What connections between Marital conflict and Parenting Quality? Evidence from parent’s gender in spillover effects

The spillover hypothesis posits that negative emotions and behavioral patterns in marital conflicts influence parenting quality and children’s adjustment, through increasing of harsh and incoherent discipline and diminished involvement and affection. Moreover conflicts focused on childrearing issues are particularly distressing for children with often show emotional and behavioral problems. The aim of the study was to explore gender differences in the links between marital conflicts (destructive and constructive tactics, childrearing disagreement) and parent-child relationships, in order to verify if there are different pathways for fathers and mothers in spillover effects. 110 parents (children aged 6-12 years) completed the Styles of Conflict Scale (marital conflict style), the Parent Problem Checklist (disagreements 2 BENEDETTO L., INGRASSIA M. about childrearing), the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire (parenting practices), and the Parenting Stress Index. The links between conflict tactics and parenting practices change in function of parent’s gender. Mothers refer more frequent childrearing disagreements and increasing in punishment; furthermore in line with the spillover hypothesis attack and violence tactics are associated negatively with positive parenting (involvement and warmth). For fathers compromise, avoidance and attack correlate positively with effective parenting (more involvement, affection and consistency disciplinary). A spillover effect, that is, an extension of marital tensions in the relationship with their children with reduced quality of parenting, seems to manifest only for women. These findings, if confirmed by other studies, would be relevant from an clinical point of view to understand how paternal and maternal parenting mediate the effects of the marital disharmony on children’s adjustment. Over the past decades the assumption of a systemic perspective (Belsky, 1981) has led developmental and clinical psychologists to investigate the effects of the quality of marriage on children adjustment (Holland & McElwain, 2013; Stroud, Durbin, Wilson & Mendelsohn, 2011). Studies describe that a harmonious marriage is generally associated with sensitive and warm parenting (Belsky, Crnic, & Gable, 1995), whereas disagreement between the spouses, when results in open conflicts, mutual accusations and hostility (both verbal and physical), is associated with a wide variety of problematic outcomes in children such as withdrawal or anxiety, low social competence and self-esteem, non-compliance or aggressive behaviors (Davies, Martin, Cicchetti, 2012). Troxel e Matthews (2004) proposed that marital conflict, often leading to divorce and family dissolution, influences children’s adjustment though changes in the quality of parent-child relationships. This model assumes that the stresses associated with marital conflict compromise the family life both directly (as children observe inter-parental hostility and anger, fill insecure attachment and self-blame), or indirectly through the negative changes in parent-child relationships. Specifically, effects of marital conflicts are mediated by parenting, that is, the emotional quality and the concrete behaviors (or practices) parents show to children. These changes, named as “spillover effects”, describe how the negative emotions and behavioral patterns that characterize marital system will bleed into parent-child dyad (Enger, 1988). SPILLOVER EFFECTS MJCP 3 The conceptualization of spillover processes originates from a variety of theoretical perspectives such as the social learning (Patterson, 1982), systems theories including the ecological perspective (Almeida, Wethington, & Chandler, 1999), and family systems framework (Anderson, Lindner, & Bennion, 1992). All these perspectives share the assumption that marital hostility primes subsequent parent-child interaction through the transfer of anger and tension to the parent-child dyad. As consequence, children’s psychosocial development can be compromised when marital conflict leads disengagement by parents and negative parent-child interactions. Particularly, changes in parent-child relationship through spillover processes include (Zimet & Jacob, 2001): a) decreasing in involvement, poor parent-child communication, and affection. Parents involved in frequent marital conflicts may be emotionally proved, and less available to recognize and respond to children’s emotional needs. b) Incoherence in rules, childrearing techniques, and discipline responses to child’s behaviors. c) Harsh discipline, punishment, and low acceptance. It was observed that high levels of spousal aggression are often linked to high level of aggression toward children as well (Jouriles & LeCompte, 1991). Particularly, these hostile discipline techniques to manage children’s behavior are linked consistently to externalizing and internalizing problems in children (Gerard, Krishnakumar, & Buheler, 2006 ). Marital distress negatively interfere also with effective co-parenting, that is, the quality of involvement and coordination when the partners collaborate to raise their child (Morrill, Hines, Mahmood, & Córdova, 2010; Stroud, Durbin, Wilson, & Mendelsohn, 2011). Co-parenting is crucial for children’s well-being and socialization processes, whereas disagreement about parenting was found associated with increased levels of stress in parents, as well more emotional and behavioral problems in children (Benedetto & Fazzari, 2010; Camisasca, Miragoli, & Di Blasio, 2014). The family systems literature proposes an alternative model for linking marital conflict and changes in parent-child