Effect of Parent Behavior on Adult Children

The purpose of this paper is to examine the long term effects of parent behavior on children with an emphasis upon what behaviors matter and why. Specifically, the paper explores research that has examined how a diverse set of parent behaviors continues to affect their adult children.

It should be noted here that examination of the literature on how parent behavior toward children eventually affects the adulthood of offspring consisted of studies in several areas. These were studies related to: divorce, the quality of the parent-child relationship, parental drinking behavior, parental attitude, and matters related to parental sexual orientation, gender, or alternative lifestyle behaviors. A sampling of the research in each of these areas is presented here.

One set of parent behaviors that has been found to affect children well into adulthood is related to those behaviors exhibited when parents divorce. In this regard, Retterath (1994) reported that most:

...investigations of children and adolescents of divorce focused on the short-term negative influence of divorce on children and adolescents from "broken homes." ...Few studies have considered the long-term influences of parental conflict and the parent-child relationship on young adults, and no studies have examined their relationship with the development of sense of coherence. (p. 2904)

Coherence was defined by Retterath (1994)

. . .
arch Related To Parental Drinking Behavior Another parent behavior that can affect children well into adulthood is excessive drinking. In this regard, Davidson (1994) examined the impact of growing up in an alcoholic home on shaping the home environment created by a woman as she parents her own children. A multimethod research model was employed. A total of 60 subjects were selected from among volunteers; 30 women who grew up in alcoholic homes and, for a comparison group, 30 women who did not grow up in alcoholic homes. From the first group, eight women were selected for an in-depth interview in order to allow the researcher an opportunity to obtain a more detailed view of the data. Findings showed that women who grew up in homes where one or both parents were alcoholics, experienced isolation, self-condemnation, fear of failure and strong need for approval in greater frequency than in the comparison group. Parenting deficits were also found in these women; specifically, they were deficit in terms of their awareness of how their personal conflicts and needs influenced their interactions with their own children, and as a result were not creating as healthy a home environment as possible. The impact of parental dri
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Some common words found in the essay are:
Related Divorce, ADULT OFFSPRING, Life Questionnaire, parent-child relationship, sense coherence, parent behavior, set parent behaviors, parental conflict parent-child, conflict parent-child relationship, parent behavior children, orientation life, parental conflict, conflict parent-child, adult children, behavior children, parent behaviors, set parent,
Approximate Word count = 2461
Approximate Pages = 10 (250 words per page)

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