essay about conflict between parents and child

The Dynamics of Conflict Between Parent and Child

The lsci conflict cycle sheds light on how to de-escalate problem situations..

Posted February 20, 2019

Since 1991, Life Space Crisis Intervention (LSCI) has been offered as a professional training program for educators, counselors, psychologists, social workers, youth workers, and other professionals working with challenging children & adolescents. In recent years, the LSCI Institute has worked to translate its trauma -informed, brain-based, relationship-building concepts to the need of parents and caregivers. In an excerpt from the LSCI Institute's new book, Parenting the Challenging Child: The 4-Step Way to Turn Problem Situations Into Learning Opportunities , the LSCI Conflict Cycle™ is introduced, explaining the circular and escalating dynamics of conflict between parents and children and offering important insights about the parent’s role in either fueling problem situations or halting them before they spiral out of control.

Excerpt from Chapter 1: The 3 Foundations of LSCI

Foundation 3: THE CONFLICT CYCLE

To get a rich understanding of the Conflict Cycle, we will begin by considering how adults and children typically perceive, think, feel, and behave in response to stressful events and problem situations. An awareness of these elements of the Conflict Cycle will give us important insights into why kids sometimes behave in troubling ways.

In general, adults know that there are many ways to perceive the world. For example, if we were to look at the image below, some of us would see a duck and some of us would see a rabbit.

Hopefully, when asked to consider if the other perception was valid, we would acknowledge that while our point of view is accurate, the other person’s point of view is also correct. Based on our life experiences, we can acknowledge that other people’s points of view have merit and that two people can have opposing ways of looking at the world and still both be “right.”

We also know that stress can heavily influence our perceptions when it comes to the way we look at problem situations. As a result, we are usually willing to listen to alternative viewpoints. Sometimes, we even reconsider our own!

Young people often have a much more difficult time accepting alternate points of view. In times of stress, kids can become especially concrete about their perceptions. Parents and caregivers can make the mistake of believing that their kids are simply being stubborn when they insist that their perception of an event is the only correct one. The idea that the child “ knows the truth about what happened but won’t admit it ,” can trigger a hostile reaction from adults. At this point, both the adult and the child are perceiving each other from a place of hostility.

LSCI skills guide parents and caregivers to recognize that:

1. We all have unique ways of perceiving our world. Knowing how a child perceives a situation is always the starting point for teaching an alternate perception. We have to make time to find out how the child perceives an event before we can offer new information.

2. A child’s ability to consider other points of view has to do with the availability and approachability of an adult who will listen and dialogue with the child.

3. Parents and children both enter conflict situations with a sense of being “right.” Insisting that someone else change their point of view usually only results in increased hostility and defensiveness about the original position.

The LSCI approach offers a solution to the tendency of adults and kids to become locked in rigid and opposing ways of perceiving an event.

Thinking and Feeling

In our earlier discussion of the second foundation of LSCI (How LSCI Skills Help Soothe the Brain and Ready Kids for Conversation), we thoroughly examined the brain-based origins of stressed out thoughts and overwhelming feelings. The Conflict Cycle paradigm shows us how the perceived stress of an event can trigger a set of amygdala-driven thoughts and feelings which, in turn, drive a young person’s unwanted or unacceptable behaviors.

As we look at each individual component of the Conflict Cycle, it is important to note that behavior is usually the first part of the Conflict Cycle that gets our attention . There are no flashing lights to warn a parent about an alarming set of perceptions or an amygdala-driven cluster of thoughts and feelings in a child. Rather, it is usually a disruptive behavior(s) that first makes us aware of a problem.

It's also important for parents and caregivers to think of their child’s poor behavior as a symptom. Behavior is a reflection of the unique perceptions, thoughts and feelings the child is experiencing over a particular event. LSCI challenges traditional thinking about why kids show unwanted behavior. We often hear that kids act out because they want power, control, or attention. It's true that we all want some power and control over our environment. Most of us crave some attention and human interaction. These are good things. If kids didn't want them, we'd really be worried about them. As illogical as it might seem, the problems that kids create are usually an attempt to gain some power, control or attention. What’s more, their acting up and acting out is rarely just random. Usually, it is predictable. (Fecser, 2013). If you think of your child who challenges you the most, you can probably predict with a good deal of accuracy what kind of problem he’s going to get into next. Most kids behave in repetitive patterns.

Knowledge of the LSCI Conflict Cycle guides parents and caregivers to understand how certain stressful situations trigger predictable perceptions, thoughts, feelings, and unwanted behaviors. If we can predict it, we can prevent it. In other words, adults can use the Conflict Cycle as a roadmap to anticipate troubling behavior and intervene to help kids develop more positive ways of thinking and better coping skills to deal with overwhelming feelings. Over time, consistent use of the LSCI approach helps parents prevent the troubling behavior from occurring again and again.

Adult Response

As parents and caregivers, if we are not thoughtful, purposeful and aware, we will react to a child’s poor behavior as if it is occurring in isolation—forgetting that there are a whole set of perceptions, thoughts, and feelings that drive it. We may resort to rote punishment or hurtful, impulsive responses that damage our relationship with our child.

Keep in mind: The adult’s response is the only element of the Conflict Cycle that parents have any control over. If our ultimate goal is to teach young people that they have choices when it comes to their behavior, we must begin by role modeling positive choices of our own, particularly in terms of how we respond to our kids’ unwanted behaviors.

Read the real-life example below of one parent’s effective response to her child’s challenging behavior:

A parent arrived at school to pick up her 4th grade daughter for a scheduled doctor’s appointment. As the daughter approached her mother in the school hallway, she began to cry and yell, “I don’t want to go! This always happens. You always make me leave!”

The mother could feel the stares of her daughter’s teacher as well as the school Nurse and Counselor who were all witnessing the situation. She felt the pressure of their judgment both on her parenting and on her loud, disruptive child. She realized right away that she had two choices:

1. She could use a traditional disciplinary approach and firmly tell her daughter to quiet down in the hallway and stop her disrespect immediately.

She felt justified that this would be an appropriate parental response but she also knew that for her daughter, this would have been the next stressful event and would have triggered even more upsetting thoughts and feelings in the emotional part of her daughter’s brain. Things would have gotten worse for sure.

2. Option 2 was to try to tap into her daughter’s rational brain in an effort to get more of a logical response.

First, she got down on her daughter’s level and hugged her. She said, “You are really upset right now.” Her daughter took one long sob, then she melted into her mother’s arms.

Just at that moment, the school nurse, who had heard all of the commotion in the hallway, joined in the conversation with a well-intentioned, but too quick rational brain response: “Your mom is trying to keep you healthy. What would happen if you didn’t get a flu shot?” she asked.

The child stiffened and started crying and yelling at her mother all over again.

Her mother gave her time. She continued to hug her. She wiped her tears. She used validating words instead of becoming defensive: “You feel like I am picking you up from school too early and you are missing your recess time with your school friends. This happened last month too and you are feeling sad all over again.”

The child softened and made eye contact with her mother. She nodded and said, “Yes, I am so sad.”

Within two minutes of this soothing interaction with her mother, the young girl regained her composure. As she walked out of the building, she was respectful, relieved, and ready to go to her doctor’s appointment.

In this situation, Option 1 may have been appropriate, but it would have been a missed opportunity for the parent to connect and communicate with her child, to help her daughter practice skills for calming down, and to practice connecting language to emotion .

Does that mean a parent should allow her child to “get away with” the disrespectful behavior that was initially displayed in the school hallway? No. There is a time for setting standards and communicating with young people about acceptable behaviors—but this parent used her knowledge of the LSCI Conflict Cycle as a roadmap to understand that it would be more effective to wait to address these important issues when her child was more in control and more receptive to learning.

Understandably, troubling behaviors by a child—especially those that seem to come “out of the blue” can create big reactions in adults and we don’t all respond as well as this mother did. Unfortunately, too often parents take on a child’s feelings and even mirror the child’s behaviors. They may raise their voices, threaten punishment, or say hurtful things. This negative adult reaction, in turn, becomes the next stressful event for the child and creates a new turn of a Conflict Cycle. Self-defeating power struggles between parents and children continue to ensue. Understanding the Conflict Cycle is the first line of defense against reinforcing a child’s irrational beliefs and engaging in these no-win dynamics.

Even parents and kids with the most positive of relationships get into Conflict Cycles sometimes. Effective parenting is not the absence of conflict entirely, but rather knowledge of how stressful situations can activate the emotional part of the brain and prevent kids (and adults!) from using their thinking brain to effectively manage the conflict.

The LSCI Conflict Cycle offers a visual guide to understand—and therefore help prevent—escalating power struggles between parents and children. In the next two chapters, you will learn the LSCI skills needed to help you de-escalate the intense thoughts and feelings that can be triggered by stressful situations. Ultimately, you will learn new ways to effectively disengage from no-win conflicts with kids. The goal of LSCI is to make young people feel safe and supported enough to choose to talk about their feelings with a parent rather than to act them out in disruptive or destructive ways.

Signe Whitson is the Chief Operating Officer of The LSCI Institute and author of Parenting the Challenging Child: The 4-Step Way to Turn Problem Situations Into Learning Opportunities. For more, visit lsci.org

Long, N., Fecser, F. & Wood, M. (1991). Life Space Crisis Intervention: Talking with Students in Conflict. Texas: ProED, Inc.

Whitson, S. (2019). Parenting the Challenging Child: The 4-Step Way to Turn Problem Situations Into Learning Opportunities. Hagerstown, MD: The LSCI Institute.

Signe Whitson, L.S.W., is a licensed social worker and the co-author of The Angry Smile: The Psychology of Passive Aggressive Behavior in Families, Schools, and Workplaces.

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What happens to kids when parents fight, conflict between parents is inevitable—but it doesn’t have to hurt kids. here’s how to turn a disagreement into a positive lesson..

When I was a child, my parents’ fights could suck the oxygen out of a room. My mother verbally lashed my father, smashed jam jars, and made outlandish threats. Her outbursts froze me in my tracks. When my father fled to work, the garage, or the woods, I felt unprotected.

“Children are like emotional Geiger counters,” says E. Mark Cummings, psychologist at Notre Dame University, who, along with colleagues, has published hundreds of papers over twenty years on the subject. Kids pay close attention to their parents’ emotions for information about how safe they are in the family, Cummings says. When parents are destructive, the collateral damage to kids can last a lifetime.

My experience led me to approach marriage and parenthood with more than a little caution. As a developmental psychologist I knew that marital quarrelling was inevitable. According to family therapist Sheri Glucoft Wong, of Berkeley, California, just having children creates more conflicts, even for couples who were doing well before they became parents. “When kids show up, there’s less time to get more done,” she says. “All of a sudden you’re not as patient, not as flexible, and it feels like there’s more at stake.”

But I also knew that there had to be a better way to handle conflict than the one I grew up with. When my husband and I decided to have children, I resolved never to fight in front of them. “Conflict is a normal part of everyday experience, so it’s not whether parents fight that is important,” says Cummings. “It’s how the conflict is expressed and resolved, and especially how it makes children feel, that has important consequences for children.”

Watching some kinds of conflicts can even be good for kids—when children see their parents resolve difficult problems, Cummings says, they can grow up better off.

What is destructive conflict?

In their book Marital Conflict and Children: An Emotional Security Perspective , Cummings and colleague Patrick Davies at the University of Rochester identify the kinds of destructive tactics that parents use with each other that harm children:

• Verbal aggression like name-calling, insults, and threats of abandonment;
• Physical aggression like hitting and pushing;
• Silent tactics like avoidance, walking out, sulking, or withdrawing;
• Capitulation—giving in that might look like a solution but isn’t a true one.

