Rupture&Entanglement:Narrative Inquiry Of The Relational Self And Family Interaction Of Children From Divorced Families

With the increasing divorce rate in China,the issue of children from divorced families has become an increasingly social issue.The phenomenon of "parents' divorce after college entrance examination"shows that many parents who are in crisis of divorce are increasingly thinking about whether they should wait until their children are adults to divorce.From the perspective of parents' choice of divorce occasions and children's subjective perception,this paper aims to understand the forms and differences of children's subjective perception of parents'divorce influence and their parent-child relationship.This study adopts the narrative oriented inquiry model from the perspective of social-constructivism.Through narrative interviews with 19 interviewees of early adulthood from divorced families,including 11 interviewees when their parents divorced before their adulthood and 8 after their adulthood,the study adopts category-content analysis,narrative theme analysis,and life story writing and other narrative research strategies.The study carried out the qualitative coding analysis and the narrative interpretation of the differences between the psychological self and family interaction patterns of children from divorced families before and after their adulthood.Among them,the exploration of the two types of children's psychological self focuses on the perceptual differences of relational self.The exploration of the interaction patterns of the two types of children's families is characterized by the relationship between those with their parents'divorce before their adulthood and the absent parents,and the intervention attitude of those with their parents' divorce after their adulthood to the parents' divorce.The researchers hope to conclude the multiple forms and typical characteristics of divorced narrative of children from different divorced families.The findings of the study include:1.The perception of relational self of the two types of children in the original family,intimate relationship and daily interpersonal interaction showed similar category morphology and significant connotative differences.Among them,only those with their parents' divorce before their adulthood are confused about family belonging;those with their parents' divorce after their adulthood have the stage characteristics of role perception in family responsibility;both types of children have different degrees of negative perception of men,and avoidance of marriage and love;many interviewees from early divorced families before their adulthood have perfectionist tendencies of self-requirements etc.In addition,the relational-self of children in the original family will empathically affect the relational-self of children in the other two fields.2.The typical form of the relationship between the children of early divorced families and their absent parents can be divided into four types:alienation type,contradiction type,intimacy type and doubtful type according to the degree of their negative emotions and the frequency of their interaction with reality.Among them,the influence of the incumbent parents on their children' perception and concept,and the relationship between the substituted parents and their children are the important influencing factors of the difference of the relationship between the children and the incumbent parents.The children of single-parent families are deeply influenced by the perception and evaluation of the absent parents by the incumbent parents,while for the children of reorganized families,they may turn to the absent parents for emotional support only when they cannot meet their emotional needs from the substituted parents.3.The intervention typical form of the children from divorced families after their adulthood to their parents' divorce can be divided into active intervention and passive intervention according to their motive differences.The passive intervention,according to its subjective motives,can be further divided into two categories:no intervention intention and failure of the intervention.The study also found that the morphology and degree of family triangle formed by early family life and parents had a significant impact on children's interventional attitude toward parental divorce after adulthood.In the triangular relationship,the degree of high parenting is related to the type of active intervention;in the triangular relationship,parent-child alliance and scapegoat characterization correspond to the passive intervention attitude of children without intervention intention;and the degree of the low family triangular relationship,is related to the morphology of passive intervention to parents' marriage for the children who cannot intervene in parental marriage.In addition,most of the children's perceptions and attitudes towards their parents'marriage have changed in different degrees before and after their adulthood.4.The situation and form of family interaction between the two kinds of children are closely related to the children's self-perception of different relationships in the original family.Among them,the relationship between children of early divorced families,absent parents and alternative parents will affect their perception of family-belonging;the representation of family triangle relationship in early life of children from divorced families and the interaction with their parents,are related with the stage perception of children's family-responsibilities.In the part of discussion,at first,this paper summarizes the factors that affect children's well-being,and analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of parent' choosing different divorce occasions for their children,in order to provide reference for parents facing divorce crisis;in the second,it puts forward narrative therapy strategies and their applicability for children of divorced families,in order to provide a path of multiple thinking for the self-growth of divorced children and the working ideas of psychological counselors;at last,the researcher returns to the social dimension of narrative research and explores the stigma construction and its influence of this children from the perspective of "body-discourse-power".