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16 J. Fam. Violence 1 (2001)

handle is hein.journals/jfamv16 and id is 1 raw text is: Journal of Family Violence, Vol. 16, No. 1, 2001 Discrepancy between Mother and Child Perceptions of Their Relationship: I. Consequences for Adolescents Considered within the Context of Parental Divorce Jennifer Peltoni and Rex Forehand' Previous research has shown that parent-adolescent conflict is associated with adolescent adjustment. One possible source of conflict between parents and adolescents is the discrepant ways in which they perceive their relationship, which may contribute to adolescent adjustment difficulties. The present study examined the association between mother-adolescent discrepant views in their relationship and adolescent adjustment difficulties concurrently and longitu- dinally. In addition, the role of a family stressor, in this case parental divorce, in enhancing the discrepant views and moderating the relationship between discrepancy in perceptions and adolescent adjustment was examined. Results indicated that discrepancies in mother perception and adolescent perception of their relationship were associated with mother report of internalizing and ex- ternalizing behavior problems concurrently and longitudinally. Furthermore, discrepancies were significantly higher in divorced families than intact fami- lies, but divorce did not moderate the relationship between discrepancies and adolescent adjustment. Clinical implications and directions for future research are discussed. KEY WORDS: parent-adolescent conflict; parental divorce. It is a commonly held belief that adolescence, in particular the parent-adolescent relationship, is inherently stressful and often wrought with conflict (Montemayor, 1983). Although empirical evidence has shown that parenting is more problematic during the adolescent years and that parent-adolescent arguments increase in frequency during adolescence (for 'Institute for Behavior Research, 111 Barrow Hall, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602. 1 0885-7482/01/0300-0001$19.50/0 @ 2001 Plenum Publishing Corporation