When parents repeatedly use hostile strategies with each other, some children can become distraught, worried, anxious, and hopeless. Others may react outwardly with anger, becoming aggressive and developing behavior problems at home and at school. Children can develop sleep disturbances and health problems like headaches and stomachaches, or they may get sick frequently. Their stress can interfere with their ability to pay attention, which creates learning and academic problems at school. Most children raised in environments of destructive conflict have problems forming healthy, balanced relationships with their peers. Even sibling relationships are adversely affected—they tend to go to extremes, becoming overinvolved and overprotective of each other, or distant and disengaged.

Some research suggests that children as young as six months register their parents’ distress. Studies that follow children over a long period of time show that children who were insecure in kindergarten because of their parents’ conflicts were more likely to have adjustment problems in the seventh grade. A recent study showed that even 19-year-olds remained sensitive to parental conflict. Contrary to what one might hope, “Kids don’t get used to it,” says Cummings.

In a remarkable 20-year-old study of parental conflict and children’s stress, anthropologists Mark Flinn and Barry England analyzed samples of the stress hormone cortisol, taken from children in an entire village on the east coast of the island of Dominica in the Caribbean. Children who lived with parents who constantly quarreled had higher average cortisol levels than children who lived in more peaceful families. As a result, they frequently became tired and ill, they played less, and slept poorly. Overall, children did not ever habituate, or “get used to,” the family stress. In contrast, when children experienced particularly calm or affectionate contact, their cortisol decreased.

More recent studies show that while some children’s cortisol spikes, other children’s cortisol remains abnormally low and blunted, and these different cortisol patterns seem to be associated with different kinds of behavioral problems in middle childhood. Other physiological regulatory systems can become damaged as well, such as the sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the autonomic nervous system—these help us respond to a perceived threat but are also the “brakes” that rebalance and calm us.

In 2002, researchers Rena Repetti, Shelley Taylor, and Teresa Seeman at UCLA looked at 47 studies that linked children’s experiences in risky family environments to later issues in adulthood. They found that those who grew up in homes with high levels of conflict had more physical health problems, emotional problems, and social problems later in life compared to control groups. As adults, they were more likely to report vascular and immune problems, depression and emotional reactivity, substance dependency, loneliness, and problems with intimacy. 

Avoiding conflict is not a solution

Conflict tips.

Courtesy of Sheri Glucoft Wong.

1. Lead with empathy: Open the dialog by first letting the other person know that you see them, you get them, and you can put yourself in their shoes.

2. Give your partner the benefit of the doubt: Assume the best intentions and help yourself remember that you love each other by adding an endearment.

3. Remember that you’re on the same team. Deal with issues by laying all the cards on the table and looking at them together to solve a dilemma rather than digging in on opposing sides. Then problem-solve with one another.

4. Constructive criticism only works when your partner can do something about what happened. If the deadline for soccer signup was already missed, remedy the current situation as best as possible and talk about how to do it better next time. Blaming won’t fix anything that’s already happened.

5. Anything that needs to be said can be said with kindness. Disapproval, disappointment, exasperation—all can be handled better with kindness.

Some parents, knowing how destructive conflict can be, may think that they can avoid affecting their children by giving in, or capitulating, in order to end an argument. But that’s not an effective tactic. “We did a study on that,” Cummings said. According to parents’ records of their fights at home and their children’s reactions, kids’ emotional responses to capitulation are “not positive.” Nonverbal anger and “stonewalling”—refusing to communicate or cooperate—are especially problematic.

“Our studies have shown that the long-term effects of parental withdrawal are actually more disturbing to kids’ adjustment [than open conflict],” says Cummings. Why? “Kids understand hostility,” he explains. “It tells them what’s going on and they can work with that. But when parents withdraw and become emotionally unavailable, kids don’t know what’s going on. They just know things are wrong. We’re seeing over time, that parental withdrawal is actually a worse trajectory for kids. And it’s harder on marital relationships too.”

Kids are sophisticated conflict analysts; the degree to which they detect emotion is much more refined than parents might guess. “When parents go behind closed doors and come out acting like they worked it out, the kids can detect that,” says Cummings. They’ll see you’re pretending. And pretending is actually worse in some ways. As a couple, you can’t resolve a fight you’re not acknowledging you’re having. Kids will know it, you’ll know it, but nothing will be made in terms of progress.”

On the other hand, he says, “When parents go behind closed doors and are not angry when they come out, the kids infer that things are worked out. Kids can tell the difference between a resolution that’s been forced versus one that’s resolved with positive emotion, and it matters.”

How to make conflict work

“Some types of conflicts are not disturbing to kids, and kids actually benefit from it,” says Cummings. When parents have mild to moderate conflict that involves support and compromise and positive emotions, children develop better social skills and self-esteem, enjoy increased emotional security, develop better relationships with parents, do better in school and have fewer psychological problems.

“When kids witness a fight and see the parents resolving it, they’re actually happier than they were before they saw it,” says Cummings. “It reassures kids that parents can work things through. We know this by the feelings they show, what they say, and their behavior—they run off and play. Constructive conflict is associated with better outcomes over time.” Children feel more emotionally secure, their internal resources are freed up for positive developmental growth, and their own pro-social behavior toward others is enhanced. In fact, many child behavior problems can be solved not by focusing on the child, or even the parent-child relationship, but simply by improving the quality of the parents’ relationship alone, which strengthens children’s emotional security.

Even if parents don’t completely resolve the problem but find a partial solution, kids will do fine. In fact, their distress seems to go down in proportion to their parents’ ability to resolve things constructively.  “Compromise is best, but we have a whole lot of studies that show that kids benefit from any progress toward resolution,” says Cummings.

Both Cummings and Glucoft Wong agree that children can actually benefit from conflict—if parents manage it well. “Parents should model real life…at its best,” says Glucoft Wong. “Let them overhear how people work things out and negotiate and compromise.” 

However, both also agree that some content is best kept private. Discussions about sex or other tender issues are more respectfully conducted without an audience. Glucoft Wong encourages parents to get the help they need to learn to communicate better—from parenting programs, from books, or from a therapist.

My own parents’ conflict no longer has the hold on me that it once did, thanks to careful work and a loving marriage of my own of thirty years. Our two daughters are now in their twenties and secure in their own loving partnerships, and I hope that the lessons of their childhood hold. When they were preschoolers and interrupted our disagreements with concern, my husband and I would smile and reassure them with our special code: I held my fingers an inch apart and reminded them that the fight was this big, but that the love was this big—and I held my arms wide open.

About the Author

Diana Divecha

Diana Divecha, Ph.D. , is a developmental psychologist, an assistant clinical professor at the Yale Child Study Center and Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and on the advisory board of the Greater Good Science Center. Her blog is developmentalscience.com .

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• Essay on Religion

Conflict Between Parents And Their Children Essay

Type of paper: Essay

Topic: Religion , Development , Family , Students , Life , Parents , Education , Conflict

Published: 12/10/2019

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Write an essay about an inner struggle you have experienced that reflects a cultural conflict between two of the following: the culture of your parents, your friends, your school, your school. Include the examples of ways that your inner conflict is reflected in your dreams and fantasies. Conflicts between two generations are always part and parcel of everyday life and in China this is always very more pronounced. More often than not, the parents will hold traditionalist values in areas such as religion and other domestic ways and means and these will come into conflict with children. Personally I passed through such an experience when I started attending University as my parents at first wanted me to continue adhering to the faith of their forefathers. This obviously meant that I was faced with an inner struggle and dilemma where I had long been having doubts about my religion and my life and could not bring myself to accept that life was generally how they viewed it. I was experiencing great torments inside me as I could not accept what my parents were telling me about God as to me this had long been something of the past and I couldn’t feel in any way close with what they were saying. I felt estranged and without much hope of doing any good but I also felt that my life was crumbling inside and could not seem to accept that what they were saying was true in any respect. I took to taking long walks in the country to attempt to shed myself from the problems I had created. My parents continued preaching and warning me that I was on the road to ruin, that I did not have any sort of future and that I was going to ruin myself both inside and outside. My struggle continued to dominate my life and I could not find a way to move forward as I was stuck in a rut without much hope of moving forward. This intrinsically also meant that I would have had to confront the demons within me and that my life would have to change if I was to have any hope of survival. My parents continued to make life difficult for me especially in the context of the considerable problems which I was facing. Life was becoming extremely hard to face and everything seemed to be collapsing in every direction. I found that I could not concentrate at University as I was constantly being faced with the issues that were tormenting my inner self at home. Life was now becoming a torment for me as I continued to face these issues with a certain amount of alacrity and apathy. There was nothing much one could do but continue to find out a path for myself in the innermost reaches of my soul which was continually being tormented by what my parents were telling to me. In the end I felt I had to take a decision and move forward without the backing and support of my family. I began to go to counselling to observe what could be done to arrange my inner self and my life. Since it was sporadically all over the place, I knew something had to be done about this and that I could not continue facing life without any hope and without any means to do something with it. My counsellor advised a period of self-reflection and living alone where I could perhaps gather my thoughts and think harder about what it was that I really wanted to do in life. Although this would mean enduring a considerable amount of personal suffering, there was also the possibility that life could change for the better. After a longish period of about six months living alone and surviving on bare essentials, I decided it was time to confront my parents. At first the encounter was hard and without much feeling or emotion but after a few minutes of conversation the visage cracked and we got along rather well. My mother inquired about my lifestyle and wanted to assist me in what I was doing to ensure that I had everything I needed and that I could continue my studies without much problems. My father was perhaps more circumspect and direct in his attitude but still one could sense that he rankled deep inside. The meeting ended on a positive note and after leaving I decided that for the future, confrontation appears to be the best solution to solve pending issues which affect our lives. Through confrontation, one can solve problems as issues are seen in a clearer light whilst the main points of an argument are always solved much better when the truth is told and the cards are put on the table. My inner struggle was an experience which I would not like to go through again but which was definitely something which had to be done.

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April 9, 2014

How parental conflict hurts kids.

• Whether or not parents are married or even living together, their conflict can harm kids' physical and mental health. Tweet This
• Kids notice and react negatively to their parents' disagreements from a very early age. Tweet This

No one would be surprised to learn that kids suffer when their parents argue. Still, detailed research on exactly how kids are affected and which aspects of parental conflict are most harmful can help families and communities to address the problem effectively.  Parental Conflict: Outcomes and interventions for children and families , a short volume from the UK think tank  One Plus One  coauthored by four researchers, offers an accessible but detailed overview of scholars' findings on these subjects. Here are some highlights of the research they present.

Which aspects of parental conflict matter?

There is no such thing as a relationship entirely free from conflict and disagreement, and surely all children see their parents argue at one time or another. When parents relate to each other calmly and positively even during a disagreement, solve the problem together, and show children through their subsequent interactions that the conflict has been resolved, then the children may be unaffected (and a small body of research suggests they may even learn conflict-resolution skills, which they can apply to their own relationships down the road, from such situations).

Parental conflict is harmful to kids, however, when it is frequent; when it is heated and hostile, involving verbal insults and raised voices; when parents become physically aggressive; when parents withdraw from an argument or give each other the silent treatment; when the conflict seems to threaten the intactness of the family; and when it's about the child. (The impact of witnessing domestic violence on kids is not explored in detail in this book, but of course it too has been shown to be very harmful.) And conflict is harmful regardless of whether parents are married or even living together.

