IMPACT OF PARENT BEHAVIOR ON ADULT OFFSPRING
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) as the stability of one's orientation toward life. In an effort to expand the literature in this area, Retterath investigated the long-term relationship of parents' marital status, parental conflict, and parent-child relationship on the sense of coherence felt by young adults.
The subjects in the study were 231 undergraduate students 18 to 23 years of age. All subjects had experienced parental divorce as children.
Findings indicated that the sense of coherence (as measur...