Coping with parental negativity: links with parental warmth and child adjustment

JOURNAL OF APPLIED DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY 14t 121-136 (1993)

Coping with Parental Negativity: Links with Parental Warmth and Child Adjustment M1NDY A . HERMAN SUSAN M . MCHALE

The Pennsylvania State Universi~,

We examined children's strategies for coping with parental negativity and the links between coping and measures of parent-child relationships and child adjustment. Participants were 152 children (mean age = 10 years) and their parents. Analyses revealed that boys reported more frequently "forgetting" about parental negativity than did girls. Boysand girls did not differ, however, in their use of "talking to parents" or "problem solving" as coping strategies. Children also differed in how they coped with maternal versus paternal negativity: Girls talked to mothers more than to fathers, and both boys and girls talked to someone else more often when they experienced conflict with fathers than with mothers. Parental warmth and intimacy were associated with higher rates of talking to parents and problem solving and lower rates of forgetting. Problem solving was positively associated and forgetting was negatively associated with children's reports of anxiety and depression.

Coping has gained attention as an important mediator of the potential effects of both major life events and daily hassles on psychological well-being (Compas, 1987; Compas, Howell, Phares, Williams, & Ledoux, 1989). Unfortunately, however, knowledge explicitly pertaining to children's stress and coping lags behind information about the operation of such factors in adulthood. In research on adults, coping has been defined as "constantly changing cognitive and behavioral efforts to manage external and/or internal demands that are appraised as taxing or exceeding the resources of the person" (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984, p. 141). According to this definition, coping is a purposeful response mediating between stress and adaptational outcomes; furthermore, coping responses may be variable across situations. Various models have been proposed for both classifyWe gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Todd Bartko, Sue Crowley, Vicki Harris, Alan Hawkins, Michelle Hostetler, Shelley MacDermid, and Maureen Perry-Jenkins in conducting this investigation, and Keith Crnic, Ann Crouter, Shirley McGuire, Ken Rice, and Andrew Stahl for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article. The research was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD21050), Ann C. Crouter and Susan McHale, co-principal investigators. Correspondence and requests for reprints should be sent to Susan M. McHale, College of Health and Human Development, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802. 121

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ing adult coping strategies and explaining the association between coping and adjustment (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Recently, investigators have directed their efforts toward determining whether adult models of stress and coping are applicable to an understanding of coping processes in childhood. Such analyses have suggested that inferences about children's coping may require modifications of adult models due to children's greater dependency on adults (Compas, 1987). Most efforts to understand children's coping have focused specifically on describing and classifying coping strategies (Band & Wiesz, 1988; Curry & Russ, 1985) and identifying links between coping and adjustment. Results of these latter investigations reveal that coping responses associated with more positive well-being can be characterized as approach oriented (i.e., attempts to act on or modify stressors either through cognitive or overt behavioral means). In contrast, the use of avoidant strategies (attempts to escape from or avoid stressors or to deny their existence) generally is associated with increased psychological distress (Compas, Malcarne, & Fondacaro, 1988; Ebata & Moos, 1989). Most previous research on children's coping strategies has focused on what may be thought of as "universal" patterns linking coping and adjustment. We know little about differences between individuals in the connections between coping strategies and adjustment or about differences within individuals in the effectiveness of particular coping strategies across different situations. In an effort to address these issues, we focused here on gender differences in the coping strategies children reported using in response to two forms of everyday stressors: negativity with mothers versus negativity with fathers. Analyses of gender differences in psychopathology consistently reveal that boys have higher rates of adjustment problems during the school-age years than do girls (Eme, 1979; Rutter, 1983). To the extent that coping strategies mediate the link between stressful experiences and adjustment, we might expect to find that girls use more effective (i.e., approach-oriented) strategies and boys more ineffective (i.e., avoidant) ones. No consistent pattern of gender differences in children's coping has emerged from previous research; however, studies suggest that boys are more likely to displace and distract themselves from negative emotions, whereas girls are more likely to employ strategies involving emotional control, talking to others, and thinking about the problem (Bowker & Hymel, 1991; Burke & Weir, 1978; Nolem-Hoeksema, 1987; Whitesell, Robinson, & Hatter, 1991). We examined negative experiences with both mothers and fathers as "stressors" because they are events that are both common and anxiety provoking for children (C.E. Lewis, Siegal, & M.A. Lewis, 1984). Furthermore, parental negativity is particularly interesting as it represents a potential threat to children's coping resources. As a stressor, parental negativity likely qualifies as a daily "hassle" rather than as a major life event. Crnic and Greenberg (1990) described "hassles" as the "irritating, frustrating, annoying, and distressing demands that . . . characterize everyday transactions with the environment" (p. 1,629).

