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International Journal of Behavioral
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DOI: 10.1080/01650250042000500
2001 25: 521 International Journal of Behavioral Development
Wendy Sturgess, Judy Dunn and Lisa Davies
setting, friendships, and adjustment
Young children's perceptions of their relationships with family members: Links with family

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http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/pp/01650254.html DOI: 10.1080/01650250042000500
Young childrens perceptions of their relationships with
family members: Links with family setting, friendships,
and adjustment
Wendy Sturgess
School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, UK
Judy Dunn and Lisa Davies
Institute of Psychiatry, Kings College London, UK
A total of 258 children aged 47 years, from 192 families of diverse structure (stepfather, single
parent, stepmother/complex stepfamilies, and nonstep families), participated in this study of young
childrens perceptions of their family relationships. Children completed a Four Field Map, in which
they placed their family members and friends in a series of concentric circles representing the
closeness of the relationship. Biological relatedness and family type affected the placement of fathers,
but not mothers or siblings; children in stepfather families were more likely to place their stepfathers
as not close. Links were found between the quality of child-mother and child-sibling relationships
and the closeness of childrens friendships. Childrens externalising problems were related to their
perceptions of their relationships with fathers and their prosocial behaviour to their closeness with
both fathers and mothers.
Over a quarter of British children are currently growing up in
non-traditional families. Figures from the Ofce of National
Statistics (ONS, 1998) showed that in the early 1990s around
one in ve dependent children lived in single-parent families
and about one in fourteen lived in stepfamilies. These gures
depict only one point in time and represent just one link in
what is for many children a complex chain of family transitions
(Hetherington, 1989). In fact, over the course of their
childhood, it is estimated that one child in three in the UK
will live at some stage in a single-parent family (Ford & Millar,
1998) and one child in eight will experience life in a stepfamily
setting (Haskey, 1994). These changes often begin early in
childrens lives: Haskeys statistics show that around 5% of
children are now born into single-parent households (Ford &
Millar, 1998) and the ONS data showed that 72% of children
entering stepfamily life do so before they are 10 years old
(ONS, 1998).
Such family changes represent risks for childrens welfare
and well-being; a recent review estimated that, on average,
children in stepfamilies and single-parent families are around
twice as likely to have behavioural problems, emotional
difculties, lower academic achievement, and lower self-
esteem when compared with children from nondivorced
families (Hetherington, Bridges, & Insabella, 1998; Hether-
ington & Clingempeel, 1992; Rodgers & Pryor, 1998).
However, the mean differences between such family groups
are small, and within each family type the individual
differences in childrens outcome are considerable (Amato,
1994; Dunn et al., 1998). The key question for research
concerns these individual differences: Why is it that some
children adjust more easily to changes in their family situation
than others? To date, a number of different theories have been
investigated suggesting that factors such as the complexity of
the family situation (Dunn et al., 1998), the presence of social
adversities (McLanahan & Sandfur, 1994), parental distress
(OConnor, Hawkins, Dunn, Thorpe, & Golding, 1998), the
family environment (Demo & Alcock, 1996) or the childs
individual characteristics (Simons, Johnson, & Lorenz, 1996)
inuence child outcome. There is evidence supporting each of
these perspectives, but increasingly it appears that much of the
impact of these risks factors is mediated by the nature of the
immediate family relationships, especially the parent-child
relationships (Bray & Berger, 1993; Conger & Conger, 1996;
DeGarmo & Forgatch, 1999; Dunn, Deater-Deckard, Picker-
ing, Beveridge, & the ALSPAC Study Team, 1999; Hether-
ington et al., 1998; Hetherington & Stanley-Hagan, 1999;
Simons et al., 1996).
Policy-makers are increasingly keen to understand chil-
drens perspectives. In this area childrens perceptions of their
relationships are clearly of central importance in relation to
their adjustment outcome, as studies of childrens response to
marital conict have established (Cummings & Davies, 1994).
Similarly, Stocker (1994) found that children who reported
high levels of warmth in their relationships with either mothers,
friends, or mothers and friends had signicantly better
adjustment outcomes than children who reported low levels
of warmth in these relationships. Brand and colleagues, in one
of the few studies examining childrens perceptions of their
experiences within stepfamilies, found that there were notable
differences between childrens and parents views (Brand,
Clingempeel, & Bowen-Woodward, 1988; see also Fine,
Coleman, & Ganong, 1999, for comparable ndings for
adolescents). These studies clearly demonstrate the value of
considering the childs perspective, the insiders view, as it
International Journal of Behavioral Development # 2001 The International Society for the
2001, 25 (6), 521529 Study of Behavioural Development
Correspondence should be addressed to Judy Dunn, Institute of
Psychiatry, Kings College London, Social, Genetic and Develop-
mental Psychiatry Research Centre, 111 Denmark Hill, London SE5
8AF, UK.
