Randomized Preventive Intervention for Families: Adolescents' Emotional Insecurity and Attachment to Fathers

The family communication project was a randomized preventive intervention designed to support families by improving interparental conflict behavior and the parent-child relationship, with the ultimate goal of decreasing emotional insecurity in the interparental relationship. Evidence for programs that may benefit father-adolescent attachment and adolescents' emotional insecurity in the marital context is a gap in the literature. According to the fathering vulnerability hypothesis, father-child attachment security might be expected to especially benefit from improvements in interparental conflict behavior. The present study evaluated whether there were any indirect effects of this intervention on emotional insecurity via attachment with each parent, with a particular interest in the role of father-child attachment. Cross-lagged panel models revealed that the parent-adolescent (PA) treatment condition predicted significantly decreased emotional insecurity at 6 months through posttest attachment to fathers, relative to the control and parent-only conditions. Mother-adolescent attachment was improved in the PA condition at posttest but was not a significant mediator of subsequent adolescent emotional insecurity. Thus, the intervention's effects on father-adolescent attachment plays an important role in explaining the long-term effects of the intervention on emotional insecurity about the interparental relationship. Results also call attention to the value of including adolescents in interventions to improve interparental conflict and parent-child relationships.

Automated summary

This study demonstrates that the family communication project has positive effects on father-adolescent attachment, leading to decreased emotional insecurity in adolescents. Additionally, the results highlight the importance of including adolescents in interventions aimed at improving interparental conflict and parent-child relationships.