Sociology

Introduction Post divorce, fatherchild relationship posed concerns about time spent by fathers with children, emotional bonding between offspring and parents and college age daughters feeling less close to fathers. Many studies have examined the relationship and came up with different conclusions. There was agreement on importance of maintaining relationship and cross sectional studies have been carried out with reference to relationship between college age and adolescent children with their divorced father. Studies reported that the adult children and their divorced fathers have an improved relationship, owing to maturational effects and the children being married and are parents themselves. Long term father-child relationship is influenced by a number of inter related factors, which made the studies complex and confusing, most studies were observing the phenomenon over only a limited time period. This study aimed at examining the adult children and divorced father relationship from the perception of the adult children 20 years after their parents divorce and the influencing factors that might play a role in the quality of relationship.

Method Binuclear family study was conducted for 20 years beginning from 1979, by following the life of divorced families. The sample of pairs of former spouses who had at least one minor child was randomly selected from public divorce records in Dane county, WI. Interviews were conducted at 1, 3 and 5 years after a legal divorce. For this study, search was made to locate adult children of the former spouses selected for Binuclear family study and collect data from them. 193 of possible 204 children could be located and were eligible for data collection, out of which interviews could be completed from 173 adult children. The sex composition of the respondents was Male89, Female 84, their age ranged from 21 to 52. Most of the sample adult children were well educated and employed.

Their marital status presented a variety married, married and divorced, married divorced and remarried or remaining single, unmarried and unmarried but in serious relationship or cohabiting. Out of 68 of the sample who were married    63 had children biological or otherwise. Doctoral students with clinical training conducted semi structured interviews with the adult children over telephone, for drawing both quantitative and qualitative responses. Since the interviews were intended to gather elaborate information over a long period of time respondents were encouraged to tell their stories and respondents were probed where ever required. To achieve the research objectives, the interview focused on eliciting qualitative and quantitative responses for questions dealing with  changes in respondents relationships with their parents 20 years post divorce , factors contributing to the changes in relationships with their fathers, changes in respondents relationships with their fathers in relation to changes in post divorce relationships with other family members and on respondents reports of changes in their relationships with their fathers in relation to their perceptions of how they have been affected by the divorce Ten-point scale with 1 being much better and 10 being much worse  and 5 and 6 being about the same was used to capture the response for the question  How did childrens relationships with their parents change post divorce . 8 point scale measurement, categorization and summarization in terms of percentages were used for data analysis. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used in case of analysis of data on geographical proximity of sample adult children with their fathers and holiday visits. Chi-square test was used to test whether custody was related to adult childrens report on relationship change with their fathers. Father involvement scale similar to 5-point Likert scale was used to measure the frequency of involvement across eight parental activities where high scores indicated greater parental involvement.

Major finding were 49 of the respondents reported that the relationship with their father got better, 12 reported that it stayed the same and 38 said that it got worse. For those where relationship got worse after parental divorce the reasons were subsequent changes and transitions initiated by parents dating and remarriage.  98 of the respondents reported that they had at least some contact with their father by telephone. Analysis suggested that the relationship of respondents with their fathers and mothers improved in the later stages of the family life cycle than what it was in the initial stages. Where relationship got worse it was greater with father compared to mother Findings on factors that influence the relationship showed that custody did not significantly influence while father involvement had a positive influence. Early remarriage had a negative influence on the quality of relationship with father but was not so in the case of mother.59 of the respondents believed that they were better off as a result of divorce, while 12 believed to be worse off.

Conclusions Even though relationship with parents showed an improvement as children mature over the years, the study found that this positive trend did not change with divorce. The study also concluded that there was a positive influence in the relationship if the co parents played a supportive role and had low conflict parental unit outside marriage even after 20 years.

The study adopted a mix of both quantitative and qualitative techniques depending on the suitability of the situation and the variables were handled with clarity. These were the strengths while its main weakness was that the study was very complex dealing with too many interrelated issues through narratives.

