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Coparenting After Divorce: An Approach to Typologies and Context of Intervention
Abstract
Co-parenting after divorce is the relationship of mutual collaboration, support and communication between two parents no longer romantically linked to each other, who work together to raise and care for their children together. Over the past decade, research on co-parenting after divorce has increased. Therefore, the question arises as: what has been published in the last decade on co-parenting after divorce or separation? The aim of this study was to collect, review and synthesize articles published in scientific databases about co-parenting after divorce, to inform about the state of the art on this topic in the last decade to update professionals, academics and researchers who work in the family area, such as social workers, psychologists or lawyers. Thus, a systematic literature review was carried out in seventeen academic databases during August and September 2023. This systematic literature review followed the preferred reporting protocol for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA-P) and it was registered in PROSPERO (ID=CRD42022306146). Twenty-nine articles met the inclusion criteria and the quality of each one of them was evaluated with the MMAT instrument. Data were analyzed following the guide for narrative synthesis in systematic reviews. The results show that most of the articles were published during the year 2017, mostly they were from the United States, the type of studies were investigation, with a quantitative design whose participants were fathers and mothers (not dyads). Three recurring themes were identified in the included studies. The three themes were named as: (1) co-parenting categories, (2) components, and (3) interventions. In addition, an integration of the study variables found in the included articles is included and they are organized into four dimensions: positive and negative co-parental relationships, and internal and external factors. It is recommended to regulate through public policies that divorced parents attend interventions or psychoeducational programs as a compulsory stage of the divorce process to promote good co-parenting and prevent conflictive co-parenting relationships.
This study aims to analyze the application of child rights protection in divorce decisions at the Cirebon Religious Court and explore ways to optimize this protection using the maslahah approach. Divorce significantly impacts the physical and mental development of children, often resulting in a weakened next generation due to the lack of fulfillment of children's rights post-divorce. The research employs a normative juridical method, incorporating statute, case, and conceptual analyses to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current legal landscape and its shortcomings. The findings reveal that while the inclusion of children's rights in divorce decisions is crucial, it remains optional rather than mandatory. This oversight leaves many children vulnerable, as their rights are not consistently safeguarded in the aftermath of their parents' separation. Currently, no regulation mandates the inclusion of children's rights in divorce decrees, limiting judges to act only on explicit petitions. This study highlights the effectiveness of the Maslahah approach in ensuring that children's rights are prioritized, recommending significant legal reforms to make the inclusion of these rights mandatory in divorce rulings. Such reforms would provide a robust legal foundation to safeguard children's human rights post-divorce, covering aspects such as education, health, and protection from parental conflict. By implementing these recommendations, we can enhance the well-being of children affected by divorce and ensure their rights are consistently protected.
This study examined the association between postdivorce coparenting patterns and adolescent internalizing and externalizing behavior. Children after parental divorce increasingly grow up in shared residence arrangements, making postdivorce coparenting much more pertinent. The Coparenting Behavior Questionnaire was used to investigate the perceptions of 251 Dutch adolescents regarding postdivorce coparenting behaviors. Latent class analysis was used to identify coparenting patterns, and associations with adolescent outcomes were examined. Four distinct postdivorce coparenting patterns were identified: cooperative, negatively engaged, negatively disengaged, and average. Adolescents of parents with a cooperative pattern reported the least amount of internalizing and externalizing problems, whereas adolescents with negatively engaged parents reported the most internalizing problems. In line with family systems theory, interactions in the coparental subsystem are associated with adolescent adjustment and can therefore be viewed as both a risk and protective factor.
Background
Parental separation has been associated with adverse child mental health outcomes in the literature. For school-aged children, joint physical custody (JPC), that is, spending equal time in both parents’ homes after a divorce, has been associated with better health and well-being than single care arrangements. Preschool children’s well-being in JPC is less studied. The aim of this study was to investigate the association of living arrangements and coparenting quality with mental health in preschool children after parental separation.
Methods
This cross-sectional population-based study includes 12 845 three-year-old children in Sweden. Mental health was measured by parental reports of the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire and coparenting quality with a four-item scale. The living arrangements of the 642 children in non-intact families were categorised into JPC, living mostly with one parent and living only with one parent.
Results
Linear regression models, adjusted for sociodemographic confounders, showed an association between increased mental health problems and living mostly and only with one parent (B=1.18; 95% CI 0.37 to 2.00, and B=1.20; 95% CI 0.40 to 2.00, respectively), while children in intact families vs JPC did not differ significantly (B=−0.11; 95% CI −0.58 to 0.36). After adjusting the analyses for coparenting quality, differences in child mental health between the post divorce living arrangements were, however, minimal while children in intact families had more mental health problems compared with JPC (B=0.70; 95% CI 0.24 to 1.15). Factorial analysis of covariance revealed that low coparenting quality was more strongly related to mental health problems for children in intact families and JPC compared with children living mostly or only with one parent.
Conclusions
This study suggests that coparenting quality is a key determinant of mental health in preschool children and thus should be targeted in preventive interventions.
Objective
This study investigates the role of residence (including shared residence), repartnering (including LAT relationships), and additional children (step‐ and half‐siblings) on parenting in postdivorce families, and whether patterns differ by gender and type of parenting behavior.
