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American Journal of Community Psychology, VoL 9, No.

2, 1981

Parental Death or Divorce and the School


Adjustment of Y o u n g Children 1

Robert D. Felner 2 and Melanie A. Ginter


Yale University
Mary F. Boike and Emory L. Cowen
University of Rochester

This study examined the effects o f two potentially crisis-producing experiences,


parental divorce or death, on the school adjustment o f young children. Children
with such "crisis" histories were found to show greater overall school maladap-
tation than children without such histories. Children o f divorce had significantly
more acting-out problems than noncrisis controls or death children and those
with histories o f parental death more serious shy-anxious problems than the other
groups. These effects were stable across (a) independent year samples, (b)
referred and "normal" nonreferred groups, and (c ) urban and rural samples. Dif-
ferential judgments about the competencies o f children who have experienced
parental divorce, death, or neither were also found. Divorce children were seen
as having fewer competencies than death children or noncrisis controls. The
association between specific crisis history and specific school ad/ustment patterns
is seen to have implications for the study o f coping with stressful life events and
for preventive efforts.

Because crisis events place demands on people that e x c e e d their normal resources
for dealing with t h e m (Murphy, 1961), they often produce rapid, significant

This research is based on a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment for the PhD degree
at the University of Rochester. Appreciation is due to Alice Wilson, Raymond P. Lorion,
Ellis Gesten, Michael DeStefano, and Raymond Francis for their contributions to data
collection and analyses. Parts of this article were presented at the 46th annual meeting of
the Eastern Psychological Association, Boston, April 1978. This research was supported
by Grant MN 11820-04 from the National Institute of Mental Health, Experimental and
Special Training Branch and Graiat NIH 4-SOC7-RR07015 from the National Institute of
Health, Biomedical Support Division.
2All correspondence should be sent to Robert D. Felner, Department of Psychology, Box
1 la Yale Station, Yale University, New Haven Connecticut 06520.
181
0091-0562/81/0400-0181 $ 0 3 . 0 0 / 0 © 1981 Plenum Publishing Corporation
182 Felner, Ginter, Boike, and Cowen

changes in their coping styles (Caplan, 1964). If a person's typical coping strat-
egies are ineffective in crisis situations, new ones, sometimes effective, some-
times ineffective, must be developed (Caplan, 1961; Lindemann, 1956; Stein
1970; Morley, Note 1). Frequently, the way in which a crisis is resolved has
important long-term consequences for the individual. Whereas effective crisis-
management builds future strengths and adaptive resources in the person, poor
crisis-management makes for more serious maladjustment.
Although the loss of a significant other is widely thought to precipitate
crisis reactions and maladaption (Darbonne, 1967; Klein & Lindemann, 1961),
actual studies of its effects have yielded mixed results, i.e., some researchers
have found relationships between death and later maladaptive behavior, e.g.,
psychiatric problems, particularly depression (Barry, Barry, & Lindemann,
1965; Birtchnell, 1969; Bratfos, 1967; Brown, 1961; Sugar, 1970; Rutter,
1966), others (Blaine & Carmen, 1968; Gregory, 1966; Munro, 1966) have
not. For children, both parent death or divorce may be severe life events that
predispose to crisis reactions and maladaptation (Felner, Stolberg, & Cowen,
1975; Sugar, 1970). Illustratively, Koller and Castanos (1968) and Haim (1970)
report that a significant proportion of adolescents and adults who attempted or
committed suicide had childhood histories of parent separation, divorce, or
death.
Several investigators have studied the differential consequences of various
types of parent loss. Glueck and Glueck (1950) found that a significantly higher
proporation of delinquent boys came from homes broken by parent death than
by divorce. Brown and Epps (1966) found criminal behavior to be associated
with parental separation experiences, other than death, in childhood. Sugar
(1970), however, argues that the effects of death and divorce are basically
similar, with essentially identical mourning responses being triggered by both
events.
Thus, although some studies suggest serious early crisis has long-lasting ef-
fects, and that these effects may differ as a function of the particular crisis-
producing event, most of the work is (a) retrospective and (b) difficult to
replicate across studies.
Felner et al. (1975) studied the school adjustment problems associated
with specific crisis events. Among maladapting primary graders, children with
histories of parental death or divorce were found to be significantly more
maladjusted than referred, demographically matched noncrisis controls. More-
over, the two crisis groups had different types of problems, i.e., elevated acting-
out problems for separation/divorce children, and elevated shy-anxious problems
for death children.
Although the preceding findings are instructive, they raise the question
of whether similar findings would be obtained in a "normal" sample. More-
over, most prior studies of children in crisis focus on their symptoms or prob-
lems. Concern about the limits of pathology-oriented conceptualizations in
Parental Death or Divorce and School Adjustment 183

