CHAPTER ONE

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Introduction

Marital conflict, defined as the state of tension or stress between marital partners as they try to carry out their marital roles, has a significant impact on the socio-emotional development of children. This research topic explores various marital conflicts areas such as financial conflict, sexual conflict, marital communication, and disrespect, and their influence on children’s emotional development. Understanding how different marital conflicts affect children’s self-esteem, social relationships, and overall well-being is crucial for parents, educators, and mental health professionals. The seminal work by Cummings and Davis (1994) established the profound impact of marital conflict on children’s adjustment. The field of marital conflict, as further discussed by E. Mark Cummings and Davis (2011), views marital conflict as a risk factor and conceptualizes the role of marital conflict in risky families. The impact of conflict and aggression in families, particularly on children, can be profound if underestimated or viewed as an isolated source of influence. Cummings, Goeke-Morey, and Papp emphasize the importance of integrating the conflict between couples with the effects on children. Previous research has demonstrated that marital conflict is associated with adjustment problems for children. To better understand these impacts, it is important to distinguish between constructive and destructive conflicts, with researchers finding that constructive conflict does not have the deleterious effects on children that destructive conflict has.

This chapter will address the background to the study, the problem statement, research objectives, research questions, hypotheses, significance of the study, scope of the study, and operational definitions of terms. The independent variable, parental conflict, includes indicators such as marital conflict, financial conflict, sexual conflict, and disrespect, while the dependent variable is the socio-economic development of children, which encompasses aspects such as self-esteem, social relationships, and cognitive growth.

Background to the study.

Historically Marital conflict started way back in the 19 countries in Southern, Eastern, Central and Western Africa which shows that marital conflict rates varied significantly between urban and rural areas. Overall, there are moderate to large increase in marital conflicts in Kenya, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, and Cote d‟Ivoire, with smaller declines in Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Burkina Faso, Gambia, Ghana, Senegal, and Sierra Leone (Basela, 2008). family is disrupted because of one thing or another (Holahan & Moos, 2009). Gerald, Krishnnakumar and Buehler (2006) highlighted the view that parents play a central role in shaping the child’s socioemotional development through their influence. Krishnakumar and Buehler (ibid) add that studies carried out have found that children’s health and socio-emotional development is most effectively promoted by love and at least some moderate parental control. According to Adamson and Thomson (2008), children who live in marital conflict situations suffer severe stress and this negatively affects their socioemotional development. Marital conflict is a phenomenon that destabilizes the couple, disrupts their joy and is mostly felt by women and yet, the least recognized human rights abuse in the world.

Gerald, Krishnakumar and Buehler (2006) argue that witnessing conflicts and violence is not different from being a victim. They reported that, witnessing conflicts is more significant than being a target, and that, children who grow up in conflict-ridden homes are more involved in delinquency than children in low-level conflict. Fomby and Cherlin (2007) studied pupils‟ perceptions of parental conflict and their socio-emotional development in children. Their findings showed that parental conflict was significantly related to pupils’ socioemotional problems and problem behaviours in both European-American and African-American samples. Thus, parental conflict was linked with children’s socioemotional development and externalizing problem behaviours. Gyrch, Finchman, Jouriles and McDonald (2000) in longitudinal research reported that parental conflict is associated with children’s schooling. Parental conflict resulted in school dropout, socio-emotional development, parental disengagement and negative parent-children relationships. The study found a direct association between parental conflict and children’s socioemotional development. Further, Bubelwa (2014) reported that marital conflict affects children‟ ‘s socioemotional development negatively due to truancy, failure to concentrate, and development of low self-esteem.

About a decade ago Cummings and Cummings (1988) proposed a framework outlining the requirements for achieving a process-oriented level of understanding of the effects of marital conflict on children. Since little was known at this level of analysis at that time, the framework was largely meant to serve as a guidepost for directions for future research and model-building (e.g., Davies& Cummings, 1994; Grych & Fincham, 1990). Nonetheless, revisited for the present review, the Cummings and Cummings framework provides a touchstone for charting progress over the past decade towards achieving a process-oriented Association for Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2002.

