TROUBLED FAMILY-INTERACTION DURING TODDLERHOOD

To examine the antecedents and consequences of troubled family interac tion during the ''terrible twos,'' 64 of 69 families rearing firstborn sons who were observed in the child's second year of life were observ ed again in the child's third year. Cluster analysis of parent and chi ld behavior scores was used once more to identify families whose paren t-child interactions during parental efforts to control the child look ed ''troubled'' at 27 and/or 33 months so that chronicity of troubled family interaction across the second and third year of life could be a ppraised. Nine predictor variables suggested by Belsky's model of the determinants of parenting, measured at the end of the first year of li fe, along with social class, were found to powerfully discriminate fam ilies that were troubled never or once from those who were troubled tw ice from those who were troubled three to four times across the four m easurement occasions. Child externalizing problem behavior at 3 years of age was found to be almost monotonically related to chronicity of t roubled family interaction, irrespective of whether problem behaviors were reported by mothers, fathers, or daycare providers.