Marital adjustment, coparenting and children’s psychological adjustment: an exploratory study

Journal title PSICOLOGIA DELLA SALUTE
Author/s Elena Camisasca, Sarah Miragoli, Luca Milani, Paola Di Blasio
Publishing Year 2016 Issue 2016/2
Language Italian Pages 15 P. 127-141 File size 208 KB
DOI 10.3280/PDS2016-002007
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Literature has already shown that marital quality has a significant predictive effect on children’s psychological wellbeing. Build on this literature, the present study explores the association between marital adjustment and children’s psychological adjustment (internalizing and externalizing behaviours), in an attempt to investigate the role of coparenting relationship as an explaining mechanism of this link. A set of measures DAS (marital adjustment), CRS (coparenting relationship) and CBCL (internalizing and externalizing behaviors of children) were administered to 58 mothers and fathers of school-age children (8-11 years old). Results show that coparenting relationship mediates the association between marital adjustment and children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviours. In particular, the dimension of coparenting "exposure of child to conflict" mediates the associations between marital adjustment and internalizing behaviors while the dimensions "exposure of child to conflict" and "endorsement of partner’s parenting" jointly mediate the associations between marital adjustment and externalizing behaviors. Clinical implications and interventions are discussed.

Keywords: Marital adjustment, coparenting, internalizing, externalizing, children

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Elena Camisasca, Sarah Miragoli, Luca Milani, Paola Di Blasio, Adattamento di coppia, cogenitorialità e benessere psicologico dei figli: uno studio esplorativo in "PSICOLOGIA DELLA SALUTE" 2/2016, pp 127-141, DOI: 10.3280/PDS2016-002007