An Exploration of Factors Influencing the Quality of Children's Relationships with Their Father Following Divorce

Abstract

Recent interest has been given to the relationship between nonresidential fathers and their children following divorce. Much of this research has focused on exploring rates of contact, and factors that influence ongoing father-child contact. Little attention has been paid to the “quality” of the father-child relationship after divorce. The current project reports the findings of a study of 101 nonresidential fathers and the factors that influenced the quality of their relationship. A multifactor model was tested, and three factors were found to have the highest influence on relationship quality. These factors were: father role clarity, father parenting ability, and perceived mother parenting ability. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Nonresidential fathers

Key Words:

• divorce
• relationship quality
• fathers and divorce