Child Temperament as an Antecedent of Coparenting Quality

• In Event: Child Temperament: Implications for Parents and Parenting

Abstract

Coparenting, the way that two or more parents work together to coordinate their shared responsibility of child-rearing, has significant implications for child psychological adjustment (Talbot & McHale, 2004). For example, different forms of unsupportive coparenting have been linked with child adjustment issues ranging from externalizing to internalizing to social-emotional problems in younger children (Teubert & Pinquart, 2010). Based on this documented health significance of coparenting relationship quality for child adjustment, researchers have begun to focus on potential antecedents of the coparenting relationship, or characteristics that may underlie relationship differences in seen in this relationship.
To date, much of the literature has focused on identifying family (e.g., couple relationship satisfaction) and parental (e.g., negative emotionality) antecedents of coparenting quality (e.g., Laxman et al., 2013). However, less is known about the specific child attributes that may serve as precursors of coparenting behavior quality. Child temperament, defined as constitutionally based individual differences in emotional reactivity to different stimuli and conditions (Rothbart & Bates, 2006; Thomas & Chess, 1977), is a key child attribute that has been proposed as an antecedent of coparenting (e.g., Lindsey et al., 2005).
The temperamental dimension of surgency is consistently associated with parenting difficulties: for example, when infants are high in surgency, mothers engage in fewer caregiving behaviors; and when children exhibit high levels of surgency, a strong association is seen between maternal negativity and child maladjustment (Planalp et al., 2013; Chen et al., 2014). In addition, other temperamental characteristics may have a different impact on coparenting – characteristics that may not place the same strain on coparents, or may be linked with improvements in coparenting. For example, researchers found that when children displayed high levels of fear, parents exhibited higher levels of warmth (Lahey et al., 2008; Kochanska et al., 2004). Accordingly, in the current study, we examined the relative roles of two child temperament characteristics – surgency and fearful distress – as predictors of subsequent change in three dimensions of coparenting quality – conflict, collusion, and balanced participation.
Participants included 243 racially- and economically-diverse families (mother, mother’s partner, and child; 48% black; 69% receiving public assistance). Families visited the laboratory during two annual measurement occasions. At Wave 1, 4-year-old children participated in tasks from the Laboratory Temperament Assessment Battery (Lab-TAB; Goldsmith et al., 1999), and coders provided observational ratings of children’s temperament dimensions. At Waves 1 and 2, coparenting behavior was assessed through observational ratings of a family interaction task (adapted from Westerman & Schonholtz, 1993).
Analyses revealed that child temperamental fearful distress was not a predictor of any of the three coparenting dimensions. In contrast, child temperamental surgency was a significant predictor of subsequent increases in coparenting collusion and increases in balanced participation difficulties one year later. Additional analyses revealed that surgency was a significantly stronger predictor of both coparenting collusion and balanced participation difficulties when compared with similar paths involving temperamental distress as a predictor. In further highlighting specificity in the pathways, surgency was a significantly stronger predictor of collusion and balanced participation difficulties relative to coparenting conflict.

Authors

• Lucia Q. Parry, Franklin & Marshall College
  Presenting Author

• Patrick Davies, University of Rochester

• Melissa L Sturge-Apple, University of Rochester