About this session

Thursday, 11:50 AM - 1:20 PM

The role of coparenting in family dynamics and infant outcomes

Coparenting has come into its own as a construct that is integral to family health and well-being. At the same time, the multidimensionality of coparenting as predictor, outcome, mediator, and moderator is still being discovered, along with the different ways and perspectives by which coparenting can be represented and assessed. This symposium presents a series of studies that highlights the versatility and utility of coparenting as a construct in family and developmental science. Paper 1 reports on the putative impact of fathers’ heavy drinking on coparenting quality and, in turn, infant reactivity, which was particularly associated with fathers’ coparenting. Paper 2 assessed coparenting quality dynamically, in real time during triadic interactions, and its in-the-moment influence on infant emotion regulation during interactions. Infant emotion regulation in turn moderated the linkages between maternal depression and infant negative emotionality. Paper 3 examined mothers’ and fathers’ reports of coparenting at 3 months postpartum and found that fathers’, but not mothers’ coparenting reports predicted fathers’ adjustment at 9 months. Paper 4 reported on the effects of a transition-to-parenthood evidence-based intervention and found an effect of intervention on coparenting quality, particular among parents who had low expectations of coparenting prenatally. Coparenting quality in the early postpartum in turn mediated intervention effects on infants’ 12-month internalizing and dysregulation symptoms. This symposium highlights the multidimensional, dynamic roles that coparenting can play as a predictor of parental well-being and infant development, as an outcome and moderator of intervention, and as an overall index of family health.

Paper #1
Title	Impact of Father Alcohol Use on Coparenting during Early Development
Presenting author	Stephanie Godleski, Ph.D., Rochester Institute of Technology, United States

Paper #2
Title	Coparenting and infant triadic emotion regulation: Associations with parental depression and negative emotionality
Presenting author	Dr. Yana Sirotkin, Ph.D., University of South Florida, United States

Paper #3
Title	Adjustment to parenthood for new parents: The roles of coparenting, infant temperament, and prenatal expectations
Presenting author	Tinu Oduloye, Ohio State University, USA

Paper #4
Title	Effects of a transition-to-parenthood intervention on coparenting quality and infant socioemotional development.
Presenting author	Douglas M. Teti, Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, United States

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Session chairs
Douglas M. Teti, Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, United States; Stephanie Godleski, Ph.D., , United States

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