relationships. According to a compensatory hypothesis (Erel & Burman, 1995), it’s possible to observe higher quality in parent-child relations even if partners experience conflicts and marital distress. In other words, a stronger involvement with the child can work as compensation when parent’s love and intimacy needs are not 4 BENEDETTO L., INGRASSIA M. satisfied in marriage. However, whereas there are not many empirical data confirming this compensatory hypothesis, the spillover hypothesis is supported by more robust evidence and meta-analysis (Erel & Burman, 1995; Krishnakumar & Buehler, 2000). Other scholars found that marital disagreements affect fathers and mothers differently, considering both the style of the conflict, as well the changes in parent-child relationships. In some studies emerge different behavior patterns in conflict management, from which derives a distinction between destructive and constructive styles (Cummings, 1998). A destructive style is characterized by anger and hostility, verbal or corporal aggression, marital withdrawal which include expressions of detachment and avoidance during marital discussions. In contrast, constructive styles are characterized by parents’ efforts in finding a resolution or explanations to the children. Some empirical data show that in difficult marriages women are more likely to directly address the issues of disagreement, whereas men tend to avoid conflict by withdrawing from their wives (Kerig, 1996) or from their children (Howes & Markman, 1989). These gender differences could be relevant to assume because the specific strategies used to manage or resolve conflicts can predict children’s adjustment. In both married and divorced families, Camara and Resnick (1988) found that children were less aggressive when parents had higher parent cooperation scores, but some differences occurred considering fathers’ and mothers’ conflict styles. When fathers used verbal attack styles, young children show more behavioral problems and lower self-esteem. Mothers’ use of verbal attacks as conflict style resulted in withdrawn and more solitary play for their children. Only in divorced families, when mothers used negative and attacking styles for conflict resolution, both the mother-child and father-child relationships were poorer, compared to the families where mothers used compromise strategies. Regarding on impact of conflict on parenting, some studies suggest that a difficult marriage deteriorates the parent-child relationships more frequently in men than women (Cummings, Goeke-Morey, & Raymond, 2004), since conflict interfere with sensitive and warm parenting (Owen & Cox, 1997). Other scholars, instead, found the parenting of mothers is more susceptible to negative influences of marital conflict than fathers’ parenting (Osborne & Fincham, 1996). Sturge-Apple, Davies, & Cummings (2006) investigated the connections between hostility and withdrawal in the marriage and maternal and paternal practices. Results show that the withdrawal alone was the strongest SPILLOVER EFFECTS MJCP 5 predictor of diminished affective parenting for fathers, whereas marital withdrawal and hostility were both predictors of emotional unavailability for mothers. In conclusion, data on the existence of gender differences in conflict styles managements and changes in paternal or maternal parenting are not linear but complex (Coiro & Emery, 1998; Snyder, 1998). Research also suggests that the relationship between marital conflict and child maladjustment varies depending on specific qualities or dimensions of the conflict. The negative consequences are more severe and likely to occur when parental conflict is more frequent and intense, unresolved, and focused on child rearing issues (Zimet & Jacob, 2001). McHale, Freitag, Crouter, and Bartko (1991) found that not exposure to conflict, in and itself, but the content of marital conflict was related to adjustment or conduct problems in children. Parents were asked to rate their marital conflict levels (high or low). When conflict levels were high, children’s did not report significantly more problems if compared to children whose parents reported lower levels of conflict. Instead, the content of the conflict, specifically disagreement about child-rearing strategies, was linked to child adjustment and conduct problems. The goal of this study is to explore the links between marital conflicts and parenting practices in intact families by examining whether gender differences emerge in the changes in parent-child relationships. Most studies have focused on a single dimension of parenting, as punishment (Brook, Zheng, Whiteman, & Brook, 2001), emotional unavailability or inconsistent discipline (Sturge-Apple, Davies, & Cummings, 2006). Considering that parenting is conceptualized as a multidimensional construct and doesn’t correspond to a single parental behavior or quality (Belsky, 1981), the purpose of the study is to analyze multiple dimensions simultaneously, so to analyze the specific connections between marital discord and changes in parenting practices. The practices examined are involvement, warmth towards their own children, inconsistency in discipline and punitive parenting (Frick, Christian, & Wootton, 1999). In particular, the questions are: 1. there are differences between fathers and mothers in the management of marital conflict and disagreements about childrearing? 2. There is a potentiating effect of intra-marital conflict and parental distress? 6 BENEDETTO L., INGRASSIA M. 3. The increased intensity of conflict corresponds to a worse quality of parenting (less warmth and involvement, inconsistency in discipline, and more frequent punishment)? 4. These mutual influences between conflict and parenting are different for fathers and mothers?