ABSTRACT
This chapter adds an intergenerational dimension to our examination of parent-child and marital relationships as they predict children’s adaptation to elementary school. A common belief, buttressed by empirical data, is that patterns of parenting tend to be repeated from one generation to another (Smith & Drew, 2002; Van IJzendoorn, 1992). To examine this belief, we did not have an opportunity to meet the parents of the parents in our study (the children’s grandparents) or to observe the interactions among grandparents, parents, and children, although the grandparents often seemed psychologically present in the interviews we conducted with the children’s parents at each follow-up. Instead, we obtained information about the parent participants’ early and current relationships with their parents using a partially-structured 90-min Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) created by George et al. (1985). We found that AAI codes representing qualities of the early and current relationships between parents and grandparents added significantly to our ability to predict early school outcomes for children, over and above our observations of the parents’ marital interaction and parenting style as they worked and played with their child in our project playroom.