Background
Patterns of parenting are indicative of how parents redefine their roles and responsibilities after divorce and repartnering, but extant research has largely overlooked parenting across a full array of postdivorce families.
Method
The analyses were based on data from Wave 2 of the New Families in the Netherlands survey, which was conducted among a random sample of divorced or separated heterosexual parents with minor children (N = 2,778).
Results
Residence was highly relevant for parenting in regular care, leisure, irregular care, and influence in child‐related decision‐making. Repartnering and additional children had smaller effects and it mattered which type of parenting behavior was considered, but they were generally associated with lower parental engagement, except for decision‐making influence. Gender differences were only found for decision‐making influence, showing that variations in parenting across residence arrangements or between repartnered or single parents were more pronounced for mothers than fathers.
Conclusion
Residence was more strongly related to parenting than repartnering, and the strength and nature of associations varied between parenting behaviors. Influence in decision‐making stood out as a distinct parenting behavior, and also the frequency and obligatory nature of parent–child activities mattered.
In this study, we examined whether regular divorces can be distinguished from complex divorces by measuring the intensity of negative emotions that divorced parents report when thinking about their ex-partner. We recruited two groups of parents: n = 136 in a regular divorce, and n = 191 in a complex divorce. Based on the existing literature, we predicted that parents in complex divorces experience more intense negative emotions than parents in regular divorces; especially emotions that motivate emotional distancing (contempt, disgust, anger, hatred, and rage) and emotions that impair self-regulation (fear, shame, guilt, and sadness). We also predicted that these emotions would hamper co-parenting, particularly in complex divorces. The results provided support for our predictions, except for fear and sadness. We found that parents in a complex divorce reported more co-parenting concerns than parents in a regular divorce. In contrast to our expectations, the relation between negative emotions and coparenting concerns was stronger among parents in a regular divorce than in a complex divorce. These findings underline the importance of emotions in the divorce trajectory and suggest that especially the intensity of emotional distancing emotions may serve as a screening tool to identify parents at risk for a complex divorce.
Objectives
This study sought to uncover patterns of parental interactions following divorce using multiple empirically-supported indicators related to cooperation, overt conflict, and covert conflict and to link patterns of parental interactions with indicators of adult well-being including stress, life satisfaction, alcohol use, and risk drinking.
Methods
Using community-based sampling and latent profile analysis, patterns of parental interactions were identified and associations among such patterns and parental well-being were examined for recently divorced parents (N= 246). Reports of parental interactions included parents’ perceptions of their own and their former spouse’s cooperation and covert conflict behaviors, as well as perceptions of overt conflict behaviors in parental interactions.
Results
Two patterns of parental interactions were identified (Congruent and Divergent). Among the full sample, neither pattern was linked with any indicator of well-being. Examining these associations separately for mothers and fathers, fathers in the Divergent group reported higher levels of alcohol use than those in the Congruent group (χ² = 4.64, p = .03). Mothers in the Divergent group reported marginally higher levels of life satisfaction than those in the Congruent group.
Conclusions
Utilizing a person-centered approach to uncover patterns of parental interactions yielded groups that differentiated largely on the basis of participant’s perceptions of their former spouses’ behaviors. Future research might consider the impact of perception as a component of divorce education evaluation work.
Background: After divorce, at least one of the partners usually relocates and, according to past research, it is more often the woman. Women's housing conditions are likely to worsen. Divorces where children are involved are frequent and shared custody arrangements are becoming more common in Europe. Objective: This paper analyses the extent to which residential mobility after divorce is linked to parental status and child custody arrangements in France, a topic that remains largely unstudied. We assess not only the probability of moving but also the distance of the move and changes in housing conditions. Methods: We apply logistic and linear regressions to different indicators from a recent administrative database, the French Permanent Demographic Sample, 2010-2013, which makes it possible to track divorced people and their households over time. Results: One year after divorce, women are more likely to move than men, although the gender gap is narrower for parents. While sole custody is associated with fewer moves than noncustody for both sexes, shared custody arrangements imply many more moves for mothers than for fathers. Parents more often move near their previous joint home than nonparents, especially those with shared custody. Housing conditions do not necessarily deteriorate after separation, but women are often disadvantaged compared with men. Contribution: This paper expands on the current literature in that it addresses changes in residency after separation by including the effects of parental status and child custody arrangements.
Instruments that assess parenting behavior after divorce have largely focused on the domains of general support of and conflict in co-parenting. This paper introduces and validates a measurement tool that provides a more nuanced perspective of the quality of co-parenting behaviors, the Multidimensional Co-Parenting Scale for Dissolved Relationships (MCS-DR). Participants were divorced or currently divorcing parents recruited through a Qualtrics panel (N = 569) to take a university-sponsored, state-approved curriculum, “Successful Co-Parenting After Divorce” and respond to a series of surveys about their experiences in the divorce process. Exploratory factor analysis was used to identify the underlying factor structure of the initial measurement item pool, which consisted of 48 items. From this, a four factor model emerged, consisting of 23 items; one additional item was removed following tests of measurement equivalence as a function of gender suggesting a final measure which consisted of 22 items across the four subscales. Those subscales include: Overt Conflict, Support, Self-Controlled Covert Conflict, and Externally-Controlled Covert Conflict. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed the four factor structure of the MCS-DR. The dimensions of Support and Overt Conflict demonstrate concurrent validity with an existing measure used in the literature on post-divorce co-parenting. Educators and clinicians may find this newly developed scale useful in helping parents identify their strengths and challenges in post-divorce functioning for the well-being of their children. Implications for the field are also discussed in relation to legislatively and judicially mandated divorce classes in many states.