How exactly do children suffer from their parents' conflicts?

From a very early age—as young as six months, some researchers say—children show distress when their parents fight. Their reactions can include fear, anger, anxiety, and sadness, and they are at higher risk of experiencing a variety of health problems, disturbed sleep, and difficulty in focusing and succeeding at school. They may "externalize" their distress in the form of "aggression, hostility, anti-social and non-compliant behaviour, delinquency and vandalism," or "internalize" it in the form of "depression, anxiety, withdrawal and dysphoria."

In addition, "children from high-conflict homes are more likely to have poor interpersonal skills, problem solving abilities and social competence." Those problems negatively impact their romantic relationships in adolescence and adulthood, as conflicts cause children to "perceive themselves and their social worlds more negatively" and to "have more negative pictures or internal representations of family relationships." Thus the high-conflict relationship of one couple can produce other negative relationships in the next generation.

Why does parental conflict produce these effects?

Conflict between parents harms kids in part because of a spillover effect: parents in high-conflict relationships tend to be worse parents, engaging in more criticism, aggression, making threats, shouting, and hitting. High-conflict relationships can also produce lax and inconsistent parenting: parents who simply don't pay much attention to their children. In either case, children may fail to form a  secure attachment  to parents as a result.

But parental conflict also seems to harm kids even apart from its effects on parenting. Researchers have proposed a variety of frameworks and mechanisms that may explain this process. To give one example, in the struggle to understand their parents' conflict, children can come to blame themselves or find harmful ways of coping with the conflict. In addition, on top of their negative emotions, children experience physiological reactions related to stress that may harm their brain development.

Why do the effects of parental conflict affect some children differently from others?

A large number of variables shape the impact of parental conflict: the age, sex, and temperament of the child; the child's coping strategies; and the child's physiological reaction to stress. Family characteristics matter, too: sibling relationships, attachment to parents, parents' mental health and substance use, and socioeconomic pressure all affect how children react to conflict.

While socioeconomic pressure tends to worsen parents' mental health and increase parental conflict, the link between conflict and child outcomes remains significant when socioeconomic pressure is accounted for. (In other words, "children are vulnerable to the impact of a high conflict home regardless of their parents' socioeconomic situations.") Moreover, although genes could matter for some aspects of parental conflict and children's reactions---for example, shaping children's temperaments, mental health, and physiological reactions to stress---some studies suggest that parental conflict is associated with negative child outcomes even for adopted children, who are genetically unrelated to their parents.

More details about (and citations for) all the topics I've mentioned here can be found in  the book . In a  subsequent post  I'll outline the researchers' findings about preventing couple conflict and intervening in high-conflict relationships.

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Sources of Conflict Between Parents and Teenagers Essay

Introduction, cultural aspects, mother-daughter dyad, children’s and parents’ views.

Intergenerational conflicts often attract a lot of attention although they have been researched for decades and even centuries. The conflict between parents and children may take different forms, but it often results in serious issues for all the stakeholders including the development of serious mental and emotional disorders (Koehn and Kerns 2016). Family relationships have been discussed within different platforms including popular literature and scholarly sources. These two sources have different goals but can serve as the facilitators of the debate on the matter. This media report focuses on the intergenerational conflict related to dress codes and the way they are presented in scholarly and popular sources.

One of the recurrent themes linked to dress codes and the conflict between parents and adolescents is the adherence to cultural norms. Rasmi and Daly (2015) explore this issue and claim that Arab teenagers emphasize that their parents try to control the way they dress, which is regarded as undesirable and inappropriate by their children. It is noteworthy that the participants of the study tended to mention their parents’ focus on the existing norms and other people’s opinions. Popular media also address this area displaying the way parents and their children resolve their conflicts. Awad (2015) mentions the things Arab teenagers have to hide from their parents, and certain kind of clothes is number two on the list.

It is necessary to note that the two articles dwell upon a similar topic but focus on different elements. The information is also presented in two different ways as the popular media aim at entertaining rather than providing facts and conclusions. Rasmi and Daly (2015) carry out a qualitative study and interview several participants to gain insights into the way people see the conflict. At the same time, Awad (2015) provides some tweets to support her claims.

Irrespective of the different levels of reliability and validity, the two sources help in understanding the nature of the conflict in Arab families. It is clear that Arab parents use an authoritative style to ensure their adolescent children’s compliance with certain rules and norms. Awad (2015) also sheds light on the way teenagers handle the problem by concealing their clothes. The author unveils some strategies adolescents use to address the conflict. It is obvious that inappropriate methods are often found, and more severe problems can emerge.

The articles mentioned above are closely linked to the topic related to race and ethnicity discussed by Cohen (2018). Cohen (2018) states that families tend to be affected by such outside forces as culture, ethnicity, and race. Arab Americans, especially new immigrants, face a myriad of issues so dressing codes can be a manifestation of belonging to a group. It is also clear that parents try to maintain ties with their heritage through strict adherence to norms while adolescents are more open and willing to fit in, which creates the premise for the conflict (Rasmi and Daly 2015).

The cultural aspect of the problem has a considerable significance for the American society that consists of many ethnic groups. For instance, according to Statista (2018), slightly over 60% of the US population is comprised on non-Hispanic whites, and this figure is estimated to reach less than 44% by 2060. Therefore, it is important to consider family relationships and intergenerational conflicts in terms of the cultural domain.

The relationships between specific members of the family draw scholars’ and the public’s attention. When it comes to the conflict associated with dress codes, mother-daughter dyads are often put to the fore. Romo, Mireles-Rios, and Lopez-Tello (2013) examine the way Latina mothers and daughters cope with arising conflicts. It is stated that mothers become less strict when daughters reach the age of 15 years old.

The authors argue that other areas related to conflicts remain a matter of discord while clothing seems a less relevant issue for parents. Romo et al. (2013) also conclude that mothers can be understanding when it comes to dress codes as they want their daughters to fit in and find their place among their peers. Collins (2015) also looks into the problem and notes that appearance and dress codes are specifically relevant for female adolescents as well as their mothers. It is stressed that the conflict situations take place as mothers want to help their daughters while daughters seek approval. In reality, mothers are dissatisfied with clothing choices, and daughters dislike the criticism and feel that they failed their parents.

The two articles dealing with the mother-daughter dyad were not very different in terms of the overall approach. Both sources rely on research as Collins (2015) refers to a professional dealing with family issues. Clearly, the scholarly article is more detailed and focused, but the magazine article is also quite informative. The article by Collins (2015) is published in a magazine that focuses on family issues and claims to provide relevant advice on the matter.

Therefore, the author concentrates on facts and the experience of a professional. Both sources are similar in terms of the conclusions drawn. It is emphasized that mothers should be more understanding and supportive, which will be instrumental in the development of the necessary traits and skills in their daughters.

The two articles discussed in this section are closely linked to the concept of autonomy. Romo et al. (2013) explore this area in detail and note that Latina mothers are ready to grant more autonomy to their daughters who are 15 years old or older. Collins (2015) also includes autonomy in the discussion stressing that adolescent females need more autonomy in order to have the room for proper development.

This aspect of the problem is also significant as the lack of autonomy may result in serious issues in the adult life (Collins 2015). Females may be unable to develop healthy relationships including romantic and parent-child relationships. The current statistics show that modern females have difficulties with the development of family relationships as a third of American women have never been married while 12% are divorced (Statistical Atlas 2018). Hence, the relationships between mothers and daughters should receive appropriate attention in the media.

Finally, it can be necessary to examine the way children and parents see the conflict. Koehn and Kerns (2016) conducted a qualitative study and asked both parents and their children about their relationships. The researchers state that parental supervision was favorably viewed in middle childhood, but the need for autonomy increased in late childhood and adolescence (Koehn and Kerns 2016). Such aspects as clothes and appearance are viewed as a possible reason for conflicts by the two parties.

However, it is also mentioned that modern parents are more prepared to grant autonomy as compared to previous generations. Flannery (2018) also focuses on the way parents and children see and should view the problem. The author emphasizes that parents and children should be ready to compromise and be less concerned about own interests.

The two articles mentioned in this section are quite different in terms of the focus and writing manner. Koehn and Kerns (2016) discuss the results of their research and equip with all the relevant details. The authors also refer to scholarly sources to support their claims. The article by Flannery (2018) appears at an online magazine addressing family issues. Flannery (2018) does not give any references but grounds on his own experience.

Another difference lies in the fact that the scholarly article includes conclusions concerning the nature of the conflict and its outcomes, but the magazine source includes recommendations with some details related to the essence of the problem. At the same time, both articles’ major conclusion is the importance of autonomy that can help in addressing the conflict or even avoiding it.

The two sources are relevant to the area of family relationships as they provide insights into the nature of the intergenerational conflict and its outcomes. The two articles are associated with such concepts as autonomy and conflict that are explored in detail by Cohen (2018). Autonomy has been discussed above, so the focus will be on the concept of conflict in this section. Cohen (2018) sheds light on the major theoretical underpinning employed in sociology. Conflict theory is one of these frameworks that still guide many studies. The core belief framing the theory is that the change occurs in the course of conflicts. In this case, the conflict of interests is prevalent as parents and children have quite different needs and desires, which makes them collide.

It is also necessary to add that the concept of attachment is explored in the work by Koehn and Kerns (2016). The authors claim that attachment is developed during different stages of childhood and shapes the relationships between parents and their adolescent children. Moreover, it is also stressed that attachment patterns persist in children’s adulthood. Cohen (2018) also examines the notion of attachment and provides information concerning the attachment theory. The exploration of the attitudes of both parents and children is critical to the understanding of the nature and effects of the intergenerational conflict.

In conclusion, it is possible to note that family relationships and intergenerational conflicts attract people’s attention. Scholarly and popular sources provide various insights into the problem. As expected, scholarly sources are more scientific and aimed at investigating the issue and its impact while the focus of the popular media is to entertain and give some recommendations. The brief analysis of the articulated messages indicates that adolescent clothing behavior tends to cause conflicts with parents who often fail to grant their child with the appropriate level of autonomy. It is also clear that this conflict may influence adolescents’ development and lead to serious issues in adulthood.

Therefore, it is pivotal to explore all the aspect of the issue and develop sound recommendations to parents and children. Scholarly works will remain the primary sources of information that is supported by sound evidence. At the same time, the popular media can become the platform for the dissemination of the most relevant information.

Awad, Nina. 2015. “ 9 Things Arab Teens Hide from Their Parents ,” Step Feed . Web.

Cohen, Philip N. 2018. The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change . New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.

Collins, Lois M. 2015. “ Why Mothers and Daughters Fight ,” Deseret News . Web.

Flannery, Blake. 2018. “Sources of Conflict Between Parents and Teenagers,” We Have Kids . Web.

Koehn, Amanda J., and Kathryn A. Kerns. 2016. “The Supervision Partnership as a Phase of Attachment.” The Journal of Early Adolescence 36(7):961-988.

Rasmi, Sarah, and Timothy M. Daly. 2015. “Intergenerational Conflict in Arab Families.” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 47(1):42-53.

Romo, Laura F., Rebeca Mireles-Rios, and Gisselle Lopez-Tello. 2013. “Latina Mothers’ and Daughters’ Expectations for Autonomy at Age 15 (La Quinceañera).” Journal of Adolescent Research 29(2):271-294.