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Current research supports the idea that daily hassles may be more directly related to psychological symptoms than major life events (Compas et al., 1989). Studying mothers of 5-year-olds, for example, Crnic and Greenberg found that daily parenting hassles were more powerful predictors of child, parent, and family functioning than life stresses. In their study, Crnic and Greenberg were interested in mothers' perspectives on everyday problems in their experiences with their children. In contrast, in this study we focused on children's perspectives on their coping strategies for dealing with everyday problems with parents. Given previous research that has uncovered gender differences in children's relationships with mothers versus fathers (Steinberg, 1987), we may detect cross-situational differences in children's use of effective coping strategies. A further goal of this study was to examine the question of whether a specific feature of children's family context, the affective quality of parent-child relationships, supports the use of more adaptive coping strategies. Compas (1987) argued that children's dependency on adults means that it is important to assess the degree of social support in children's primary environments, particularly if this support may be an important factor promoting adaptive coping. One study which examined the relationship between perceived family environment and adolescents' coping strategies revealed that adolescents' styles of coping were related to their perceptions of the family "climate" (Shulman, Seiffge-Krenke, & Samet, 1987). By administering questionnaires pertaining to coping and family environment to 187 tenth to twelfth graders, those investigators found that adolescents who perceived their families as high on conflict and low on support reported lower levels of active coping via social resources (considered functional coping) and higher levels of withdrawal (considered dysfunctional coping). In contrast, adolescents who perceived their families as high in cohesion and organization reported higher levels of active coping and lower levels of withdrawal. Exploring the relationships between coping and indices of the family context also is important given the findings that children's family milieu is one of the triad of protective factors (i.e., temperament, familial, and extrafamilial support) that may both buffer children from stress as well as promote positive adaptation (Garmezy, 1983; Werner & Smith, 1982). Specifically, family characteristics such as warmth and support have been associated with well-being in the face of children's exposure to high-risk stressors. While findings from Shulman et al.'s research imply that characteristics of the family context may encourage the use of "adaptive" coping, no evidence about the relationship between coping and wellbeing was presented. Thus, in this study, we examined the connections between the affective quality of parent-child relationships, coping, and children's adjustment. In sum, the goals of this investigation were: (1) to investigate how coping strategies for responding to parental negativity differ across boys' and girls' experiences with mothers versus fathers; (2) to explore the links between indices of parent-child relationships and children's coping strategies; and (3) to examine

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the relationship between coping strategies in response to parental negativity and measures of children's adjustment. METHOD Subjects The sample included 152 fourth- and fifth-grade children residing in central Pennsylvania who were part of a longitudinal investigation of family relationships (see Table 1 for sample characteristics). The data came from the first wave of this longitudinal study. To protect families' confidentiality, the sample was obtained by sending home letters describing the study with all fourth and fifth graders in seven school districts. Interested families returned postcards to the research project. The 85 girls and 67 boys in this sample were firstborns, and all were in the fourth or fifth grade (mean age = 10) at the first phase of data collection. In addition, all children came from intact families. In every family, the father was employed, but mother's employment was variable. In approximately one half of the families, the mothers worked outside the home, and in the remaining half, the mothers were homemakers. These families were generally middle class as judged by fathers' and mothers' educations, incomes, and occupations. More details about criteria for participation and characteristics of the sample can be found in Crouter, MacDermid, McHale, and Perry-Jenkins (1990) and McHale, Bartko, Crouter, and Perry-Jenkins (1990). Procedure Data were collected in home interviews. Three interviewers traveled to each home to interview the mother, father, target child, and younger siblings separately about their family relationships and personal well-being. Interviews lasted approximately 2 hours for parents and 1 hour for children. Upon arrival, the families were informed of the purpose of the study and given a chance to ask questions about the research project. Informed consent was obtained, and each

TABLE 1 Background Information on Families Range Family size (including parents) Family income Father's age (years) Father's work hours/week Mother's age (years) Mother's work hours/week Target child's age (years) Note. N = 152.

