Are some children harder to coparent than others? Children's negative emotionality and coparenting relationship quality.
The current study examined relations between child temperament--specifically, negative emotionality--and parents' supportive and undermining coparenting behavior, and further tested whether marital adjustment moderated relations between child negative affect and coparenting. One-hundred eleven two-parent families with a 4-year old child participated in this study. Parents completed questionnaires to provide information on children's negative affectivity, marital adjustment, and the quality of their coparenting relationships. Furthermore, parents and children participated together in two 10-minute task-oriented interactions that were coded to assess coparenting behavior. As hypothesized, parents of children higher on levels of negative affect demonstrated greater undermining coparenting behavior. In addition, marital adjustment moderated relations between children's negative affect and parents' supportive coparenting behavior. However, contrary to expectations, couples with higher levels of marital adjustment were most vulnerable to effects of child negativity on supportive coparenting. Results suggest that high-quality marital relationships may not buffer the coparenting relationship from the effects of temperamentally difficult preschoolers.
Cook
J Claire
JC
Department of Human Development and Family Studies, University of Missouri-Columbia, MO 65211, USA. jccxt9@mizzou.edu
Schoppe-Sullivan
Sarah J
SJ
Buckley
Catherine K
CK
Davis
Evan F
EF
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003299:Cooperative Behavior; D004644:Emotions; D054541:Family Conflict / Q000523:psychology*; D005219:Father-Child Relations; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008960:Models, Psychological; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D012944:Social Support; D013694:Temperament
J Fam Psychol. 2008 Feb;22(1):30-40
18266530
Dev Psychopathol. 1998 Winter;10(1):39-59
9524807
J Fam Psychol. 2004 Mar;18(1):194-207
14992621
J Pers Assess. 2006 Aug;87(1):102-12
16856791
Child Dev. 1985 Apr;56(2):289-302
3886321
Parent Sci Pract. 2003 Jan 1;3(2):95-131
21980259
New Dir Child Dev. 1996 Winter;(74):45-55
9308432
Infant Behav Dev. 2007 Feb;30(1):82-96
17292782
Dev Psychopathol. 2004 Summer;16(3):711-33
15605633
Child Dev. 1995 Jun;66(3):629-42
7789192