Conflictive engagement, positive affect, and menarche in families with seventh-grade girls

Prior research has established that temporary perturbations characterize parent-daughter relations around menarche. This study was designed to determine whether the observed perturbations are indicative of conflictive engagement, operationally defined as sequential reciprocity of interruptions and disagreements, and to examine the affective nature of such behaviors. Sequential analyses were applied to the observed behavior of 111 intact families with firstborn seventh-grade girls (modal age = 12 years old) who participated in a structured family interaction task. Results indicated that conflictive engagement with parents is more frequent shortly after menarche, especially in the mother-daughter dyad. Withdrawal of positive affect also was associated with menarcheal status; in the mother-daughter dyad, interruptions and disagreements were less often responded to with positive affect for the more mature groups. It is suggested that because of the nature of the interpersonal and intrapsychic processes occurring in the family around menarche, conflict may facilitate familial adaptation to pubertal change and make moderate levels of conflict normative in healthy families.