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Parent-Child Relationships

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Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences

Synonyms

Parent-child connection; Parent-child relations; Parent-child relationships

Definition

Parent-child relationships refer to the unique and influential relations between parents and their children – either biological or adoptive.

Introduction

Of the many distinct and even lasting relationships individuals develop in the course of a lifetime, one’s relationships with his or her parents are among the (if not the) most influential. The term “parent-child relationship” refers to the unique and significant affiliation between a parent and child. Legally, the parent-child relationship is defined as the relationship between an individual and their biological offspring or between an individual and a child he or she has legally adopted. Thus, at a first glance, parent-child relationships take one of two basic forms: biological or adoptive, with only biological parents sharing genetic material with their offspring. Of course, there is much more to the parent-child relationship than DNA;...

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Correspondence to Brittany Paige Mihalec-Adkins .

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Mihalec-Adkins, B. (2018). Parent-Child Relationships. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1866-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1866-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-28099-8

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