mental health (Cowen, Gardner, & Zax, 1967; Zax & Cowen, 1976) also applies
to the study of crisis, where there is a shifting focus to the positive aspects of
crisis resolution (Finket, 1974; 1975). Hence, it may also be useful to examine
strengths and resources in crisis children, including the possibility that different
crisis events are associated with different resource patterns.
The present article reports two separate studies that address the following
specific questions: (a) Among young maladapting referred children, do children
with and without crisis histories have different health resource patterns as well
as problem profiles? (b) Do referred children with separated or divorced parents
have different resources, as well as problems, than those who have lost a parent
through death?, and (c) Will similar problem/resource profiles be found among
"normal" nonreferred children who have experienced comparable crises?
Based on earlier findings (Felner et al., 1975), children with histories of
parental separation or divorce are expected to have serious acting-out overall
maladjustment problems, and children who have experienced parental death
more serious shy-anxious and overall problems than referred noncrisis peers.
Directionally similar, if less extreme, differences should be found among non-
referred children who have experienced comparable life crises. No prediction
about differential patterns of resources can be made due to lack of prior studies.

STUDY 1

Method

The Experimental Context

Subjects in this study were primary graders identified through the Primary
Mental Health Project (PMHP), a program for early detection and prevention of
school maladaptation (Cowen, Dorr, Clarfield, Kreling, McWilliams, Pokracki,
Pratt, Terrell, & Wilson, 1973; Cowen, Trost, Lorion, Dorr, Izzo, & Isaacson,
1975; Cowen, 1980). Typically, PMHP children are referred for classroom-
identified behavioral (e.g., acting-out, withdrawal) or educational problems.
The program uses trained nonprofessional child-aides, working under profes-
sional supervision, as direct help-agents for such children (Zax, Cowen, Izzo,
Madonia, Merenda, & Trost, 1966). During the school year 1974-75, 211 children
were seen in four PMHP project schools.

Subjects

Evaluation of PMHP program effectiveness for 1974-75 was based on 21i


program, and 145 nonprogram, children. Several items in the overall teacher
184 Felner, Ginter, Boike, and Cowen

referral packet dealt with family background problems that seemed to be con-
tributing to children's current difficulties (cf. below). Two such background
items "parental separation or divorce" and "death of a parent," were used to
select "crisis" children in this study. A total of 68 children with a history of
parental separation or divorce and 21 others with a history of parental death
were so identified by teachers. These two crisis subgroups were matched to
each other and a control group (i.e., 90 referred children without crisis histories)
for sex, school grade, socioeconomic status, school location, repeat-in-grade
status, and repeat in PMHP. Four children had to be dropped from the separation/
divorce group to obtain satisfactory matches on these demographic variables.

