Once, not long ago, the traditional family consisting of children living together with their biological parents and siblings was the norm. Today, with 50% of marriages facing separation or divorce, only half of the families in the United States are so-called traditional. Parents are likely to repartner, and repartnered couples are even more likely to separate (Brody, Neubaum, & Forehand, 1988; Bumpass, Sweet, & Martin, 1990; Bumpass & Sweet, 1989). These transitions place families at risk for parenting problems and other adversities including mental and physical illness; substance abuse; antisocial behavior; couple conflict; decreased social support; financial problems; downward economic mobility; and the instability that comes with changing residences, neighborhoods, and schools (Amato, 1993; Hetherington & Stanley-Hagan, 1999; Simons, Beaman, Conger, & Chao, 1993; Zill, Morrison, & Coiro, 1993). Parenting problems increase the likelihood of a myriad of difficulties for children including internalizing, externalizing, academic difficulty, deviant peer association, delinquency, and children’s adjustment problems. These challenges, in turn, increase the risk of coercion and decrease the likelihood of positive parenting, which can result in a negative spiral proving increasingly difficult to overcome (Amato, 1987; Anderson, Greene, Hetherington, & Clingempeel, 1999; Hetherington, 1999; Zill, Morrison, & Coiro, 1993). This chapter describes an important intervention for divorced families that can reverse these negative effects and help families achieve multilateral success by reducing coercive parenting and increasing positive parenting, thereby preventing growth in rates of delinquency for boys.