Statista. 2018. “ Percentage Distribution of Population in the United States in 2015 and 2060, by Race and Hispanic Origin. ” Web.

Statistical Atlas. 2018. “ Marital Status in the United States. ” Web.

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IvyPanda . 2020. "Sources of Conflict Between Parents and Teenagers." December 24, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/sources-of-conflict-between-parents-and-teenagers/.

1. IvyPanda . "Sources of Conflict Between Parents and Teenagers." December 24, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/sources-of-conflict-between-parents-and-teenagers/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Sources of Conflict Between Parents and Teenagers." December 24, 2020. https://ivypanda.com/essays/sources-of-conflict-between-parents-and-teenagers/.

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Parent–Adolescent Conflict across Adolescence: Trajectories of Informant Discrepancies and Associations with Personality Types

Stefanos mastrotheodoros.

1 Department of Youth and Family, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Jolien Van der Graaff

Maja deković.

2 Department of Clinical Child and Family Studies, Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Wim H. J. Meeus

Susan branje, associated data.

Parent–adolescent conflict can be intense, yet parents and adolescents do not always agree on the intensity of conflict. Conflict intensity tends to change during adolescence and is thought to be an indicator of how the parent–adolescent relationship transforms. However, parents and adolescents might differently perceive change in conflict intensity, resulting in changing discrepancies in conflict intensity throughout adolescence. Also, personality characteristics of parents and adolescents might affect the extent to which there are discrepancies in perceptions of conflict intensity. This multi-informant longitudinal study investigated a) the trajectories of parent–adolescent conflict intensity, b) the trajectories of informant discrepancies, and c) the prediction of these trajectories by parental and adolescent personality. Dutch adolescents ( N  = 497, 43.1% female, M age  = 13.03 at T1), their mothers, and their fathers reported on parent–adolescent conflict intensity and personality for six years. Latent Growth Curve Modeling and Latent Congruence Modeling revealed curvilinear changes in conflict intensity, as well as in discrepancies thereof. Two cycles of discrepancies emerged. First, in early-to-middle-adolescence discrepancies in perceptions of parents and adolescents increased, reflecting that adolescents’ perceived conflict intensity increased. Second, in middle-to-late-adolescence, father–adolescent discrepancies increased further, reflecting that fathers’ perceptions of conflict decreased. Resilient adolescents, mothers, and fathers reported lower levels of conflict intensity than Undercontrollers and Overcontrollers, but personality was not associated with the rate of change in conflict intensity. Finally, undercontrolling fathers and overcontrolling adolescents showed higher father–adolescent discrepancies. This study showed that parents and adolescents differentially perceive conflict intensity and that in the adolescent–father relationship, the extent of the differences depends on adolescent and father personality.

Introduction

Conflicts among parents and adolescents may be among the most aggravating family experiences of adolescence, for parents and adolescents alike. However, parent–adolescent conflict can also forge change towards greater egalitarianism in family relationships (Branje 2018 ), and it is, therefore, important to better understand how parent–adolescent conflict develops across adolescence. Even though many studies show a decrease in conflict frequency throughout adolescence (Shanahan et al. 2007 ), conflict intensity tends to increase from early to middle adolescence and to decrease thereafter (De Goede et al. 2009 ). As most of what is known thus far is based on adolescents’ views of conflict intensity, a more coherent picture of how conflict intensity develops across adolescence can be achieved by taking the views of mothers and fathers into account. Also, investigating parent–adolescent discrepancies in conflict intensity through a developmental lens may provide additional insight into how parent–adolescent relationships change during adolescence (Korelitz and Garber 2016 ).

Research has shown that there is heterogeneity in the trajectories of conflict intensity and parent–adolescent discrepancies. Some parent–adolescent dyads have high conflict intensity and increase in conflict intensity over time, whereas other parent–adolescent dyads have lower and stable levels of conflict intensity across adolescence (Hadiwijaya et al. 2017 ). Because people’s personality affects the quality of their interpersonal relationships, as well as their perception and interpretation of these relationships, it is expected that personality is related to parent–adolescent conflict intensity (Mund et al. 2018 ), and parent–adolescent discrepancies in perceptions of conflict intensity. The aim of this multi-informant longitudinal study was threefold. The first aim was to investigate the trajectories of conflict intensity across adolescence from the perspective of mothers, fathers, and adolescents. The second aim was to investigate the trajectories of parent–adolescent discrepancies in perceptions of conflict intensity. The third aim was to test whether maternal, paternal, and adolescent personality predicted these developmental trajectories.

Parent–Adolescent Conflict

During adolescence, young people are thought to develop more autonomy than during childhood (e.g., Branje et al. 2012 ). For adolescents to become competent in adult roles, parents need to gradually release part of their authority and allow the parent–adolescent relationship to transform towards a more egalitarian one (Branje et al. 2012 ). Adolescents generally expect independent decision making earlier than parents are willing to grant it (Deković et al. 1997 ), and this may create a fertile ground for parent–adolescent conflicts (Collins and Laursen 1992 ). Furthermore, adolescence usually coincides with parents’ midlife, an often challenging life stage, characterized by a need to re-evaluate their life course, adjust to new work conditions, and redefine life satisfaction (van Aken et al. 2006 ). Thus, a “coincidental” crisis emerges (Steinberg and Silk 2002 ), with increased conflict potential. In addition, the emotional repercussions of puberty (Cservenka et al. 2015 ), coupled with the still-developing emotional self-regulation during adolescence (Bowers et al. 2011 ) may increase the intensity of parent–adolescent conflicts (Laursen et al. 1998 ). Given that parent–adolescent conflict has significant consequences for adolescent adaptation (Branje et al. 2009 ), it is vital to study its developmental course throughout adolescence.

Empirical findings on the trajectory of parent–adolescent conflict intensity are inconsistent. Conflict intensity has been found to decrease from age 11 to age 12 and to remain stable until age 14 (Galambos and Almeida 1992 ). However, other longitudinal studies found that, on average, adolescent-reported conflict intensity increased between age 11 and age 15 (De Goede et al. 2009 ; McGue et al. 2005 ), and decreased between ages 16 to 19 (De Goede et al. 2009 ). Also, both studies found gender differences, with girls increasing in parent–adolescent conflict intensity more than boys (De Goede et al. 2009 ; McGue et al. 2005 ). A study on the development of adolescent-reported conflict intensity between ages 14 and 17 also revealed heterogeneity in development, with stable low negativity for most adolescents, and increasing negativity for a minority of adolescents (Seiffge-Krenke et al. 2010 ). To conclude, some empirical studies on the trajectories of conflict intensity showed an increase, and some showed stability. This inconsistency might be due to the different age periods examined in the various studies.

Furthermore, extant studies usually relied on a single informant (either the adolescent or a parent), leaving a knowledge gap on how parent–adolescent conflict intensity develops according to adolescents, mothers, and fathers. Parents and adolescents tend to perceive interpersonal conflict (Van Lissa et al. 2015 ), and aspects of their relationship (Mastrotheodoros et al. 2018 ), differently. Research on a related concept, conflict engagement, documented a temporary increase from early to middle adolescence only according to adolescents’ views, but not according to mothers’ and fathers’ views (Van Doorn et al. 2011 ). These reporter differences might result from the different position in the hierarchical relationship, in which adolescents want to acquire more autonomy, and parents are motivated to preserve the status quo.

Parent–Adolescent Discrepancies

A gold standard in the measurement of psychosocial constructs in developmental research is the use of multiple informants. Using multiple informants not only provides a more well-balanced representation of conflict intensity trajectories but also allows investigating possible discrepancies in perceptions of conflict (De Los Reyes and Kazdin 2005 ). Such discrepancies are not measurement error (De Los Reyes et al. 2010 ), and instead may reflect key dynamics in the parent–adolescent relationship that are meaningfully associated with adolescent and parent adaptation (De Los Reyes et al. 2019 ). For example, differences among parental and adolescent views of conflict were positively associated with adolescent depressive symptoms and risky behaviors (Skinner and McHale 2016 ). Furthermore, adolescents in families with high parent–adolescent discrepancies in perceptions of family functioning were at higher risk for sexually dangerous behaviors and alcohol use (Córdova et al. 2016 ). In contrast, maternal psychological symptoms were higher when both mothers and adolescents agreed on low family satisfaction, compared to when only the mother reported low family satisfaction, but the adolescent reported high family satisfaction (Ohannessian et al. 2016 ). These findings show that taking more than one perspective into account might be more insightful compared to using only one informant.

Parent-child discrepancies might be particularly relevant to investigate during adolescence. The stage-environment fit hypothesis (Eccles et al. 1993 ) posits that the opportunities offered by the social context adolescents live in (e.g., the family) might not fit adolescents’ developmental needs. Adolescents show increasing decision-making abilities and need for autonomy, and parents may not always optimally recognize and respond to these changing needs. Such a “needs-opportunities” mismatch might be reflected in parent–adolescent discrepancies in the perception of the quality of their relationship. Besides, as adolescents grow older, they may refrain from disclosing information to their parents, as a means to establish autonomy (Keijsers et al. 2009 ). This decreased disclosure results in less communication, which has been associated with increased parent–adolescent discrepancies (Ehrlich et al. 2016 ). However, towards late adolescence, the parent–adolescent relationship becomes more egalitarian (Branje 2018 ), and therefore, increasing agreement (i.e., less discrepancy) in perceptions may be expected. This curvilinear trend in discrepancies across adolescence is in line with the Operations Triad Model (De Los Reyes and Ohannessian 2016 ), which suggests that a curvilinear pattern, where discrepancies initially increase from early to middle adolescence and decrease thereafter, might indicate normative development. However, whether such a pattern exists, and whether this is the normative pattern of discrepancy development during adolescence can only be clarified by adopting a developmental perspective on parent–adolescent discrepancies (De Los Reyes et al. 2019 ). Hence, investigating parent–adolescent discrepancies developmentally has been recently ranked as the main priority in parent–adolescent discrepancy research (De Los Reyes et al. 2019 ).

Despite the emerging literature on parent–adolescent discrepancies (De Los Reyes and Ohannessian 2016 ), few studies have investigated how discrepancies develop during adolescence. Extant studies showed that discrepancies could develop in different directions. A meta-analysis on cross-sectional studies on the degree and direction of parent-child discrepancies in parenting constructs revealed moderation by age, such that in samples with older children there was less parent-child discrepancy than in samples with younger children (Korelitz and Garber 2016 ). A recent one-year longitudinal study found that mother–adolescent discrepancies in perceptions of open communication increased between ages 16 and 17, but discrepancies in perceptions of communication problems did not (De Los Reyes et al. 2016 ). Additionally, another study found a curvilinear pattern of parent–adolescent differences in perceptions of familism from age 12 to age 22, where an initial increase was followed by a decrease (Padilla et al. 2016 ). Finally, a study that investigated the heterogeneity in the trajectories of parent–adolescent discrepancies in family functioning found that for most families the discrepancies were low and stable across adolescence, yet a minority of families was characterized by either high stable or high increasing discrepancies (Córdova et al. 2016 ). However, the developmental trajectories of mother–adolescent, and father–adolescent discrepancies in conflict intensity across adolescence remain largely unknown.

