How parents cause children’s friendships to end

E. Schmidt College of Science. “Our study is the first to include both parent characteristics and peer social status in the same model to identify the unique contributions of parents to child friendship stability.”

Laursen, who collaborated with lead author Daniel J. Dickson, Ph.D., and co-author Melissa Huey, Ph.D., both of whom received their doctorates from FAU’s Department of Psychology, and their collaborators in Finland wanted to determine if negative parenting characteristics such as manipulative and coercive behaviors disrupt children’s friendships.

Results from the study found clear support for their hypothesis that negative features of parenting, such as depression and psychological control, increase the risk that best friendships would end. For children with clinically depressed parents, the risk of best friendship dissolution increased by up to 104 percent. There was a similar, although not quite as dramatic, increase in the risk of best friendship dissolution for children with psychologically controlling parents.

Parent depression and parent psychological control uniquely predicted subsequent child friendships breaking up, above and beyond contributions of peer difficulties.

A surprising finding from the study that was contrary to the researchers’ expectations was that they did not find any evidence that positive parenting behaviors like warmth and affection altered the stability of children’s best friendships. dissolving within a year of initiation.

“Depressed and psychologically controlling parents create an affective climate that is detrimental to a child’s wellbeing, with problems that spill over into the peer social world. Best friendships are one causality of this affective spillover,” said Laursen. “We believe that children with depressed and psychologically controlling parents are not learning healthy strategies for engaging with other people, which could have long-term consequences for their future relationships.”