4.45 $38,000 37.5 47.8 36 17.1 10.5

4-7 $11,000-$153,000 28-52 18- 98 26- 50 0-60 9.3-12.3

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family was paid $20 for participation. Questionnaires pertaining to family life were filled out by each parent. Questions for the children were read aloud by the interviewer, and the children gave verbal responses or used a pencil to circle their answers. Measures involving children's reports of experiences with mothers and with fathers (i.e., warmth, coping) were completed independently in separate sections of the interview. The order of presentation was counterbalanced across the sample, and t tests revealed no significant effects for order of presentation. Measures

In assessing children's coping with parental negativity, children were told that we were interested in what they usually did when problems occurred between them and their parents. The interviewer first described to the children six problem situations (i.e, the parent nags, hits, punishes, is impatient, hurts the child's feelings, and/or makes the child feel guilty or ashamed). These situations involving parental negativity were taken from the hostility and rejection subscales of Rohner's (1979) Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire (PARQ). Next, four possible coping strategies were defined: (1) "I talk to my mother/father about the problem," (talk to parent); (2) "I talk to someone else about the problem," (talk to someone else); (3) "I think about things to do so the problem won't happen again," (problem solve); and (4) "I just try to forget about the problem," (forget). These strategies were chosen to represent the three coping style factors described by Shulman et al. (1987): active coping via social resources (talking to parent or someone else); internal coping/flexible adaptive solutions (problem solving); and withdrawal/fatalistic approach (forgetting). For each potential problem, children were instructed to identify the strategies they used in responding to that problem and to rank their choices according to the frequency with which each was used (e.g., "Show what you do most of the time when your mother/father nags you."). A never happens option was provided for situations when children replied that a problem never occurred or that they never used a particular coping strategy in response to a given problem. Children completed a separate instrument for maternal and paternal negativity at separate points in the interview. This instrument was developed specifically for this study, and thus no information pertaining to reliability and validity is available. To create the coping indices, a numeric value was given to each coping strategy chosen, with the first choice receiving the highest value (coping strategies that were not employed were given scores of zero). A coping score was calculated separately for each of the four strategies by adding together the total rankings across all six problem situations. This total was divided by the number of problem situations that actually occurred for a given child. The results provided a measure of coping that was weighted by the number of events in which coping strategies were employed. A measure of coping "diversity" was created by calculating the number of different strategies a child reported across the six

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problem situations. Given that the analyses revealed no relationship between the diversity score and either parental warmth and intimacy or adjustment, this measure will not be considered further. Parent-child relationships were assessed using three procedures. First, we used the parental warmth subscale from the PARQ. Children were read statements describing how mothers and fathers sometimes act toward their children and asked to rate, on a 4-point scale, how well these statements matched their own mother's or father's behavior (e.g., "My mother/father tries to make me happy"). Mothers and fathers were rated independently at separate points in the interview. High scores reflect more warmth in the relationship. Cronbach coefficient alphas were .76 for ratings of the father-child relationship and .79 for ratings of the mother-child relationship. An eight item parent-child intimacy questionnaire adapted from Blyth, Hill, and Thiel (1982) also was administered to determine how close children felt to their mothers and fathers. Children used 5-point rating scales to indicate how much each statement described aspects of their experiences with each of their parents (e.g., "How much do you share your inner feelings or secrets with your mother/father?"). Higher scores were indicative of more intimate relationships. Cronbach coefficient alphas for this sample were .87 for ratings of the mother child relationship and .88 for ratings of the father-child relationship. Finally, parents were asked to rate aspects of the parent-child relationship. Specifically, they described the child's behavior toward them using a 4-point, 20item questionnaire developed by Schaefer, Sayers, and St. Clair (1987). The questionnaire includes four subscales containing five items each. The subscales for positive involvement, (e.g., "Often asks to do things with me") and compliance (e.g., "Does what I ask") were employed in these analyses. Cronbach alphas were .72 and .64 for mothers' and fathers' ratings of positive involvement and .82 and .81 for mothers' and fathers' ratings of compliance. ~ychological distress, particularly symptoms of depression and anxiety, have been linked with less adaptive coping (Ebata & Moos, 1989). In this study, children's adjustment was assessed via both child and parental reports. The Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (Reynolds & Richmond, 1978) was used to assess children's anxiety. On this measure, children were asked to read along with the interviewer and indicate whether each of the 28 statements pertaining to a symptom of anxiety was true of them or not. Responses were summed such that higher scores indicated more symptoms of anxiety. Alpha reliability for this sample was .84. Children's symptoms of depression were assessed using the Kovacs (1983) Childhood Depression Inventory (CDI; for this study, one item pertaining to suicide was deleted). Children were asked to choose one sentence from a group of three that best described their feelings during the preceding 2 weeks. Ratings across the 28 items were summed, with higher scores indicating a higher incidence of depressive symptoms. Alpha reliability for this sample was .73.

