Coparenting and Triadic Interactions during Infancy: The Roles of Marital Distress and Child Gender.

The interaction patterns of 47 intact couples at play with infant sons and daughters were examined. Play in the triad was characterized along dimensions of hostility-competitiveness, family harmony, and parenting discrepancy, and correlates of these 3 patterns were investigated. Though family patterns were generally not related to self-reported distress, they were associated with observed marital distress, with marital-family links differing as a function of child gender. Maritally distressed parents of boys more commonly displayed hostile-competitive coparenting behavior in the triad, whereas distressed parents of girls were more likely to show discrepant levels of parenting involvement. Two systemic hypotheses suggested by family theory (linking marital conflict to hostile-competitive coparenting and marital power to parenting discrepancies) were also supported. These findings indicate the importance of conceptualizing coparenting as a construct separable from marital distress.

[1]  M. Smith,et al.  Marital disharmony and children's behaviour problems: aspects of a poor marriage that affect children adversely. , 1991, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[2]  R. Levy-Shiff.  Individual and Contextual Correlates of Marital Change across the Transition to Parenthood. , 1994 .

[3]  A. Skynner.  Systems of family and marital psychotherapy , 1976 .

[4]  M. Fitzpatrick,et al.  Perspectives on marital interaction , 1988 .

[5]  John M. Gottman,et al.  The social psychophysiology of marriage. , 1988 .

[6]  M. Rovine,et al.  The developing family system. , 1991 .

[7]  J. Gottman,et al.  The topography of marital conflict: A sequential analysis of verbal and nonverbal behavior. , 1977 .

[8]  A. J. Walker,et al.  Women and Men in Marriage, Work, and Parenthood. , 1989 .

[9]  Jay Belsky,et al.  Stability and change in marriage across the transition to parenthood: a second study. , 1985 .

[10]  R D Conger,et al.  A family process model of economic hardship and adjustment of early adolescent boys. , 1992, Child development.

[11]  Salvador Minuchin,et al.  Families & family therapy , 1974 .

[12]  D. Jackson.  FAMILY RULES: MARITAL QUID PRO QUO. , 1965, Archives of general psychiatry.

[13]  D. A. Smith,et al.  Marital adjustment, parental disagreements about child rearing, and behavior problems in boys: increasing the specificity of the marital assessment. , 1991, Child development.

[14]  J. Block,et al.  The Role of Ego-Control and Ego-Resiliency in the Organization of Behavior , 1980 .

[15]  M. Cox,et al.  Marriage, adult adjustment, and early parenting. , 1989, Child development.

[16]  Marianne Walters.  The Invisible Web: Gender Patterns in Family Relationships , 1988 .

[17]  K. O’leary,et al.  Interspousal aggression, marital discord, and child problems. , 1989, Journal of consulting and clinical psychology.

[18]  J. Belsky,et al.  The Pennsylvania Infant and Family Development Project, I: Stability and change in mother-infant and father-infant interaction in a family setting at one, three, and nine months. , 1984, Child development.

[19]  P. Cowan,et al.  When Partners Become Parents: The Big Life Change for Couples , 1992 .

[20]  John H. Grych,et al.  Marital conflict and children's adjustment: a cognitive-contextual framework. , 1990, Psychological bulletin.

[21]  H. Grotevant,et al.  Family interaction coding systems: a descriptive review. , 1987, Family process.

[22]  C. Heavey,et al.  Gender and social structure in the demand/withdraw pattern of marital conflict. , 1990, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[23]  C. Cowan,et al.  Fatherhood today : men's changing role in the family , 1988 .

[24]  L. Hirshberg.  When infants look to their parents: II. Twelve-month-olds' response to conflicting parental emotional signals. , 1990, Child development.

[25]  Families and individual development: provocations from the field of family therapy. , 1985 .

[26]  O. Erel,et al.  The Linkage between Marital Quality and the Parent-Child Relationship: A Meta-Analysis. , 1993 .

