title: Relational and social-cognitive correlates of early adolescents' forgiveness of parents.
abstract: This study examined how mother and father-child relationship quality and marital forgiveness were related to early adolescents' forgiveness of mothers and fathers. Adolescents' social-cognitive skills (empathy and emotional regulation) and parents' forgiveness of child were examined as mediators. Mother, father, and child self-reported questionnaires and observational data were taken from Time 1 and Time 3 (two years later) of the Flourishing Families Project, and included 334 two-parent families with an early adolescent (M age at Time 1 = 11.24; 51% male; 76% Caucasian). Using path analyses via structure equation modeling, mother-child relationship quality and adolescents' own social-cognitive skills were salient correlates of adolescents' forgiveness toward parents. The unique contributions of mothers and fathers, differences by reporter, and the importance of studying forgiveness within the parent-child relationship are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Brigham Young University, USA. kathy.j.christensen@gmail.com
authors.forename: Katherine J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Christensen
authors.forename: Laura M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Padilla-Walker
authors.forename: Dean M
authors.initials: DM
authors.lastname: Busby
authors.forename: Sam A
authors.initials: SA
authors.lastname: Hardy
authors.forename: Randal D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Day
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D005260:Female; D061347:Forgiveness; D006801:Humans; D007484:Iowa; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D012919:Social Behavior; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires