Poster #131 - Child-Mother and Child-Father Attachment as Predictors of Coparenting Relationship Dimensions

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Extensive research has documented the impact of the family environment on child-parent attachment security/insecurity (e.g., Zeegers et al., 2017), yet little is known about the potential effects of child-parent attachment on the functioning of other family subsystems, including the mother-father coparenting relationship. While the quality of the coparenting alliance has been found to predict attachment security (e.g., Brown et al., 2010; Caldera & Lindsey, 2006), conversely, one may also argue that the nature and quality of a child’s relationship with one parent could influence one or both parents’ perceptions of their coparenting alliance, or ability to work together as coparents. In particular, researchers (Moss et al., 2011) have posited that role-reversed (i.e., controlling) child-mother attachment can feed into a conflictual coparenting atmosphere given the mother’s loss of authority and control over the child’s behavior; however, this suggestion has yet to be investigated. Accordingly, we aimed to examine whether preschool child-mother and child-father attachment relationships influence both mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of their coparenting relationship five years later.

Sixty children (61% girls; M = 3.85 years, SD = .75) participated in independent laboratory sessions with each parent (counterbalanced order) at age 3-5 years (Time 1), and again at 8-10 years (Time 2). Following a modified separation-reunion procedure completed at Time 1, children’s attachment behaviors were coded using the MacArthur Preschool Attachment Coding System (Cassidy et al., 1992), and classified into one of five categories: secure, avoidant, ambivalent, behaviorally disorganized, and controlling (reliability k = .89 child-mother; k = 1.00 child-father). At Time 2, mothers and fathers each completed the Coparenting Relationship Scale (Feinberg et al., 2012) to report on five aspects of their coparenting relationship: coparenting agreement, coparenting closeness, exposure to conflict, and endorsement and undermining of partner’s parenting.

A first MANOVA (Table 1) indicated that fathers’ perceptions of the coparenting relationship varied as a function of child-mother, but not child-father, attachment classification. Pairwise comparisons indicated that when children presented with a controlling attachment to their mother, fathers tended to report significantly less coparenting closeness with mothers as compared to secure and ambivalent (marginally) children, and reported being significantly more likely to undermine mothers’ parenting as compared to secure, ambivalent, and disorganized children. A second MANOVA (Table 2) also indicated that mothers’ perceptions of the coparenting relationship varied as a function of child-mother, but not child-father, attachment. Pairwise comparisons did not indicate significant differences between attachment groups across coparenting dimensions, although visual inspection of the means suggest more negative maternal perceptions of the coparenting relationship (i.e., less closeness and endorsement of father parenting) when children presented a controlling attachment to their mother.

Findings suggest that a role-reversed relationship between a mother and child can disrupt aspects of the coparenting relationship, from the perspectives of both parents. Findings also indicate that even despite fathers’ increasing involvement in child-rearing (Cabrera et al., 2000), the perceived functionality of the coparenting relationship was influenced primarily by the nature of the mother’s relationship with the child. Future research should attempt to replicate findings in larger samples.

Authors

• Camille Guérin-Marion, University of Ottawa
  Presenting Author

• Audrey-Ann Deneault, University of Ottawa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sage Sezlik, University of Ottawa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kim Yurkowski, University of Ottawa
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jean-Francois Bureau, University of Ottawa
  Non-Presenting Author