The Effect Of Parental Marital Conflict And Intervention Style On Children’s Sibling Conflict And The Study Of Children’s Sibling Conflict Intervention

In recent years,under the guidance of China’s fertility policy,more and more Chinese families may choose to have a second child or even a third child,sibling conflict among children will become increasingly prominent in Chinese families hence.Sibling conflict however has a significant impact on children’s physical and mental development,which may bring about a variety of internalizing or externalizing problems for them.Under such a background,this study first investigated the status quo of children’s sibling conflict in China and then examined the effect of parental marital conflict on children’s sibling conflict and the mediating role of parental intervention styles between parental marital conflict and children’s sibling conflict.Accordingly,an intervention program for children’s sibling conflict was designed and implemented in order to help Chinese parents deal correctly with children’s sibling conflict at home.The current study consists of three sub-studies:To investigate the current situation of children’s sibling conflict in China and the mediating role of parental intervention styles between parental marital conflict and children’s sibling conflict,questionnaires include Sibling Conflict Questionnaire(SCQ),Children’s Perception of Interparental Conflict Scale(CPIC)and Parental Intervention Styles Questionnaire(PISQ)were completed by 689 Chinese children from grade 4 to 6in study 1 and study 2.The results showed that:(1)The score of children’s sibling conflict was far lower than the medium level in China.There were no significant differences in gender,grade,number of siblings and sibling gender composition except sibling age gap in the score of children’s sibling conflict.(2)Parental marital conflict,control strategies and nonintervention strategies were positively related to children’s sibling conflict,by contrast,child-centered strategies were negatively related to children’s sibling conflict.(3)Parental marital conflict was positively associated with control strategies as well as nonintervention strategies,negatively associated with child-centered strategies.(4)Child-centered strategies,control strategies and nonintervention strategies partially mediated the association between parental marital conflict and children’s sibling conflict.On the basis of study 1,study 2 and previous studies,and referring to the formal mediation procedures,study 3 designed a detailed and feasible intervention program for children’s sibling conflict.Under the guidance of the program,34 families,each family includes one mother and two children,were recruited and randomly assigned to mediation and control conditions in study 3.Mothers in the mediation condition were trained to use formal mediation procedures to help children resolve conflict,on the contrary,there is no training that was given to the mothers in the control condition,so as to examine the effect of mothers’ use of mediation to help children resolve conflict in China.The results indicated that:(1)Negative behaviors expressed by mothers in mediation families were significantly less than mothers in control families in the process of helping children resolve sibling conflict.In addition,compared with children in control families,children in mediation families were less likely to behave negatively during conflicts with their siblings.(2)Mother’s mediation could lessen the frequency of children’s sibling conflict in Chinese two-child families.(3)Mothers in mediation families were more likely than expected to help their children resolve sibling conflict,whereas mothers in the control families were more likely than expected to force their children to resolve sibling conflict according to their own requirements.(4)Mothers in mediation families were more likely than expected to use mediation to help their children resolve sibling conflict,whereas mothers in control families were more likely than expected to use non-mediation to resolve children’s sibling conflict.Altogether,the problem of sibling conflict among children is not serious in China.Nevertheless,parents still need to pay attention to the adverse impact of their behaviors on children,and should better not to come into conjugal conflict in front of children.Moreover,when children are in conflict with their siblings,parents should try to use child-centered strategies to help them resolve conflict,rather than control strategies or nonintervention strategies.Finally,mediation has many positive effects on children’s conflict resolution,which could help Chinese parents handle with children’s sibling conflict properly.