summing the I scores for all measures. Cron- bach‘s alpha for this score was .64.

Relation Between Children’s Divorce Adjmtment and Global Behavioral Adjustment. Pearson correlations, and correlations with the effects of age partialled, are presented for the four child divorce-adjustment measures and the parent-rated and teacher-rated adjustment scores at the bottom of Table 1. Even with the effects of age partialled out, the pattern shows a moderately positive relationship between children’s specific divorce adjustment and their more global behavioral adjustment.

Developmental Trends and Sex Dzrerences. Pearson correlations revealed significant @< .05) relationships among age and children’s divorce adjustment for the CAPSI ( r = .24), parent-rated children’s emotional reactions ( r = .25), and the composite divorce adjustment score ( r = .29). Relationships with sex (boys = 0, girls = 1) were significantly positive (p< .05) for the CAPSI ( r = .23), for understanding the divorce ( r = .31), and for the composite divorce-adjustment scores ( r = .36). In all cases, girls were better adjusted than boys.

Social, Familial, and Psychological Correlates. Pearson correlations, and correlations with the effects of age partialled, among the child divorce-adjustment scores and factors from the social, familial, and psychological contexts are presented in Table 2. The following general patterns emerged: Chil- dren’s divorce adjustment was unrelated to degree of environmental change, social status, length of separation, frequency of visitation, regularity of visitation, and phone contact with the noncustodial parent. Children’s divorce adjustment was, however, significantly related to mothers’ use of social support systems, mothers’ own divorce adjustment, low maternal stress, low interparental conflict, time spent alone with the noncustodial parent, an internal locus of control, and high interpersonal understanding.

One additional finding should be noted: Interpersonal understanding showed a significant positive relationship to children’s divorce adjustment from the child data, but showed a significant negative relationship to children’s divorce adjustment from the parent data.

Discussion

Correlations among the child divorce-adjustment measures revealed only moderate overlap among the measures. Clearly, children’s divorce ad-

Tab

le 1

. Cor

rela

tions

Am

ong

Chi

ldre

n’s D

ivor

ce A

djus

tmen

t Sc

ores

and

Cor

rela

tions

Bet

wee

n C

hild

ren’

s D

ivor

ce A

djus

tmen

t an

d G

ener

al B

ehav

iora

l Adj

ustm

ent

Divo

rce

Adju

stmen

t Sc

ore

Divo

rce

Adju

stmen

t CA

PSI

Unde

rsta

ndin

g Pa

rent

- Rat

ed

Pare

nt- R

ated

Sc

ore

the

Divo

rce

CAPS

I Em

otio

nal R

eacti

ons

Com

posit

e

Und

erst

andi

ng t

he D

ivor

ce

.35b

(.33

)’

Pare

nt-R

ated

Em

otio

nal R

eact

ions

.2

3’ (

. 18)

.2

5’ (.22)’

.40’

(.3

8)’

Pare

nt-R

ated

CA

PSI

.41‘

(.3

9)’

.31b

(.30

)b

(n =

70)

Gene

ral B

ehav

ior A

djwl

men

t Sc

ore

Pare

nt-R

ated

(n =

46)

-

.25’

(- .3

5y

- .2

4’ (

.29)

’ -

.20

(- .25)

- .1

6 (

- .2

6)’

- .4

0b (

- .5

4)b

Tea

cher

-Rat

ed (

n =

32)

.27 (

.32)

’ .3

3’ (

.36)

’ .0

8 (.1

1)

.31’

(.3

7)’

- .3

2’ (

.39)

’

a p<

.O5.

p

<.0

1.

p< ,0

01.

