Marital discord and early child development

As part of a prospective study on the neuropsychiatric development of children born at varying degrees of organic and psychosocial risk, the effect of marital discord on the cognitive and social-emotional development of 315 first-born children into two parent households was investigated. Both the children and the quality of the parental relationship were evaluated when the children were 3 months and 2 years of age. The findings show that marital discord at 3 months does not affect child performance at 3 months, or at 24 months. Marital discord at 2 years does affect the emotional well-being of the 2 year olds, i.e. it is accompanied by a significant rise in psychopathological symptoms. When the effect of the stability of marital strife from the first assessment to the second was studied, a significant increase of behaviour problems and decrease in cognitive performance was found in the group of children whose parents' marital situation had deteriorated and failed in the meantime but surprisingly not in the group with chronic discordant relationships. Conversely, poor child performance and emotional adjustment improved with a positive change in the parental relationships. Analysis shows that negative marital change goes hand in hand with a decrease in parenting skills which affect children more adversely than their counterparts whose parents had a history of marriage and child-rearing problems. Further study of the course of marital relationships and child development at the next research waves (4.5 and 8 years) will show which results are of long-term versus short-term relevance.