Parental relationship

The relationship between the study child’s parents is another aspect of the child’s

ecosystem that is desirable to capture. In terms of Bronfenbrenner’s bioecological

model, it is part of the ‘mesosystem’ (interactions between individuals in the child’s

microsystem) so very proximal to the child’s development. Most of the measures that

are recommended to use to evaluate the relationship between the study child’s

parents were asked of Cohort 24 at age 9 months and can be brought forward to this

wave.

The main sub-topics/measures that could be continued from Cohort 24 at age 9

months are (a) an item asked of the study child’s parents on marital status; (b) a scale

used for marital satisfaction; and (c) the item on relationship status with the study

child’s other biological parent. Additionally, a sub-topic that could be continued from

Cohort 08 at age 3 is (d) the questions and scales asking about parental conflict. The

scaled item (b) is explained in more detail later in the following paragraph.

DAS-4 Measures of marital satisfaction (Sabourin et al. 2005).