Personality Types and Parent–Adolescent Conflict

Interpersonal relationships vary in quantity and quality, and this is partly because of the personalities of the dyad members (e.g., Mund and Neyer 2014 ). Because personality and interpersonal relationships are linked (e.g., Mund and Neyer 2014 ), heterogeneity in parent–adolescent conflict intensity (De Goede et al. 2009 ), as well as in its development (Seiffge-Krenke et al. 2010 ), may stem from parental or adolescent personality. In the current study, a typological approach to personality was applied (Asendorpf and van Aken 1999 ), which recognizes that people employ a constellation of characteristics instead of single, segregated characteristics in isolation (Yu et al. 2014 ). One of the most commonly applied person-centered approaches to personality is Block and Block’s RUO (Resilients, Undercontrollers, Overcontrollers) typology (Block and Block 1980 ). Based on this typology three personality types have been proposed: Resilient, characterized by relatively high scores on all Big Five factors; Undercontrollers, mainly characterized by low Agreeableness and Conscientiousness; and Overcontrollers, mainly characterized by low Emotional Stability, low Extraversion, and average or high scores on the other three dimensions (Klimstra et al. 2009a ).

Adolescents and adults with an undercontrolling or overcontrolling personality type may employ more conflictual behaviors in their relationships. Undercontrollers and Overcontrollers are characterized by personality characteristics that are typically associated with more conflictual relationships. That is, they tend to have characteristics that relate to higher anger and aggression, like lower Agreeableness (De Fruyt et al. 2017 ; Jensen-Campbell and Graziano 2001 ), and lower Conscientiousness (Jensen-Campbell and Malcolm 2007 ) for Undercontrollers, and lower Emotional Stability (Jones et al. 2011 ) for Overcontrollers. Undercontrolling children (Denissen et al. 2007 ) and adults (Bohane et al. 2017 ) indeed show higher levels of aggression and engagement in conflicts compared to Resilients. Furthermore, personality, by definition, encompasses differences in how people perceive their environment (Mund and Neyer 2014 ). Therefore, undercontrolling or overcontrolling adolescents and adults may also view their interpersonal relationships differently compared to how their partners perceive them. This might give rise to higher discrepancies. For example, Undercontrollers, who have low Agreeableness and Conscientiousness, and Overcontrollers, who have low Emotional Stability, may be more difficult to relate and openly communicate with, which may lead to higher divergence in relational perceptions. Indeed, mothers with higher trait negative affectivity and lower trait positive affectivity show higher discrepancies with their sons, compared to mothers with a more adaptive profile (Shishido and Latzman 2017 ). Resilients might not only have more adaptive and less conflictual relationships, but might also more easily and straightforward communicate about their relationship perceptions and have a higher mutual understanding. This might result in lower discrepancies in perceptions. Therefore, adolescents and parents with a Resilient personality type are expected to have lower conflict intensity and lower discrepancies than Overcontrollers and Undercontrollers.

The Present Study

Taken together, extant research has shown that adolescents’ views of parent–adolescent conflict intensity display a curvilinear trend across adolescence. However, less is known about the development of conflict intensity across adolescence according to mothers and fathers. More importantly, trajectories of parent–adolescent discrepancies remain understudied, and so do possible determinants of such trajectories. The current multi-informant and longitudinal study aimed to answer the following questions: How does parent–adolescent conflict intensity develop across adolescence, according to the views of mothers, fathers, and adolescents? (RQ1) Given previous studies that found a curvilinear trend of conflict intensity (e.g., De Goede et al. 2009 ), it was expected that conflict intensity would increase from early to middle adolescence, and decrease thereafter (Hypothesis 1). How do parent–adolescent discrepancies in conflict intensity develop across adolescence? (RQ2) Based on theoretical perspectives (De Los Reyes and Ohannessian 2016 ; Eccles et al. 1993 ), it was expected that an initial increase would be followed by a decrease in discrepancies in perceptions of conflict intensity (Hypothesis 2). Do personality types predict the trajectories of conflict intensity and the trajectories of discrepancies in perceptions of conflict intensity across adolescence? (RQ3) Given the role personality types play in interpersonal interaction (Denissen et al. 2007 ) and informant discrepancies (e.g., Shishido and Latzman 2017 ), it was expected that a Resilient personality type would be associated with lower conflict intensity, and smaller parent–adolescent discrepancies (Hypothesis 3).

Participants

The sample consisted of 497 adolescents (43.1% girls, M age  = 13.03, SD  = 0.46, at T1; M age  = 18.03, SD  = 0.46, at T6), their mothers (N = 497, M age  = 40.41, SD  = 4.45, at T1), and their fathers ( N  = 456, M age  = 46.74, SD  = 5.11, at T1) who took part in six annual assessments of an ongoing longitudinal study (Research on Adolescent Development And Relationships, see https://www.uu.nl/en/research/radar ) in The Netherlands, from 2006 to 2011. Adolescents were recruited from randomly selected elementary schools from the province of Utrecht as well as from three other big cities in The Netherlands. From a list of 850 regular schools in the western and central regions of the Netherlands, 429 were randomly selected and approached. Of those, 296 (69%) were willing to participate, and 230 of those were approached. Schools were used for initial screening (teacher reports for all 12-year-old students), as well as a means to approach families. Of the total of students screened ( n  = 4615), 1544 were randomly selected. Because the aim of the study was to include two-parent families with at least one more child older than 10 years old, 1081 families were approached. Of those, 470 refused to take part and 114 did not sign informed consent, resulting in the final sample of 497 families.

Data were collected via annual home visits during which participants filled-in self-report questionnaires, and procedures were the same for all six waves. During the first measurement wave, adolescents were in 7th Grade. Most adolescents were native Dutch (94.8%) and lived with both parents (85.2%). Regarding parental occupation, for 87.7% of adolescents at least one of the parents’ jobs was classified as medium level (e.g., police officer, physician’s assistant) or high level (e.g., doctor, scientist, high school teacher), whereas 12.3% of adolescents came from families in which parents were either unemployed, or held an elementary job (e.g., construction worker, janitor, truck driver; Statistics Netherlands 1993 ). Furthermore, most parents had completed either secondary (55.9% of mothers; 48.1% of fathers) or higher education (40.2% of mothers; 49.6% of fathers).

Parent–adolescent conflict intensity

To measure conflict intensity, 6 items from the Negative Interactions scale, from the Network of Relationships Inventory—short form (NRI) were used (De Goede et al. 2009 ; Furman and Buhrmester 1985 ). Participants answered on a 5-point Likert scale, ranging from 1 ( Little or Not at all ) to 5 ( More is not possible ) how much anger, irritation, and negative behaviors they experienced in their relationship. The scale was completed by (a) adolescents regarding the relationship with their mother (Adolescent-Mother report, AM); (b) adolescents regarding the relationship with their fathers (Adolescent-Father report, AF); (c) mothers regarding the relationship with the adolescents (mother–adolescent report, MA); and (d) fathers regarding the relationship with the adolescents (father–adolescent report, FA). Cronbach’s α’s ranged across waves between α’s = 0.90–0.95 (adolescent-mother report); α’s = 0.90–0.94 (adolescent-father report); α’s = 0.90–0.92 (mother–adolescent report); α’s = 0.90–0.92 (father–adolescent report). Example items are: “How much do you and your mother/father/child get upset with or mad at each other?” and “How much do you and your mother/father/child get on each other’s nerves?”

Personality

To measure maternal, paternal, and adolescent personality, the shortened Dutch version of Goldberg’s Big Five Questionnaire was used (Goldberg 1992 ; Vermulst and Gerris 2005 ). This questionnaire applies a 7-point Likert scale with a response format ranging from 1 ( Completely untrue ) to 7 ( Completely true ), to assess five personality dimensions: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Emotional Stability, and Openness to Experience. It consists of 30 adjectives, six per personality trait, such as “imaginative” (Openness to Experience), “organized” (Conscientiousness), “talkative” (Extraversion), “sympathetic” (Agreeableness), and “worried” (Emotional Stability, reverse coded). Mothers, fathers, and adolescents addressed these adjectives with reference to themselves. Previous studies have shown that this instrument has adequate reliability and validity when administered among adolescents (Klimstra et al. 2009b ). In the current study the Cronbach’s α ’s across waves and across the Big Five dimensions ranged between α’s = 0.72–0.89 (adolescent reports), α’s = 0.84–0.91 (mother reports), and α’s = 0.79–0.91 (father reports).

Attrition and Missing Values

The majority of adolescents (85.7%), mothers (84.5%), and fathers (75.5%) were still involved in the study at Wave 6, and the average participation rate across the six waves was 90.4, 90.2, and 81.7%, for adolescents, mothers, and fathers, respectively. Little’s MCAR test (Little 1988 ) was significant [ χ 2 (8308) = 9216, p  = 0.000], but the normed χ 2 /df (9216/8308 = 1.11) indicated that the assumption of missingness being completely at random was not seriously violated. Therefore, data from all 497 families could be included in the analyses using Full Information Maximum Likelihood.

The study was approved by the medical ethics committee of Utrecht University (METC). Before the start of the study, parents were required to provide informed consent, and adolescents to provide assent. Adolescents and parents filled out questionnaires during annual home visits. Trained research assistants provided verbal instructions in addition to written instructions that accompanied the questionnaires. Confidentiality was guaranteed, and the data were processed anonymously. Each wave families received 100 euros for their participation.

Analytic Plan

The first analytic step consisted of testing measurement invariance of the Negative Interactions scale across the four reports, within each wave (Van de Schoot et al. 2012 ) using MPlus 8.2 (Muthén and Muthén 1996– 2018 ). To account for dependency in the observations, Type=COMPLEX and a unique family code as clustering variable were used. After specifying a univariate model in which the six items loaded on one latent factor, the function automatically estimated a configural, a metric, and a scalar invariance model, corresponding to equality of the factor structure, the item loadings, and the item intercepts and loadings, respectively. A maximum likelihood estimator with robust standard errors was chosen, given the right-skew of the scale. Also, for each reporter, longitudinal measurement invariance of the Negative Interactions scale across the six waves was tested, using the meas Eq.syntax function of the semTools package in R (Jorgensen et al. 2018 ).

To answer the first research question on the trajectories of parent–adolescent conflict intensity across adolescence, four univariate Latent Growth Curve Models (LGCM, Wang and Wang 2012 ) were applied in lavaan (Rosseel 2012 ), separately for the AM, AF, MA, and FA reports. For each model, it was first examined whether linear or quadratic slope fit the data best, based on model fit indices (CFI, TLI, RMSEA, SRMR, and BIC). To ease comparisons and interpretation, in case the quadratic slope fit the model better compared to the linear, piecewise LGCM was applied. For that purpose, a series of LGCM was run, where the “knot,” that is, the point the slope would be split into two linear pieces, was tested in different time points. These models were compared in terms of model fit (CFI, TLI, RMSEA, and SRMR), and the model that fit the data best was selected as the piecewise model of choice.

To answer the second research question, regarding the development of parent–adolescent discrepancies in conflict intensity, the following steps were applied. First, Latent Congruence Modeling (Cheung 2009 ; Ksinan and Vazsonyi 2016 ) was used to estimate two latent factors, based on two reports (e.g., AM and MA reports). The latent mean level factor captures the mean of the two reports, and each of the two reports has a factor loading of 1 on this factor. The latent congruence factor captures the latent difference of the two reports by constraining the first reporter’s (here, the adolescent’s) loadings to 0.5 and the other reporter’s (here, the parent’s) to −0.5. The latent congruence factor was estimated separately for each dyad (mother–adolescent; father–adolescent) and each year of measurement (T1–T6). For each of these models, the latent congruence factor scores were saved. Second, LGCMs were applied on the saved scores for mother–adolescent and father–adolescent dyads separately. For the LGCMs, the same steps as those regarding answering the first research question were followed.