Many U.S. states require divorcing parents to take education classes about the impact of divorce on parents and children. As educators, psychiatrists, social workers, and others create these classes, it is important to evaluate what elements of the curriculum are effective in achieving targeted outcomes. Successful Coparenting After Divorce (https://coparenting.fsu.edu) is a free online divorce education course that focuses on issues such as the emotional impact of divorce, conflict reduction, and skills for parental cooperation. The course also includes videos covering topics including examples of negative and positive parental behavior, and testimonials from children. Pilot testing of the videos and the overall course impact with divorcing parents (n = 218) suggested that the videos’ utility were significantly related to the positive change in parents’ perceptions of their relationship with their former spouse, and their child-focused attitudes. Implications for practitioners who design or provide divorce education to parents are discussed.
We examined the impacts of the CoParenting for Successful Kids program offered by University of Nebraska Extension. Using a sample of 2,622 parents who participated in the program in 2015, we measured their knowledge change and ability to perform cooperative coparenting behaviors. Results suggest that the program effectively improved participants' coparenting knowledge and ability to use behaviors such as understanding and supporting children in developmentally appropriate ways, enhancing communication skills, and developing parenting plans. In examining group differences, we found that parents of infants and toddlers benefited the most from the program. Suggestions on program development and evaluation are discussed.
This article analyzes 401 college students’ perceptions of love, romance, parent–child closeness, and religiosity. Results revealed that college students from divorced homes were not as close with their parents and reported decreased religiosity compared to participants from nondivorced homes, and that these factors are associated with young adults’ views and expectations on romantic relationships. The work presented here provides implications for future studies in understanding the beliefs about and effects of divorce for adult children. Further, results from this study suggest that college students have different expectations regarding love, romance, and marriage based on a number of family relation factors. Implications and suggestions for future research are discussed.
This pilot study analyzed the feasibility of a group intervention program “Egokitzen” for divorced Spanish parents. The aim of this study is analyzing if the program helped parents to experience less inter-parental conflicts with the ex-partner and less psychological symptomatology, as measured at a 6 month follow-up subsequent to program completion. Twenty-seven (27) divorced parents participated in four separate groups of 5, 7, 6, and 9 participants respectively for 11 weeks. Results based on evaluation of 13 participants shows the general hypothesis was partially confirmed at 6 months post group completion. Limitations of the study are discussed; suggestions for future research are presented.
The relation between divorce, co-parenting conflicts, and children’s adjustment problems has been well established. An unresolved question for research and clinical interventions, however, is how conflicts between parents are maintained and/or escalate. This cross-sectional research tested the hypothesis that co-parenting conflicts in divorced couples are associated with perceived social network disapproval and that this relation is mediated by parents’ tendency to forgive each other. In Study 1, a convenience sample of 136 divorced parents recruited via online forums, we showed that perceived social network disapproval was indeed positively related to co-parenting conflicts and that parents’ tendency to forgive the other parent—albeit partly—explained this relationship. Strength of our research is that in Study 2, 110 parents referred to children’s mental health care because the wellbeing of the children was severely compromised by the severity of the conflicts between parents, we replicated these results. In both studies perceived social network disapproval and co-parenting conflicts were positively related and this link was mediated by forgiveness: perceived social network disapproval was negatively related to forgiveness, which in turn was negatively related to more parental conflicts.
Divorce is challenging for parents with children, commonly resulting in a series of individual and interpersonal adjustments. The time immediately following divorce can be particularly difficult. This study used a modified grounded theory approach to explore the experiences of 99 recently divorced mothers and fathers. Analysis of written narratives revealed 4 emergent groups of parents who described their postdivorce parenting experiences: good divorce, good enough, bad to better, and bad. Each group described their experiences across
several areas including coparenting, father involvement, challenges of single parenting, personal turmoil, and their children’s adjustment. Implications for research and divorce education are discussed.
In this article, we argued that the term stress has served as a valuable heuristic, helping researchers to integrate traditions that illuminate different stages of the process linking stressful life events to disease. We provided a short history of three traditions in the study of stress: the epidemiological, psychological, and biological. The epidemiological tradition focuses on defining which circumstances and experiences are deemed stressful on the basis of consensual agreement that they constitute threats to social or physical well-being. The psychological tradition focuses on individuals’ perceptions of the stress presented by life events on the basis of their appraisals of the threats posed and the availability of effective coping resources. The biological tradition focuses on brain-based perturbations of physiological systems that are otherwise essential for normal homeostatic regulation and metabolic control. The foci of these three traditions have informed elements of a stage model of disease, wherein events appraised as stressful are viewed as triggering affective states that in turn engender behavioral and biological responses having possible downstream implications for disease.