This research was supported by the Medical Research Council and
by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
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522 STURGESS, DUNN, DAVIES / CHILDRENS PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR RELATIONSHIPS
has been called (Olson, 1977), when attempting to explain their
adjustment outcome. Such studies, however, have focused
almost exclusively on the views of children in middle childhood
and adolescence; we know little about younger childrens
perceptions in family transition research (Rodgers & Pryor,
1998), despite the fact that so many children experiencing
family break-up for the rst time are under 10 years old and
that these children may be especially vulnerable to family
change (Hetherington & Stanley-Hagan, 1999). The present
study aims to address this gap in the research by examining
young childrens perspectives on their relationships with
mothers, fathers, and siblings and how these are related to
family setting and to the childrens friendships and adjustment.
The study had three goals. The rst was to study childrens
views of closeness to mothers, fathers, and siblings in different
family settings. Our rst hypothesis was that children in
stepfamilies would, on average, report less close relationships
with parents than children in nonstep families, but that it
would be the distinction between the biological and step-
parentchild relationship, rather than family type that would be
key as has been found with adolescents (Hetherington &
Stanley-Hagan, 1999) and older children (Davies et al., 2000).
The second hypothesis was that childrens reports of their
relationships with siblings would not show major differences
according to different family settings, given the range of
individual differences within each family setting reported in
studies of older children (Boer & Dunn, 1990; Conger &
Conger, 1996; Stormshak, Bellanti, & Bierman, 1996).
The second goal of the study was to examine links between
childrens views of their family relationships and their
adjustment. The rst hypothesis here was that childrens
closeness to family members would be positively related to
adjustment (following the literature referenced above). The
second hypothesis was that taking childrens views of the
closeness of their relationships into account would add to the
prediction of adjustment, even when family risks and adversities
were taken into account.
The third goal of the study was to examine links between
childrens views of the closeness of their family relationships
and their closeness to their friends. The literature on
connections between the quality of childrens friendships and
family relationships supports the predictions of attachment
theorists and social learning theorists (Parke & Ladd, 1992;
Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1998; Stocker & Youngblade,
1999) by providing evidence for positive associations between
the two. This research has not included young childrens
perceptions of their family relations, and it should be noted
that other studies report conicting ndings (e.g., Youngblade,
Park, & Belsky, 1993). Our prediction was that there would be
positive associations between childrens reports of closeness in
family and friend relationships.
In this study these goals were investigated within the context
of a community study of children growing up in different
family settings (Dunn et al., 1998). Most systematic studies of
family setting to date have utilised only traditional interview
and questionnaire measures to ascertain the childs perspec-
tive. These methods are difcult to employ with children
whose reading or verbal comprehension skills are weak, and
they are likely to present particular problems for young
children, whose expressive abilities tend to develop more
slowly than their receptive abilities (Foster, 1990). To over-
come this problem we employed an age-appropriate measure,
the Four Field Map, which uses a child-friendly system of
concentric circles to measure the content and closeness of the
childs social network in four domains: family, relatives, school,
and friends. Into the inner circle the child places all the family
members/friends he/she really loves, in the next those he/she
loves, in the next those he/she likes, in the next those he/she
does not like, and in the outermost ring those he/she has a
really negative relationship with. Our Four Field Map was
adapted from the Five Field Map (Samuelsson, Thernlund, &
Ringstrom, 1996), a measure shown by Samuelsson and
colleagues to successfully differentiate between clinical and
normal groups of children and to have acceptable test-retest
stability over a short time interval. In our adaptation to a Four
Field Map, we omitted the formal contacts domain. Even
children as young as 4 years old easily understood the
instructions and enjoyed the task. The map was administered
to 258 children aged 47 years, growing up in varying family
situations (single-parent families, stepfather families, step-
mother/complex stepfamilies, and families in which both
parents were biologically related to all the children in the
family).
In summary, the study had three goals. First, to investigate
young childrens views of closeness to mothers, fathers and
siblings in different family settings, with the prediction that
children would report less closeness in relation to step-parents.
