Understanding Differences between Divorced and Intact Families: Stress, Interaction, and Child Outcome

How do divorced and intact families differ? Is there a link between parental divorce and child adjustment? How do parents and children in divorced families interact differently from those in intact families? Offering insights on these and other questions, the contributors begin by presenting a model of the impact parental divorce has on child development. They emphasize the ways in which family structure, differences in stress and parental adjustment account for the fact that children of divorced parents show more conduct and emotional problems than do those from intact families. The subsequent chapters test the various components of the model.