Tab

le 2

. Cor

rela

tions

Bet

wee

n C

hild

ren'

s D

ivor

ce A

djus

tmen

t Sc

ores

an

d Fa

ctor

s fr

om S

ocia

l, Fa

mili

al,

and

Psyc

holo

gica

l Con

text

s ~~

~

c4 PS

I U

nder

stand

ins

Pare

nt:

Pare

nt E

mot

iona

l I D

ivorc

e CA

PSI

Reac

tions

Co

mpo

site

Socia

l Co

ntex

t

Mot

hers

' Sup

port

-

.05

(- .0

6)

.ll

(.11)

.2

ab

(.28)

b -2

0'

(.20)

' .I

8 (.

la)

Env

iron

men

tal C

hang

e -

.05

(- .0

4)

.09

(.09)

.0

2 (.0

2)

- .07

(- .07)

Fam

ilial

Con

text

Soci

al S

tatu

s .2

4' L

engt

h of

Sep

arat

ion

.16

Mot

hers

' Div

orce

Adj

ustm

ent

.23'

(.22)

' M

ater

nal

Stre

ss

.24

(.25)

' In

terp

aren

t C

onfli

ct

- .37'

(- .3

3)'

Vis

itatio

n: F

requ

ency

- .07

(.03)

R

egul

arity

.1

3 (.1

6)

Phon

e .1

4 (.1

6)

Tim

e A

lone

.3

2' (.3

6)'

.20

.05

.20

(.20)

.02

(.oo)

.13

(.14)

-.la

(-

.18)

-.

31

(-.2

8)

.26

(.28)

'

.06

(.08)

.08

- .1

0 .3

9' (.38)b

- .4

1b

(- .41

)' -

.46b

(-

.44)

' .0

1 (.0

3)

.05

(.06)

.1

0 (.1

1)

.09

(.11)

- .0

3 .0

3 .3

7' (.3

6)'

- .4

3' (-

.45)

b -

.34'

(- .3

0)'

- .1

3 (-

.19)

-

.04

(- .0

2)

.10

(.12)

.1

4 (.1

1)

.09

- .0

6 .3

9' (.3

8)

- .4

4' (-

.46)

* -

.59b

( -

.54)

'

.09

(.lo

)

- .0

6 (-

.02)

.1

6 (.1

9)

.30b

(.3

5)'

Indi

vidu

al C

ontex

t Lo

cus

of C

ontr

ol

.54b

(.5

2)b

.30'

(.28)

.1

8 (.1

5)

.01

(- .0

4)

.36'

(.32)

' In

terp

erso

nal U

nder

stan

ding

.4

2'

(.36)

' . 46

' ( .

48)'

- .1

9 (-

.35)b

- .2

6 (- .5

4)b

.I9

(.02)

' p<

.01.

p

c.0

5.

57

justment is not a unidimensional phenomenon, but, rather, represents a mul- tivariate blend of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We would encourage other investigators to use multiple measures of these dimensions to enhance the reliability of their assessments of children’s divorce adjustment.

Unlike previous researchers (Fulton, 1979; Kurdek, Blisk, and Siesky, 1981), we did find significant relationships between the measures of children’s divorce adjustment we obtained from custodial parents and those we obtained from the children themselves. Differences in the parental measures could ac- count for this relationship. Here, the two parent measures were both objective, had high internal consistency, and covered a wide range of children’s divorce-related thoughts and feelings. Compared to previous measures, then, our present assessments may be more reliable. Nonetheless, the low magni- tude of the obtained correlations argues for obtaining information regarding children’s divorce adjustment both from parents and from children.

Consistent with previous findings (Kurdek, Blisk, and Siesky, 1981), our results provide strong support for the idea that there is a reliable relationship between children’s specific divorce adjustment and their more global personal adjustment. This finding indicates that children experiencing divorce- related problems are also likely to experience adjustment problems both at home and in school. Longitudinal data are needed to draw conclusions about possible causal relationships between these two spheres of adjustment.