Measures

Two behaviorally oriented scales were used to assess children's school


adjustment problems and health resources:
The Classroom Adjustment Rating Scale (CARS). Children's school ad-
justment problems were assessed using the Classroom Adjustment Rating Scale
(CARS) (Lotion, Cowen, & CaldweU, 1975), a modification of Clarfield's
(1974) Teacher Referral Form. The CARS has three main sections. Section I
consists of 41 behaviorally oriented items describing various school adaptation
problems. Teachers rated each on 5-point severity scales ranging from 1 = never
a problem through 5 -- a very serious problem. Factor analysis of the CARS
yielded three stable factors: Acting-out (A) (10 items); Shy (Anxious/Moody)
(SA) (12 items); and Learning Problems (L) (13 items). Higher factor and total
scores indicate greater maladjustment. CARS Section II includes six family
background problems (e.g., separation/divorce of a parent, death of a parent,
family pressure to succeed). Teachers checked family problems they considered
both to be (a) present and (b) related to the adjustment problems reported in
Section 1.3 Section III of the CARS consists of three 7-point scales measuring
how well the teacher knew (KN), how much she liked (LK), and how serious
she considered a child's problems to be (PB).
The Health Resources Inventory. The HRI is a 54-item behaviorally
oriented scale which measures school children's adaptive resources (Gesten,
1976). Factor analysis of the HRI has identified a five-factor structure: Good
Student (GDST) (10 items), related to effective learning; Gutsiness (GUTSY)
(7 items), reflecting adaptive assertiveness or ego strength; Peer Sociability
(PSOC) (10 items), relating to effective interpersonal functioning; Rules (RULES)
(7 items), indicating the child's ability to function within the constraints of

3In Study I, the control group may have included a very few children who had experienced
a parental death or divorce that, in the teacher's opinion, was not related to adjustment
problems. In Study II, however, teachers checked all family problems known to be present
without regard to relationship to adjustment problems.
Parental Death or Divorce and School Adjustment 185

school environment; and, Frustration Tolerance (FRUSTOL) (12 items), mea-


suring the child's' ability to cope with failure and other social pressures. The
HRI uses a 5-point rating scale based on how well an item describes a child (1 =
not at all through 5 = very well). Higher factor, sum of factor, and total scores
indicate greater perceived health resources.

Results

One-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) were performed to compare the


three groups on each of the seven CARS and seven HRI measures. 4 Whenever
significant overall Fs were found, Newman-Keuls tests were used to test dif-
ferences among specific group means. The latter are reported where p < . 0 5 .
ANOVA revealed significant differences on the CARS acting-out, F(2, 172)=
4.71, p < .01, shy-anxious,/7(2,172) = 3.16, p < .05, and overall maladjustment,
F(2, 172) = 3.53, p < .05, dimensions. Elucidating tests showed that divorce
children had significantly higher acting-out scores than either death children or
controls, and greater overall maladjustment than controls. By contrast, children
with parental death histories had significantly higher CARS shy-anxious factor
scores than controls. Significant group differences on the HRI were found on
the RULES factor, F(2, 172) = 3.02, p < .05. On that dimension, divorce children
were found to cope significantly less well with rules than death children or
controls.

STUDY II

Study II essentially replicates Study I, with two major modifications: (a)


subjects were normal rather than referred children and, (b) came from a largely
rural rather than an urban/suburban area.

Method
Experimental Context

Primary grade teachers in six local schools (four parochial, two public) in
Ridgway and DuBois, Pennsylvania, submitted school adjustment information
for subjects in this study. The two communities are largely rural. Residents,
most of whom were from "upper-lower" or "lower-middle" socioeconomic
strata, are primarily employed in mining, foresting, and light industry.

4The factors are orthogonal; the correlation between the CARS factors and the HRI factors
is quite low.
186 Felner, Ginter, Boike, and Cowen

Subjects

Subjects were randomly selected from grades K - 3 in the six schools and in-
cluded 468 children who were rated on a school adjustment measure and half that
number (243) on a health index. Within the full sample (n = 468), 37 children
with histories of parental separation or divorce and 14 with histories of par-
ental death were identified, using the same procedure described for Study I
(see footnote 3). A control group of 51 children without crisis histories was
matched to these crisis groups for sex, school, grade, and repeat-in-grade status.
Further, chi-square analyses revealed the 14 children with parental death histories
to be matched to the 37 with parental separation or divorce background on the
previously listed demographic variables.