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Parents also rated children's adjustment using the Revised Conners' Parent Rating Scale (Goyette, Conners, & Ulrich, 1978). Subscales assessing anxiety and psychosomatic symptoms were used to parallel children's self-reports of their internalizing symptoms. Each parent provided a separate assessment. Items were rated on a 4-point scale with higher scores indicating an increased incidence of anxiety and psychosomatic symptoms. Cronbach's alpha reliabilities for the Anxiety subscale were .45 for mothers and .57 for fathers. For the Psychosomatic subscale, alpha reliabilities were .64 for mothers and .70 for fathers. RESULTS We first measured differences in girls' versus boys' reports of the coping strategies they used in responding to negativity with mothers versus fathers. Second, the links between children's coping strategies and indices of their relationships with parents were assessed. We then examined the relationships between children's reports of specific coping strategies and measures of their well-being.

Inter- and Intraindividual Differences in Coping We conducted a 2 x 2 (Gender × Parent) repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), treating parent as a repeated-measures factor and the four coping strategies as dependent variables. Means and standard deviations for boys' and girls' reports of the four coping strategies are presented in Table 2. These analyses revealed that the overall test for gender approached signifiTABLE 2 Means (and Standard Deviations) for Boys' and Girls' Strategies for Coping with Parental Negativity Boys. Coping Strategy Talk to Parent M

(SD) Talk to Someone Else M

(SD) Forget M

(SD) Problem Solve M

(SD)

Girls ~

Mother

Father

Mother

Father

Univariate Effects c

1.66 (1.48)

1.55 (1.29)

1.95 (1.33)

1.47 (1.28)

P** G × P*

0.87 (1.06)

0.99 (1.05)

1.04 (1.16)

1.37 (1.28)

P**

1.91 (1.30)

1.72 (1.22)

1.37 (1.28)

1.28 (1.28)

G*

1.52 (0.98)

1.75 (1.05)

1.79 (1.15)

1.83 (1.16)

P

an = 67. bn 84. cG = gender; P = parent. * p < .05. * * p < .01. =

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cance, F(4, 145) = 2.10, p < . 10. A significant univariate effect for the use of forgetting, F(1, 148) = 6.08, p < .01, indicated that boys used this strategy more often than did girls. In addition, the overall test for parent was significant, F(4, 145) = 5.27, p < .01. Univariate tests indicated that children were more likely to talk to someone else if negativity occurred with fathers as opposed to mothers, F(1, 148) = 7.64, p < .01. Children were more likel3~ to talk to the target parent following maternal negativity than following paternal negativity, F(1, 148) = 11.97, p < .01. This main effect for parent, however, was qualified by a Gender x Parent interaction, F ( I , 148) = 3.88, p < .05. Although there were no differences in the extent to which boys talked to mothers versus fathers, girls were more inclined to talk with their mothers than to their fathers following parental negativity. We next examined the correlations between children's reports of strategies used for maternal negativity and those used for paternal negativity. Reports of each of the four strategies were positively associated across situations (correlations ranging from r = .59-.74, p < .01 for boys, and r = .64-.70, p < .01 for girls). Despite mean level intraindividual differences across maternal versus paternal negativity, there appears to be considerable cross-situational stability (i.e., significant positive correlations) in children's use of coping strategies. We also assessed the correlations between the four coping strategies. The results revealed that approach-oriented strategies (i.e., problem solving, talking to parents, and talking to someone else) were negatively related to forgetting, a more avoidant coping style (correlations ranged from r = - . 2 9 , p < .05, to r = - . 7 4 , p < .01). No other correlations, however, were significant.

