Parent-child relationship trajectories during adolescence: longitudinal associations with romantic outcomes in emerging adulthood

Abstract

This study examined the developmental trajectories of parent-child relationships in adolescence, especially with respect to changes in support levels and negativity, and analyzed if and how these trajectories were associated with the subsequent quality of romantic relationships in young adulthood. A sample of 145 German subjects was followed across six waves (i.e., ages 14, 15, 16, 17, 21, and 23 years). Growth mixture modeling revealed three developmental trajectories of parent-child relationships across adolescence (i.e., normative, increasingly negative, and decreasingly negative/distant), which were associated with the quality of romantic outcomes at two times in emerging adulthood. Earlier mother-adolescent relationships were distinctively linked with connectedness and sexual attraction experienced in young adults' romantic relationships. Distant father-child relationships during adolescence were linked with the child's later anxious love.