When Conflict Continues after the Marriage Ends: Effects of Postdivorce Conflict on Children

Abstract

Divorce is one option exercised by parents who experience conflict with one another. Yet when both parents retain some involvement with their children after a divorce, they are required to continue a relationship as parents. Co-parenting may be active (e.g., parents interacting directly with one another to establish rules and expectations for the child or make decisions about the child's life) or passive (e.g., parents avoiding contact with one another but being available to parent when it is their “turn”). In either case, co-parenting necessitates continuing ties between the once-conflicting parties; thus, the opportunity for continued conflict remains. Furthermore, even (or perhaps especially) in instances where one parent has no contact with the rest of the family, angry or hostile feelings on the part of the remaining parent may create a residue of conflict that affects children. In this chapter we explore several questions concerning postdivorce interparental conflict. To what extent does divorce reduce the conflict to which children are exposed? And to what extent is conflict after divorce an important factor in how children adjust? Is interparental conflict after divorce different from conflict that occurs within nondivorced families? And does its impact on children differ by family structure? After addressing these questions, we examine the role of parenting in understanding the link between postdivorce conflict and children's adjustment. Finally, we look at the impact of conflict in different postdivorce living arrangements to see whether conflict's impact depends on the type of custody or visitation a child experiences.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 77 citations exist upstream.