Parental Warmth and Intimacy and Children's Coping Strategies We again used correlational strategies in addressing the second research question. These analyses were conducted separately for boys' and girls' reports of coping with negativity with mothers and with fathers. An examination of the matrix involving parental relations and coping reveals more significant correlations than would be expected by chance (i.e., 2 significant correlations should occur by chance, 18 were found). The analyses revealed consistent patterns linking children's reports of parental warmth and intimacy to the three strategies: talk to parent, forget, and problem solve. No significant relationship was found for talk to other (see Table 3). Correlations between parental reports of their views of the parent-child relationships and children's coping strategies were less consistent than those involving children's reports. Intimacy rather than warmth was significantly associated with boys' coping, although both warmth and intimacy are linked with girls' coping. Specifically, boys were more likely to talk to the target parent if they rated the relationship with that parent higher on intimacy. Both warmth and intimacy were related to the use of the strategy, talk to parent, for girls. An examination of the relationship reports by parents, however, revealed only one significant correla-

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TABLE 3 Correlations Between Measures of Boys" and Girls" Coping Strategies and Measures of Parent-Child Relationships Relationship Measures Mother Coping Strategies

Father

Warmth

Intimacy

Warmth

Intimacy

.19 -.04 -.21 .33**

.44"* .03 -.45** .18

.21 .05 -.21 .28"

.35"* -.06 -.38** .28*

.29** -.08 -.29** .26"

.28"* -.05 -.26* .22*

.27* -.03 -.25" .26*

.41 * * -.03 -.25" .19

Boys a Talk to Mother/Father Talk to Someone Else Forget Problem Solve

Girls b Talk to Mother/Father Talk to Someone Else Forget Problem Solve an = 67. bn 84. * p < .05. * * p < .01. =

tion: Girls who were rated high on compliance by their fathers were more likely to talk to their fathers (r = .21, p < .05). (Because correlations between parents' reports of the relationships and coping were generally nonsignificant, they are not included in Table 3; however, there were more significant relationships than would be expected by chance, i.e., six were found, two were expected by chance.) We also found that both boys and girls who reported lower ratings of warmth and/or intimacy used forgetting more often in responding to negativity with that parent (see Table 3). Again, only intimacy with parents was associated with boys' forgetting, although both warmth and intimacy were negatively related to girls' use of forgetting. Only one parent report of the parent-child relationship was significantly related to the use of forgetting: When mothers rated sons high on the index of compliance, boys were less likely to use forgetting (r = - . 2 7 , p < .05). Finally, findings for boys and girls revealed significant positive relationships between the use of problem-solving strategies and children's reports of warmth (see Table 3) and mothers' and fathers' reports of compliance (r = .29, p < .01 and r = .24, p < .01 for correlations with maternal and paternal reports, respectively). Intimacy was not associated with boys' use of problem solving in response to maternal negativity, nor was intimacy linked with girls' use of problem solving in response to paternal negativity.

Children's Coping and Measures of Their Adjustment The results of correlational analyses examining coping and adjustment, our third research issue, revealed a less consistent pattern of associations than that between

