Interparental conflict, children’s reactivity to interparental conflict, and school adjustment

The article, “Interparental Conflict as a Quadratic Predictor of Children’s Reactivity to Interparental Conflict and School Adjustment: Steeling effects or risk saturation?” by Davies et al. (2021) is published in Child Development. Here’s the abstract:

This study examined interparental conflict as a curvilinear predictor of children's reactivity to interparental conflict and, in turn, their school problems across three annual measurements. Participants included 243 preschool children (Mage = 4.60 years; 56% girls) and their parents from racially (e.g., 48% Black; 16% Latinx) diverse backgrounds. Interparental conflict was a significant quadratic predictor of children's emotional reactivity (β = .23) and behavioral dysregulation (β = .27) to conflict over a 1-year period. The robust association between interparental conflict and behavioral dysregulation weakened at high levels of interparental conflict. In contrast, interparental conflict more strongly predicted children's emotional reactivity as conflict exposure increased. Children's emotional reactivity, in turn, predicted their greater school problems 1 year later (β = .25).

What I find interesting is the difference between behavioral dysregulation and emotional reactivity. It seems likely to me that, at high levels of interparental conflict, kids are too fearful to exhibit behavioral dysregulation themselves because their world is already chaotic. Yet, as conflict exposure increases, so does the child’s emotional reactivity and it is the emotional reactivity that predicts school problems a year later.