Conflict between parents and adolescents: Variation by family constitution

Conflicts between parents and adolescents were explored from the viewpoint of 13- and 15-year-old children (N = 397). There was support for Steinberg's (1989) distancing hypothesis: older children reported more aggression, more frustration and lower intimacy outcomes. There was also support for the hypothesis that the more complex position of adolescent girls (valuing both closeness and autonomy) would result in higher levels of frustration, whereas boys would be more clearly confrontational-producing relatively more escalation. Overall, mothers were experienced as more compromising and as fostering greater intimacy in comparison to fathers. There were differences between family types: those mothers living with a partner were reported as more aggressive than mothers from non-divorcing families, and adolescents living with mother alone reported more frustration and escalation outcomes. In respect of fathers, non-residential fathers and daughters experienced less aggression, lower escalation outcomes and sustained higher levels of compromise in comparison to fathers in non-divorcing families. Boys without their father resident reported the lowest levels of compromise with both mothers and fathers-consistent with others' research suggesting that boys' accommodation to parental separation is more problematic. Finally, effects of parental age were explored.