Search Results (56)

This study explores the associations between parental playfulness and various aspects of parenting, specifically role overload, parenting behaviors, and the quality of coparenting. In addition, we explore the relation between parental playfulness and child playfulness, as well as the differences in playfulness between mothers and fathers. This cross-sectional, questionnaire-based study relied on a sample of 348 parents (84.7% mothers) of children aged 3–8 years old (52.9% girls). Significant associations were found between parental playfulness and cognitive aspects of child playfulness (e.g., sense of humor). Certain dimensions of coparenting (e.g., support) and other parenting behaviors (e.g., challenging and warmth) were also correlated with parental playfulness. There was no association found between parental playfulness and parental role overload. However, a significant moderation effect of parental gender was found only for the association between parental playfulness and role overload. This analysis showed that parental playfulness was positively associated with role overload for fathers but was negatively associated for mothers. Lastly, we did not identify differences between mothers’ and fathers’ self-reported playfulness. These results provide important information about an understudied parental behavior, which may inform interventions promoting positive parenting. Full article

Background: The Coparenting Relationship Scale is a robust tool for assessing the quality of coparenting, with evidence of validity and reliability tested in diverse cultural and population contexts. Objective: The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Coparenting Relationship Scale in Ecuadorian fathers and mothers in order to determine its validity and reliability in the specific cultural context of Ecuador. Method: An instrumental study was carried out by analyzing psychometric properties. The sample consisted of 867 participants from the province of Azuay, most of whom were women (66.8%), with a mean age of 35.4 years. Participants completed the Coparenting Relationship Scale. Results: The findings revealed adequate reliability of the scale in the Ecuadorian sample. In addition, factor analysis showed that the scale structure remained consistent in this sample, suggesting that the items grouped in the dimensions established by the original scale retain their validity in this specific context. Significant factor loadings consistent with the theoretical dimensions of the scale were observed, reinforcing its construct validity. The sixth model (M6), with three factors and 22 items, showed a good fit (χ²= 399.43, df = 206, χ²/df = 1.94, p = 0.136), with adequate fit indices (CFI = 0.990, GFI = 0.996), a low approximation error (RMSEA = 0.033, 95% CI = [0.028–0.038]), and good residual fit (SRMR = 0.047). Additionally, the ECVI was 0.623. Conclusions: The Coparenting Relationship Scale is a valid and reliable instrument for assessing coparenting dynamics in Ecuadorian parents, providing a solid basis for interventions and policies aimed at strengthening family well-being in Ecuador. Full article

Divorce represents a significant life transition with implications for emotional well-being, social integration, and economic security. This study examines the post-divorce experiences of women in Abu Dhabi, focusing on four challenges: financial insecurity, emotional distress, co-parenting difficulties, and struggles in forming new relationships. Drawing on data from the 5th Cycle of the Abu Dhabi Quality of Life Survey (n = 4347), the study explores how these challenges affect indicators such as life satisfaction, mental health, social trust, and financial stability. The findings show financial insecurity is the most prevalent and detrimental issue, particularly among older and less-educated women. Co-parenting stress peaks among women aged 35–49, while non-Emirati women report heightened financial vulnerability. Emotional distress is associated with poor sleep, reduced trust, and digital coping behaviors. Older women face greater social reintegration challenges. Religious practice emerges as a frequent coping mechanism, especially among those experiencing stigma and isolation. Guided by the Stress Process Model, the study highlights the interplay of social and psychological stressors and offers practical insights for psychiatric and mental health practitioners supporting women through family disruption. Full article

In the current information era, even preschool children are unable to withstand the “digital flood”. However, excessive exposure to electronic screens not only negatively impacts various aspects of children’s health and adaptation, but also harms family relationships. Based on family systems theory, social–cognitive learning theory, and attachment theory, this study examines the relationships between co-parenting and preschoolers’ problematic media use, as well as the underlying mechanism—the mediating role of parental phubbing and the moderating effect of secure attachment. A sample of 610 parents of preschoolers from three kindergartens in central China completed validated scales, including the Co-Parenting Scale, Parental Phubbing Scale, Children’s Electronic Media Use Questionnaire, and Secure Attachment Dimension of the Waters Attachment Q-sort. A moderated mediation model was tested using the PROCESS macro with bootstrap procedures. The results showed that, after controlling for the subjective family socioeconomic status and parental education level, (1) co-parenting was negatively associated with preschoolers’ problematic media use; (2) parental phubbing significantly mediated the relationship between co-parenting and preschoolers’ problematic media use; (3) secure attachment significantly moderated both the direct relation between co-parenting and the preschoolers’ problematic media use and the mediating effect of parental phubbing (the relation between parental phubbing and children’s problematic media use); furthermore, both of these effects were more pronounced in children with lower levels of secure attachment. These findings extend family systems and attachment theories by elucidating mechanisms underlying early media behaviors. Practically, interventions should promote collaborative co-parenting and reduce parental phubbing to mitigate children’s problematic media use, while fostering secure attachment to buffer digital risks. Full article