Objective:
Research has shown that co-parenting is a vital family mechanism in predicting mental health in children and adolescents. Considering the increasing prevalence of marital dissolution in Western societies, the objective of this systematic review was to summarize the key results of empirical studies that tested the association between mental health of children and co-parenting after marital dissolution.
Data source:
The studies were obtained from three databases (PsycInfo, PubMed, and Web of Knowledge), published between January 2000 and October 2014. The titles, abstracts, and key words of the generated citations were independently reviewed by two investigators to consensually select the articles that met the inclusion criteria. Articles that used psychometrically valid tools to measure at least one mental health indicator and at least one dimension of co-parenting in samples with divorced parents were included in the review.
Data synthesis:
Of the 933 screened articles, 11 met the inclusion criteria. Significant positive associations were found between co-parental conflict and behavioral problems and symptoms of anxiety, depression, and somatization. Significant positive associations were also found between other specific dimensions of co-parenting (co-parental support, cooperation, and agreement), overall mental health, self-esteem, and academic performance.
Conclusions:
The integrated analysis of these studies suggests that co-parenting is a key mechanism within the family system for the prediction of child mental health after marital dissolution, and thus, it is recommended that pediatricians, psychologists, and other health professionals consider co-parenting as a psychosocial variable for children's mental health assessment and diagnosis.
The aim of this study was to identify post-divorce coparenting profiles and examine whether these profiles differentiate between levels of parents' well-being, parenting practices, and children's psychological problems. Cluster analysis was conducted with Portuguese heterosexual divorced parents (N = 314) to yield distinct post-divorce coparenting patterns. Clusters were based on parents' self-reported coparenting relationship assessed along four dimensions: agreement, exposure to conflict, undermining/support, and division of labor. A three cluster solution was found and replicated. Parents in the high-conflict coparenting group exhibited significantly lower life satisfaction, as well as significantly higher divorce-related negative affect and inconsistent parenting than parents in undermining and cooperative coparenting clusters. The cooperative coparenting group reported higher levels of positive family functioning and lower externalizing and internalizing problems in their children. These results suggested that a positive coparenting alliance may be a protective factor for individual and family outcomes after parental divorce.
Protocols of systematic reviews and meta-analyses allow for planning and documentation of review methods, act as a guard against arbitrary decision making during review conduct, enable readers to assess for the presence of selective reporting against completed reviews, and, when made publicly available, reduce duplication of efforts and potentially prompt collaboration. Evidence documenting the existence of selective reporting and excessive duplication of reviews on the same or similar topics is accumulating and many calls have been made in support of the documentation and public availability of review protocols. Several efforts have emerged in recent years to rectify these problems, including development of an international register for prospective reviews (PROSPERO) and launch of the first open access journal dedicated to the exclusive publication of systematic review products, including protocols (BioMed Central's Systematic Reviews). Furthering these efforts and building on the PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses) guidelines, an international group of experts has created a guideline to improve the transparency, accuracy, completeness, and frequency of documented systematic review and meta-analysis protocols-PRISMA-P (for protocols) 2015. The PRISMA-P checklist contains 17 items considered to be essential and minimum components of a systematic review or meta-analysis protocol.This PRISMA-P 2015 Explanation and Elaboration paper provides readers with a full understanding of and evidence about the necessity of each item as well as a model example from an existing published protocol. This paper should be read together with the PRISMA-P 2015 statement. Systematic review authors and assessors are strongly encouraged to make use of PRISMA-P when drafting and appraising review protocols.
© BMJ Publishing Group Ltd 2014.
The present chapter examines the nature and consequences of forgiveness. First we provide an overview of studies suggesting that the level of forgiveness tends to be quite malleable, as indicated by a number of empirical findings demonstrating that situational cues can subtly influence an individual’s level of forgiveness. Extending the general view on forgiveness as a deliberative and intentional act, we review evidence indicating that forgiveness is at least partly determined by automatic and unconscious processes. In the second part of the chapter we provide an overview of studies demonstrating that, despite the notion that level of forgiveness can be malleable, seemingly small fluctuations in forgiveness can still have profound consequences both at the intrapersonal and interpersonal levels, and may have generalised effects on prosocial behaviour over people and situations. We conclude by proposing a model that not only summarises many of the findings reviewed in this chapter, but also may serve as a heuristic framework for testing predictions about the impact of forgiveness on individuals, relationships, and beyond. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
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. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Research on coparenting has grown over the past decade, supporting a view of coparenting as a central element of family life that influences parental adjustment, parenting, and child outcomes. This article introduces a multi-domain conception of coparenting that organizes existing research and paves the way for future research and intervention. This article advances a conceptualization of how coparenting domains influence parental adjustment, parenting, and child adjustment. An ecological model that outlines influences on coparenting relationships, as well as mediating and moderating pathways, is described. Areas of future research in the developmental course of coparenting relationships are noted.