To answer the third research question on the role of personality types, the growth patterns of the Big Five were first investigated separately for adolescents, and parents, to determine the shape of the curve, as well as the existence of significant variance around the mean estimates. Next, Latent Class Growth Analysis (LCGA, Jung and Wickrama 2008 ; Nagin 2005 ) was applied in M plus 8.2 (Muthén and Muthén 1996 – 2018 ) on the resulting trajectories of the Big Five traits, separately for adolescents and parents, as a means to investigate different personality type trajectories of adolescents and parents. Gender was controlled for, to account for the gender differences in personality (Klimstra et al. 2009a ). The number of classes was decided based on both theoretical and empirical grounds. Theoretically, a three-class solution was expected, resembling Block and Block’s ( 1980 ) RUO typology. On the empirical level, a lower sample-adjusted Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC), a higher entropy (classification accuracy), and a significant Vuong-Lo-Mendel-Rubin Likelihood Ratio Test (VLMR-LRT) were used as criteria for the number of classes. Third, the resulting latent personality classes were used as predictors of the intercepts and slopes of the four univariate LGCMs for conflict intensity (i.e., for the AM, AF, MA, and FA reports of conflict intensity), and the two LGCMs for the discrepancies in conflict intensity. Specifically, dummy variables were created for each personality type. The intercepts and the slopes of conflict intensity in the mother–adolescent relationship as reported by mothers and adolescents (in separate models) and discrepancies in mother–adolescent conflict intensity were regressed on adolescent and maternal personality types. Similarly, the intercepts and the slopes of conflict intensity in the father–adolescent relationship as reported by fathers and adolescents (in separate models) and discrepancies in father–adolescent conflict intensity were regressed on adolescent and paternal personality types.

Descriptive Statistics

Table ​ Table1 1 provides the means, standard deviations, and bivariate correlations of all conflict intensity scores across waves.

Means, standard deviations, and correlations for the longitudinal scores on the Negative Interactions scale

M mean, SD standard deviation, SES socio-economic status, Adol.-Moth. adolescent report for mother, Adol.-Fath . adolescent report for father, neg1–neg6 negative interaction score on Wave 1 through Wave 6

* p  < 0.05; ** p  < 0.01; *** p  < 0.001

Measurement Invariance of the Negative Interactions scale

As seen in Table S1 (see Supplemental information), all models supported scalar invariance across reporters, for all waves, as well as across waves. Imposing restrictions for equality of factor loadings, and subsequently for item intercepts, did not lead to worse fit beyond the recommended thresholds ( Δ CFI ≤ 0.010, Δ TLI ≤ 0.010, Δ RMSEA ≤ 0.015, Cheung and Rensvold 2002 ). Also, the scalar models were in all cases those with the lowest BIC, therefore achieving the best parsimony-to-fit balance among the three models (configural, metric, scalar).

Development of Conflict Intensity across Adolescence

For all four Latent Growth Curve Models, a non-linear slope fit the data better compared to a linear slope (Table S2, in Supplemental information). Therefore, a series of piecewise LGCMs was applied, to detect the time point where the knot fit best (Wang and Wang 2012 ). The time where the knot fit the data best was Wave 3 (adolescent age 15 years) for adolescent-father reports, and Wave 4 (adolescent age 16 years) for adolescent-mother reports and mother- and father-reports of conflict intensity.

Table ​ Table2 2 presents the intercepts and slopes for these four LGCMs (see also Fig. ​ Fig.1). 1 ). According to adolescents, conflict intensity with their mothers and fathers increased from early to middle adolescence (ages 13 to 16 for adolescents’ relationship with their mothers, and ages 13 to 15 for adolescents’ relationship with their fathers), and then remained stable. According to mothers and fathers, conflict with their adolescents remained stable from early to middle adolescence (ages 13 to 16) and then decreased until age 18. For most intercepts and slopes, there was significant variance around the average estimates, which indicates that families differ in level and change in parent–adolescent conflict intensity.

Growth parameter estimates (means and variances) of the latent growth curve models for adolescent-, mother-, and father-reported conflict intensity, and the latent growth curve models for mother–adolescent and father–adolescent discrepancies in conflict intensity

AM adolescent report for mother, AF adolescent report for father, MA mother report for adolescent, FA father report for adolescent

Developmental trajectories of adolescent-, and parent-reported conflict intensity across adolescence

Development of Parent–Adolescent Discrepancies in Conflict Intensity

Table S3 (in Supplemental information) presents the means and the variances of the Latent Congruency Models, for adolescent-mother, and adolescent-father dyads, across the six waves. The LGCMs on the saved congruence scores were used to investigate the development of parent–adolescent discrepancies in conflict intensity (Cheung 2009 ). Table S2 (in Supplemental information) presents the fit indices of models with linear, quadratic, and piecewise modeling of development. As non-linear growth showed a better fit compared to linear growth, a piecewise model to investigate latent change was fit, to ease interpretability.

Table ​ Table2 2 presents the means and variances of the latent intercepts and slopes for the development of mother–adolescent and father–adolescent discrepancies in conflict intensity (see also Fig. ​ Fig.2). 2 ). In mother–adolescent dyads, the intercept was positive and significant, indicating that adolescents reported more conflict intensity than their mothers. The slope from Wave 1 (adolescent age 13 years) to Wave 4 (adolescent age 16 years) was positive and significant, indicating that, on average, mothers’ and adolescents’ perceptions of conflict intensity in their relationship further diverged in this age range. The slope from Wave 4 (adolescent age 16 years) to Wave 6 (adolescent age 18 years) was non-significant, indicating that, on average, mother–adolescent discrepancies remained stable in this age range. In father–adolescent dyads, the intercept was close to zero. That is, on average, fathers and adolescents held similar perceptions of conflict intensity in their relationship at Wave 1. However, both slope 1 (Wave 1 to Wave 3; adolescent age 13 years to 15 years) and slope 2 (Wave 3 to Wave 6; adolescent age 15 years to 18 years) were positive and significant, indicating that, over the course of adolescence, adolescents reported increasingly higher conflict intensity than fathers did. Two cycles that comprise this increasing divergence can be seen by inspecting the univariate LGCMs on adolescent-father and father–adolescent reports of conflict intensity. From early to middle adolescence (age 13 years to 15 years), the divergence emerged because adolescents perceived an increase in conflict intensity whereas their fathers reported stable levels of conflict, but from middle to late adolescence (age 15 years to 18 years), the divergence is due to the decline in perceptions of conflict intensity by fathers while adolescents reported stable levels of conflict intensity.

Developmental trajectories of adolescent-father, and adolescent-mother absolute discrepancies in conflict intensity across adolescence

Personality Types

To examine whether personality types could predict the development of conflict intensity and the heterogeneity thereof, personality types were first constructed. Table ​ Table3 3 presents the results of the Latent Class Growth Analyses (Nagin 2005 ). For both adolescents and parents, a solution with three classes was selected, upon theoretical, interpretative, and statistical grounds. For adolescents, a 3-class solution had lower BIC and higher entropy compared to a 2-class solution, and a significant VLMR-LRT. A 4-class solution had lower BIC and higher entropy, but a non-significant VLMR-LRT compared to the 3-class solution. Further, interpreting the four classes became difficult because two classes overlapped significantly (see also Figs S1–S2 in Supplemental information). Adolescents were roughly equally spread among the three classes: 183 adolescents (36.8%) in class 1, 156 (31.4%) in class 2, and 158 (31.8%) in class 3. Inspecting the mean intercepts and slopes of the Big Five of these classes (Fig. S1 and Table S4, in Supplemental information) led us to label them “Resilients,” “Overcontrollers,” and “Undercontrollers,” respectively. Resilients scored high on all Big Five factors. Overcontrollers scored the lowest on Emotional Stability and Extraversion, and Undercontrollers scored the lowest scores on Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, and Openness.

Fit Indices for the latent class growth analyses models with different numbers of classes

aBIC sample-adjusted Bayesian Information Criterion, VLMR-LRT Vuong-Lo-Mendel-Rubin Likelihood Ratio Test

For parents, a solution with 3-classes showed lower BIC and higher entropy compared to a 2-class solution, and higher BIC but still higher entropy compared to a 4-class solution. Inspection of the 3- and the 4-class solutions showed overlap among classes in the 4-class solution (see also Figs S3 and S4 in Supplemental information). Inspecting the mean intercepts and slopes of the Big Five of these classes (Fig. S3 and Table S5, in Supplemental information), led us to label them “Resilients,” “Overcontrollers,” and “Undercontrollers,” respectively. Most parents (mothers: n  = 245, 49.3%; fathers: n  = 211, 46.2%) were in the Resilient class, with the rest being equally distributed as Overcontrollers (mothers: n  = 135, 27.2%; fathers: n  = 118, 25.8%), and Undercontrollers (mothers: n  = 117, 23.5%; fathers: n  = 128, 28%). Resilients scored significantly higher than the other two classes on all Big Five factors, and they also showed increasing levels on all factors, contrary to the other classes. Overcontrollers showed the lowest Emotional Stability, Extraversion, and Openness, whereas Undercontrollers showed the lowest Conscientiousness.

Personality Types and the Development of Parent–Adolescent Conflict Intensity, and Discrepancies in Conflict Intensity

Three dummy variables were created, indicating the presence of each personality type. A series of analyses were run to compare Overcontrollers and Undercontrollers with Resilients. In these analyses, the intercepts and slopes of conflict intensity and discrepancies in conflict intensity were regressed on the dummy variables indicating Overcontrollers (0 = no, 1 = yes) and Undercontrollers (0 = no, 1 = yes). To compare Overcontrollers with Undercontrollers, a series of analyses were run using Resilient dummy and Undercontroller dummy as predictors.

Table ​ Table4 4 presents the regression coefficients of the intercepts of conflict intensity and discrepancies in conflict intensity on adolescent, maternal, and paternal personality. No significant results emerged regarding regressions of slopes, indicating that personality did not predict the rate of change in conflict intensity, and therefore, these results are omitted from the table.

Regression coefficients (Unstandardized Β , and Standardized β ) and confidence intervals for the prediction of the intercepts of conflict intensity and discrepancies in conflict intensity by adolescent and parental personality type

U Undercontroller, R Resilient, O Overcontroller, AM adolescent report for mother, MA mother report for adolescent, AF adolescent report for father, FA father report for adolescent, M-A discrepancies between the adolescent–mother, and mother–adolescent reports, F-A discrepancies between the adolescent–father, and father–adolescent reports C.I. confidence intervals

Regarding adolescent personality, the intercept of adolescent-reported conflict intensity with mothers and with fathers was higher for undercontrolling and for overcontrolling adolescents than for Resilients. Undercontrolling adolescents had a higher intercept of conflict intensity reported by mothers than Resilients. Finally, father–adolescent discrepancies were larger for overcontrolling adolescents than for resilient adolescents.

When considering maternal personality, the intercepts of both mother- and adolescent-reported conflict intensity were significantly higher for undercontrolling and overcontrolling mothers than for resilient mothers. No differences were found between undercontrolling and overcontrolling mothers. Also, no significant differences emerged on mother–adolescent discrepancies.

For paternal personality, the intercept of father-reported conflict intensity was significantly higher for undercontrolling and overcontrolling fathers than for resilient fathers. The intercept of father–adolescent discrepancies was lower for undercontrolling fathers than for resilient fathers, indicating that undercontrolling fathers reported higher conflict compared to their adolescents, thus, larger discrepancies (the overall intercept was zero, see Table ​ Table2 2 ).