Guided by family systems theory and the parenting process model, this study aimed to identify distinct profiles of parenting stress and examine their associations with parental characteristics, social–contextual factors, and child factors. A sample of 303 parents of preschool children (52.5% boys, mean child age = 61.17 months) from six urban kindergartens in southern and northern China participated in this study. Latent profile analysis (LPA) identified four distinct parenting stress profiles: the low parenting stress profile (12.9%), middle parenting stress profile (39.3%), high parenting stress profile (40.6%), and very high parenting stress profile (7.2%). Multinomial logistic regression analysis revealed that these profiles were significantly associated with parenting self-efficacy, the parent–grandparent co-parenting relationship, the co-parenting structure, family income, and the child’s gender. These findings advance our understanding of the heterogeneity of parenting stress within Chinese parent–grandparent co-parenting families and offer theoretical and practical implications for future research and the development of targeted family support interventions. Full article

Background: This study explores the impact of family breakdown, separation, post-separation abuse, and negotiating of co-parenting arrangements on fathers’ physical and mental health, as well as their coping mechanisms and experiences of support, both informal and formal. Methods: Using data from a survey of 141 fathers and interviews with 30 participants, we examined the impact of family breakdown on fathers and their children and how they coped and were supported. The data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis to identify key themes. Results: Findings highlighted four primary themes: the impact on fathers, the impact on children, fathers’ strategies for coping, and fathers’ experience of formal and informal support. Conclusions: The results indicate that fathers need greater support mechanisms post-separation, in ways that specifically appreciate their unique experiences as men and fathers. Full article

Background: Interactive conversational agents (chatbots) simulate human conversation using natural language processing and artificial intelligence. They enable dynamic interactions and are used in various fields, including education and healthcare. Objective: This systematic review aims to identify and synthesize studies on chatbots for women and expectant parents in the preconception, pregnancy, and postnatal period through 12 months postpartum. Methods: We searched in six electronic bibliographic databases (MEDLINE (Ovid), CINAHL (EBSCO), Embase, Web of Science, Inspec, and IEEE Xplore) using a pre-defined search strategy. We included sources if they focused on women in the preconception period, pregnant women and their partners, mothers, and fathers/coparents of babies up to 12 months old. Two reviewers independently screened studies and all disagreements were resolved by a third reviewer. Two reviewers independently extracted and validated data from the included studies into a standardized form and conducted quality appraisal. Results: Twelve studies met the inclusion criteria. Seven were from the USA, with others from Brazil, South Korea, Singapore, and Japan. The studies reported high user satisfaction, improved health intentions and behaviors, increased knowledge, and better prevention of preconception risks. Chatbots also facilitated access to health information and interactions with health professionals. Conclusion: We provide an overview of interactive conversational agents used in the perinatal period and their applications. Digital interventions using interactive conversational agents have a positive impact on knowledge, behaviors, attitudes, and the use of health services. Interventions using interactive conversational agents may be more effective than those using methods such as individual or group face-to-face delivery. Full article

Background: this study builds on existing research on fathers’ experiences of family breakdown, separation, and post-separation abuse, exploring the systemic challenges they face in negotiating co-parenting arrangements. Methods: using data from a survey of 141 fathers and interviews with 30 participants, we examined the dynamics of post-separation co-parenting, particularly focusing on how fathers perceive and navigate family court systems. The data were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis to identify key themes. Results: the findings highlighted two primary themes: the difficulties that fathers face in establishing equitable co-parenting arrangements and their negative experiences with family courts, including perceptions of gender bias and systemic inefficiency. Conclusions: the results indicate a need for greater support mechanisms post-separation to facilitate healthier co-parenting relationships and minimise reliance on adversarial court processes. Furthermore, the research underscores the importance of addressing gender stereotypes within family law and social services to ensure more just outcomes for fathers and their children. Full article