Second, to examine links between these perceptions of family
relationships and adjustment, hypothesising that childrens
perceptions of a lack of closeness would add to the prediction
of adjustment problems beyond the contribution made by
family risks. Third, to examine the connections between
childrens accounts of family relationships and friendships,
with the expectation that close family relationships and
friendships would be associated.
Method
Sample
A total of 192 families, all with at least two children, were
recruited for this study from the Avon Longitudinal Study of
Pregnancy and Childhood (ALSPAC; Golding, 1996), a
community study of around 13,000 mothers who gave birth
between April 1991 and December 1992 (representing 85
90% of all local mothers who gave birth during this period).
These mothers were representative of the geographical area
from which they were drawn in terms of ethnic diversity (i.e.,
3% ethnic minorities) and representative of the whole UK
population in terms of family structure (Dunn et al., 1998;
Haskey, 1994).
When the target child in the ALSPAC study was approxi-
mately 5 years old a subsample of families were recruited for
inclusion in the Avon Brothers and Sisters Study (ABSS), a
smaller-scale project focusing in detail on childrens family
relationships and experiences in different types of families, and
the social processes associated with the childrens adjustment.
Approximately equal numbers of families were randomly
recruited from four distinct family categories: (1) single mother
families (n 48); (2) two-parent nonstep families, in which
both parents were biologically related to all children in the
family (n 50); (3) stepfather families, in which at least one of
the children was not the biological child of the father (n 49);
and (4) stepmother/complex stepfamilies, in which at least one
of the children was not the biological child of the mother
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complex stepfamilies are those where both the mother and
father bring children from previous relationships (n 45).
For the analyses reported here, we include information
collected from the resident parent(s), and from all children
aged between 4 and 7 years (n 258): 27 were 4 years old, 161
were 5 years old, 23 were 6 years old, 47 were 7 years old,
giving an overall mean age of 5.35 years (SD 0.9). Of these
children, 22 of the 6-year-olds, and the 47 7-year-olds were
older siblings of the target ALSPAC child. There were 138
boys and 120 girls, with approximately equal proportions of
boys and girls in each of the different family types. As Table 1
shows, 49 of the children were from single-mother families, 77
from two-parent nonstep families, 77 from stepfather
families, and 55 from stepmother/complex stepfamilies. Of
the children in the stepfather families, 32 (41%) were the
stepchildren of the father in the household and the remaining
45 (59%) were the biological children of both parents. In the
stepmother/complex stepfamily category these proportions
were repeated, with 20 stepchildren (36%); 5 stepchildren of
the mother and 15 stepchildren of the father, and 35 biological
children (64%), illustrating the importance of considering the
biological relatedness of parent and child separately from
family setting.
Our children gave accounts of 363 sibling relationships, 57
from single-mother families, 97 from two-parent families, 114
from stepfather families, and 95 from stepmother/complex
families, reecting the fact that the single-mother families
tended to have fewer children than the nonstep and step
families. The sibling age ranged from 4 to 17 years, with a
mean age of 9 years (SD 3.27). There were 214 full sibling
relationships, 130 half sibling relationships, and 19 step sibling
relationships in the sample.
Procedures
Families were visited at home. Children were individually
interviewed, and the Four Field Map was used to obtain their
accounts of the closeness of their relationships (Figure 1).
Parents and step-parents were interviewed and completed
questionnaires.
Measures
Closeness of relationship
Children completed the Four Field Map: Each child was given
a blank map and told that the centre represented themselves
and that into the inner four rings they were going to place the
people that they really loved, loved, liked, and did not like from
the centre, respectively. In the outer ring the child was told to
place any negative contacts (i.e., people who they were really
unhappy with). Each domain (family, relatives, school, and
friends/neighbours) was then completed in turn; the inter-
viewer rst asked questions such as so who are your friends at
school? to establish who should go into each domain and then
the child chose where to place each person on the map or
whether he/she wanted to omit them. Different symbols were
used to represent men (lled squares), women (lled circles),
boys (unlled squares), and girls (unlled circles) and
abbreviations used to identify each person (i.e., SF for
stepfather, YHS for younger half sister, etc.). Once the child
had completed the map the number of adult and child family
members and the number of friends were calculated. Family
members placed in the inner ring were given a score of 8, those
in the next ring a score of 4, those in the middle ring a score of
2, and then 1 and 0, respectively. Inter-rater reliability
calculations were performed on 10% of the sample and
Cohens kappas of 1 were obtained for the placement of all
family members. The Cohens kappa for placement of friends
was .85 (a few friends were placed on the lines between
circles). The childs total closeness to his/her friends was
calculated by multiplying the number of friends in each ring by
the score for that ring, using the same system as for family
members.
