Coping with parental quarrels.

ABSTRACT

Children's reactions to parental quarrels were investigated in a general population sample of children between 9 and 12 years old. One hundred and thirty-nine families participated in the study. Approximately half the children were living in disharmonious families and half were in harmonious families. Mothers and children were interviewed with semistructured interviews to determine how children responded to specific episodes of parental quarrelling. Seventy-one percent of children reported intervening in parental quarrels. A range of other coping strategies was identified seeking contact with a sibling, confiding in friends, offering comfort to parents after a quarrel, self-blame, seeking information about quarrels, and perceiving beneficial aspects to parental quarrelling. The hypothesis was examined that certain coping strategies would be associated with lower levels of children's behavioral and emotional problems. Only a weak relationship was found between children's intervention in parental quarrels and emotional and behavioral problems. No other coping strategies were found to predict children's disturbance.