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coping and children's relationship reports. Not only were fewer significant correlations detected (7 significant correlations emerged, 2 were expected by chance for child reports and 10 emerged and 2 were expected by chance for parent reports) but on occasion, coping strategies that were positively associated with children's reports of adjustment were negatively associated with parents' reports of children's adjustment. For example, the relationship between girls' use of forgetting and anxiety differed depending on whose reports were examined: forgetting was related negatively to girls' own ratings of their well-being but positively to parents' ratings. Specifically, girls who relied on forgetting when coping with maternal negativity reported higher levels of anxiety (r = .23, p < .05). In contrast, mothers' reports of girls' anxiety were negatively related to their daughters' use of forgetting as a coping strategy (r = - . 2 1 , p < .05), and these two correlations were significantly different (z = 2.86, p < .05). There was a similar trend for fathers' reports of girls' psychosomatic symptoms and girls' use of torgetting (r = - . 1 9 , p < .10), and again, the correlations between forgetting and girls' versus fathers' reports of symptoms were significantly different (z = 2.73, p < .05). In the case of boys, this pattern was not evident. Rather, we found that the use of forgetting was negatively related to adjustment by both boys' and parents' accounts: Fathers reported more symptoms of anxiety in boys who more often used forgetting as a coping strategy (r = .26, p < .05), and the relationship between boys' use of forgetting and their self-reports of depressive symptoms approached significance (r = .21, p < . 10). We found the most consistent patterns linking problem-solving strategies and adjustment. Generally speaking, problem solving was positively related to adjustment just as it was positively related to warmth and intimacy in parent-child relationships. Specifically, girls who coped with maternal negativity by problem solving reported fewer symptoms of both anxiety and depression (r = - . 2 2 , p < .05 and r = - . 2 5 , p < .05, respectively), and those who coped with paternal negativity using this strategy reported fewer symptoms of depression (r = - . 2 2 , p < .05). Similarly, boys who reported more frequent use of problem solving in response to maternal negativity rated themselves as less anxious and less depressed (r = - . 2 6 , p < .05 and r = - . 2 3 , p < .05, respectively). Problem solving in response to paternal negativity was also related to fewer self-reported symptoms of anxiety (r = - . 3 8 , p < .01). Finally, fathers reported fewer symptoms of anxiety and fewer psychosomatic symptoms tor sons high in the use of problem solving (r = - . 2 7 , p < .05 and r = - . 2 7 , p < .05, respectively). Few consistent patterns emerged for talking to parent. When coping with paternal negativity, girls who talked to their fathers about the problem tended to report less anxiety (r = - . 2 0 , p < .10). However, fathers whose daughters talked to them after conflicts reported higher levels of psychosomatic symptoms in their daughters (r -- .27, p < .01). Note that these correlations between talk to father and girls' versus fathers' reports of girls' well-being were opposite in sign,

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and the difference between them was significant (z = 3.07, p < .01). Only one significant correlation emerged for boys: Paternal reports of their sons' anxiety were lower for boys who talked to s o m e o n e else following paternal negativity (r = - . 2 5 , p < .05). As a final step in the analyses, we explored the connections between coping and adjustment controlling for parental warmth/intimacy. Our goal was to determine whether the use of particular coping strategies accounted for unique variance in children's adjustment beyond that "explained" by measures of the affective quality of parent-child relationships. Specifically, we conducted a series of partial correlations, examining the links between each coping strategy and the measures of adjustment (separately for girls' and boys' experiences with mothers and fathers), partialing out the effects of warmth and intimacy. Although some trends emerged, these analyses revealed a pattern of generally nonsignificant correlations. Our interpretation is that parental warmth/intimacy and coping strategies share common variance in "accounting for" differences in children's adjustment, and that when analyzed together, the parent-child relationship measures mask the links between coping strategies and adjustment. DISCUSSION The discussion focuses on the three main issues explored in the analyses: (1) gender differences in the use of coping strategies for negativity with mothers versus fathers; (2) the link between parent-child relationships and coping strategies; and (3) the association between coping strategies and children's adjustment. Inter- and Intraindividual Differences in Children's Coping Boys and girls differed significantly in the use of forgetting as a coping strategy, with boys reporting greater reliance on this strategy. This finding is consistent with findings from previous studies which suggest that boys tend to distract themselves from emotions rather than ruminate over their origin (Nolem-Hoeksema, 1987). This finding is important because, as have others (e.g., Ebata & Moos, 1989), we found this avoidant strategy to be associated with children's reports of more symptoms of anxiety and depression. Many hypotheses have been presented to explain gender differences in vulnerability to psychological distress in childhood including boys' relative biological immaturity, their more difficult temperaments, and the nature of social and cultural expectations for male versus female behavior (Eme, 1979; Rutter, 1983). Based on the findings from this study, we may conjecture that some of these factors may have direct implications for boys' coping strategies. First, maturity may play a role in the use of adaptive coping strategies. More sophisticated cognitive abilities may allow for the use of more adaptive problem-solving strategies and may promote the development of an orientation to the future leading to long-term rather than