Though the study of coparenting is still in its infancy, an explosion of coparenting research is in the wings. This paper identifies several emerging issues in coparenting theory and research to guide work in the years ahead, including issues in definition, conceptualization, and measurement; the interface between coparenting and adult development; and conceptual benefits that will accrue from studies of interadult coordination across diverse cultures and family systems. We emphasize that theory must lead empirical efforts, that across family systems the strongest coparental alliances are likely to be those in which the coparents both experience and provide support and solidarity for one another's parenting efforts with the children, and that measurement approaches need to be expanded so as to capture more comprehensively each family's organizational cooparenting structures and themes.
In the current research, the authors examined children's observed compliance in a family clean-up paradigm and parents' reports of coparenting to predict young children's conscience (e.g., affective discomfort and moral regulation) in a sample of 58 families with two parents and at least two children. The authors found relations between parents' reports of children's conscience development and observer-rated compliance in a family clean-up session, and significant correlations between coparenting and conscience development. There were a greater number of significant results for younger, 2-year-old siblings than for older siblings, which may reflect the importance of the period between 2 and 3 years for the emergence of conscience. Multiple regressions revealed that younger siblings' age, observed compliance/noncompliance, and parents' reports of coparenting were all significant in predicting parents' reports of affective discomfort and moral regulation. Findings underscore the importance of continuing research on whole-family dynamics when studying young children's early conscience and moral regulation.
Objective
This study investigates differences between health trajectories of children of divorce or separation and children of continuously married families.
Background
Over the past 50 years, during which fewer children grew up in families with both biological parents, there has been an increased academic interest to understand how children fared in alternative family structures.
Method
This study uses retrospective illness histories from a recent supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to conduct a longitudinal analysis of parental breakup and child health.
Results
Children of divorce were found to exhibit higher prevalence of several illnesses during adolescence and young adulthood than children of continuously married families. Controlling for family resources and parental mental health moderated the relationship between parental breakup and negative health outcomes. However, significant associations between parental breakup and children's health outcomes remained.
Conclusion
This study provides a general outline of how parental breakup is associated with children's health trajectories. Although the analysis controls for an extensive set of variables by employing a quasi‐experimental method, caution in interpreting these findings as causal relationships is warranted.
Implications
Given the evidence presented, it is vital that parents and children have easy access to coping‐focused preventive interventions designed to reduce adverse effects of divorce on children.
This study undertakes a bibliometric analysis, science mapping, and visualization of the consequences of marital union dissolution on the household members, including parents, children, and other relations. We also analyze the temporal trends of the scientific production and citation of author sand sources, and institutions/ countries' collaborations using data from published documents indexed on SCOPUS within the last four decades. The paper highlights five outcomes. First, there is an upward trend in scientific production on divorce and the consequences, which mirrors the increasing divorce rate in different cultures and societies. Second, the clusters of terms identify various adverse effects of divorce on the household members, including a severe economic impact on women and children. Even the dissolution of bad marriage carries significant emotional and psychological pains on the household members. Third, parental divorce can constitute an adverse childhood experience with potentially long-term consequences in some cases where the offspring cannot recover from the emotional trauma. Fourth, divorce can cause health problems, including social, behavioral, psychological, and mental health problems to the parents and children, and economic challenges. Fifth, the results using network analysis show that the consequences of divorce are not linear but multi-directional. Finally, most research output originates from countries with a high divorce rate. The study reveals upward trends in the literature production, the divorce rate across all marriage groups and social status, and religious groups. The paper contributes to integrating scholarship in divorce consequences.
Objective
To examine (a) associations among coparental interaction (cooperation, overt conflict, covert conflict) and father involvement (engagement, in‐kind financial support), (b) associations among the three dimensions of coparental interaction, and (c) associations among the two dimensions of father involvement, shortly after divorce.
Background
Family relationships change shortly after divorce, yet little research has examined coparental interaction and father involvement shortly after divorce and overt and covert conflict are often not included.
Method
Mothers and fathers from different families in a southeastern state (N = 194) participated within 3 months after divorce (Time 1) and 3 to 6 months later (Time 2). A cross‐lagged structural equation model was used to examine reciprocal associations among dimensions of coparental interaction and father involvement.
Results
Higher father engagement and lower overt conflict (Time 1) were associated with higher cooperation (Time 2). Covert conflict was associated with later overt conflict. In‐kind support was not associated with later father engagement or coparental interaction. No reciprocal associations among variables were found.
Conclusion
Coparental conflict and father engagement may be salient to the development of later coparental relationships following divorce.
Implications
Practitioners can help parents manage conflict and encourage father engagement to foster healthy coparental relationships after divorce.
Objective
This article aims to provide an overview of the efficacy of co‐parenting programs on outcomes related to child's adjustment, parents' well‐being, and quality of the co‐parenting, romantic, and parent–child relationships.
Background
Numerous co‐parenting programs have been developed, supported by empirical findings associating quality of co‐parenting to the overall family well‐being. However, to our knowledge, the efficacy of those programs has not yet been assessed.
Method
This article included 38 articles corresponding to 27 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) presenting 23 programs. We conducted a meta‐analysis to estimate the efficacy of co‐parenting programs and a review of programs to identify the ingredients of co‐parenting programs that may contribute to this efficacy.
Results
Results support a small but significant effect of co‐parenting programs on outcomes related to parents' well‐being and the quality of co‐parenting and romantic relationships.
