The Relation Between Family Structure and Young Adolescents' Appraisals of Family Climate and Parenting Behavior

Young adolescents (mean age = 11.99 years) who lived with both biological parents (BP), a single divorced mother (DM), a single divorced father (DF), a mother and stepfather (SF), a father and a stepmother (SM), or a multiply divorced parent (MD) ( ns = 681, 78, 21, 146, 36, and 55, respectively) appraised dimensions of family climate (supervision, warmth, conflict, and order) and dimensions of parenting (permissive, authoritatian, and authoritative). Differences among these six family structures were found on warmth (BP > SF), conflict (BP < SM, SF; DM < SM), permissive parenting (BP < DF, MD; SM < DM, DF, SF, MD), and authoritarian parenting (DM, SF, MD < DF). Gender did not moderate family structure differences. The findings are consistent with the view that different family structures vary on dimensions of family process.