Poster #223 - Longitudinal linkages between coparenting and subsequent friendship quality in middle childhood.

• In Event: 3-206 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: PS 13 Section - Social Relationships

Integrative Statement

Empirical research has shown that in middle childhood, children who have a high-quality relationship with a best friend experience better social and emotional adjustment overall (Bukowski, 2001). Given that the family is a central context for children’s socialization, family factors are likely to be associated with the quality of children’s friendships. Indeed, studies have shown that several aspects of the family environment, such as parents’ personal characteristics, parenting behavior, and disciplinary interaction patterns are associated with the quality of children’s friendships (Card & Hodges, 2003; Doyle & Markiewicz, 1996; Franco & Levitt, 1998; Stocker & Dunn, 1990). In particular, the way that problems are solved in the family may influence children’s learning of social skills, and coparental interactions are likely to be an important process in this regard (Doyle & Markiewicz, 1996). By observing their parents’ coparenting relationship, children develop schemas about the way relationships work, and thus children who are exposed to negative coparenting processes in early childhood may gradually learn to behave aggressively or disengage from their peers in the face of interpersonal problems (Leary & Katz, 2004), and thus have difficulty developing high-quality friendships.
Although the links between coparenting and children’s social functioning have been investigated in some studies, very few have examined such questions using longitudinal designs and while focusing on the quality of the child’s relationship with a best friend. Therefore, this study’s objective was to examine whether the quality of the coparenting relationship, as perceived by each parent in early childhood, predicted children’s perceptions of the quality of their best friendship two years later. Since the coparenting relationship necessarily occurs in the context of a relationship between two individuals, we also investigated the interaction between mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of their coparenting relationship.
Eighty-eight families completed data collection at two timepoints. When children were in second grade (mean age = 7.88 years), mothers and fathers each reported on the quality of their coparenting relationship using the Coparenting Questionnaire (Margolin, 1992). In fourth grade, children reported on the quality of their relationship with their best friend using the Friendship Quality Questionnaire (Parker & Asher, 1993).
The results indicated that above and beyond child sex, birth order, and family SES, mothers who perceived a supportive coparenting relationship with their spouse had children who subsequently reported a relationship of higher quality with their best friend ( = .50, p = .01). Furthermore, a significant interaction was found ( = .36, p = .01), revealing that the predictive role of mother-perceived coparenting was magnified when fathers also perceived a supportive coparenting relationship. No direct links were found between fathers’ perceptions of their coparenting relationship and children’s friendship quality ( = -.17, p = .221).
These results suggest that the quality of the coparenting relationship, at least as perceived by mothers, relates to children’s ability to establish quality relationships with friends. They also suggest that these effects are particularly pronounced when both parents agree on the quality of their coparenting relationship.

Authors

• Rachel Perrier, University of Montreal
  Presenting Author

• Annie Bernier, University of Montreal
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melanie Dirks, McGill University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marie-Ève Daspe, University of Montreal
  Non-Presenting Author

• Élodie Larose-Grégoire, University of Montreal
  Non-Presenting Author