Our finding that older children were better adjusted to their parents‘ divorces than younger children is consistent with previous reports (Kurdek, Blisk, and Siesky, 1981). Because we did not study families matched for length of parental separation, age effects may be confounded with length of parental separation, in that older children may also have spent longer periods of time in a single-parent family. Nevertheless, all correlations involving this variable were nonsignificant. The developmental effects we obtained are more probably caused by the mediating effects of age-related variables. Consistent with the speculations of Longfellow (1979), Hetherington (1979), and Waller- stein and Kelly (1980) and with the findings of Kurdek, Blisk, and Siesky (1981), children’s divorce adjustment was moderately related both to an internal locus of control and to high levels of interpersonal understanding. Thus, positive divorce outcomes were associated with children’s attributing outcomes to factors under their control and with their viewing both individuals and relationships in terms of psychological rather than concrete dimensions. The power of internal locus of control and interpersonal understanding is also shown by our finding that partialling out the effects of age did not dramatically change the pattern of relationships. Future studies need to address possible re- ciprocal relations between these factors and children’s divorce adjustment more directly.

Unlike previous researchers (Kurdek, Blisk, and Siesky, 1981; Rein- hard, 1977), we did find significant sex differences in children’s divorce adjustment, such that girls were better adjusted than boys. The children in our sample, however, were younger than those in the previous studies, and it has been

58

suggested (Kurdek, 1981) that sex differences may be less apparent for older children. This finding is also consistent with data indicating that boys are more likely than girls to experience divorce-related social and cognitive difficulties (Hetherington, 1979). Explanations of this sex difference are not very clear. It is possible that boys, as compared to girls, are exposed to more stress and less nurturance (Hetherington, 1979), are less psychologically resilient (Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980), and are more likely to experience difficulties under the supervision of an opposite-sex parent (Santrock and Warshak, 1979).

With a few exceptions, our results regarding correlates of children’s divorce adjustment are consistent with previous speculations and data. We found that children’s divorce adjustment was unrelated to the degree of environmental change. It is possible that our middle-class sample did not expen- ence enough environmental change to have an impact on the children’s divorce adjustment. Additionally, because we did not observe families immedi- ately after separation, it is possible that major adjustments to environmental changes had already occurred. Parents’ social status also failed to emerge as a significant predictor of children’s divorce adjustment. As with environmental change, it is possible that our middle-class sample did not endure the financial duress that frequently results from divorce.

Our findings regarding the dimensions of contact with noncustodial parents are intriguing. While frequency of visitation, regularity of visitation, and amount of phone contact were nonsignificantly related to children’s divorce adjustment, the amount of time noncustodial parents spent in direct ex- clusive contact with the children did show a significant relationship to the children’s divorce adjustment. This finding supports comments that the quality of the interaction between the child and the noncustodial parent is a critical di- mension of visitation (compare Hess and Camara, 1979). Also in agreement with previous reports (Hetherington, 1979; Kurdek, 1981; Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980) are our findings that children’s divorce adjustment is significantly related to their mothers’ use of social support systems, to their mothers’ own divorce adjustment, to low maternal stress levels, and to low interparental conflict. While these findings indicate a strong relationship between the func- tioning of the custodial parent and the child’s divorce adjustment, they provide no evidence about the nature of any causal relationship between these two variables. It is possible, for example, that the child’s positive divorce adjustment enhances both parental competence and the parent’s own divorce adjustment.

Finally, our findings regarding a positive relationship between children’s interpersonal understanding and their divorce adjustment from the children’s data, but a negative relationship between their interpersonal understanding and their divorce adjustment from the parents’ data, are puzzling. The first finding is consistent with claims that children’s social-cognitive skills are important mediators of their divorce adjustment (Hetherington, 1979; Kurdek, Blisk, and Siesky, 1981; Wallerstein and Kelly, 1980). The negative

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relationship may derive from parents’ feelings that children’s increased understanding of interpersonal conflict is undesirable. For example, a child who indicates awareness of or seeks information about factors relevant to the dissolu- tion of the parents’ relationship may be seen by the parent as being too sensi- tized to the divorce. Future studies could address parents’ attitudes toward such interpersonal understandings more directly.

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Lawrence A . Kurdek is ajiliated with the psychology department and the School of Professional PSycholog of Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio.

Berthold Berg is associate professor of psycholog ai the Uniuersig of Dayton.

correlates of children's adjustment to their parents' divorces

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