Conflict frequency with mothers and fathers from middle childhood to late adolescence: within- and between-families comparisons.
The authors examined siblings' dyadic and differential conflict frequency with mothers and fathers from 7 to 19 years of age. Participants were first- and second-borns from 201 families who reported their conflict with each parent in 4 home interviews spaced over 5 years. Multilevel models examining trajectories of conflict frequency across age and year of study revealed that (a) consistent with a spillover hypothesis, elevation in parent-offspring conflict frequency was timed to firstborns' transition to adolescence for both siblings; and (b) consistent with a learning-from-experience hypothesis, there was no increase in conflict frequency at second-borns' transition to adolescence. These findings highlight the importance of studying the development of parent-offspring conflict within the larger family system.
Shanahan
Lilly
L
Carolina Consortium on Human Development, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-8115, USA. lilly_shanahan@unc.edu
McHale
Susan M
SM
Osgood
D Wayne
DW
Crouter
Ann C
AC
D000293:Adolescent; D000339:Affect; D000367:Age Factors; D001290:Attitude; D001722:Birth Order; D002648:Child; D005219:Father-Child Relations; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D007406:Interview, Psychological; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D000297:Psychology, Adolescent; D002666:Psychology, Child