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The Relations Between Parental Friendships and Children's Child Development, March/April 2001, Volume 72, Number 2, Pages 569–582 The Relations between Parental Friendships and Children’s Friendships: Self-Report and Observational Analysis Sandra D. Simpkins and Ross D. Parke The relations between the quality of mothers’ and fathers’ friendships and that of their children’s friendships was examined. One hundred twenty-five fourth-grade children (9 year olds) completed the Friendship Quality Questionnaire. Observational measures of the target children playing with their self-selected friend were also collected. Mothers and fathers separately completed the Friendship Quality Questionnaire about their best friend. Results indicated that children’s self-reports and observational measures of friendship quality were not highly correlated for girls, but were moderately associated for boys. The quality of mothers’ and fathers’ friendships was related to the quality of children’s friendships, but the nature of the relations with children’s friendships differed for girls and boys. The implications of these findings for the socialization of friendship patterns and the assessment of children’s friendships were noted. INTRODUCTION conflicts, and utilize friends to deal with problems. Second, adults who have close, supportive friendships Most research on the familial correlates of children’s have more adequate parenting skills, especially under peer relationships has focused on peer group accep- stressful conditions (Cochran & Brassard, 1979; Hartup tance (Ladd & LeSieur, 1995; Parke & Ladd, 1992). & Stevens, 1997). Friends provide parents with emo- Because the processes and outcomes characterizing tional and tangible support, help in childrearing, and friendships are distinct from other measures of peer serve as parenting role models (Cochran & Brassard, competence, such as social acceptance, it is likely that 1979). The impact of these two processes is likely to the familial antecedents will differ as well (Bagwell, vary with quality of the adult friendships; higher Newcomb, & Bukowski, 1998). The focus of the cur- quality, supportive friendships are expected to result rent study was to explore the links between the qual- in better outcomes for parents and children than are ity of parents’ friendships and the quality of their conflictual, troublesome friendships. children’s friendships, as measured through both ob- Little work has focused on the links between the servational and self-report measures. This study was quality of parents’ friendships and the quality and/or exploratory because research on the links between quantity of children’s friendships. The exception is a parents’ and children’s friendship qualities has only recent study that compared mother’s ratings of their recently begun. Furthermore, the correspondence be- own best friendships with the quality of their chil- tween children’s behavior with a friend and percep- dren’s friendships (Doyle, Markiewicz, & Hardy, tions of that friendship is also a relatively unre- 1994). Children of mothers whose best friends were in- searched area. In addition to a review of relevant teresting and had stimulating ideas were more likely to empirical research, theory accounting for the links have a reciprocal best friend and rated that friend as between parents’ and children’s friendships is also more helpful and supportive. Children who experi- reviewed. Although the mechanisms of these theo- enced more closeness with their best friend had ries were not tested in this study, it is important to set mothers who reported having supportive friends. If a this study within a larger theoretical framework for mother felt less secure about her best friendship but future research. also rated that friend as interesting, her child was more likely to have a reciprocal best friend. The Doyle et al. The Links between Mothers’ and Fathers’ study provided some preliminary evidence of how the Friendships and Children’s Friendships quality of parental friendships is related to children’s friendship quality, but this study was limited by its ex- Parental friendships may influence children’s friendships in a variety of ways. First, through obser- vation of their parents’ interactions with their friends, © 2001 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. children may learn how to interact with friends, solve All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2001/7202-0016 570 Child Development amination of only maternal friendships and its reliance (Bronfenbrenner, 1960) would suggest that same- on self-report measures of children’s friendships. The gender associations are stronger. Similarly, empirical re- current study extends this work by examining the rela- search suggests that fathers are more involved with tions between children’s friendships and the quality of sons, whereas mothers tend to be more involved with paternal as well as maternal friendships. In addition, their daughters during middle childhood (Crouter & the current study provides both observational and self- Crowley, 1990) and adolescence (Harris & Margolin, report measures of children’s friendships. Each of 1991). Moreover, earlier work suggests that fathers’ these issues is discussed below. behaviors are especially likely to be related to boys’ Recent research suggests that fathers, as well as peer relationships whereas mothers’ behaviors are mothers, play important roles in children’s social de- more closely related to girls’ peer relationships (Isley, velopment, including their peer relationships (Lamb, O’Neil, Clatfelter, & Parke, 1999; MacDonald & Parke, 1997; Parke, 1996). However, the focus of prior work 1984; Youngblade & Belsky, 1992). has been on a variety of aspects of the father–child relationship, such as the quality of attachment and Measuring Friendship the father’s play style, in the development of chil- dren’s friendships, with little attention devoted to Most research on the quality of children’s friend- the part played by the father’s own patterns of ships has been based on children’s social cognitions friendship with other adults (Youngblade & Belsky, through the use of self-report (Berndt, 1981). Chil- 1992). Prior studies of social networks offer some in- dren’s perspectives on their own friendships are use- sight into the potential role of fathers’ friendships in ful for evaluating certain aspects of the relationship the development of children’s friendships. For exam- (e.g., loyalty, disclosure, and closeness), as indicated ple, Oliveri and Reiss (1987) found that the quality of by the relations between self-reports of friendship fathers’ friend networks, as assessed through social quality and a variety of social outcomes, such as lone- networks, was more closely related to the relation- liness and sociometric status (Asher, Parker, & ship aspects of adolescents’ friend networks (e.g., Walker, 1996; Parker & Asher, 1993). In fact, some as- feelings of closeness). In contrast, the structural as- pects of friendship may only be detectable through pects of mothers’ friend networks were more closely the use of children’s self-reports. For example, self- related to the structure of adolescents’ friend net- disclosure, in which an individual shares personal, works (e.g., size, density). Other studies, however, private information or feelings, is probably more eas- found either no link or a negative relation between ily measured by children’s reports than by others’ ob- fathers’ social networks and children’s social adjust- servations. There are problems, however, with rely- ment (Manetti & Schneider, 1996; Roberts, 1989), ing solely on children’s self-reports of friendship which suggests that this issue needs further atten- qualities. First, children’s answers are dependent on tion. Other findings suggest that fathers play an their verbal and cognitive skills (Siegal, 1991), which important role in the regulation of children’s may lead to a distorted report of the nature of the re- emotions—a central ingredient in the maintenance lationship. Second, self-reports of friendship may not of close friendships (Gottman, Katz, & Hooven, 1997; reveal all aspects of the relationship (Parker & Gott- Parke, 1996). This prior work underscores the rele- man, 1989), such as the manner in which conflict is re- vance of fathers and fathers’ friendships for under- solved or the cognitive sophistication during play ex- standing children’s friendship patterns, and suggests changes (e.g., the quality of themes or the level of play that the quality of both fathers’ and mothers’ friend- organization). Observational measures of friendship ships will be related to children’s friendship pat- may reveal aspects of the friendship that are less ac- terns. Another goal of the present study was to de- cessible through self-reports. scribe the differential relations between maternal Evidence for the assumption that self-report and and paternal friendships and children’s friendships. observational measures of friendship may be access- Although it is expected that both mothers’ and ing different aspects of friendships comes from ear- fathers’ friendships are related to children’s friend- lier reports that found only modest correlations be- ships, prior work suggests that mothers and fathers tween these two types of data. In studies using both may have different patterns of relationships with self-report and observational measures of the same sons and daughters. Both theory and empirical evi- construct, correlations between the two sources of dence suggests that same-gender relationships (i.e., assessment were not found
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