How parents interact with their kids has a great deal of influence of the quality of their children's future romantic lives, even more than their peers!
Reports Sue Shellenbarger in the Wall Street Journal
Having divorced parents has been linked in research by Paul Amato, a Pennsylvania State University sociology professor, and others to a 50% to 100% higher probability of divorce among children. Now, plying observational techniques previously used only to study adult marriages, scientists have been able to tease out the mechanisms by which specific parental behaviors affect kids. These studies suggest it is how parents relate to their children that has the most direct impact, regardless of the marital bliss -- or lack of it -- in the parents' marriages.
The large influence of the parent-child interactions on a child's romantic relationships "surprises people constantly," says W. Andrew Collins, a professor in the University of Minnesota's Institute of Child Development, and lead researcher on a 30-year study of the subject. Although peers and other factors play a role, "where the rubber really meets the road" in shaping future relationships "is the way the parent treats the child and relates with the child. That's the laboratory in which the child learns how to relate lovingly with other people."
Among the most influential factors: whether parents teach kids to resolve conflicts well; whether they're warm and nurturing; whether they show interest in teens' activities and set good limits and appropriate parent-child role boundaries; and whether they avoid fostering feelings of rejection in their kids.