Parent Conflict Resolution

Abstract

Parent-adolescent conflict is normative, and whether and how conflicts are resolved tend to be more important for adolescent adjustment than the actual occurrence of conflicts. On average, both parents' and adolescents' use of positive conflict resolution tends to increase, and negative conflict resolution tends to decrease, with age, although individual differences in personality and empathy also affect conflict resolution. Parents' conflict management behaviors in the marital relationship and in the parent-child relationship are important for adolescents' development of conflict resolution skills. Although conflicts between parents and children become more intense during adolescence, these conflicts are also thought to be a means of negotiating relational changes. Parents and adolescents are more likely to realign their relationship toward greater egalitarianism and reciprocity when parents and adolescents are able to constructively manage their conflicts within the context of a warm and trustful parent-child relationship, in which expressing negative emotions does not threaten the relationship.