Around 60% of all resident family members were placed in
the centre really love ring of the map; 72% of mothers and
stepmothers were placed here, 58% of fathers and stepfathers,
and 52% of siblings. Preliminary categorisation of map
placements into three categories, with (2) scores of 8 (inner
ring), (1) scores of 4 and 2 (next two middle rings), (0)
scores of 1 and 0 (the 2 outer rings) showed that numbers in
some categories were too low to full requirements for chi-
square analyses. For instance, for mothers one group would
only contain 10% of the sample. In the analyses that follow, the
placing of family members was therefore dichotomised into
close (placed in the innermost ring) and not close (placed in all
other rings). This dichotomy does in fact reect the childrens
behaviour while placing family members and friends: They
tended to make a deliberate considered distinction between
those family members that they placed in the centre ring and
those that they placed in the next outer ring. Where children
had omitted a family member from the map this was counted
as a not close placing.
Child adjustment
Mothers completed the Child Behaviour Checklist (CBCL;
Achenbach, 1991) and the Strengths and Difculties Ques-
tionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1997). The CBCL internalising
and externalising scales were used; the internalising scale
measured childrens anxious/depressed, withdrawn, and so-
matic difculties and the externalising scale measured their
delinquent and aggressive problem behaviours. The 68 items
for these scales were scored on a 3-point scale (0 not true of
this child in the past two months, 1 somewhat true, 2 very
true) and then the scale raw scores were used for these
analyses.
Childrens prosocial behaviour was measured using the
prosocial scale from the SDQ. This scale consisted of ve
items, rated on a 3-point scale (0 not true, 1 sometimes
true, 2 certainly true). The internal consistency of these
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT, 2001, 25 (6), 521529 523
Table 1
Numbers of children in the different family settings, with biological
relatedness of child and parent
Family type
Stepfather Stepmother/Complex
Nonstep Single mother
Biological
child
Step
child
Biological
child
Step
child
77 49 45 32 35 20
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524 STURGESS, DUNN, DAVIES / CHILDRENS PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR RELATIONSHIPS
scales (as measured by Cronbach alphas) were as follows:
internalising .78, externalising .89, and prosocial .67.
Current family information
Data were also collected detailing other current family risk
factors found to be associated with child adjustment. Mothers
completed most of the following measures, with partners
providing the information concerning their own mental health
and the quality of their relationship with the target child:
Maternal and paternal age: The age of the mother and the
father.
Time in the current family situation: The length of time the
mother has been in this family situation (years).
Childs transitions: The number of family transitions the
child has experienced, measured in terms of the number of
people who have left or joined his/her household.
Parents marital status: The marital status of the childs
resident parent(s) measured as: (1) single, (2) not married
(cohabiting full or part time), or (3) married.
Maternal and paternal education: Educational level of the
childs resident parents was measured as: (1) no qualica-
tions/CSEs (equivalent to no high school diploma), (2) O/A
levels/vocational qualications (equivalent to high school
diploma), or (3) university degree or higher.
Family income and crowding: Measures of income and
household crowding were employed as proxy measures for
socioeconomic status. The weekly income for the household
(including social security benets, etc.) was coded on a 5-
point scale, with 1 less than 100.00 per week, 2
between 100.00 and 199.00 per week, 3 200.00
299.00 per week, 4 300.00399.00 per week, 5
more than 400.00 per week. Crowding of household was
coded as follows: (1), not crowded: at least one room per
family member; (2) crowded: less than one room per
family member.
Quality of parent-child relationships: The quality of the
mother-child and father-child relationships were assessed
with a combination of self-report questionnaire and inter-
view measures from which composite scales of positivity
and negativity were derived. Six questionnaire scales used
by Hetherington and Clingempeel (1992) were used which
focused on the frequency of parent-child conict, commu-
nication about discipline, use of negative sanctions, expres-
sion of affection, enjoyment of the child, and displeasure
with the child. These scales all had Cronbach alphas of
between .66 and .90 for the full ABSS sample. When
subjected to principal-components analyses (varimax rota-
Figure 1. Four Field Map conceptA Map completed by a child from a stepfather family (1, Really love; 2, Love; 3, Like; 4, Dont like; 5, Really
unhappy with).
