The Relative Effects of Family Instability and Mother/Partner Conflict on Children’s Externalizing Behavior

A growing body of research has found support for the idea that children’s behavioral development and school performance may be influenced as much by multiple changes in family composition during childhood as by the quality and character of the families in which children reside at any given point (Cavanagh and Huston 2006; Cavanagh, Schiller, and Riegle-Crumb 2006; Fomby and Cherlin 2007; Heard 2007a; Heard 2007b; Heaton and Forste 2007; Osborne and McLanahan 2007; Wu 1996; Wu and Martinson 1993; Wu and Thomson 2001). Much of the research on instability has focused specifically on the effects for children of experiencing the repeated formation and dissolution of cohabiting and marital unions. Underlying the research on the effects of union instability is the concept that children and their parents or parent-figures form a functioning family system, and repeated disruptions to that system, caused by either the addition or departure of a parent’s partner or spouse, may lead to behaviors with potentially deleterious long-term consequences.