Interspousal aggression, marital discord, and child problems.

The association between interspousal aggression and child problems was assessed after controlling for parents' general marital discord. Participants were 87 couples requesting marital therapy who had children between 5 and 12 years old. Spouses completed measures of marital aggression, marital discord, child problems, and family demographics. Marital aggression contributed unique variance to the prediction of conduct disorder, personality disorder, inadequacy-immaturity, and clinical levels of problematic child behavior after marital discord, child's age, child's sex, and Marital Discord X Child's sex interaction were controlled. The theoretical implications of these findings are discussed.