Understanding mother-adolescent conflict discussions: concurrent and across-time prediction from youths' dispositions and parenting

Abstract

Adolescence is often thought of as a period during which the quality of parent-child interactions can be relatively stressed and conflictual. There are individual differences in this regard, however, with only a modest percent of youths experiencing extremely conflictual relationships with their parents. Nonetheless, there is relatively little empirical research on factors in childhood or adolescence that predict individual differences in the quality of parent-adolescent interactions when dealing with potentially conflictual issues. Understanding such individual differences is critical because the quality of both parenting and the parent-adolescent relationship is predictive of a range of developmental outcomes for adolescents. The goals of the research were to examine dispositional and parenting predictors of the quality of parents' and their adolescent children's emotional displays (anger, positive emotion) and verbalizations (negative or positive) when dealing with conflictual issues, and if prediction over time supported continuity versus discontinuity in the factors related to such conflict. We hypothesized that adolescents' and parents' conflict behaviors would be predicted by both childhood and concurrent parenting and child dispositions (and related problem behaviors) and that we would find evidence of both parent- and child-driven pathways. Mothers and adolescents (N5126, M age513 years) participated in a discussion of conflictual issues. A multimethod, multireporter (mother, teacher, and sometimes adolescent reports) longitudinal approach (over 4 years) was used to assess adolescents' dispositional characteristics (control/ regulation, resiliency, and negative emotionality), youths' externalizing problems, and parenting variables (warmth, positive expressivity, discussion of emotion, positive and negative family expressivity). Higher quality conflict reactions (i.e., less negative and/or more positive) were related to both concurrent and antecedent measures of children's dispositional characteristics and externalizing problems, with findings for control/regulation and negative emotionality being much more consistent for daughters than sons. Higher quality conflict reactions were also related to higher quality parenting in the past, positive rather than negative parent-child interactions during a contemporaneous nonconflictual task, and reported intensity of conflict in the past month. In growth curves, conflict quality was primarily predicted by the intercept (i.e., initial levels) of dispositional measures and parenting, although maintenance or less decrement in positive parenting, greater decline in child externalizing problems, and a greater increase in control/regulation over time predicted more desirable conflict reactions. In structural equation models in which an aspect of parenting and a child dispositional variable were used to predict conflict reactions, there was continuity of both type of predictors, parenting was a unique predictor of mothers' (but not adolescents') conflict reactions (and sometimes mediated the relations of child dispositions to conflict reactions), and child dispositions uniquely predicted adolescents' reactions and sometimes mothers' conflict reactions. The findings suggest that parent-adolescent conflict may be influenced by both child characteristics and quality of prior and concurrent parenting, and that in this pattern of relations, child effects are more evident than parent effects.

Figures

Figure 1

Conceptual model.

Figure 2

Latent growth curve for children’s negative emotionality as reported by mothers. Note. Unstandardized estimates reported with the standard error in parentheses. Neg. Emo. = negative emotion; Q-sort = negative emotionality subscale from Block and Block’s Questionnaire. +p<.10. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

Figure 3

Linear developmental trajectory of children’s negative emotionality as reported by mothers. Note. Items on the emotional intensity subscale were rated from 1 to 7. Items on the Q-sort subscale were rated from 1 to 9.The observed trajectory represents the actual sample values. The predicted trajectory represents the model-estimated values.

Figure 4

Developmental trajectories of negative emotionality (teacher report) by gender. Note. Items on the emotional intensity subscale were rated from 1 to 7. Items on the Q-sort subscale were rated from 1 to 9.

Figure 5

Latent growth curve for children’s externalizing as reported by mothers, fathers, and teachers. Note. M = mothers; F = fathers; T = teachers. R2 presented for all three models. For the correlation between the slope and intercept, the unstandardized estimate is reported with the standard error in parentheses. The correlation between the intercept and slope was not significant in all three models and is therefore only presented here, as an example, for mothers’ report of children’s externalizing. +p<.10. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

Figure 6

Linear developmental trajectories of children’s externalizing as reported by mothers, teachers, and fathers. Note. Each item on the externalizing scale was rated from 1 to 4. The observed trajectory represents the actual sample values. The predicted trajectory represents the model-estimated values.

Figure 7

Developmental trajectories of externalizing (mother report) by gender. Note. Each item on the externalizing scale was rated from 1 to 4. The observed trajectory represents the actual sample values. The predicted trajectory represents the model-estimated values. Owing to the poor fit of the model on some indices, these findings may not be reliable.

