Strengthening Family Relationships Conference.

• Author: Hendricks, Anne Kerslake

The Strengthening Family Relationships Conference) held on 4 December 2003, provided a forum for a range of international and national speakers to discuss how emerging knowledge from social research could help to strengthen relationships within families. This review summarises the content of the keynote speeches and the panel comments.

The three keynote speakers were Professor Paul Amato (Pennsylvania State University), Professor Thomas Bradbury (University of California, Los Angeles) and Associate Professor Graeme Russell (Macquarie University, Sydney). They focused, respectively, on these dimensions of family relationships:

* how to help parents effectively through transitions such as separation and divorce

* how to help parents build effective and enduring partnerships

* fathering in families.

Following each keynote address, New Zealand-based speakers were invited to participate in a panel to share their perspectives. The main messages from each panel discussion are summarised in this paper.

PARENTING THROUGH TRANSITIONS

Paul Amato's address focused on parenting through transitions, and particularly the consequences for children when their parents separate and/or divorce.

Divorce can interfere with the quality of parenting, but there are better behavioural and academic outcomes for children whose parents use "authoritative parenting". This means providing affection, support and encouragement; providing firm control by setting and monitoring rules; and using non-coercive discipline by enforcing rules consistently and avoiding physical punishment. Authoritative parenting enables children to feel wanted and loved, and to internalise social rules so that they learn to self-regulate their behaviour.

It can be hard for divorced parents to have sufficient emotional energy to draw upon in their parenting roles, given the stress that they are under. Some children report being caught in the middle between hostile parents. Ideally, parents who have separated should be mutually supportive, with a unified authority structure. The same rules should be followed in the homes of both parents for the sake of consistency.

Children's relationships with non-resident parents will be affected by the frequency of visitation and the quality of contact. Amato noted a common pattern amongst nonresident fathers (in the United States) for the frequency of contact to drop off several years after the divorce. However, around one-third of fathers continued to see their children frequently. Non-resident fathers reported that it can be difficult to be both a visitor and a father.

Although some stepfamilies work very well, there are challenges when parents re-partner and stepfamilies evolve. Children may reject their parent's new partner because they are concerned that they are being disloyal to their biological parent, or see the new partner as competing for time. Research suggests that it is better for children if remarriage does not occur too soon after divorce.

Research has revealed risk factors for children of divorce, including decreased levels of psychological wellbeing, a decline in social support networks, lowered educational attainment, and increased levels of disruption within their own relationships. Amato noted that most of the effects are modest, and many children of divorce grow up to be healthy, well-functioning adults.

Policies and interventions that have worked well in the United States include: divorce mediation; court-introduced parenting courses for divorced parents (which require further evaluation); joint legal and physical custody; school-based programmes for children whose parents have...