This article explores the complex issue of disharmony within religious marriages, focusing on Jewish approaches to divorce. Contrasting Jewish divorce mediation with other religions’ approaches to marital conflict, this article examines two Judaic models: one viewing divorce as a severe remedy permissible only under certain circumstances, and the other allowing for divorce when a marriage is irreparably broken. The author highlights the positive Jewish commandment to peacefully divorce, discussing how mediation integrates compassion and justice, in line with Jewish legal and ethical traditions. This work emphasizes the benefits of community-based divorce mediation, including lower costs, shorter timelines, and increased communal acceptance. Jewish divorce mediation, the author argues, is particularly effective in maintaining child-centeredness and co-parenting relationships post-divorce. This article calls for a broader adoption of Jewish divorce mediation through charitable organizations to effectuate Jewish family values and provide amicable resolutions within the Jewish community. Full article

Although the consequences of divorce and conflict have been extensively studied, most research has focused on children rather than ex-spouses, although variables such as parental health or co-parenting may have an influence on children’s development through processes such as emotion socialization. In addition, the relationship between these variables has never been considered in high-conflict divorces. Therefore, the present study aimed to analyze the impact of physical and psychological symptomatology and co-parenting on the emotion socialization patterns of parents experiencing high-conflict divorces. Furthermore, the moderating role of resilience was considered, as it has been highly studied as a coping mechanism in adverse situations but barely in divorce at the parental level. For this purpose, a Latent Profile Analysis was carried out with Mplus 8.10, using a sample of 239 parents from Family Visitation Centers. Results revealed, on the one hand, that parents with fewer physical and psychological symptoms sowed more emotion socialization behaviors than those with more symptomatology. On the other hand, in situations of high interparental conflict, the role of co-parenting and resilience seems less relevant than that of physical and psychological symptomatology when analyzing parental skills like emotion socialization. Full article

Postpartum depressive symptoms constitute a common yet serious complication of pregnancy and childbirth, but research on its association with coparenting is scarce. Furthermore, although coparenting dynamics start forming prior to the child’s birth, no research has explored dyadic prenatal coparenting dynamics as a predictor of postpartum depressive symptoms. The current study assessed how dyadic prenatal coparenting behaviors predicted postpartum depressive symptoms in first-time parents. We conducted a dyadic mixed-method longitudinal study of 107 expectant couples with data collected prenatally, and at 3, 6, and 24 months post-birth. The results indicated that prenatal coparenting dyadic synchrony predicted low levels of depressive symptoms among first-time fathers 3 and 6 months after the birth, and a prenatal coparenting dynamic of dyadic negative escalation predicted high levels of depressive symptoms among first-time mothers at 3 and 24 months postpartum. The theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Full article

The scientific literature supports that practicing positive coparenting leads to the healthy development of children. Consequently, professional interest in parenting and coparenting has experienced significant growth, and evaluating coparenting is crucial in family psychology for establishing action protocols in clinical practice. An instrument highly regarded within the scientific community for evaluating coparenting dynamics is The Coparenting Relationship Scale (CRS). This research aims to achieve two objectives: first, to adapt the CRS for the Spanish population of both engaged and separated/divorced parents and to ascertain its reliability, validity, and factorial invariance psychometric properties; second, to assess the effectiveness of the total coparenting measure in categorizing sample participants. A cross-sectional non-experimental investigation was conducted to address these objectives. The first objective was answered by conducting an instrumental study, and the second by an exploratory study using classification techniques and a causal-comparative study using multivariate inferential methods. It was concluded that the model comprising 20 items across two factors, Positive Coparenting and Negative Perception of Coparenting, is the simplest and best fit for the Spanish parent sample; it is invariant regarding gender and marital status, and the measures derived from each factor demonstrate reliability and convergent and discriminant validity. The resulting questionnaire for Spanish parents is named CRS-S_Eg-S&D. The Coparental Vitality measure calculated using the total weighted measure of CRS-S_Eg-S&D allows the sample of participants to be divided into three differentiated clusters called Coparental Robustness, Moderate Coparenting, and Coparenting Rickets. Full article

