Negative Co-Parenting and Children’s Adjustment: The Role of Children’s Appraisals and Triangulation

Titolo Rivista MALTRATTAMENTO E ABUSO ALL’INFANZIA
Autori/Curatori Elena Camisasca, Alessandra Bavagnoli
Anno di pubblicazione 2024 Fascicolo 2024/1
Lingua Inglese Numero pagine 21 P. 45-65 Dimensione file 254 KB
DOI 10.3280/MAL2024-001003
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Existing literature has outlined how negative co-parenting could affect children’s ad-justment through children’s subjective appraisals and triangulation. However, no stud-ies have investigated whether children’s cognitive appraisals and two distinct forms of children’s triangulation (feelings and involvement) could be serial mediators of the associations between negative co-parenting and children’s adjustment. Mediation analyses were performed using a sample of 125 Italian families of children aged 8-14. Results showed that negative co-parenting was linked to children’s threat and self-blame appraisals. Data also suggested how both children’s subjective appraisals (threat and self-blame) were associated with the two forms of children’s triangulation (direct involvement and subjective triangulation). Finally, the results indicated two specific pathways for the serial mediation of children’s cognitive appraisals and triangulation in the association between negative co-parenting and children’s adjustment. On the one hand, subjective triangulation predicts children’s internalizing behaviors. On the other hand, triangulation involvement promotes children’s externalizing behaviors. .

La letteratura ha messo in evidenza come la co-genitorialità negativa possa influenzare l’adattamento dei figli attraverso le valutazioni soggettive dei figli e la loro tendenza a triangolarsi. Tuttavia, nessuno studio ha investigato se le valutazioni soggettive dei figli e due distinte forme di triangolazione (sentimenti e coinvolgimento) possano es-sere mediatori seriali delle associazioni tra co-genitorialità negativa e adattamento dei figli. Sono state condotte analisi di mediazione su un campione di 125 famiglie italia-ne con bambini di età 8-14 anni. I risultati hanno mostrato che la co-genitorialità nega-tiva è associata alle valutazioni soggettive dei figli di minaccia e auto-biasimo. I dati inoltre suggeriscono come entrambe le valutazioni soggettive dei figli (minaccia e au-to-biasimo) siano associate alle due forme di triangolazione dei figli (coinvolgimento diretto e triangolazione soggettiva). Infine, i risultati indicano due specifiche traiettorie per la mediazione seriale delle valutazioni cognitive dei figli e della triangolazione nell’associazione tra co-genitorialità negativa e adattamento dei figli. Da un lato, la triangolazione soggettiva predice i comporta-menti internalizzati dei figli; dall’altro, il coinvolgimento diretto nel conflitto genitoriale promuove comportamenti esternalizzati dei figli.

Keywords:co-genitorialità negativa, internalizzazione ed esternalizzazione, valuta-zioni soggettive, triangolazione.

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  • Assessing children’s perceptions of the co-parenting relationship: preliminary validity of an adapted version of the co-parenting relationship scale Elena Camisasca, Alessandra Bavagnoli, Elisabetta Lombardi, Mark E. Feinberg, in European Journal of Developmental Psychology /2025 pp.94
    DOI: 10.1080/17405629.2024.2425076

Elena Camisasca, Alessandra Bavagnoli, Negative Co-Parenting and Children’s Adjustment: The Role of Children’s Appraisals and Triangulation in "MALTRATTAMENTO E ABUSO ALL’INFANZIA" 1/2024, pp 45-65, DOI: 10.3280/MAL2024-001003