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temporary solutions (Maccoby, 1983). Furthermore, boys' reliance on forgetting may stem, in part, from a less sophisticated ability to conceptualize problemsolving strategies with a preventative orientation, and a gender difference favoring girls may be particularly pronounced in social problem situations such as we assessed here. Another possible basis for boys' use of forgetting is cultural expectations about appropriate masculine behavior, particularly if these expectations encourage the suppression of emotional display. The stereotypic sex-role concepts of a school-age child may exacerbate a boys' tendency to believe that being "tough" involves conveying the idea (even to himself) that "nothing bothers me." Our findings about cross-situational differences in children's coping revealed mean differences in children's coping in combination with strong positive correlations between the use of particular coping strategies for dealing with maternal versus paternal negativity. These intraindividual differences were most pronounced for the strategy, talk to parent (i.e., the target parent with whom the negativity occurred). The children in this study reported somewhat higher levels of warmth and intimacy in mother-child than in father-child relationships though the correlations between their reports of these two relationships also were quite high. Thus, to the extent that the affective tone of parent-child relationships is linked to children's tendency to talk to parents (as our data suggest), differential warmth and intimacy with mothers versus fathers may be one basis for the cross-situational differences in coping that we measured. This difference also implies that coping is not a stable person attribute; rather, coping arises as a result of a Person x Stressor interaction. Due to our reliance on ratings of only four coping strategies, we can only speculate about the bases of the inter- and intraindividual differences we have observed. Future studies should delineate more distinct coping strategies and/or obtain more details about children's own coping strategies. For example, in exploring children's problem-solving strategies, we may wish to ask about the specific ideas children generate when they "think about how to keep the problem from happening again." Having provided evidence as to the efficacy of this form of problem solving for dealing with everyday parent-child conflict, the goal of subsequent research should be to obtain verbatim accounts from children so that qualitative differences in the sophistication of their problem-solving approaches may be assessed directly. In addition, examining everyday stressors that are not interpersonal in nature (such as achievement tasks) may be a fruitful line of investigation for illuminating gender-based individual differences in coping as well as cross-situational differences in how children cope. The Affective Quality of Parent-Child Relationships as a Basis for Adaptive Coping A consistent pattern emerged linking warmth and intimacy in parent-child relations with children's use of coping strategies: For both boys and girls, warmth

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and/or intimacy were positively associated with (what were shown to be) more functional coping styles and negatively associated with a "dysfunctional" coping style. These findings are consistent with research by Shulman et al. (1987), who showed that reports of greater family cohesion and organization were associated with more active coping via social resources and lower levels of withdrawal by adolescents. Here, however, we also were able to demonstrate that a coping style described as dysfunctional was actually linked to reports of more depression and anxiety, just as functional coping styles (problem solving and, less consistently, talking to parent) were associated with lower levels of problem symptoms. We will presently consider the connections between coping and adjustment in more detail. There is a dearth of research available which supports the view that children's coping strategies are learned through modeling parents' coping strategies (Shulman et al., 1987). Rather, Shulman et al. stated that it is the perceived family climate that encourages or discourages the use of particular coping strategies. Parent-child relationships perceived by children to be warm and intimate may represent an environment that is open, nonjudgmental, and supportive. Therefore, children may be more likely to talk to parents about problems given their beliefs that the parent cares for them and wants to foster their well-being. This type of environment also may encourage problem solving, which in this study was defined in light of ideas about problem prevention. The problem solving and talk to parent strategies may be coping styles that reflect a high value on the parent-child relationship. Children who are invested in maintaining positive relationships with parents may be more likely to take active steps toward preserving this relationship. This effect may be bidirectional in that, as children engage in coping efforts involving their parents, they in turn may feel more positively about their relationships. In contrast, parent-child relationships perceived as less warm and intimate may discourage active coping by creating a climate in which children do not feel comfortable engaging in a style that requires active involvement in the parentchild relationship. Children who perceive their relations with parents to be less warm and intimate may be afraid that their concerns and feelings will be rejected or devalued, and therefore, the coping style that they utilize reflects an attempt to withdraw. It is important to emphasize that the key words here are children's perceptions. Parents' ratings of positive involvement with children were not significantly related to coping (except in one instance). At least in this sample, the children themselves had to feel that their parents cared for them and were interested in their well-being before they reported using approach-oriented coping.

