Perceived maternal disapproval of friends: How mothers shape and respond to child and friend adjustment problems

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Date
2022Author
Kaniušonytė, Goda
Žukauskienė, Rita
Bakaitytė, Aistė
Laursen, Brett
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The present study examines relations between adjustment problems and
perceptions of maternal disapproval of friends in a sample of Lithuanian public
middle-school students. The participants (ages 10 to 14) were 284 children
(148 boys, 136 girls) who were involved in 142 stable friendships. Each friend
described their own conduct problems, emotional problems, and perceptions
of maternal disapproval of friends twice during the same academic year
(M = 14.4 weeks apart). Dyadic analyses replicated previous findings in that
one friend’s conduct and emotional problems forecast changes in the
same problems in the other friend. Greater initial problems also anticipated
increases in children’s’ perceptions of disapproval of friends by their own—
but not their friend’s—mother, highlighting maternal efforts to manage the
relations of troubled children. These efforts met with mix success. On the one
hand, maternal disapproval of friends did not result in subsequent declines in
adjustment problems among their own children; to the contrary, the conduct
problems of boys increased with greater maternal involvement. On the other
hand, adjustment problems declined among children whose friends reported
higher levels of maternal disapproval, suggesting that maternal friendship
management may interfere with the spread of problems between children.
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