Measures

The Teacher Evaluation Form. The TEF is a modification of the CARS,


developed by the Ridgway program. Section I consists of 50 behaviorally oriented
items including all 41 CARS Section I items and scored just as they are. Factor
analysis of the TEF yielded a four-factor structure that differed somewhat
from the CARS factor solutions. Although the TEF had both A (7 items) and L
(19 items) factors, CARS SA broke down into two separate factors: Socialization
Problems (S) (9 items) and Anxiety Problems (Anx) (6 items). A sum of factor
score and overall maladjustment score are also computed. Higher factor and total
scores on the TEF indicate greater maladjustment. Sections II and III of the TEF
were identical to comparable sections of the CARS (see footnote 3).
The Health Resources Inventory - Ridgway. Although Ridgway used the
HRI that was used in Study I, a separate factor analysis for this sample yielded a
slightly different solution, i.e., the same factors showed up but with different
numbers of items per factor: GDST, 16 items; GUTSY, 7 items; PSOC, 9 items;
RULES, 8 items; and FRUSTOL, 8 items. Scoring was as described above.

Results

Separate one way ANOVAs were performed comparing divorce, death, and
control subjects on each of the six TEF dimensions. Again, where significant
overall Fs were found Newman-Keuls tests of differences among specific group
means were performed. The latter are reported where p < .05. Because there
were too few (n = 5) children in the parental death group in the HRI sample to
permit comparisons with the other groups, the latter analyses were limited to
t tests comparing divorce children and controls on the seven HRI dimensions.
Significant group differences were found on TEF acting-out, F(2, 99) =
5.21, p < .01, socialization problems, F(2, 99) = 3.64, p < .05, and overall
Parental Death or Divorce and School Adjustment 187

maladjustment, F(2, 99) = 4.28, p <.05). Newman-Keuls analyses showed


specifically that children with histories of parental separation/divorce had higher
TEF acting-out and socialization problems scores than controls and death
children. By contrast, children with histories of parental death had significantly
more socialization problems than controls. Both crisis groups had higher overall
maladjustment scores than control children.
Noncrisis controls (n = 25) had significantly higher competence scores than
divorce children (n = 26) on the Peer Sociability (t = 2.52, p < .05), Rules (t =
3.12, p < .01), Frustration Tolerance (t = 2.57, p < .05), and; overall (t = 2.13,
p < .05) ratings.

DISCUSSION

Children with family histories of death and divorce were found to show
greater overall school maladaptation than children without such histories.
Specifically, those with parental separation/divorce have more serious acting-
out problems than both death and noncrisis controls, whereas those with histories
of parental death have more serious shy-anxious problems than separation/divorce
children or controls. These findings are consistent with earlier data (Felner et al.,
1975). That they were found, here, to generalize to a rural "normal" sample,
strengthens the support for the conclusion that different life and familial crises
have specific and differential effects on children's classroom behavior.
Teachers also made differential judgments about the competencies of these
groups. Although the findings are somewhat uneven, divorce children, in general,
were judged to have fewer competencies than death children or noncrisis controls,
a difference that showed up on three specific HRI factors and on the HRI
sum score. Teachers saw control children as having significantly greater resources
than children with histories of parental divorce. Of particular interest is that in
both the normative and referred samples, controls were judged to have signif-
icantly greater resources for coping with class rules than separation/divorce
children. The deficiencies of divorce children in following rules and in two other
competencies, frustration tolerance and peer sociability, may contribute to the
elevated acting-out problems of divorce children.
It must be noted that matching difficulties and limited sample sizes
precluded finer-grained analyses of such pertinent questions as the possible dif-
ferential impact of different crisis situations across sex and socioeconomic
groups. Nor could age of the child at the time of the event be considered due to
the lack of availability of such data. Another limit of the present findings is
that they depend heavily on teacher judgments. Further work should include
other types of outcome criteria (e.g., independent behavioral observation of
behavior, multiple measures of personality adjustment, and self-concept).
Caplan (1964) and others (Murphy, 1961; Felner et al., 1975) suggest
that certain crisis consequences result from a person's increased sensitivity to
188 Felner, Ginter, Boike, and Cowen