[27]  W. Beavers,et al.  Healthy, midrange, and severely dysfunctional families. , 1982 .

[28]  Froma Walsh,et al.  Normal family processes. , 1982 .

[29]  M. Cox,et al.  The transition to parenthood: III. Incorporation of the child into the family. , 1988, Family process.

[30]  P. Cowan,et al.  Mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters: Gender differences in family formation and parenting style. , 1993 .

[31]  J. Block,et al.  Parental Agreement-Disagreement on Child Rearing Orientations and Gender-Related Personality Correlates in Children. , 1981 .

[32]  S. Morgan,et al.  Sons, Daughters, and the Risk of Marital Disruption , 1988, American Journal of Sociology.

[33]  J. Haley.  Control in brief psychotherapy. , 1961, Archives of general psychiatry.

[34]  C. Zahn-Waxler,et al.  Developmental changes in children's reactions to anger in the home. , 1984, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[35]  H. Locke,et al.  SHORT MARITAL ADJUSTMENT AND PREDICTION TESTS: THEIR RELIABILITY AND VALIDITY , 1959 .

[36]  P. Cowan,et al.  Becoming a family: Research and intervention. , 1990 .

[37]  G. Russell,et al.  Coparenting Early School-Age Children: An Examination of Mother-Father Interdependence within Families. , 1994 .

[38]  K. Harris,et al.  Fathers, sons, and daughters: Differential paternal involvement in parenting. , 1991 .

[39]  C. Notarius,et al.  Children's responses to angry adult behavior as a function of marital distress and history of interparent hostility. , 1989, Child development.

[40]  C. Heinicke,et al.  Pre- and Postbirth Antecedents of 2-Year-Old Attention, Capacity for Relationships, and Verbal Expressiveness. , 1986 .

[41]  R. Parke,et al.  Social referencing in infancy: a glance at fathers and marriage. , 1988, Child development.

[42]  P. Cowan,et al.  Marital Quality and Gender Differences in Parent-Child Interaction , 1993 .

[43]  P. Cowan,et al.  Externalizing in preschoolers and early adolescents : a cross-study replication of a family model , 1993 .

[44]  W. Marsiglio.  Paternal engagement activities with minor children , 1991 .

[45]  C. Umbarger.  Structural Family Therapy , 1983 .

[46]  E. Pedhazur.  Multiple Regression in Behavioral Research: Explanation and Prediction , 1982 .

[47]  G. Keppel,et al.  Data analysis for research designs: Analysis of variance and multiple regression/correlation approaches. , 1990 .

[48]  Mark A. Fine,et al.  Family, Self, and Society: Toward a New Agenda for Family Research , 1993 .

[49]  E. M. Hetherington,et al.  Effects of divorce on parents and children , 1982 .

[50]  T. Snijders,et al.  Advances in Family Research , 1995 .

[51]  C. Halverson,et al.  The Georgia family Q-sort: an observational measure of family functioning. , 1989, Family process.

[52]  P. L. Chase‐Lansdale,et al.  Maternal employment in a family context: effects on infant-mother and infant-father attachments. , 1987, Child development.

[53]  P. Gjerde.  The Interpersonal Structure of Family Interaction Settings: Parent-Adolescent Relations in Dyads and Triads , 1986 .

[54]  R G Green,et al.  The Beavers-Timberlawn model of family competence and the circumplex model of family adaptability and cohesion: separate, but equal? , 1985, Family process.

[55]  P. Amato.  Marital conflict, the parent–child relationship and child self-esteem. , 1986 .

[56]  C. Zahn-Waxler,et al.  Young Children's Responses to Expressions of Anger and Affection by Others in the Family. , 1981 .

[57]  A. Acock,et al.  Girls or Boys? Relationship of Child Gender to Marital Instability. , 1994 .

[58]  J. Belsky,et al.  Developmental antecedents and measurement of intergenerational boundary violation in a nonclinic sample. , 1991 .