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tion) two factors emerged, explaining 59% of the variance, a
negativity factor, and a positivity factor. Similarly from the
interview data, scales of positivity and negativity were
created, the positivity scale (Cronbachs alpha .73) from
items concerning warm and conding aspects of the
relationship and the negativity scale from items concerning
conict in the relationship (Cronbachs alpha .57). The
composite negativity and positivity scores used here were
constructed by combining the appropriate questionnaire
scales with the relevant interview scale and calculating the
mean of the z-scores of all of the scales. Cronbach alphas for
the full ABSS sample for these scales were as follows:
mother-child positivity .68, mother-child negativity
.82, father-child positivity .75, father-child negativity
.85.
Quality of the mother-partner relationship: A composite
measure was formed from three mother report scales
measuring conict in the mother-partner relationship: one
was a global 5-point scale detailing the frequency of
arguments, taken from the Family Conict Inventory
(Hetherington & Clingempeel, 1992), the second a global
7-point scale measuring the degree of happiness in the
relationship, taken from the LockeWallace Marital Adjust-
ment Test (Locke & Wallace, 1987), and the third the
disagreement scale from the LockeWallace Test, consist-
ing of nine items rated on a 6 point scale. The composite
score was created from the z-scores on each scale. The
internal consistency of the composite scale for the full ABSS
sample as measured by Cronbachs alpha was .62.
Parental mental health: Mental health of the resident
parent(s) as measured by the self-completed malaise index
(Rutter, Graham, & Yule, 1970a; Rutter, Tizard, &
Whitmore, 1970b), an assessment of emotional well-being
comprising 23 items scored yes/no. The Cronbach alpha for
the full ABSS sample .81.
Biological relatedness of parent and child: Biological
relatedness of parent and child was coded as: (1)
biological-biological child of this parent, or (2) step-this
parents stepchild.
Results
The rst goal of this study was to investigate the relation of
family setting and biological relatedness to childrens placement
of parents and siblings on the Four Field Map. These
associations are reported rst. The second goal concerned the
links between childrens views of their family relationships and
their adjustment, and analyses investigating these associations
are reported next. Logistic regression analyses are described
which examine the signicance of the childs perspective for
predicting adjustment difculties when other current family risk
factors are taken into account. The third goal concerned the
associations between childrens placement of family members
and their friendships and these analyses are reported last.
The relation of family setting and biological relatedness to childrens
map placement of their (step)parents and siblings. There were
signicant family type differences in the placement of the
resident (step)father (Pearson chi-square 7.62, df 2, p <
.03): 57% of children in stepfather families placed their
resident (step)father in the not close outer circles, compared
to only 29% of children in two-parent nonstep families, and
38% of children in stepmother/complex families. Further
analyses (using table partitioning techniques) showed that
only the difference between the stepfather and nonstep groups
was signicant (Pearson chi-square 7.41, df 1, p <.006).
There were no signicant differences in the placing of the
resident (step)mother or siblings by family setting (Pearson
chi-square .559, df 3, p <.95 for mothers and Pearson chi
square 1.38, df 3, p <.80 for siblings).
In terms of the biological relatedness between father and
child, 67% of biological children placed their resident father in
the central circle as compared with only 30% of stepchildren, a
signicant difference (Pearson chi square 9.92, df 1, p <
.002). Comparisons by biological relatedness of child and
mother were precluded as only ve children in the stepmother/
complex stepfamilies were the stepchildren of the mother.
There were no differences in childrens placing of their full,
half, or step siblings (Pearson chi square .42, df 2, p <
.90).
These results for father placement raised the question of
whether, for children in stepfather families, it was family
setting or biological relatedness that was inuencing the
placement of the resident father. We examined this issue by
comparing the placement of fathers by biological and
stepchildren from stepfather families and children from non-
step families. Table 2 shows the results.
Only 16% of stepchildren in stepfather families placed their
resident father centrally, compared with 62% of biological
children in stepfather families and 71% of children in nonstep
families. This difference was highly signicant (Pearson chi-
square 29.41, df 2, p < .001), showing that it was the
biological relationship between father and child, and not the
family situation, that was inuencing these young childrens
perceptions of their resident father. There were no gender
differences in childrens placing of their resident (step)father or
(step)mother.
