Events of parental divorce: Stressfulness ratings by children, parents, and clinicians

The stressfulness, for the "typical" child, of 62 events that occur to children of divorce was rated by children of divorce (n = 58), their custodial parents (n = 58), and clinicians (n = 50). In addition, a larger group of children (n = 123) rated the goodness or badness of the events tha...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of community psychology 1986-02, Vol.14 (1), p.59-74
Main Authors: Wolchik, Sharlene A., Sandler, Irwin N., Braver, Sanford L., Fogas, Bruce S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation, Psychological
Adolescent
Age Factors
Attitude
Child
Divorce
Female
Follow-Up Studies
Humans
Indexing in process
Life Change Events
Male
Psychological Tests
Sex Factors
Stress, Psychological - psychology
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Summary:The stressfulness, for the "typical" child, of 62 events that occur to children of divorce was rated by children of divorce (n = 58), their custodial parents (n = 58), and clinicians (n = 50). In addition, a larger group of children (n = 123) rated the goodness or badness of the events that had happened to them. The rank orderings of the mean stress ratings for the typical child made by children, parents, and clinicians were highly correlated. However, when the absolute stress value of the events was compared across raters, children rated 10 events as significantly less stressful than did parents (p less than .05); parents' and clinicians' ratings differed for 9 events, parents rating 7 as less stressful (p less than .05). Children rated 19 events as less stressful than did clinicians (p less than .05). The rank ordering of the children's mean ratings of events actually experienced correlated highly with the rank orderings of the children's mean ratings of the negative events for the typical child.
ISSN:0091-0562
1573-2770
DOI:10.1007/BF00923250