Ouderlijke conflicten en internaliserende problemen bij kinderen na ouderlijke scheiding en de rol van loyaliteitsproblemen

Abstract

A substantial amount of children each year is confronted with a parental divorce, and research has consequently shown that this is related to an increased risk of internalizing problems in children. More recent studies demonstrated that not the divorce itself, but rather the parental conflicts that are often associated with it, are the cause of these increased internalizing problems. In addition, a few studies emphasise the fact that children can feel caught in the middle when they get involved in these parental conflicts, which can cause loyalty problems in children. This study examines whether the post-divorce parental conflicts are indeed directly related to offspring internalizing problems, or mediated by children’s loyalty problems. In this research a longitudinal dataset is used which was originally intended to investigate the effectiveness of the intervention Kids In Divorce Situations (KIES; Van der Valk et al., 2013). A total of 156 children participated, between the age of 7 and 13 (M=10 years old), and for this study three different moments of measurement were used; parental conflicts right after the intervention KIES (T2), loyalty problems a half year after KIES (T3) and internalizing problems a year after KIES (T4). The mediation effect is tested using the macro PROCESS in SPSS developed by Preacher and Hayes (2008). The results show that the relation between parental conflict and internalizing problems is indeed fully mediated by children’s loyalty problems. This confirms our hypothesis. Practically, this means that in a post-divorce situation with a lot of parental conflict, the main focus should be on diminishing the loyalty problems of a child. By doing so, a decreased risk of internalizing problems may be the result. To conclude, experiencing a lot of parental conflict does not necessarily cause a lot of internalizing problems. If loyalty problems can be solved in an early stage, the level of internal problems will be limited.