Conceptually marital conflict by Fincham (2009), was defined as an overt opposition between spouses, which generates disagreement and relationship difficulty. It was also defined as the state of tension or stress between marital partners as the couple tries to carry out their marital roles. Marital conflicts negatively influence all areas of a child’s development, which include physical, emotional, psychological, social, behavioural, cognitive development, etc. This could in turn alter his functioning in many essential aspects of his life. The authors discuss these effects in the light of Erikson’s theory. According to the psychosocial theory of development, each developmental stage is provided with a developmental task. The successful resolution of the developmental tasks increases the probability of accomplishing the following tasks. Hence, the achievement of all the tasks leads to a child’s psychosocial development.

It is anticipated that marital conflicts at the family level apart from causing an impact on spouses; have an impact on children’s socioemotional development as well. (due to social, economic and psychological issues) the social relationship of children with others and consequently poor. According to Allison (2009)

family stress can have a devastating effect on children’s socioemotional development. The more marital conflict among the parents, the more it affects children’s development but the lesser it occurs, it improves their socioemotional stability. To overcome marital conflict problems children adopt an array of copying strategies

 Marital communication refers to the verbal and nonverbal communication between spouses. Marital communication has been studied most widely in the context of heterosexual relationships. It is the process of sending and receiving messages between husband and wife as they interact in the marriage life. When there is ineffective marital communication, the problem weighs more on the children because children don’t have the time to communicate with their parents. This is going to lead to emotional breakdown on the side of the children and socio-emotional instability. Parents often forget that they need to create a closer bond with their children through communication. (Nnadozia 2014). Help the partners to know, and share a lot of things in common includes, including thoughts emotions past experiences and weaknesses within and outside the relationship. Nnadozie (2014) believes that effective marital communication is the live wire that links husband, and wife together with children, strengthens the bond of relationships and so propels all activities in the family.

Sexual conflict can influence partners’ relationship satisfaction, and relationship satisfaction can influence sexual satisfaction. General relationship deficiencies, such as unresolved sexual conflict, undermine the mutual acceptance that is important to healthy sexual functioning. Results from several studies indicate that couples with sexual problems may have conflict-management issues and employ distinct conflict-resolution styles compared to satisfied couples. Dysfunctional conflict resolution may be a cause or result of some sexual problems, whereas constructive interaction concerning a conflict can add to emotional and sexual intimacy in a couple’s relationship. There is a general agreement that sexual maladjustment is an underlying cause in most cases of marital conflict.

Financial conflict affects not only financial satisfaction but also marital Satisfaction.  One’s financial status can enhance marital satisfaction, and more broadly, life satisfaction.  Conversely, financial difficulties and dissatisfaction with one’s financial status can lead to marital conflict and divorce. How a person manages his/her finances is a major factor contributing to satisfaction or dissatisfaction with one’s financial status. It has been suggested that financial management skills may reduce the chance of marital disagreements, while the lack of such skills may create crises. For this reason, this study aims to examine the relationship between financial issues and marital relationship and their effects on the child. 

Marital disrespect in marriage can have serious effects, on individuals and the couple. Disrespect in marriage can erode the trust and stability of the couple, leading to feelings of lack of emotional support from one or both partners. On the other hand, disrespect causes tensions between spouses, leading to reactive aggressive behaviours in the face of the children of that would not usually be interpreted as provocations. Actions of disrespect in the marriage also cause a loss of communication and emotional ties of intimacy. If the pattern of disrespect continues in the marital or romantic relationship, it can lead to stress that prevents people from being functional in their daily lives or even provoke violent acts between spouses. When there is this disrespect in marriage, it affects children negatively because children who easily copy things may turn to have such attitude when they come of age. And too, watching how their parents behave will not be good for their socioemotional development. neglect and family abandonment, children and partner abuse together with divorced family and marital conflict Refers to the unstable marriage characterized by frequent quarrels, fig families.