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT, 2001, 25 (6), 521529 525
Table 2
Children from stepfather and nonstep families: map placement of the resident (step)father by biological
relatedness
Map placement of father
Family type/Biological relatedness Close Not close Total
Child from nonstep family 55 (71.4%) 22 (28.6%) 77 (100%)
Biological child from stepfather family 28 (62.2%) 17 (37.8%) 45 (100%)
Stepchild from stepfather family 5 (15.6%) 27 (84.4%) 32 (100%)
Total 88 (57.1%) 66 (42.9%) 154 (100%)
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526 STURGESS, DUNN, DAVIES / CHILDRENS PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR RELATIONSHIPS
Associations between young childrens perceptions of their relation-
ships with their family and individual differences in adjust-
ment. Links between childrens placement of their resident
(step)mother, resident (step)father, and sibling, and maternal
accounts of childrens internalising and externalising beha-
viours, from the CBCL, and prosocial behaviour from the
SDQ were next examined. MannWhitney U-tests were used
for these analyses as the score distributions were skewed; the
majority of children in this sample were exhibiting few
adjustment difculties (see Table 3 for sample means and
SDs).
The associations between map placement of mothers,
fathers, and siblings and childrens scores on the adjustment
measures are shown in Table 3. Signicant links were found
between childrens closeness to the resident father and their
externalising behaviour; children who placed their fathers as
not close were reported as showing greater externalising
problems than those who placed their fathers in the central
circle. Map placement of mothers and siblings was not related
to this measure and there were no links between childrens
placing of either their mother, father, or sibling and their
internalising problems.
Childrens closeness to both their resident mothers and
fathers were associated with their prosocial behaviour; children
who placed either parent in the central circle were reported to
be more prosocial than those who placed their parents in the
outer circles. There were no links between childrens placing of
their sibling and their prosocial behaviour.
Current family risk factors, childrens adjustment, and childrens
perspectives on their resident (step)parents: Regression analy-
ses. The signicant associations between childrens place-
ment of their parents and their adjustment were further
examined with regression analyses to investigate whether
childrens perspectives on their closeness to their parents
remained as a signicant predictor of their adjustment when
other current family risk factors were taken into account.
Table 4 shows how the current family risk factors we
considered correlated with the externalising problems on the
CBCL and prosocial behaviour from the SDQ (the two
outcome measures found to relate to childrens placement of
family members). Only those variables which signicantly
correlated with the adjustment outcome of interest were
included in the regression analyses with childrens placement.
Each set of adjustment scores was split into two groups at the
75% percentile to give groups of lower and higher levels of
adjustment difculty.
Externalising behaviour, family risk factors, and childrens
placement of fathers. For externalising behaviour we tested
whether the childs view of their resident father signicantly
improved the predictive power of the model having controlled
for all the signicant family and paternal risk factors. The
family and paternal risk factors were entered on the rst step
of the regression analysis, and then the signicance of the
childs view tested on the second step of the analysis. For
externalising problems, the family and paternal risk factors
entered on the rst step were mothers time in current
situation, child transitions, parental marital status, mother-
partner conict, father-child negativity, father education,
biological relatedness to father, father malaise, and family
income. Childs placement of the father was added on the
second step (see Table 5).
The results showed that childrens placement of their
resident (step)father still added predictive power to the model
after having controlled for the family risk factors. Children who
reported themselves as not close to their resident (step)-
fathers were almost three times more likely to experience
externalising problems than children who reported being close
to their resident (step)fathers.
Prosocial behaviour, family risks, and childrens placement of
mothers and fathers. For prosocial behaviour we conducted
separate regression analyses in the same manner to test the
signicance of the childs view of each parent. Family risk
factors entered on the rst step were mother-child positivity,
mother-child negativity, and father-child positivity. For pro-
social behaviour neither childrens placement of their fathers
nor placement of their mothers signicantly improved the
predictive power of the models after having entered the current
risk factors.
Links between childrens family relationships and their friend-
ships. Associations between childrens closeness to their
family members, and the number and quality of their friend-
ships, were investigated with one-way ANOVAs. Childrens
closeness to their mother and their closeness to their sibling,
indicated by their placement of mothers and siblings in the
Table 3
Mean ranks of adjustment measures by placement of resident mother, resident father, and sibling
Placement of the mother
(n 231)
Placement of the father
(n 171)
Placement of the sibling
(n 320)
Means
and (SDs)
(n 231)
Close Not
close
U Close Not
close
U Close Not
close
U
Internalising 0.11 115.31 117.66 5429 85.06 88.65 3405 160.97 162.03 12874
problems (.11)
Externalising 0.24 113.21 121.98 5135 78.96 97.95 2777* 153.25 169.86 11623
problems (.19)
Prosocial 1.56 122.61 98.19 4301* 92.60 76.01 2822* 167.30 153.53 11696
behaviour (.34)
* p < .05.