Figure 8

Latent growth curve for maternal positive affect and warmth (two separate models were estimated). Note. Pos, positive affect; W, warmth. For the paths and the correlation between the intercept and the slope, unstandardized estimates are reported with the standard errors in parentheses. +p<.10. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001. aNonlinear trajectories were estimated for both mother’s positive affect and warmth. In order to test a nonlinear trajectory, one the loadings for the slope was released (here, the loadings at T3 were released). The model-estimated loadings are displayed on the Figure. A negative estimate (as is the case for warmth) indicates that the trend over time takes a turn downward from T2 to T3 and then a large turn back up from T3 to T4.

Figure 9

Nonlinear developmental trajectory of maternal display of positive affect. Note. Positive affect was coded from 1 to 9 and averaged across the segment (or slides, depending on the time point). The observed trajectory represents the actual sample values. The predicted trajectory represents the model-estimated values. See text for discussion of fit of the model.

Figure 10

Developmental trajectories of mothers’ positive affect by gender. Note. Positive affect was coded from 1 to 9 and averaged across the segment (or slides, depending on the time point). The observed trajectory represents the actual sample values. The predicted trajectory represents the model-estimated values.

Figure 11

Nonlinear developmental trajectory of maternal display of warmth. Note. Warmth was a global code rated on a scale ranging from 1 to 7. The observed trajectory represents the actual sample values. The predicted trajectory represents the model-estimated values. See text for discussion of the model’s fit.

Figure 12

Nonlinear developmental trajectories of maternal display of warmth by gender. Note. Warmth was a global code rated on a scale ranging from 1 to 7. The observed trajectory represents the actual sample values. The predicted trajectory represents the model-estimated values.

Figure 13

Example of tested latent growth curve predicting outcomes at Time 4. Note. Time 4 conflict discussion outcomes were allowed to correlate with each other. Unstandardized estimates for loadings and the correlation between the intercept and slope are reported with the standard error in parentheses. +p<.10. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001.

Figure 14

Mediational model of children’s negative emotionality, maternal positive affect, and conflict reactions. +p<.10. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001. Note. The estimates given in the Figure are nonbootstrap estimates. All significant estimates in the above model were also significant using the bootstrap method. All outcomes were allowed to correlate and some of the within-reporter error variances were allowed to correlate, following suggestions from the modification indices. Q = negative emotionality from Block and Block’s Questionnaire. EI = emotional intensity. M before these abbreviations = mother-reported; T = teacher-reported.

Figure 15

Mediational model of mothers’ reports of children’s resiliency, maternal positive affect, and conflict reactions. +p<.10. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001. Note. The estimates given in the Figure are nonbootstrap estimates. All significant estimates in the above model were also significant using the bootstrap method. All outcomes were allowed to correlate.

Figure 16

Mediational model of teachers’ reports of children’s resiliency, maternal positive affect, and conflict reactions. +p<.10. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001. Note. The estimates given in the Figure are nonbootstrap estimates. All significant estimates in the above model were also significant using the bootstrap method. All outcomes were allowed to correlate.

Figure 17

Mediational model of children’s control/regulation, maternal positive affect, and conflict reactions. +p<.10. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001. Note. The estimates given in the Figure are nonbootstrap estimates. All significant estimates in the above model were also significant using the bootstrap method. All outcomes were allowed to correlate and some of the within-reporter error variances were allowed to correlate, following suggestions from the modification indices. EC = effortful control; Ego = ego control.

Figure 18

Mediational model of children’s negative emotionality, warmth, and conflict reactions. +p<.10. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001. Note. The estimates given in the Figure are nonbootstrap estimates. All significant estimates in the above model were also significant using the bootstrap method. All outcomes were allowed to correlate and some of the within-reporter error variances were allowed to correlate, following suggestions from the modification indices. Q = negative emotionality from Block and Block’s Questionnaire; EI = emotionality intensity.

Figure 19

Mediational model of mothers’ reports of children’s resiliency, warmth, and conflict reactions. +p<.10. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001. Note. The estimates given in the Figure are nonbootstrap estimates. All significant estimates in the above model were also significant using the bootstrap method. All outcomes were allowed to correlate.

Figure 20

Mediational model of teachers’ reports of children’s resiliency, warmth, and conflict reactions. +p<.10. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001. Note. The estimates given in the Figure are nonbootstrap estimates. All significant estimates in the above model were also significant using the bootstrap method. All outcomes were allowed to correlate.

Figure 21

Mediational model of children’s control/regulation, maternal warmth, and conflict reactions. +p<.10. *p<.05. **p<.01. ***p<.001. Note. The estimates given in the Figure are nonbootstrap estimates. All significant estimates in the above model were also significant using the bootstrap method. All outcomes were allowed to correlate and some of the within-reporter error variances were allowed to correlate, following suggestions from the modification indices. EC = effortful control; Ego = ego control.