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Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure

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Family ties after divorce: long-term implications for children.

Constance R Ahrons¹

¹University of Southern California, Council on Contemporary Families, USA. cahrons@usc.edu

|March 23, 2007

Summary

Parental cooperation significantly impacts adult children's relationships 20 years post-divorce. Remarriage can be stressful, especially fathers' remarriages, affecting extended family bonds.

Area of Science:

Family Studies
Developmental Psychology
Sociology

Background:

Long-term effects of parental divorce on adult children are complex.
Understanding the evolving dynamics of binuclear families is crucial.

Purpose of the Study:

To examine the impact of inter-parental relationships on adult children 20 years after divorce.
To assess how parental remarriage or cohabitation influences a child's sense of family.

Main Methods:

Longitudinal study analyzing data from the Binuclear Family Study.
Interviews with 173 adult children 20 years post-divorce.

Main Results:

Cooperative parental relationships correlate with better child relationships with parents, grandparents, stepparents, and siblings.

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Last Updated: Jul 16, 2026

Assessing the Coherence of Parents' Short Narratives Regarding their Child Using the Five-Minute Speech Sample Procedure

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Published on: September 19, 2019

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Published on: July 10, 2017

Parental remarriage was stressful for one-third of participants; fathers' remarriages were often more stressful than mothers'.

Deteriorated father-child relationships post-divorce negatively impacted relationships with paternal extended family and stepfamily members.

Conclusions:

The parental subsystem's influence persists long-term after divorce, shaping binuclear family dynamics.
Parental remarriage introduces new stressors and complexities into the family system.
Life course and family system perspectives are essential for understanding the enduring implications of divorce.