This study aimed to explore the relationship between parental coparenting and depression among Chinese young adolescents and potential gender differences via network analysis. Thus, 793 fourth-grade students (girls: 281 (35.40%), Mage = 9.99 years, SD = 0.59 years) were recruited from three primary schools in Northern China. The young adolescents rated their depression and perceived paternal and maternal coparenting. Network analysis was used to detect the central nodes and bridge mechanisms among coparenting and depressive components. The results indicated that paternal and maternal consistency as well as maternal conflict were the most central components in the coparenting–depression network. Paternal consistency, maternal conflict and paternal disparagement in coparenting, as well as somatic complaints and positive affect in adolescents’ depression, exhibited high bridge strengths, suggesting those constructs served as vital bridges to connect the two subnetworks. Moreover, paternal consistency showed a higher bridge strength in the boys’ network than the girls’ one, whereas the edge linking adolescents’ positive affect to paternal disparagement and integrity was stronger in the girls’ network. This study contributes to the understanding of associations between parental coparenting and young adolescents’ depression and offered insights into targeted interventions for early adolescent depression by enhancing parental coparenting. Full article

Many studies have demonstrated that coparenting and parenting behaviors have a substantial effect on the behaviors of young children. Research has indicated that young children may exhibit picky eating behaviors, which pose challenges for parents in terms of coparenting and parenting. This study examined how dietary coparenting and parenting strategies directly affect young children’s picky eating behaviors and explored the mediating role of parenting strategies in the relations between parental dietary coparenting and young children’s picky eating behaviors. More specifically, this study focused on parents of three- to six-year-old children in northern Taiwan. A total of 408 valid completed questionnaires were collected, and the research tools included scales measuring dietary coparenting, parenting strategies, and young children’s picky eating behaviors. The results revealed that supportive and undermining dietary coparenting and parenting strategies had a significant direct effect on young children’s picky eating behaviors. Furthermore, supportive and undermining dietary coparenting partially mediated young children’s picky eating behaviors through parenting strategies. Specifically, among parenting strategies, both “encouraging and facilitating the trying of new foods” and “guiding and modeling” proper eating behaviors had significant indirect effects on reducing young children’s picky eating behaviors. Full article

Adolescence has always been regarded as a period of rapid psychological and behavioral change. Adolescents are subject to more difficult behaviors, and those difficult behaviors have a great impact on co-parenting and parenting burnout. In order to reveal the relationship between these factors, this study investigated the mediating effect of difficult adolescent behaviors on that relationship by constructing a theoretical model and examined the moderating effect of family functioning. In order to provide a scientific basis for preventing and intervening in adolescents’ problematic behaviors and improving parents’ parenting burnout, we conducted a study on the parents of 1638 teenagers in a junior high school in Huanggang City, China in May 2023, with a questionnaire filled out by the parents. The research tools included a parenting burnout questionnaire, Parental collaborative parenting Scale (PPCR), Adolescent Strengths and Difficult Behaviors Questionnaire (Parental Version), Family Function Scale, etc. An independent sample t test and ANOVA test were used to analyze whether there are certain demographic variables in parenting burnout, and SPSS27.0 was used for descriptive statistics, reliability and validity tests, correlation analysis and common method deviation tests. The adjusted mediation model was tested by using the SPSS macro program Process4.0. Results: The variance in the explanatory capacity of the largest factor in this study was 21.955%, which did not exceed the critical value of 40%, so there was no obvious common method deviation in the data of this study. The independent sample t test and ANOVA test showed that there are certain differences in parental rearing burnout dependent on parental gender, the main caregivers, family economic income and demographic variables. The results of the adjusted mediation model test by Process4.0 show the following: (1) Adolescent difficult behavior plays an intermediary role between parental collaborative parenting and parenting burnout; (2) the indirect effect of collaborative parenting on parenting burnout through adolescents’ problematic behaviors is regulated by family functions; (3) the relationship between adolescent difficult behavior and parenting burnout is regulated by family function; (4) the direct influence of collaborative parenting on parenting burnout is also regulated by family function. Conclusion: Adolescents’ difficult behavior partially mediates the influence of parents’ collaborative parenting on parenting burnout. In addition, family function not only mediates the front and back ends of mediation, but also mediates the direct influence of collaborative parenting on parenting burnout. These findings are instructive for improving family parenting problems and promoting adolescent development. The results of this study may be helpful in enhancing parents’ awareness of parenting of adolescents in China, which will provide reference for some teachers in China to understand adolescent behavior. At the same time, the results may provide new enlightenment for mental health professionals and enable them to fully understand the parenting contradictions between parents and adolescents in China. Full article