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central circle, were both linked with their total closeness to
their friends. Those children who placed mothers in the central
circle had closer relationships with their friends, F(1, 257)
3.93, p < .049, than those who placed their mothers in the
outer circles; those who placed their siblings in the central
circle also had closer relationships with their friends than those
who placed siblings in the outer circles, F(1, 362) 8.78, p <
.003). The childs closeness to their resident father was not
signicantly associated with the closeness of their peer
relationships, F(1, 208) .74, p <.40.
There were no signicant associations between childrens
closeness to their resident (step)mother, resident (step)father,
or sibling and the number of friends they included on the map:
F(1, 257) .104, p <.80 for mothers; F(1, 208) .538, p <
.50 for fathers; and F(1, 362) .076, p <.80 for siblings.
Discussion
The young children in this study, aged on average 5 years, took
part with much enjoyment in the game of completing the
Four Field Map, by placing their various family members and
friends closelyor more distantlyto themselves. Thus, a
hitherto relatively neglected perspective on relationships within
different family settingsthat of the young children who
increasingly frequently experience such diverse familieswas
available to us.
Our rst goal was to investigate how childrens views of their
close relationships differed for children in nonstep families,
stepfamilies, and single-mother families. The rst hypothesis
examined was that children in stepfamilies would report less
close relationships with their parents, and that it would be the
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BEHAVIORAL DEVELOPMENT, 2001, 25 (6), 521529 527
Table 4
Nonparametric correlations between current family risk factors and child adjustment
Spearmans rho (2-tailed)
Current family risks
Externalising
problems
Prosocial
behaviour
Family variables
Family Income (n 231) .16* .02
Crowding (n 208) .11 .12
Child transitions experienced (n 226) .13* .01
Parental marital status (n 231) .13* .01
Mothers time in current situation (n 231) .17** .06
Mother-partner conict (n 181) .18* .06
Maternal variables
Mother-child positivity (n 231) .19** .39**
Mother-child negativity (n 231) .58** .23**
Maternal age (n 231) .08 .06
Maternal education (n 231) .01 .07
Maternal age at current situation (n 231) .06 .06
Maternal malaise (n 231) .32** .10
Paternal variables
Father-child positivity (n 137) .15 .24**
Father-child negativity (n 137) .29** .14
Paternal education (n 161) .16* .08
Paternal malaise (n 100) .38** .01
Biological relatedness to father (n 171) .19* .08
* p < .05; ** p < .01.
Table 5
Unadjusted and adjusted odds predicting externalising problems based on childrens perspectives of their resident fathers
Childs view of
father
Unadjusted
odds ratios
(n 171)
95% condence
interval Wald
Adjusted
odds ratios
a
(n 135)
95% Condence
interval Wald
Child not close
to father
b
2.42 1.15, 5.13 5.39* 2.89 1.06, 7.88 4.28*
a
adjusted for mothers time in current situation, child transitions, parental marital status, income, mother-partner conict,
father-child negativity, father education, biological relatedness to father, father malaise.
b
Reference group is child close to father.
* p < .05.
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528 STURGESS, DUNN, DAVIES / CHILDRENS PERCEPTIONS OF THEIR RELATIONSHIPS
biological relatedness of child and parent that was key for their
closeness. This hypothesis was supported for the childrens
views of the father-child relationship (we were unable to
investigate it for the mother-child relationship due to insuf-
cient numbers of stepmothers). It was the biological link
between children and their fathers that was associated with the
closeness that children felt for their fathersrather than the
family setting per se. In this respect, the childrens accounts
echoed those that fathers and stepfathers gave, concerning the
positive aspects of their relationships with their children, which
also clearly illustrated the signicance of biological relatedness
(e.g., see Dunn, Davies, OConnor, & Sturgess, 2000). The
pattern of the childrens placements of family members on the
Four Field Map showed that in the complex family settings in
which many children now grow up, it is their biological links
with their fathers that explains variations in relationship
quality. Many young children did not feel close to their
stepfathers, and were clearly able to express these views. One
implication of this, for those concerned with policy decisions,
is that we can consult even young children about their
perspectives on family life, providing that age-appropriate
measures, such as this map, are employed. As a tool, the map
could have particular relevance for social workers in determin-
ing, for example, how well children are settling into adoptive or
foster placements.