Conclusion
Finally, despite the heterogeneity of the programs, some commonalities are identified, such as the use of psychoeducation and skills training.
Implications
Our work supports the added value of co‐parenting programs for both vulnerable families and families with no apparent major difficulties. Future directions in terms of study and program designs are proposed to promote high‐quality research in this field.
Family communication is central to adjusted family functioning, which may be of special relevance to limit the impact of divorce on children. The present study aims to examine positive family communication as a facilitator of family adaptation to divorce, its impact on children’s maladjustment, and the role of coparenting. A cross-sectional study was carried out with 309 parents with high interparental-conflict. The expected model was tested using path analysis. We observed that: 1) positive family communication was related to parents’ greater psychological adjustment to the divorce and fewer socioeconomic consequences of the divorce on children and indirectly to children’s lower anxiety/depression and aggressiveness; 2) supportive coparenting was a protective factor against socioeconomic consequences, but a risk factor in situations of high conflict. These results highlight positive family communication in family adaptation and children’s well-being. Furthermore, findings differentiate the divorce conditions in which coparenting may or may not be appropriate.
Although past studies have shown an association between union instability (i.e., change in family structure) and children’s aggressive behaviors, the mechanism by which this occurs is less understood. This study ( N = 3,387) examined whether father and mother involvement, coparenting support, and maternal responsiveness explained the association between union instability in early life and children’s aggressive behaviors at 9 years, and whether relationship status moderated this association. Findings reveal that only coparenting support mediated this association and only for children whose mothers divorced (not for mothers who experienced a nonmarital separation), suggesting that when a divorce occurs, the relationship between partners (coparenting) is more important than the relationship with children (parenting) for children’s social adjustment.
Objective
To examine the influence of positive parenting and parental conflict on the coparenting alliance.
Background
Research indicates that child and family outcomes after divorce are affected by the quality of the coparenting relationship between parents, with many divorce education programs focusing on coparenting as a core programmatic component. Less is known about how positive parenting and parental conflict affect the coparenting alliance.
Method
This study collected online survey data from a convenience sample of divorcing parents (N = 430). Participants completed measures of parenting, parental conflict, and coparenting alliance. Regression and simple slope analyses were performed with parental conflict and positive parenting as predictors of coparenting alliance.
Results
Positive parenting and parenting conflict both predicted the coparenting alliance. Low levels of conflict predicted high levels of coparenting when positive parenting was high and moderate; however, conflict did not predict alliance when positive parenting was low.
Conclusion
Parents who engaged in moderate to high positive parenting had the anticipated negative relationship between conflict and coparenting alliance, but this did not hold true for parents who engaged in below average positive parenting, suggesting that both parenting and conflict play a role in a resilient coparenting alliance.
Implications
Divorcing parents' parenting skills may be important to consider when deciding on prevention and intervention efforts aimed at supporting their coparenting alliance. Therefore, divorce education programs may benefit from incorporating content related to positive parenting and parents with weaker parenting practices may need different types of intervention.
Using data from 392 divorced mothers and fathers, living in the United States, with a child between 10 and 18 years old, we first identified three types of postdivorce coparenting relationships (cooperative, moderately engaged, and conflictual and disengaged) based on coparenting communication, cooperation, and conflict. We then tested if three aspects of parent–youth relationships differed between those groups. Parental warmth and support, parental knowledge, and inconsistent discipline did not differ based on the type of postdivorce coparenting relationship participants had with their ex-spouses. Finally, we tested if repartnership (i.e., being remarried or cohabiting with a new partner) or parent–youth contact moderated the associations between postdivorce coparenting and parent–youth relationships. There was one significant moderation effect. When parent–youth contact was monthly or less, parental knowledge appears lower in the conflictual and disengaged cluster compared with the other two clusters.
Interparental conflict, which is common among families where a parent has a history of Major Depressive Disorder, is associated with deficits in parenting. Models of family functioning propose that interparental conflict and parenting behaviors are transactional in nature. Given the interdependent nature of family systems, increases in positive parenting practices may lead to subsequent decreases in interparental conflict. The current study was a secondary analysis of data from a preventive intervention to improve parenting, child coping skills, and child behavior in families with a history of parental depression. We hypothesized that increases in positive parenting strategies would be associated with decreases in interparental conflict 12 months later. Results supported the study hypothesis. Findings underscored the interdependent nature of parent-child and parent-parent subsystems.
This paper reports on the effects on parenting and on children's mental health problems and competencies from a randomized trial of a parenting program for divorced and separated fathers. The program, New Beginnings Program-Dads (NBP-Dads), includes ten group sessions (plus two phone sessions) which promote parenting skills to increase positive interactions with children, improve father-child communication, use of effective discipline strategies, and skills to protect children from exposure to interparental conflict. The program was adapted from the New Beginnings Program, which has been tested in two randomized trials with divorced mothers and shown to strengthen mothers' parenting and improve long-term outcomes for children (Wolchik et al. 2007). Fathers were randomly assigned to receive either NBP-Dads or a 2-session active comparison program. The sample consisted of 384 fathers (201 NBP-Dads, 183 comparisons) and their children. Assessments using father, youth, and teacher reports were conducted at pretest, posttest, and 10-month follow-up. Results indicated positive effects of NBP-Dads to strengthen parenting as reported by fathers and youth at posttest and 10-month follow-up. Program effects to reduce child internalizing problems and increase social competence were found at 10 months. Many of the program effects were moderated by baseline level of the variable, child age, gender, and father ethnicity. This is the first randomized trial to find significant effects to strengthen father parenting following divorce. In view of recent changes in family courts to allot fathers increasing amounts of parenting time following divorce, the results have significant implications for improving outcomes for children from divorced families.