Abstract for Qualitative Research Article
Introduction  Parental divorce  not only exposed children and adolescents to the risk of  adjustment problems but also the adult offspring .Studies indicated that,  parental divorce during childhood, induced drinking and smoking habits. It was also found to be a cause for psychological adjustment problems, behaviorconduct problem and lower educational attainment among adults. Studies have pointed out the significance of common ground of communication by different members of the family about the divorce event, to bring about relational closeness of the child with both parents in the post divorce family. For the child, changes like where the child would be living or making plans to visit the non resident parent may trigger stress. Factors like secured economic situation on the other hand are protective in nature. One of the important protective factors is that the child is helped by the adults to form a coherent and meaningful story or narrative of divorce. This case study based on social construction theory and narrative theory attempted to explore an adult childs various stories or narratives of the event of his parents divorce and of the living arrangements that were made for the children, under 8 conditions of instruction, with a view to bring out the coherence or divergence between opinions and stories held by significant people surrounding the adult child from its view point, using Q methodology. The eight conditions were in short termed as, As a child, Today, Mother and Sister, Friend, Children, and Wish., Father.   The study also examined the suitability of Q-methodology as a research tool for analyzing family stories or narratives. In this study only a single case was examined for which a young adult child of divorced parent from South West Norway was recruited and was given a pseudo name Magne. To select appropriate statements for Q sample, interviews were conducted with two Norwegian adult children of divorces parents in their thirties, apart from those constructed from literature. The Q-sample statements consisted of four categories 1) experiences related to divorce in the child perspective 2) experiences related to divorce in the adult perspective 3) experiences related to living arrangement in the child perspective 4) experiences related to living arrangement in the adult perspective. Each category had seven statements totaling to 28. Q-sorting for a maximum of 2 conditions in a day was carried out completing the process for eight conditions of instruction in five days. The statements were given score values ranging from -3 and 3 indicating most unlike and most like respectively and 4 statements were placed under each score.

Findings  Q-sorting and Q-factor analysis led to some of the important findings 1) factor 1 was characterized by  four conditions of instruction As a child,  Today, Mother and Sister and distinguishing statements both on the positive and negative end of the scale pointed to grief, sorrow, confusion and loneliness. 2) Factor 2 was defined by Friend, Children, and Wish. and distinguishing statements reflecting adults consideration and cooperation for the childrens feeling and wishes. 3) Factor 3 was defined by only one condition Father and the statements score reflected adult control and lack of consideration for childs future.

Conclusions  The findings were interpreted   as 1) Q-sort of factor1 highlighted that Magne perceived full of surprise and negative feeling in him, his mother and sister. There was no room for any thing positive. The sort also indicated that there was no significant change in the way he understood the situation then and now in retrospect. But the study did lead him to reflect on the past story and the possibility of a story different from the original. 2) Q-sort of factor 2 dealt about solutions which Magne wished to happen. Magne visualized that parents were responsible and caring enough to provide parental cooperation for the children in spite of divorce. 3) Q-sort of factor 3 indicated Magnes opinion of his father.  Unlike his mother sister and him, his father knew of the divorce situation, his father neither thought about Magnes opinion on where he would live nor about the care and security needs of the children in that situation. For Magne his father represented adult control and lack of consideration of child welfare. The study demonstrated the usefulness of Q-methodology in analyzing family narratives both in research and clinical settings. The story of the respondent is elicited from the way the respondent sorted the statements. The Q-Methodology was helpful in divulging the congruence and divergence among Magnes versions of family narratives. For a researcher who is interested in the subjectivity of situation from the stand point of the person living it. Q-methodology can be the appropriate qualitative analytical technique despite its mathematical substructure.

The study centered on a single case. By not bringing to the picture other family members, it was possible to explore the possible incongruence within one person which might provide valuable insight for researchers and therapists. In clinical condition, the therapists can suggest alternative narratives that provided a perspective which helped client to understand and deal with the surroundings better.