Sensitivity Analysis

Given gender differences in parent–adolescent relationship quality (De Goede et al. 2009 ), and the possible influence of family socioeconomic status on parent–adolescent relationship quality, additional analyses were run in which the intercept and the two slopes of each model were regressed on gender and SES. The regression coefficients of the intercepts and slopes on gender and SES were mostly non-significant, except for mother-reported conflict intensity. In that case, gender and SES had a significant effect on the intercept only, indicating that mothers of girls and mothers in lower-SES families reported a higher level of conflict intensity. As can be seen in Table S6 and Table S7 of the supplementary information, 4 out of the 18 means in the latent growth models (research questions 1 and 2), and 2 out of the 36 regression coefficients regarding the effect of personality types (research question 3) changed significance. However, the effect sizes did not change substantially, indicating that including covariates increased the standard errors.

The following differences emerged in the models that controlled for gender and SES, compared to the models without covariates. Father-reported conflict intensity did not show a significant decrease from middle-to-late adolescence. Similarly, mother–adolescent discrepancies did not increase significantly during early-to-middle adolescence, but they did increase significantly from middle-to-late adolescence. Father–adolescent discrepancies did not increase further in middle-to-late adolescence. Finally, the effect of undercontrolling adolescents on mother-reported conflict intensity and the effect of overcontrolling adolescents on adolescent-reported conflict intensity with fathers turned non-significant.

Parent–adolescent relationships tend to be characterized by conflicts. The intensity of those conflicts can be perceived differently by parents and adolescents. Conflict intensity and discrepancies in the perceptions of parents and adolescents might reflect the restructuring of the parent–adolescent relationship that takes place during this period (e.g., De Los Reyes and Ohannessian 2016 ). In addition, adolescents’ and parents’ personality types might affect how the parent–adolescent relationship transforms. Past research has shown that according to adolescents, conflict intensity changes curvilinearly across adolescence (De Goede et al. 2009 ), but the views of parents are often overlooked. Given the significance of parent–adolescent conflict intensity and discrepancies in parents’ and adolescents’ perceptions for adolescent adjustment (e.g., Branje 2018 ), the current study examined the trajectories of parent–adolescent conflict intensity as perceived by adolescents, mothers, and fathers, as well as the trajectories of the discrepancies in perceptions of conflict intensity. Additionally, the current study examined the role of parental and adolescent personality types in these trajectories.

Development of Parent–Adolescent Conflict Intensity across Adolescence

By addressing mothers’, fathers’, and adolescents’ perceptions of conflict intensity, the results of this study add to the knowledge that has resulted from past research regarding conflict intensity trajectories. First, in agreement with some previous studies (De Goede et al. 2009 ; McGue et al. 2005 ), and contrary to others (Galambos and Almeida 1992 ), this study found that adolescent-reported conflict intensity increases from early to middle adolescence. Second, by following the same adolescents beyond middle adolescence, this study showed that adolescent-reported conflict intensity is stable from middle to late adolescence. Third, and most importantly, this study showed that the trajectories of conflict intensity differed among parents and adolescents, such that parents perceived initially stable, and then declining levels of conflict intensity. These results offer more clarity to the developmental trajectories of parent–adolescent conflict intensity by showing what trend is perceived by whom.

In agreement with the theoretically expected gap in parents’ and adolescents’ expectations for autonomy (Deković et al. 1997 ), adolescents perceived interactions with their parents as increasingly negative from early to middle adolescence, while parents experienced stable levels of negativity. Given that conflict intensity assessed the mutual negativity in the dyadic relationship, and not specifically how annoyed adolescents get with their parents, or parents with adolescents, this increasing adolescent-reported conflict intensity implies that there are factors that affect adolescents’ perceptions. For example, recent evidence linking increasing parent–adolescent conflicts with pubertal timing and tempo supports this notion (Marceau et al. 2015 ).

The results of the current study suggest that in the perceptions of adolescents, the intensity of conflict remains stable from middle to late adolescence, and stays higher than in parents’ perceptions, which reflected a decrease in conflict intensity. These findings are in line with earlier findings that adolescents perceived higher conflict engagement than parents (Van Doorn et al. 2011 ). The results show that the improvement of parent-child relationship quality is not reflected similarly in adolescents’ and parents’ perceptions. The decrease in conflict intensity after middle adolescence as perceived by parents might be a sign of relationship improvement. But at the same time, adolescent-perceived levels remained stable, and they were still higher compared to before middle adolescence. Therefore, relationship improvement is not reflected in adolescent-perceived conflict intensity. Given that adolescents become more autonomous from parents after middle-adolescence (Hadiwijaya et al. 2017 ), parents might perceive this as relationship improvement, but adolescents still feel that there is an elevated tension in the relationship with their parents.

Development of Parent–Adolescent Discrepancies in Conflict Intensity across Adolescence

In agreement with theoretical views on the change in parent–adolescent relationship during adolescence (Collins and Laursen 1992 ), increasing discrepancies from early to middle adolescence were found. This finding concurs with the notion that during adolescence, a needs-opportunities mismatch emerges (Eccles et al. 1993 ), which leads to increasing parent–adolescent discrepancies. Besides, the fact that parent-perceived conflict intensity is lower than adolescents’ perceptions indicates that adolescents’ increasing frustration is not fully outed. Indeed, poor communication is one reason for discrepant parent–adolescent perceptions (De Los Reyes et al. 2016 ; Ehrlich et al. 2016 ). Even though overall low negativity prevails, parents and adolescents hold all the more diverging views on how much negativity exists in their relationship.

The results concur with existing theoretical accounts (e.g., De Los Reyes and Ohannessian 2016 ), and empirical research (De Haan et al. 2017 ) that discrepancies are useful to explore further because they are not measurement error. Measurement error was taken into account in the current study by applying a latent-variable technique (Córdova et al. 2016 ). Additionally, if discrepancies were random error, then the meaningful longitudinal patterns that were found in this study would be unlikely to emerge (De Los Reyes and Kazdin 2005 ).

The current study offers empirical support to the proposition of the Operations Triad Model (De Los Reyes and Ohannessian 2016 ), which stipulates that diverging views on family-related concepts reflect evolving family dynamics. In agreement with this proposition, the divergence in parent–adolescent perceptions found in this study indicates two underlying processes in the family. The increasing discrepancies in early-to-middle adolescence were mainly due to the increasing intensity of conflict as perceived by adolescents. The further divergence from middle-to-late adolescence in the father–adolescent relationship could mostly be attributed to the decreasing negativity as perceived by fathers. Thus, these results show that the restructuring of the parent–adolescent relationship (Hadiwijaya et al. 2017 ) is not just a reflection of adolescent maturation, but also change in parental views.

As noted recently (De Los Reyes et al. 2019 ), a developmental approach to discrepancies can help elucidate whether increased discrepancies reflect normative parent–adolescent dynamics during adolescence or risk. The average trajectories found in the current study show that increased parent–adolescent discrepancies seem to be normative. However, given that discrepancies have been shown to have negative repercussions for adolescent adaptation (Nelemans et al. 2016 ), the significant variance around the increasing divergence found in the current study might imply a threat to the relationship, for some dyads. Like a double-edged sword, the decrease in father-perceived conflict intensity and the concomitant increase in discrepancies might prove a threat for some father–adolescent dyads. Future research examining the co-development of parent–adolescent discrepancies with parent and adolescent adaptation may help elucidate this possibility.

Personality Typologies and Development of Parent–Adolescent (Discrepancies in) Conflict Intensity

Adolescent and parental personality significantly and meaningfully predicted differences in both the trajectories of parent–adolescent conflict intensity and the trajectories of parent–adolescent discrepancies in conflict intensity. As expected, resilient adolescents, mothers, and fathers reported the lowest levels of conflict intensity, whereas resilient adolescents, and fathers also showed the lowest discrepancies. These results support the hypothesis that individual differences, operationalized as personality types, explain differences in how much negativity parents and adolescents experience in their relationship, as well as how differently they perceive their relationship (Belsky 1984 ).

Across reporters, personality type had an effect on self-reported conflict intensity (“actor effects”). Compared to Overcontrollers and Underconrtollers, resilient adolescents, mothers, and fathers perceived lower conflict intensity, which is in agreement with extant research (Denissen et al. 2007 ). Having a more flexible personality type allows individuals to more easily adapt to contextual demands (Block and Block 1980 ), and might as such be associated with less intense conflictual interactions.

Furthermore, personality type also had an effect on the conflict intensity as perceived by the partner (“partner effects”), but this pattern held only for the mother–adolescent dyad. Specifically, mothers perceived undercontrolling adolescents as the most aggravating, implying that having a “difficult” adolescent child is more emotionally demanding for the mothers. This finding is in agreement with studies showing, for example, that parent–adolescent relationships tend to be worse in families in which adolescents have more internalizing or externalizing problems (Crocetti et al. 2016 ), or difficulties in their identity development (Crocetti et al. 2017 ). Other studies, however, failed to find an effect of having an “easy” versus a difficult adolescent on parenting (de Haan et al. 2012 ). Similarly, adolescents with resilient mothers perceived lower conflict intensity than adolescents with overcontrolling or undercontrolling mothers. Thus, having an undercontrolling or an overcontrolling mother poses a challenge in adolescents, as it leads them to experience higher negativity, compared to having a resilient mother. The fact that no partner effects emerged in the father–adolescent dyad indicates that the level of frustration fathers and adolescents perceive in their relationship does not depend on the dyadic partner’s personality.

In addition, personality types were also associated with discrepancies, yet only in father–adolescent dyads. In dyads with overcontrolling adolescents, compared to dyads with a resilient adolescent, the divergence among adolescent and paternal perceptions of conflict intensity was higher. Perhaps overcontrolling adolescents do not express as openly their negative emotions in their relationship with their father, leaving fathers less aware of the negativity in their relationship. Additionally, paternal personality type made a difference in father–adolescent conflict intensity discrepancies. Being an undercontrolling father had a negative impact on father–adolescent discrepancies compared to being a resilient father, indicating that in these dyads fathers reported more conflict intensity than adolescents. Because, on average, the intercept of father–adolescent discrepancies was zero, the negative coefficient found for undercontrolling fathers indicates that this type is associated with higher discrepancies, compared to resilient fathers. Given the detrimental effects specifically of father–adolescent divergence for adolescent adaptation (e.g., Nelemans et al. 2016 ), this finding means that for adolescents with an undercontrolling father the transition to a more egalitarian parent–adolescent relationship likely starts upon a more turbulent basis. Furthermore, that the development of discrepancies does not depend on personality types indicates that, in agreement with the idea of the diverging operations of the Operations Triad Model (De Los Reyes and Ohannessian 2016 ), the development of parent–adolescent discrepancies in conflict intensity may reflect normative processes of adolescent development, irrespective of individual differences.

Maternal and paternal personality types were associated with parent–adolescent discrepancies differently. Mother–adolescent discrepancies were predicted by neither maternal nor adolescent personality, whereas father–adolescent discrepancies were predicted by both adolescent (being an Overcontroller compared to being Resilient) and paternal (being an Undercontroller, compared to being Resilient) personality. It seems that mother–adolescent discrepancies may reflect normative developmental trends in the mother–adolescent relationship, whereas the father–adolescent discrepancies are more open to other effects. The present study adds to recent research showing that, compared to the maternal role, the paternal role may be more prone to external influences, such as the influence of the interparental relationship (Mastrotheodoros et al. 2019 ) or the mental health of their wife (Kouros et al. 2014 ).

