Poster #54 - Coparental Discord and Children’s Behavior Problems: The Mediational Role of Children’s Negative Family Representations

• In Event: 3-053 - Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Section - Developmental Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

Coparenting discord, characterized by parental difficulties with coordinating and supporting each other in their roles as parents, is a robust and unique predictor of child externalizing behaviors (Schoppe, Mangelsdorf & Frosch, 2001). Although the distinctive nature of coparenting discord as a risk factor highlights the importance of understanding how children process and appraise family dynamics, little is known about how or why this association persists. Drawing on emotional security theory (EST; Davies & Cummings, 1994), a common explanation for this association is that children’s vulnerability to coparenting discord may stem from their experiences of emotional insecurity in the family system. EST specifically proposes that some forms of family adversity increase children’s difficulties preserving a sense of security, which, in turn, amplifies their risk for psychological problems (Davies & Cummings, 1994). Although no studies have examined coparenting discord as a risk factor for this hypothesized cascade, breakdowns in coparenting may be particularly threatening to children’s sense of security in the family. The inability of coparents to support one another in child-rearing issues signals to children that parents are unable to coordinate their caregiving in a way that reliably provides the support and structure necessary to ensure children’s sense of safety and security in the family unit. Coparenting discord may also indicate to children that parents are unable to encapsulate their conflict within the interparental system (Grych & Fincham, 1990). In the first link of the mediational chain, family conflict is proposed to serve as a source of interpersonal threat that undermines children’s sense of security in the family. Children’s insecurity in the family, in turn, increases their vulnerability to developing externalizing problems. The current study represents the first test of the mediating role of children’s insecure representations of the family in the association between coparental discord and later child behavior problems.
Participants included 243 racially- and economically-diverse families (mother, mother’s partner, and child; 48% black; 69% receiving public assistance) and the child’s classroom teacher. Families visited the laboratory at three annual measurement occasions, and at Wave 1, children were four years old. At Wave 1, coparenting was assessed through observational ratings of a family interaction task. At Waves 1 and 2, coders rated children’s insecure family representations based on children’s responses to a well-established story completion task depicting various challenges to the family unit. Finally, teachers reported on children’s externalizing symptoms at Waves 1 and 3 (see table 1 for details).
Results of a cross-lagged, autoregressive SEM test are presented in Figure 1. As hypothesized, coparental discord predicted children’s insecure representations of the family at Wave 1. Children’s insecure representations of the family, in turn predicted increases in their externalizing behaviors at Wave 3. These results were evident even after controlling for sociodemographic covariates and Wave 1 externalizing symptoms. A test of the indirect effect indicated that this pathway was significantly different from zero (95% CI=[.001, .024]). Findings will be discussed in relation to how they advance process-oriented models of coparenting relationship quality and how they relate to child adjustment.

Authors

• Lucia Q Parry, University of Rochester
  Presenting Author

• Patrick Davies, University of Rochester
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melissa Sturge-Apple, University of Rochester
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jesse L. Coe, Alpert Medical School of Brown University
  Non-Presenting Author