CHILD EXPOSURE TO MARITAL CONFLICT AND CHILD COPING RESPONSES AS PREDICTORS OF CHILD ADJUSTMENT

This study examined the influence of children's exposure to marital co nflict and children's coping responses to marital conflict on child ad justment. Forty-three mother-child dyads and 38 of the children's teac hers participated in this investigation. Preadolescent children report ed the marital conflict they witnessed, their coping responses to mari tal conflict, and their feelings of depression and global self-worth, while mothers reported their marital conflict and children's internali zing and externalizing behavior problems and teachers reported childre n's internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. Hierarchical re gression analyses were conducted to examine the contribution of demogr aphic, marital conflict, and child coping variables to the prediction of child adjustment. The results indicated that aggressive marital con flict was predictive of children's feelings of low self-worth, mother' s reports of child externalizing behavior problems, and teacher's repo rts of child internalizing behavior problems. Moreover child coping fa ctors contributed unique variances to the prediction of child reports of child depression and teacher reports of child externalizing behavio r problems after marital conflict and demographic variables were consi dered.