The second prediction, that children would not report
systematic differences in the closeness they felt for their full-,
step-, and half-siblings, was also supported. This pattern of
results echoes parental reports for the full ALSPAC sample of
around 9000 siblings (Deater-Deckard & Dunn, 1999). The
substantial variation in what children in nonstep families feel
about their full siblings is relevant here; many full siblings
express considerable hostility and dislike for each other,
whereas many half- and step-siblings are less intensely
involvedboth negatively and positively.
The second goal was to examine the pattern of associations
between the childrens closeness to their parents, as depicted in
their map placements, and the maternal ratings of the childrens
adjustment. The rst hypothesis, that lack of closeness would
be linked to poorer adjustment, was supported in relation to the
father-child relationship; here, the results echo ndings from
research based on parental reports, as do the results linking
prosocial behaviour with closeness to both mother and father
(Davies et al., 1999; Hetherington & Stanley-Hagan, 1999).
Once again, these very young children provided data that is
validated by external reports. Conclusions about the direction
of effects cannot, of course, be drawn from these associations:
the less close father-child relationships reported by children
rated as high on externalising problems could well be the result
rather than the cause of the adjustment problems.
Particularly exciting here is the evidence in support of the
second hypothesis, concerning the additional power to predict
adjustment outcome by the inclusion of childrens perspectives
on their relationships. When the childrens views on their
relationships with their resident father were taken into account,
the prediction of externalising problems was signicantly
improved, beyond the prediction made when the other known
family risk factors were taken into account. The children in this
sample who placed their resident (step)father as not close
were around three times more likely to be experiencing
externalising problems than those who placed him centrally
on the map. Note, again that we cannot draw causal inferences
about the direction of these effects.
No associations were found between adjustment and the
placement of siblings. Studies of older children have reported
links between externalising and hostile, aggressive sibling
relationships (e.g., Boer & Dunn, 1990; Conger & Conger,
1996; Stormshak et al., 1996); the difference in ndings from
this study may reect the age of the childrenwith parental
rather than sibling relationships of key importance for
adjustment difculties among 4- and 5-year-olds. It may also
be a method difference, with the placement of siblings on the
map being a unidimensional measure of closeness, rather than
a measure of the negative aspects of the relationship. It is these
negative aspects of sibling relationships that have been shown
to be linked to adjustment problems.
The third goal of the study concerned friendships. There is
increasing interest in the quality, extent, and diversity of
childrens friendship as developmentally signicant, and also as
potential supports in times of stress, such as around the birth of
a sibling (Kramer & Gottman, 1992), starting school (Ladd,
Kochenderfer, & Coleman, 1996), or conding about family
transitions (Dunn et al., 2000). The issue of how much the
quality of childrens family relationships are associated with
differences in the number and quality of their friendships is
currently of considerable theoretical interest: Both attachment
theorists and those working within a social learning framework
have argued that the quality of parent-child relationships will
be linked to the kinds of friendships children form (Rubin et
al., 1998). The ndings here support these arguments: The
children with close relationships with their mothers were more
likely to have close friendships. There were also associations
between the closeness of the childrens sibling relationships
and those of their friendshipsndings of particular interest
given the relatively sparse (and inconsistent) information we
have on links between sibling and friend relationships (Stocker
& Youngblade, 1999). No association was found between the
quality of the child-father relationship and the friendship
measures; this is in contrast to the ndings for older children in
this sample, where positive child-father relationships were
associated with close friendships (Dunn et al., 2000). This
difference could reect an age difference in the signicance of
child-father relationships for friendshipsor a method differ-
ence. The follow-up data on our 4- to 7-year-olds as 6- to 9-
year-olds, currently being collected, will clarify this point. As
with the ndings on adjustment, the patterns of association do
not allow us to draw conclusions about the direction of effects,
or the processes underlying these connections. It could well be
that common causal factorssuch as temperamental char-
acteristicscontribute to the connections across relationships.
In summary, the results from this particular approach to
describing childrens views of their close relationships parallel,
in several respects, the ndings from studies of older children
which have used more traditional interview and questionnaire
methods. The results are encouraging in that they indicate that
we can indeed include the perspective of even 4- and 5-year-
olds in our attempts to understand which children are
particularly vulnerable to family change, and which relation-
ships may be a source of support for them.
Manuscript received November 1999
Revised manuscript received April 2000
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