Modeling of Behavioral Problems Based on Parent-Child Conflicts and Family Processes

Family is the first environment in which the child takes the first steps towards development and establishes an emotional bond with parents. Thus, if emotional bonds and relationships within the family are compromised, a public tendency toward antisocial behaviors will become apparent. Children’s behavioral problems result from poor quality of family interactions, the lack of parents’ emotional support, and conflicts between parents and children. In this regard, emotion regulation is a self–awareness mechanism to cope with undesirable situations in life. This study aimed to model the relationship between adolescent behavioral problems based on parent–child conflicts and familial problems with the mediating role of emotion regulation difficulty in female adolescents.

This research was performed using structural equation modeling, as a part of descriptive–correlational research. The statistical population of this study consisted of all 10th– and 11th–grade female high school students in Khoy City, Iran, in the academic year of 2019–2020. The study sample included 397 subjects who were selected by cluster random sampling method; however, the final sample size of the study was measured to be 367 by cluster random sampling approach. The inclusion criteria of the study were being a teenage girl; consent to complete research questionnaires; no biopsychological disorders, and no dependence on narcotics and psychotropic substances (health records & student counseling records were used to address these issues). The exclusion criterion of the study included providing incomplete questionnaires and missing data; e.g., the selection of only one option in the questionnaires. Data collection tools used in the pretest and posttest phases included the Youth Self Report (Achenbach, 1991), Parent–Child Conflict Tactics Scale (Straus, 1990), Self–Report Family Process Scale (Samani, 2008), and Difficulties in Emotional Regulation Scale (Gratz & Roemer, 2004). The obtained data were analyzed using Pearson correlation coefficient and structural equation modeling in SPSS and AMOS at p<0.05.

The obtained results suggested that parent–child conflicts (β=0.261, p=0.002) and familial problems (β=0.429, p=0.005) with the mediating role of emotion regulation difficulties, explained behavioral problems in the examined adolescents. Furthermore, the goodness of fit indices indicated a good fit of the model (χ2/df=2.97, NFI=0.900, GFI=0.900, CFI=0.926, RMSEA=0.073).

According to the research findings, parent–child conflicts and familial problems with an emphasis on the mediating role of emotion regulation difficulties can explain adolescent behavioral problems; they can reduce them to provide a platform for improving adolescent behavioral problems. All explored variables may lead to adolescents’ behavioral problems.