We examined the relationship between personal and interpersonal indicators of post-divorce adjustment and dimensions of coparenting (support, overt conflict, covert conflict) using data from 176 recently divorced mothers. Mothers’ satisfaction with the divorce decree, perceptions of fathers as important for child development, and being satisfied with fathers’ parenting were associated with more supportive coparenting. Mothers’ satisfaction with the divorce decree and fathers’ parenting were associated with less overt conflict. Factors differed for mothers’ reports of their own and their former spouses’ use of covert conflict behaviors with these factors linked to satisfaction with the divorce decree and perceived stress, respectively.
Using data from 291 divorced mothers and fathers, we compared their perceptions of how much legal-financial, time-logistics, and parental fitness barriers influenced their postdivorce coparenting, and we tested the associations between these barriers to postdivorce coparenting and self-reported coparenting behaviors. Men perceived greater legal-financial and time-logistics barriers to postdivorce coparenting than did women, but no gender differences were found for perceived parental fitness barriers. In hierarchical regression analyses, perceived legal-financial and parental fitness barriers were associated with mothers' coparenting behaviors; fathers' postdivorce coparenting behaviors were associated only with perceived legal-financial barriers. Neither men's nor women's postdivorce coparenting behaviors were associated with time-logistics barriers to postdivorce coparenting. Family professionals could support postdivorce coparents by reframing detrimental perceptions, helping parents navigate economic challenges, and providing resources or counseling for couples experiencing mental health challenges or abuse.
Research has consistently documented long-term negative effects of high-conflict divorce on children's mental health. Court-issued custody and visitation judgments require parental collaboration, yet it is often challenging for parents to shift their interactions from acrimonious to cooperative, leaving children at increased risk for further exposure to conflict. Clinicians have developed strategies that help parents reduce conflict and increase coparenting skills after divorce. In this work, therapists integrate an empathic, active clinical stance and incorporate parenting education and skill building to help shift parents from a relationship marked by conflict to collaboration. A clinical case study provides an illustration of the steps involved in engaging a highly reactive and acrimonious mother and father in a Coparenting Treatment after prolonged litigation. It traces specific changes the parents implemented during 2 years of monthly sessions and the positive effects on the family system, including both the daughter's relationship to each parent and the parents' capacity to cooperate on her behalf.
This article describes the kind and degree of coparenting being maintained by a group of divorcing families approximately 18 months after parental separation. The sample was taken from court records of divorce filings in two California counties in 1984-85 and includes nearly 1,000 families who had children under age 16 at the time of filing. Three patterns of de facto residential custody (children living with mother, with father, or having dual residence) are compared. While dual-residence parents maintained somewhat higher levels of communication, their levels of conflict did not differ from those of primary-residence parents. The amount of conflict in coparenting is shown to be related to the intensity of interparental hostility at an earlier time.
Divorce education programs are conducting increasingly rigorous impact evaluations to assess if their curriculum improves parenting practices, reduces conflict in the coparenting relationship, and improves outcomes for children. This article presents a 6-month follow-up evaluation of the online version of Parents Forever, an 8-hour divorce education course developed by the University of Minnesota Extension. At follow-up, parents (N = 232) reported significant improvements on several questions about postdivorce parenting and well-being, indicating that the online version of Parents Forever is effective in promoting positive behavioral change for parents.
The percentage of children in the United States living apart from their biological father has increased, while public assistance for single mothers has diminished. This has resulted in a need to better understand and promote nonresident fathers' economic support of their children. In the present study the author used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 1,752) to examine how coparenting—the degree to which parents are mutually supportive and cooperative in raising their child—is related to nonresident fathers' monetary contributions. Results from pooled regression and fixed effects models indicate that coparenting is positively associated with fathers' likelihood of paying formal and informal child support and the amount of these payments. Findings from cross-lagged structural equation models suggest that the association between coparenting and fathers' payments is reciprocal but that coparenting has a stronger effect on fathers' payments than fathers' payments do on coparenting.
The literature on father absence is frequently criticized for its use of cross-sectional data and methods that fail to take account of possible omitted variable bias and reverse causality. We review studies that have responded to this critique by employing a variety of innovative research designs to identify the causal effect of father absence, including studies using lagged dependent variable models, growth curve models, individual fixed effects models, sibling fixed effects models, natural experiments, and propensity score matching models. Our assessment is that studies using more rigorous designs continue to find negative effects of father absence on offspring well-being, although the magnitude of these effects is smaller than what is found using traditional cross-sectional designs. The evidence is strongest and most consistent for outcomes such as high school graduation, children's social-emotional adjustment, and adult mental health.
