Poster #29 - The Reciprocal Effect Between Parents’ Relationships With Spouses and Relationships With Children, and the Role of Parental Stress

• In Event: Poster Session 12

Abstract

Many studies suggest the quality of interparental relationships influences the quality of parent-child relationships (Zhao et al., 2022, Zhou et al., 2021), but fewer evaluate the reciprocal effect despite strong theoretical reasons for investigating both paths. Per Family Systems Theory, family system elements are interconnected through bidirectional relationships (Papero, 1990), often explain the impact of an individual’s stress throughout the entire system. Thus, understanding how parenting stress impacts one family relationship cannot be isolated from the understanding of other family relationships in the family system. Given this, it is expected that interparental relationships and parent-child relationships may be connected by reciprocal effects, and that both might be influenced by parenting stress. Thus we evaluate associations between parents’ relationships with spouses and adolescent children, and the moderating effect of parental stress.
The current study collected data from 280 parents (108 fathers, 170 mothers; all were married, cohabitating biological parents) of adolescents aged 14-17 years old residing in the US (Table 1). Analysis includes measures of relationship quality with partners/coparents (“Overall, how would you describe the quality of your current relationship with your adolescent child’s other parent?”); relationship quality with children (“Overall, how would you describe the quality of your current relationship with your adolescent child?”); and parenting stress (4 items from the PSI, Abidin, 2012; α = .82).
We tested the moderating effect of parenting stress on the reciprocal association between relationship quality with partners and with children through PROCESS (Hayes, 2022) (Figure 1). Results suggested relationships with children significantly positively predicted relationships with partners (beta = 0.61, SE = 0.22), but the reciprocal effect, testing relationships with partners as predictors of relationships with children, was nonsignificant (beta = 0.23, SE = 0.15, p = .13). The moderating effect of parental stress was not significant in either model, but it directly positively predicted relationships with children (beta = 0.07, SE = 0.03).
The lack of significant pathways between interparental relationship quality and parent-child relationship quality runs counter to previous studies (Kouros, et al., 2014), but may indicate a degree of developmental sensitivity given the current study sample – parents of adolescents. Families raising adolescent children may experience weakened influences between family subsystems as adolescents individuate from their parents. This shift requires parents to adapt as well, forming new ways of conceptualizing their roles within family relationships that accommodate greater psychosocial distance with the adolescent (Collins et al., 2004). Our significant finding concerning the linkage between parent-child relationships and interparental relationships indicates that parent-adolescent relationships remain influential; while individuation may lead parents to de-emphasize some of the connections between subsystem relationships, their connections to their children remain influential on their partnerships. Echoing previous studies (O’Connor et al., 2006), results indicate that parenting stress has a direct significant influence on parents’ reports of parent-child relationship quality. The lack of significant moderating influence of parenting stress on the connection between the two indicators of relationship quality may be better understood through follow-up data expected in 2023, allowing tests of the mediating role of parents’ stress.

Authors

• Yuyang Hu, University of Connecticut
  Presenting Author

• Beth S Russell, University of Connecticut

• Kari Adamsons, University of Connecticut