Child Influences on Marital and Family Interaction

Book excerpt: Child Influences on Marital and Family Interaction: A Life-Span Perspective book grew out of a conference sponsored by the Division of Individual and Family Studies in the College of Human Development at the Pennsylvania State University in April, 1977. The chapters for this volume are revised versions of the papers originally presented at the conference. The book explores the conceptual, methodological, and empirical issues in the study of the child and his or her family. It details how the age-normative and atypical development of the child contributes to the parents' marital quality and to the entire family's interaction patterns across the life-span of both the child and parents. Consequently, the child is seen as capable of contributing to marriage and family relationships not only when he or she is in utero, a neonate, or an infant, but also when the child reaches middle and late childhood, adolescence, and the adulthood and aged years as well.