Dynamics of family conflicts: Macro and micro perspectives on parental conflicts across family settings

Interparental conflicts (IPC) are associated with difficulties for children. However, family relationships and IPC have been investigated to a limited extent in Norway and the Nordic countries. The purpose of this project was to provide new knowledge about what is related to particularly harmful conflicts between parents and how children are affected by parents' interactions and conflicts, both in families where parents live together and apart. To fulfill this aim, extensive data collection was needed, including survey data from parents and children in a large sample linked with data on health and demography from national registries. We completed the recruitment of families for the project and Wave 1 data collection in 2019. A total of 3 200 families have agreed to participate. This includes about 400 families from the Norwegian Mother and Child Study (MoBa) and 2800 families recruited from family counselling centres across Norway. In the latter sample, mothers, fathers and children aged 7-15 years participate in the study, in addition to kindergarten teachers / teachers for children under the age of 7 and a mediator or family therapist. The Norwegian Directorate of Children, Youth and Families (Budfir) contributed financially and practically to the inclusion of children below the age of 12, allowing these to have the survey administered as an interview. This has increased the potential scientific impact of the study. Wave 2 started in November 2019 and was finalized in December 2020. Three additional data collections were carried out in April-June 2020, December 2020 and June 2021, respectively. National registry linkages were delayed due to the pandemic but are currently on their way. Still, without these, the five existing waves of data collections allow us to provide unique knowledge about how IPs develop over time, and which mechanisms that are involved when IPC affect children to a smaller or larger extent. The Covid-19 pandemic dominated society and family life in Norway after March 2020 and has affected the conditions for doing research on how families develop over time. FamilieForSK had recently started W2 in March 2020, and the data collection routines had to be changed due to social distancing. In addition, it became clear that the pandemic would be an important confounder in many research questions, making it difficult to answer several of the initial research questions. We carried out three extra data collection waves to tap the changes in the families during the pandemic. Rearrangement of the data collection and changed working conditions has delayed the data collection and the work with linkages to national registries. By the end of the project period some of the initial aims have therefore still not been reached. However, this project was also suddenly in a unique position to investigate how vulnerable families were affected by the pandemic, in accordance with the intention of the project to provide knowledge about how children, parents and family life is affected by societal factors. This has to some extent been the focus of more recent publications in the project and can potentially give the project an even larger scientific impact than originally anticipated. 9 scientific papers from the project have been published (4 of these have also been partly funded by Bufdir), whereas four more are being prepared or have been submitted to journals. These span widely within the project theme, from validation of measures of IPC for use in research and services in the Nordic countries, to exploration of patterns of IPC across family types, children's reactions to IPC and the importance of conflicts for children's potential to express their opinions, and how children and family life have been affected by the pandemic. Despite the challenges related to the pandemic, the project group has succeeded in establishing a group for development and dissemination of new knowledge within the family dynamics field. The research group is an important advisory board for services and policy makers. Results have been presented on seminars and meetings for relevant services and policy makers in Norway, as well as on international conferences. The research group collaborates with the family counselling services own boards for implementation of scientific research and participates in reference groups and other relevant settings. The group is thus disseminating the knowledge from the project to stakeholders with the aim of securing the welfare of children, youth, and their families through well-functioning welfare services. The dissemination of the knowledge from the project to relevant parties is thus already ongoing. The project has succeeded in becoming a generator of new research projects financed both from NFR and other sources. By the end of the project, the new research group initiated by the project includes three full-time researchers, one postdoctoral fellow and two PhD students.