Socioemotional development means how children start to understand who they are, what they are feeling and what to expect when interacting with others. It is the development of being able to, form and sustain positive relationships, experience, manage and express emotions. Lastly, explore and engage with their environment. socio-emotional can also be termed as skills that enable individuals to accomplish particular tasks, such as recognizing and managing their emotions, and coping successfully with conflict.

Theoretically, three theories will be used to explain this work which are the attachment theory of John Bowlby, the social learning theory of Albert Bandura and the emotional security theory of Davis and Cummings.

 According to the attachment Theory by Ainsworth and Bowlby (1991), this study adopted attachment theory which is the joint work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth (Ainsworth & Bowlby, 1991). The theory emphasizes the importance of affective relations between parents and children as a source of security and support for the child. Attachment is conceptualized as the bond that develops between the child and his/her primary caregivers (Bowlby, 1969). These emotional bonds have been described in terms of the child perceiving the parent as a secure base from which to explore and understand their wider social world (Ainsworth, 1978). Perceiving the parent as a secure base means that the child has confidence in the parent’s availability and responsiveness. As such, attachment quality informs the child’s sense of autonomy and mastery. It also serves as a foundation for more generalized expectations about other relationships and interactions.

According to the social learning theory of Albert Bandura children learn behaviors through the modeling of their parents (Bandura, 1973). Within the context of marital conflict, it is assumed that children learn aggressive behaviours from their parents through observational learning. Through modelling, children may directly imitate parents’ conflictual behaviours, acquire scripts or rules for engaging in verbal or physical aggression, or have reduced inhibitions about aggression (Cox, Paley, & Harter, 2001; Cummings & Davies, 1995; Emry, 1982; Patterson, 1998). Two specific tenets of social learning theory describe situations in which children are most likely to imitate their parents.

First, it is assumed that children are more likely to model the behaviour of their parents when they have a warm relationship with a parent (Bandura & Walters, 1959). Thus, social learning theory would predict that children are more likely to model the parent they have a closer relationship with, be that aggressive behaviour or constructive conflict behaviour. Second, children are predicted to model behaviour that is more likely of the same-sex parent as they learn gender scripts (Emry, 1982). Thus, from a social learning perspective, children are likely to mimic the positive or negative reactions to conflict of their same-sexed parent, or parent with whom they have a warm relationship.

 According to Cummings and Davies (1996), emotional security theory is an appraisal made by children that family bonds are positive, safe, and stable even in the face of everyday stressors such as marital conflict. Emotionally secure children expect that family members will remain responsive and emotionally available for children even in times of stress and expect that their family will remain intact. Destructive marital conflict may undermine children’s security by signalling the unhappiness of a parent and raising the possibility of divorce (Cummings & Davies, 2010; Davies Forman, Rasi, &Stevens, 2002).

 According to Cummings and Davies (1994), children’s emotional security is observed as three interrelated, yet distinct, classes of responses: emotional reactivity, regulation of conflict exposure, and hostile internal representations. Emotional reactivity is measured as prolonged, dysregulated fear, vigilance, and distress. Sadness and anger can still play a role in observing children’s emotional security, but fear and vigilance are hypothesized to be the primary emotions activated when security concerns arise. Regulation of conflict exposure is a coping strategy that includes children’s involvement, such as taking sides and acting up, or avoidance of the conflict situation as well as strategies to control parent emotionality and behaviors before they escalate and result in more serious problems for the family. Hostile internal representations are children’s analyses of the implications and consequences of conflict for the welfare of the self, such as parent availability, and family, including the intactness of the family. Preschool children’s emotional security is generally assessed using measures of their emotional reactivity and regulation of conflict exposure (Cummings et al., 2006; McCoy, Cummings, & Davies, 2009).