Limitations, Strengths and Future Directions

Some limitations should be taken into account in this study. First, the study consisted of self-reported data. Even though self-report can be a strong method to assess internal states, conflict intensity could also be assessed with observations of parent–adolescent interactions. Using observations along with discrepancies in self-reports might elucidate further aspects of the transforming parent–adolescent relationship. Second, the sample consisted mainly of middle- and upper-middle class Dutch families and results might differ in lower SES families. For example, lower SES families might experience higher levels of stress and might lack coping mechanisms that would allow them to withhold stress from spilling over to create conflict (Conger et al. 2000 ). Furthermore, the sample comes from the Netherlands, a relatively affluent western country, with low unemployment rates and a good social security network. These may make for a higher level of family well-being compared to other countries. This characteristic, coupled with the upper-middle class SES of this sample, might imply that the generalizability of this study may be limited.

In spite of these limitations, this study offers new insights into the development of parent–adolescent conflict intensity, by using a relatively large, multi-informant, and longitudinal design following families across adolescence. Specifically, this is the first study to investigate the trajectories of conflict intensity across adolescence, taking into account the views of mothers, fathers, and adolescents. Also, this is among the first studies to investigate the trajectories of parent–adolescent discrepancies, across adolescence, while taking into account the personality types of mothers, fathers, and adolescents. Hence, the current study offers new insights into how the parent–adolescent relationship transforms during adolescence.

Future studies could benefit from examining the trajectories of discrepancies in an expanded developmental time-frame, also including the period before and after adolescence. A more comprehensive view of how discrepancies develop could be reached by incorporating mother and father reports, along with child reports for mothers and fathers separately in longitudinal studies of other periods of development. In addition, investigating the development of family relationships from the perspective of different family members along with indices of adaptation might provide a better understanding of the restructuring of the parent–adolescent relationship. Similarly, investigating possible outcomes of the rate of change in discrepancies, controlling for the level of discrepancies, could prove a useful next step in discrepancy research.

Parent–adolescent conflict intensity is one aspect of adolescence that has attracted much attention from the popular media and the research community alike (Laursen et al. 1998 ). Conflict is often a mechanism that forges change in the parent–adolescent relationship (Branje 2018 ), and, therefore, it is important to understand how it develops during adolescence. However, parents and adolescents experience their conflicts differently (Van Lissa et al. 2015 ), and taking parental and adolescent perceptions into account is necessary to get a comprehensive picture of conflict intensity. By incorporating more than one informant, however, discrepancies arise among the different reports, and these discrepancies can indicate family processes (De Los Reyes and Ohannessian 2016 ), like the restructuring of the parent–adolescent relationship. This study investigated the trajectories of parent–adolescent conflict intensity across adolescence, according to mothers, fathers, and adolescents. Also, this study examined the trajectories of parent–adolescent discrepancies and the predictive role of parental and adolescent personality in the development of conflict intensity and discrepancies in conflict intensity. The results showed that parents and adolescents hold different views of conflict intensity, and these differences give rise to discrepancies. Conflict intensity increased only according to adolescents. The two cycles of discrepancies that emerged indicate that the restructuring of the parent–adolescent relationship is not only a matter of adolescent maturation but a matter of parent–adolescent alignment. The level of conflict intensity in the parent–adolescent relationship was lower in families with resilient parents or adolescents, implying that the way toward parent–adolescent alignment might be shorter for families with resilient parents or adolescents. These findings have implications for understanding adolescence, giving insights into the processes of re-alignment of the parent–adolescent relationship. In the process of re-alignment, parent–adolescent discrepancies can be normative, with adolescents feeling more frustrated than parents, also during late adolescence.

Supplementary information

Authors’ contributions.

S.M. conceived of the study, performed the statistical analyses, interpreted the results, and drafted the manuscript; J.G. was involved in the interpretation of the results, and drafted the manuscript critically; M.D. was involved in the interpretation of the results, and drafted the manuscript critically; and W.M., and S.B. designed the study, coordinated the data collection, were involved in the interpretation of results, and revised the manuscript critically. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Data from the RADAR study were used. RADAR has been financially supported by main grants from the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (GB-MAGW 480-03-005, GB-MAGW 480-08-006, GB-MAGW 481-08-014), from a grant to the Consortium Individual Development (Grant 024.001.003) from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, and from grants by Stichting Achmea Slachtoffer en Samenleving (SASS).

Data Sharing and Declaration

Data from wave 1 to 6 analysed during the current study are available in the DANS repository (10.17026/dans-zrb-v5wp).

Biographies

is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Youth and Family, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He holds a PhD from the University of Athens, Greece, where he studied the development of personal identity from middle to late adolescence. He currently conducts a second PhD at Utrecht University, investigating the determinants of parenting and the development of parent–adolescent relationships during adolescence.

is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Youth and Family, Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She received her PhD in 2014. Her research focuses on the development of empathy and prosocial behavior in adolescence, as well as the associations with adolescents’ relationships and social adjustment.

is a Professor at the Department of Clinical Child and Family Studies, at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. Her major research interests include the development of child and adolescent problem behavior and family and peer relationships.

is a Professor at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. He received his doctorate in Social Psychology from Utrecht University, the Netherlands. His major research interests include identity and personality development, personal relationships, and psychological problems in adolescence.

is a Professor at Utrecht University, the Netherlands. She received her doctorate in 2003 from the Radboud University Nijmegen. Her major research interests include understanding the developmental changes in adolescents’ relationships with parents, siblings, friends, and romantic partners and the associations with development of adolescent personality, identity, and adjustment.

Compliance with Ethical Standards

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The board of the local research institute, the Medical Ethical Committee of the Utrecht Medical Centre and the VU Medical Centre, The Netherlands, approved this study.

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study, for each wave separately after explaining their role and their rights in the study and before starting data collection.

Publisher’s note: Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

The online version of this article (10.1007/s10964-019-01054-7) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

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Marta, E., Alfieri, S. (2014). Family Conflicts. In: Michalos, A.C. (eds) Encyclopedia of Quality of Life and Well-Being Research. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-0753-5_997

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Shakespeare’s Hamlet: Analyzing Parent and Child Relationships

In William Shakespeare’s timeless tragedy, Hamlet, the relationship between parents and their offspring is complex and nuanced. The protagonist grapples with his duty to avenge his father’s murder while also confronting his own guilt and responsibility as a kid. Similarly, Queen Mother Gertrude struggles to balance her role as a mom with her duty to her new husband, King Claudius.

The play also explores the overbearing and controlling behavior of Polonius towards his children, Laertes and Ophelia, which leads to tragic consequences. Through examining these relations, we gain a deeper understanding of the enduring power and relevance of family love and conflicts.

List of Characters in Hamlet

Family Relationships

This William Shakespeare play provides numerous examples of the intricate and tumultuous dynamics of parenthood and family relations, making it a rich source of material for essay examples.

The difficulties of parenthood and family ties are one of the main themes. Although Hamlet has great admiration and respect for his father, the king’s assassination complicates his relationship with the rest of the family. It also depicts the complicated bond between him and his mother, Queen Gertrude. Their connection is strained as a result of her hurried marriage to Hamlet’s uncle following the passing of her husband.

Exploring the Damaging Effects of Overbearing Parenting

Parenting is a topic that is often discussed in lots of literary works. In examples of the Hamlet revenge essay, one of the central explored themes is the complex relations in the family. For instance, the bond between Polonius and his kids, Laertes and Ophelia, highlights the damaging effects of overbearing and controlling fatherhood. Alternatively, the protagonist’s feelings of abandonment by his mother and uncle show the destructive consequences of parental neglect.

The author delves into the universal themes that underlie the parent-child bond. The interplay of these emotions not only drives the play’s plot but also offers insights into the reasons that both unite and divide families. In this way, the depiction of parent-child connections serves as a moving reminder of the significant influence that parenthood has on their kids’ lives.

The Impact of a Father’s Death on Revenge in Hamlet

The father-son relationship is a central theme, particularly when involving revenge in an essay on Hamlet. His wish for vengeance is driven by obedience and a sense of duty to avenge his father’s murder. Yet, this is complicated by the fact that he is left to grapple with his grief and anger alone and cannot count on many allies by his side.

Hamlet and his father are shown to have a loving, adoring, and respectful connection. Hamlet sees his father as a mentor and a source of direction, so his passing crushed him. The love and loyalty for him as well as a sense of responsibility to uphold justice are what drives him to seek revenge.

The Psychological Effects of Parental Loss and Betrayal in Hamlet

Aside from swinging between sorrow and rage, Hamlet is also constantly tormented by the desire to satisfy his father’s wish. The fact that his ghost follows him everywhere and reminds him that he must exact retribution doesn’t help his mental stability.

King Claudius, the uncle, and stepfather, serves as another lens through which the father-son bond is examined. The King is shown as a cunning and dishonest individual who killed his own brother to take control. The hatred and disgust towards the King are fueled by his loyalty to his father and his wish for revenge.

Mother-Son Relationship

The complicated and tense relationship between Hamlet and his mother, the Queen, is another central theme. The deep resentment towards her stems from her hasty union with his uncle following the passing of his father. This act is seen as a betrayal of his dad’s memory and fuels his anger and disgust toward his mother.

However, this resentment is complicated by his love for her. He struggles to balance his loyalty to his deceased father and his urge to care for and protect her. Throughout, interactions with the Queen are marked by these conflicting emotions. He oscillates between expressing anger and disgust and showing moments of tenderness and concern.

Exploring this relationship in an essay on Hamlet provides an opportunity to delve into the nuances of this complex dynamic. You could analyze how the mother-son connection theme affects their character development.

Struggle with Betrayal and Mistrust

Hamlet’s constant struggle with his feelings is a powerful example of how doubt and mistrust can bring about disaster. This topic in particular is a complex one that has been explored since ancient Greek literature and would surely deserve more space. For instance, an essay about Hamlet could explore the complex dynamics between Hamlet and his mother from this perspective. It may analyze how it contributes to the play’s overall themes of love, loyalty, and betrayal. These are all subjects greatly explored in all sorts of works by the English writer and can be linked to other writings aside from Hamlet. The essay could also examine how this relationship impacts others and how it contributes to their final tragic fate.

Exploring the Conflicts

The conflict between adults and kids is a theme that drives much of the action. It encompasses a complicated web of feelings underpinning family connections. The problematic relationship between Hamlet and both of his parents is the most vivid example. As seen, his father is both a source of pride but, ultimately, the reason for his disgrace. If he wasn’t obsessively pushing for revenge, Hamlet would have survived. Similarly, his mother is also conflicted between caring for herself (by marrying Claudius) and trying to comfort his son.

In the end, however, it all goes down to self-interest and material gain. Essays on Hamlet could explore the various conflicts among family members and how power breaks blood bonds. Also, the eternal conflict between adults and kids offers rich material for literary analysis and interpretation.

Intricate and tense, reflecting the complexity of human emotions, William Shakespeare challenges us to investigate the forces that define these relations and how they affect individuals. From conflicted feelings towards his family to the tragic consequences of these conflicts, the Hamlet play offers a rich source of material for literary analysis and interpretation.

Ultimately, the enduring power of this artwork lies in its ability to tap into universal themes and emotions. Allowing us to connect with the protagonists and their struggles and to gain deeper insights into the human experience.

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