To study changes in nonresident father contact since the 1970s, we pooled data from 4 national surveys: the National Survey of Children (1976), the National Survey of Families and Households (1987 – 1988), the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1996), and the National Survey of America’s Families (2002). On the basis of mothers’ reports, levels of contact rose significantly across surveys. Paying child support and having a nonmarital birth were strongly related to contact frequency. The increase in contact may be beneficial in general but problematic if it occurs within the context of hostile interparental relationships. Because nonresident fathers are having more contact with their children now than in the past, an increasing need exists for practitioners to help parents find ways to separate their former romantic roles from their ongoing parental roles and to develop at least minimally cooperative coparental relationships.
This article reviews the development and current status of the parent education movement in the family courts. Parent education programs are now being implemented in courts throughout the United States and have a high level of public acceptance; however, a stronger research methodology to evaluate the effects and continued work to align the goals with the content and teaching strategies of these programs are needed. A new conceptual framework is proposed for parent education, which views divorce as a public health problem for children as well as a legal issue. The three‐level framework uses concepts from public health to align the goals, content, and format of parent education programs and to enable rigorous evaluations of the outcomes achieved by these programs. Educational programs for separated and divorcing parents are widely disseminated, popular, and diverse in their structure, goals, and teaching strategies.
To enhance the value of parent education programs, a more cohesive approach to program development and rigorous evaluation is needed to work toward dissemination of evidence‐based programs.
A model is proposed to integrate concepts from public health into court‐affiliated parent education programs.
This article reviews research on the effects of interparental conflict on children and examines its implications for divorce education programs designed to reduce conflict after divorce. Basic research indicates that prevention programs for parents will be most effective in fostering children's adaptation to divorce if they can reduce the level of destructive conflict that children are exposed to, foster good parent–child relationships, and keep children from being caught in the middle of parental tensions and disagreements. Programs for children are likely to be most helpful if they help children learn ways to cope with situations in which they feel pressured to side with one parent against the other and avoid feeling responsible for parental problems. Although psycho-educational programs are widely available and often court-mandated, evaluation studies are rare and support for their efficacy is mixed.
I use a divorce-stress-adjustment perspective to summarize and organize the empirical literature on the consequences of divorce for adults and children. My review draws on research in the 1990s to answer five questions: How do individuals from married and divorced families differ in well-being? Are these differences due to divorce or to selection? Do these differences reflect a temporary crisis to which most people gradually adapt or stable life strains that persist more or less indefinitely? What factors mediate the effects of divorce on individual adjustment? And finally, what are the moderators (protective factors) that account for individual variability in adjustment to divorce? In general, the accumulated research suggests that marital dissolution has the potential to create considerable turmoil in people's lives. But people vary greatly in their reactions. Divorce benefits some individuals, leads others to experience temporary decrements in well-being, and forces others on a downward trajectory from which they might never recover fully. Understanding the contingencies under which divorce leads to these diverse outcomes is a priority for future research.
This study attempted to assess the notion that a "good divorce" protects children from the potential negative consequences of marital dissolution. A cluster analysis of data on postdivorce parenting from 944 families resulted in three groups: cooperative coparenting, parallel parenting, and single parenting. Children in the cooperative coparenting (good divorce) cluster had the smallest number of behavior problems and the closest ties to their fathers. Nevertheless, children in this cluster did not score significantly better than other children on 10 additional outcomes. These findings provide only modest support for the good divorce hypothesis.
We live in the information age, and the practice of medicine is becoming increasingly specialized. In the biomedical literature, the number of published studies has dramatically increased: There are now more than 15 million citations in MEDLINE, with 10,000 to 20,000 new citations added each week (1). Multiple relevant studies usually guide most clinical decisions. These studies often vary in their design; methodologic quality; population studied; and the intervention, test, or condition considered. Because even highly cited trials may be challenged or refuted over time (2), clinical decision-making requires ongoing reconciliation of studies that provide different answers to the same question. Both clinicians and researchers can also benefit from a summary of where uncertainty remains. Because it is often impractical for readers to track down and review all of the primary studies (3), review articles are an important source of summarized evidence on a particular topic (4).
Changes in happiness, sadness, anxiety, and anger around romantic relationship events. Emotion 2022. Advance online publication
- E Asselmann
- J Specht
Asselmann E, Specht J. Changes in happiness, sadness, anxiety, and anger around romantic relationship events. Emotion 2022. Advance
online publication. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0001153
Renegotiating family relationships: divorce, child custody, and mediation
- R E Emery
Emery RE. Renegotiating family relationships: divorce, child custody, and mediation. New York, NY: Guilford; 2012
Association between child custody and postseparation coparenting: A meta-analysis
- V Leclair
- A St-Amand
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Leclair V, St-Amand A, Bussières ÈL. Association between child custody and postseparation coparenting: A meta-analysis. Can Psychol
2019; 60(2): 90-101. Available from: https://doi.org/10.1037/cap0000140
The Good Divorce: Keeping your family together when your marriage comes apart
- C Ahrons
Ahrons C. The Good Divorce: Keeping your family together when your marriage comes apart. New York, NY: HarperCollins; 1994.