Socio-emotional adjustment in children attending family centres: The role of the parent-child relationship

Whilst services are rightly concerned to use standardised measures and other criteria to evaluate the impact of their services, the use of the emerging data for secondary analysis is less common. In this article, we demonstrate how large data sets may be interrogated to establish areas of family presentation, which require particular attention when developing, and delivering services, in this case the key area is the relationship between children and their families. Findings indicated that parents' perceptions of their children's socio-emotional functioning significantly influenced the quality of the child-parent relationship. Higher levels of conflict were significantly associated with psychological difficulties, whilst greater closeness was significantly related to prosocial behaviours. These relationships are held after controlling for a range of child, parent and family socio-demographic variables, such as the child's experience of chronic illness or stressful life events. We argue that such information may provide the evidence for reshaping services, developing bespoke interventions for targeted areas. Family services offer the possibility of producing data sets, capable of primary analyses to measure service efficacy, and secondary analyses to develop nuanced understandings of family needs. In this article, we report secondary analysis of data drawn from 1,151 families elicited upon intake to family centres in Ireland. The aim was to examine correlates of children's socio-emotional functioning, with focus on the quality of relationships between children and parents. Participating families completed surveys containing socio-demographic questions and standardised instruments tapping into children's social, emotional and behavioural strengths and difficulties, parents' mental health, and closeness and conflict in parent-child relationship. Findings indicated that parents' perceptions of their children's socio-emotional functioning significantly influenced the quality of the child-parent relationship. Higher levels of conflict were significantly associated with psychological difficulties, whilst greater closeness was significantly related to prosocial behaviours. These relationships held after controlling for a range of child, parent and family socio-demographic variables, such as the child's experience of chronic illness or stressful life events, both of which independently predicted poorer outcomes. Results are discussed in terms of the dynamic, reciprocal nature of family relationships whereby parent-child conflict and children's problematic socio-emotional functioning likely influence, and are influenced by, each other.