Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Relational And Social-Cognitive Correlates Of Early Adolescents’ Forgiveness Of Parents, Katherine J. Christensen, Laura M. Padilla-Walker, Dean M. Busby, Sam A. Hardy, Randal D. Day

Faculty Publications

This study examined how mother and father–child relationship quality and marital forgiveness were related to early adolescents’ forgiveness of mothers and fathers. Adolescents’ social-cognitive skills (empathy and emotional regulation) and parents’ forgiveness of child were examined as mediators. Mother, father, and child self-reported questionnaires and observational data were taken from Time 1 and Time 3 (two years later) of the Flourishing Families Project, and included 334 two-parent families with an early adolescent (M age at Time 1 = 11.24; 51% male; 76% Caucasian). Using path analyses via structure equation modeling, mother–child relationship quality and adolescents’ own social-cognitive skills were …