Prosjektet har frembrakt flere interessante resultater som kan ha stor betydning og nytte, både for myndigheter, ansatte i relevante hjelpetjenester, deltakerne i prosjektet, og for barn og familier i det norske samfunnet. Valideringsartiklene og de tilhørende kortskalaene er nyttige for tjenester som ønsker å bruke disse til screening og kvalitetssikring. Kortskalaene gjør det også mulig å inkludere mål om foreldrekonflikt i større befolkningsbaserte undersøkelser uten at dette må ta for mye plass. De nye kortskalaene har derfor vært etterspurte fra både tjenester og andre forskere. Resultatene fra Helland et al., 2020 («Mønstre innenfor og på tvers av familieform når familiesystemet utfordres») gir unik kunnskap til hjelpetjenestene om hvordan foreldrekonflikter varierer med familieform, og resultatene fra artikkelen Holt et al., 2021 (“Agreement between Child and Parent Reports of Children’s Reactions to Interparental Conflict) som viser at barn kan oppleve konflikter i familien annerledes enn det foreldrene deres gjør, har implikasjoner for både foreldre og tjenesten, hvor viktigheten av å tilstrebe barnas opplevelser er sentralt for å kunne gi dem god oppfølging og hjelp. De tre artiklene i prosjektet som omhandler hvordan covid-19 pandemien påvirket familielivet og familiers bruk av hjelpetjenester (Helland et al., 2021, Holt et al., 2021, & Larsen et al., 2021) gir unik kunnskap om hvilke familier og barn som var særlig utsatt under en krise når samfunnet stengte ned, og om hvilke familier og barn man skal være særlig oppmerksomme på ved fremtidige kriser. Etableringen av datasettet og forskningsgruppen vurderes som den viktigste nytteverdien som har kommet ut av prosjektet. Gjennom arbeidet med rekruttering av familier etablerte også forskergruppen flere kanaler ut til de relevante tjenestene og til beslutningstakere. Disse er gjensidig nyttige, ettersom kontakten både sikrer praktisk relevans på fremtidige problemstillinger og at kunnskapen i prosjektet kommer relevante tjenester til gode. Samlet sett utgjør alle disse effektene å ha virkninger på flere områder. Gjennom kunnskap til myndigheter, hjelpetjenester, barn og familier generelt, men også til det vitenskapelige miljøet vil prosjektet kunne ha ringvirkninger på både kort og lang sikt. Langsiktige virkninger kan for eksempel være organisatoriske endringer og lovendringer på barne- og familiefeltet. Prosjektet vil videre kunne ha, og har allerede hatt, virkninger gjennom å ha etablert samarbeid med relevante tjenester, men også med andre forskningsmiljø, både nasjonalt og internasjonalt. Disse samarbeidsrelasjonene vil kunne virke som springbrett for å etablere ny forskning, nye forskningsmiljø, og nye forskere. Dette har arbeidet har allerede startet gjennom nyopprettede prosjektet, men prosjektet vil fortsette å søke midler innenfor relevant tematikk, for eksempel på fremtidige NFR- og EU-midler.

Family conflict dynamics have profound effects on children and parents, but have not been adequately investigated in Scandinavia. We therefore lack a scientific basis for knowledge about parental conflicts and child maladjustment within the Norwegian welfare context. This study will address important knowledge gaps by combining contextual, familial and individual data about family members across family structures (i.e. intact versus dissolved) and time. We aim for a pioneering study that will move beyond conventional family studies by enabling longitudinal investigations including both micro and macro level perspectives on parental conflicts. The project will provide longitudinal multi-informant data from 2100 families across three different family settings; dissolving couples; intact couples with relationship problems; and intact families from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort study (MoBa). We will collect accurate and rich interview and questionnaire data from parents and children themselves and staff at child care and family welfare centers. Using MoBa will also guarantee information about long term risk and protective factors from pregnancy onward. Information about long term outcomes will be collected through linkage with national registries, providing unique data. The Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs (Bufdir) supports the project and guarantees contributions from family welfare centers, in which most of the recruitment will be based. Bufdir also provides funding for a validation study and the first MoBa data collection. Anchoring this project within the Norwegian Institute of Public Health and with a substantial network of high-expertise national and international collaborators from different disciplines of social sciences, guarantees an excellent theoretical and practical execution of the project. This optimizes the concurrent and long term value of the data and ensures an extensive communication of the results to the public