environmental events during such periods. In trying to understand school ad-


justment problems of separation/divorce and death children, Felner et al. (1975)
suggested that the child draws on "the predominant behavior modeled for him
during a given type of crisis, and this becomes a guiding framework for his later
behavior and coping efforts" (p. 309). Whereas the divorce process is frequently
accompanied by conflictual behavior between parents, death isusually associated
with anxiety, confusion, and depression in the remaining parent. The specific
referral profffles of the separation/divorce and death children, in this and Felner
et al.'s (1975) study, are indeed those that such a model would predict. A
related explanation is advanced by several authors (Tuckman & Regan, 1967;
Birtchnell, 1969) who argue that death and divorce are very different events for
children. Whereas divorce usually follows a chronic, conflict-laden process,
death may be more precipitous. Such differential pre- and postcrisis histories,
with greater stress for children of divorce who have problems on "both ends"
of the separation, may hamper the level of adaptive coping strategies in the latter,
contributing to the deficiencies in coping skills noted in separation/divorce
children when compared to those with histories of parental death. For example,
Hetherington, Cox, and Cox (1977; 1979) found that when a divorce is ac-
companied by disorganization in family routine and inconsistent, unpredictable
discipline, children are more likely to act-out than in divorce homes in which
routines remain relatively stable.
Thus, the "stressful life event" framework used by several authors to view
the impact of, and process of coping with, such crises as parental death and
separation/divorce (Caplan, 1961; Lindemann, 1956; Dohrenwend, 1978;
Dohrenwend & Dohrenwend, 1974; Gersten, Langner,Eisenberg, & Orzeck,
1974), though useful, may be too narrow a focus. It may be more helpful to
focus not only on the brief period surrounding the "event," but on its after-
math, including the repercussions that may continue to engender new tasks and
life transitions for the individual and demand new adaptations for some time to
come. Illustratively, Hetherington et al. (1977; 1979) found that, following
divorce, the tasks which confront the family members may include the re-
construction of support systems, the restructuring of family life, and the learning
of new skills and patterns for parenting. Such tasks certainly take longer to
resolve than the 6- to 8-week crisis period hypothesized by Caplan (1961), and
true equilibrium may not be achieved for some time.
If, as our findings suggest, these crises have significant long-term implica-
tions for a child's adjustment, future work should seek to identify factors that
facilitate successful coping with them and their sequelae. Undoubtedly, children
vary markedly in how well they cope with such crises. Whereas some surely
suffer enduring negative consequences, others show few if any ill effects, and
still others may even build strength from the experience. It is thus important
to identify individual and support-system variables that add to the hazards of
crisis event's of facilitate their effective mastery.
Parental Death or Divorce and School Adjustment 189

Felner et al. (1975) argue that "theoretically the soundest approach to


problems resulting from crisis is for the individual to have already acquired the
strengths and coping resources needed to deal effectively with them" (p. 309).
Thus, prevention is to be preferred to reconstruction in this as well as other
areas. One challenge is to develop crisis-resistant "products" whose coping skills
not only enable them to weather crisis and transitional periods without long-
term negative effects, but actually to use them as vehicles to develop effective
new coping strategies.
Preventive efforts aside, the present reality is that death and divorce do
have negative consequences for a child's future adjustment. Hence, there is a
need to develop effective early intervention programs. Programs in "emotional
inoculation" or "anticipatory guidance" (Caplan, 1964); Commings & Com-
mings, 1966) may be helpful with foreseeable crises. Another approach is to
use nonprofessional help-agents to provide time-limited supportive contacts for
children experiencing current crises (Felner, Norton & Cowen, Note 2). Such
contacts allow the child to deal with the affective and cognitive upheavals
produced by crises.
In summary, the present findings show that (a) the crisis events of parental
divorce or death adversely affect young children's school adjustment, and (b)
there are systematic relationships between the type of crisis and the patterns of
resources and problems a child displays. These findings generalize across referred
and normal samples and urban and rural groups. Thus, the present data highlight
the potential long-term impact - often quite negative - of parental divorce and
death on the children's future adjustment, and thus point to a need to develop
effective preventive and interventive strategies for such youngsters. Much still
remains to be learned, however, about individual and system determinants of the
impact that a crisis has on a child.

REFERENCE NOTES
1. Morley, W. Treatment of the patient in crisis. Unpublished manuscript, 1964.
2. Felner, R. D., Norton, P. C., & Cowen, E. L. The development of a school-based crisis
intervention program for young children. Manuscript in preparation, Yale University,
1978.

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