Contextually, amongst other influential variables, parents can be considered the central stone for children’s socioemotional development. At the outset, it is worthwhile to put the topic of marital conflict and children’s functioning in some perspective. While interest has focused since the 1920s on the negative effects of marital conflict on children (Cummings & Davies, 1994a), conflict is normal and unavoidable in marriages, especially if one defines conflict broadly to include any disputes, disagreements, or expressions of untoward emotions over everyday matters between the parents. Although developmental and child clinical psychologists are typically concerned with children’s disorders, the majority of children evidence healthy socio-emotional development.

Marriages, particularly when harmonious, typically foster and advance children’s well-being. Furthermore, despite the seeming assumption in pre-1980s research that marital conflict is a homogeneous stimulus, marital conflict, varies on multiple dimensions. Thus, different forms of marital conflict have differing effects on the children, with some forms having negative effects and others having positive constructive effects. On the other hand, given the centrality of marital functioning to family circumstances, children’s experiences with some forms of marital conflict are likely to have some lasting effects on their well-being. Thus, it follows that history is likely to affect how children appraise and respond to interparental conflicts that affect children’s history as well as current marital conflict stimuli. (Cummings & Cummings, 1988; Davies & Cum- mings, 1994; Grych & Fincham, 1990).

Carefully controlled laboratory and analogue studies have repeatedly found support for these propositions about the diversity and range of effects of marital conflict on children and the importance of historical context (e.g., Cummings, Vogel, Cummings, & El-Sheikh, 1989; Cummings, Ballard, El-Sheikh, & Lake, 1991; Cummings, Goeke- Morey, & Papp, in press). These studies include laboratory demonstrations that a history of exposure to marital conflicts affects children’s reactions (Davies, Myers, Cummings, &Heindel,1999; El-Sheikh & Cummings, 1995). Moreover, field studies, including reports based on parental observational methodologies, affirm these conclusions (e.g., Cummings, Zahn-Waxler, & Radke-Yarrow, 1981; Cummings, Goeke-Morey, & Papp, in press; Garcia-O’Hearn, Margolin, & John, 1997). Thus, children are responsive to the stimulus characteristics of marital conflict.

1.2. Statement of the problem

The phenomenon of marital conflict on children’s development has really been a great challenge, especially as it affects children’s mental health, their socio emotional development and many more.  Studying the effects of marital conflict on children’s socioemotional development is inevitable because there is a relationship between marital conflicts and children’s socioemotional development. Marital disrespect, financial conflict, marital communication and lastly, sexual conflict has a great effect on the childrens socio emotional development. This research seeks to outline several pathways through which these conflicts impact children, categorized as either direct or indirect effects. Directly, children’s sense of security and the strength of the parent-child bond may be compromised due to ongoing parental marital issues.  Given that most studies have shown that parental conflict in one way or the other affects the socio-emotional development of children, given also the divergent results from different authors, it is important to further look in to the problem that parental conflict inflicts on the socio-emotional development of children.

. Research questions

One main research question and four specific objectives were stated to guide this study

Main research questions

The main research questions of the work seek to investigate how marital conflict affects children’s socio-emotional development

Specific research questions

Specifically, four research questions were stated to guide this study.

• To what extent does marital communication affect the socio-emotional development of children
• To what extent does sexual conflict affect the socio-emotional development of children
• How does financial conflict affect the socio-emotional development of children?
• How does disrespect affect the socio-emotional development of children?

Research objective.

One main research objective and four specific objectives were stated to guide this study.

Main research objective

The main research objective of the work seeks to investigate the effect of marital conflict on the socio-emotional development of children.

Specific research objectives

Specifically, four research objectives were stated to guide this study.

• To examine the effect of marital communication on the socio-emotional development of children.
• To investigate the effect of sexual conflict on the socio-emotional development of children.
• To find out whether financial conflict affects children’s socioemotional development.
• To assess the extent to which disrespect affects children’s socio-emotional development.