Family Structure and Children’s Mental Health: The Mediating Role of Parent-Child Communication and Conflict

This seminar is organised by LIEPP's Family Policies research group.

Room 327 , 199 bd St Germain , 75007 Paris

Abstract

Background: This study examines how family structure (two biological parents, one-parent and stepparent households) influences children’s mental health and whether these effects are mediated by parent-child communication and conflict.  Existing research tends to rely on cross‑sectional designs and retrospective assessments of parent-child relationship quality, restricting causal inference.

Method: We performed causal mediation analysis with mixed-effects models using longitudinal data from the Understanding Society youth questionnaire. Family structure was measured at T1, frequency of parent-child communication and conflict at T2, and mental health at T3 using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ).

Results: Children from one-parent households quarreled more frequently with their mother than those from two-biological-parent households, which was associated with higher SDQ scores (ACME = 0.181, 95% CI [0.044, 0.318]). Father-child quarrelling also mediated the association between family structure and child mental health, although in the opposite direction than expected, with lower levels of conflict reported in one-parent and stepparent families compared to two-biological-parent families. Communication about important matters showed no mediation through mothers. However, children from one-parent and stepparent families talked less frequently with their father about important matters compared to those from two-biological-parent families, which was associated with poorer mental health outcomes (one-parent ACME = 0.247, 95% CI [0.121, 0.372]; stepfamily ACME = 0.272, 95% CI [0.129, 0.415]).

Conclusions: Taken together, our results suggest that family structure influences children's mental health in part through differences in parent-child conflict and father-child communication.

Speaker

Claire Mariano is a visiting researcher at CRIS and a PhD student at the Institute of Social Sciences (ISS) and the Swiss Centre of Expertise in Life Course Research (LIVES), University of Lausanne.