Family Boundary Ambiguity, Marital Status, and Child Adjustment

Abstract

The association between children’s perceptions of boundary ambiguity and their personal adjustment was examined in a sample of 262 children who lived with their biological parents and 87 children who lived with their single, divorced mothers or their divorced mothers and stepfathers. Adjustment was assessed by measuring mother and teacher reports of child problem behaviors and academic performance. The specific component of boundaries examined was fathers’ psychological and physical presence in the family. The results did not support the hypothesis that an incongruence between children’s perceptions of fathers’ psychological and physical presence would be associated with greater adjustment problems in preadolescents and early adolescents. In addition to testing hypotheses deduced from the boundary ambiguity literature, the independent roles of children’s perceptions of fathers’ psychological presence and family composition were examined to test competing hypotheses. The family structure perspective received the most support.