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Parental Separation and Divorce: Risk and Protective Factors and Their Implications for Children’s Adjustment

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Handbook of Clinical Child Psychology

Part of the book series: Autism and Child Psychopathology Series ((ACPS))

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Abstract

This chapter begins with an overview of the prevalence and public health impact of parental separation/divorce. We then review research on the consequences of parental separation/divorce for children’s adjustment during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Finally, we describe risk and protective factors related to children’s adjustment across domains of functioning. We include both nonmodifiable risk and protective factors, such as child age and gender, as well as modifiable risk and protective factors, such as interparental conflict, quality of parenting, and child coping. We end with a brief statement of implications for clinical practice.

Karey L. O’Hara’s work on this paper was supported by a K01 Career Development Award through the National Institute of Mental Health (K01MH120321-01). Sharlene A. Wolchik’s work was supported by a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (R01HD094334). C. Aubrey Rhodes’ work was supported by a predoctoral fellowship provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (T32DA039772).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Note that some studies examined racial/ethnic differences related to family structure more broadly (i.e., two biological parents, single parents, parent and step-parent), as opposed to parental separation/divorce per se.

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  1. REACH Institute, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Karey L. O’Hara, C. Aubrey Rhodes, Rana N. Uhlman, Irwin N. Sandler & Sharlene A. Wolchik

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Correspondence to Karey L. O’Hara .

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    Johnny L. Matson

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O’Hara, K.L., Rhodes, C.A., Uhlman, R.N., Sandler, I.N., Wolchik, S.A. (2023). Parental Separation and Divorce: Risk and Protective Factors and Their Implications for Children’s Adjustment. In: Matson, J.L. (eds) Handbook of Clinical Child Psychology. Autism and Child Psychopathology Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-24926-6_10

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