The Links Between Coping and Adjustment As noted, our findings linking coping and adjustment are consistent with previous literature (Compas et al., 1988; Ebata & Moos, 1989) in demonstrating

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that an approach-oriented strategy, problem solving, was associated with children's reports of more positive well-being, whereas an avoidant strategy, forgetting, was associated with reports of more anxiety and depression. Given that correlational analyses were conducted, the direction of effect between coping and psychological distress remains unknown. It is possible that the more distressed children feel, the more likely they may be to employ avoidant strategies in order to decrease emotionality and interpersonal interactions. The links between talk to parent and children's symptom reports, however, were not strong. Given both the consistent associations between the latter strategy and parental warmth and intimacy as well as positive correlations between the affective quality of parentchild relations and children's adjustment, the lack of significant associations is surprising and merits future study. Parent reports of coping and adjustment revealed fewer significant correlations. This could be due to shared error variance between the two child self-report measures. In addition, parents reported on children's somatic complaints and symptoms of anxiety, whereas children reported on their own symptoms of depression and anxiety. Thus, it is plausible that the constructs that parents were asked to report on did not parallel the constructs that children were evaluating. Another hypothesis is that parents may be misinterpreting children's actions, a perspective which is consistent with prior research that examines agreement between informants in the observation of children's psychopathology. Correlations between parent and child reports average around .25 (Routh, 1990). Routh suggested various reasons for this modest correlation such as parents' limited access to children's internal processes and the likelihood that parents tend to report symptoms which they view as bothersome. Our data support Routh's (1990) analysis. Specifically, as we noted, children appear to receive "mixed messages" when they talk to their parents, particularly fathers, about parental conflict. Although girls reported somewhat lower ratings of anxiety and depression when they talked to their fathers, their fathers reported higher rates of psychosomatic symptoms in these girls. This same pattern held in the case of girls' use of forgetting: forgetting was associated with higher levels of psychological distress reported by girls, but fewer symptoms of distress reported by parents. The finding that fathers rated their sons higher in psychological well-being if boys talked to someone else following paternal negativity also is relevant here. Taken together, these findings suggest that parents may be largely unaware of their children's internal distress and misinterpret an absence of overt reaction to parental negativity as evidence that their children are feeling fine. If it is the case that parents' beliefs about children's psychological distress are inferred from their observations of overt (active) coping strategies rather than from actual symptoms of less transient psychological distress, parents may unintentionally reinforce the use of avoidant coping strategies in general or at least those internal strategies (e.g., problem solving) that hide distress and do not involve parents. These findings have important implications for parent education

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about children's coping: They suggest that some parents need to understand better the difference between children's psychological symptoms and the possibly shorter term but more salient emotionality that becomes evident when children make active attempts to cope with stressful experiences.

Summary and Conclusions Children's perceptions of the affective tone of their parent-child relationships appear to have potentially important implications for children's choices of strategies for coping with parent-child negativity. Specifically, warmth and intimacy in the parent-child relationship may encourage the use of functional coping by creating an environment that supports and encourages an active and approachoriented style. It is important to note, however, that no causal inferences may be made from these correlational results: It is probably most likely that the relationship between children's coping and parental warmth and intimacy is bidirectional in nature. The findings from this study highlight the need for future research to examine whether the ways in which children cope with parental negativity generalize to their coping in other stressful situations. In addition, future studies should encourage children to provide descriptions of their coping strategies rather than relying on forced-choice methods of assessing coping if we are to begin to understand important qualitative differences in the stress and coping process during childhood.

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