About this paper symposium

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Panel information
Panel 9. Family Context & Processes

Paper #1
Impact of Father Alcohol Use on Coparenting during Early Development
Author information	Role
Stephanie Godleski, Ph.D., Rochester Institute of Technology, United States	Presenting author
Mark E. Feinberg, The Pennsylvania State University, USA	Non-presenting author
Craig R. Colder, University of Buffalo, USA	Non-presenting author
Rina E. Eiden, The Pennsylvania State University, USA	Non-presenting author
Abstract
Coparenting is a mutually supportive relationship, with active engagement of both parents working together in child rearing (Feinberg, 2003; Palkovitz et al., 2013). Fathers' alcohol problems have a significant negative impact on the couple relationship (Leonard & Eiden, 2007), which may also be reflected in the coparenting relationship. Results from the larger developmental literature highlight the importance of coparenting as a unique predictor of child outcomes, such as reactivity, that is different from other dyadic relationships within the family (e.g., Katz & Low, 2004; Palkovitz et al., 2013). The parenting relationship may be an important contributor to the cascade of risk for child reactivity (Altenburger et al., 2015), while reactivity has significance as a transdiagnostic vulnerability for social-emotional maladjustment and the development of psychopathology (Ostlund et al., 2021). We hypothesized that fathers' alcohol problems would be associated with lower maternal and paternal coparenting, which in turn would be associated with higher infant reactivity at 6 months of child age. Couples included heavy drinking fathers and low drinking or abstaining mothers expecting their first child together (n = 184; infants: 71% White, 55% male). Both partners completed measures of current alcohol use disorder symptoms (Grant et al., 2015), coparenting relationship (Feinberg et al, 2012), and infant reactivity (Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003) at 6-months of infant age. Coparenting relationship was included in the model as a latent variable for each parent reflecting their report on three subscales of key dimensions of the coparenting relationship: coparental support, parenting-based closeness, and coparental undermining, with higher levels reflecting higher quality of coparenting. Associations between study variables and the dimensions of coparenting are presented in Table 1. Results from the structural equation models are displayed in Figure 1. Models examined associations between fathers' alcohol problems (symptom count) on maternal and paternal report of coparenting relationship and infant reactivity. Higher father alcohol problems were significantly associated with lower mother and father report of the quality of the coparenting relationship. Father report of lower quality of the coparenting relationship was significantly associated with higher infant reactivity, while mother report of coparenting tended to be associated with higher infant reactivity. Results suggest the cascading impact of father alcohol problems on the family system and the central role of the coparenting relationship during early development. Findings also support the need to include fathers in research and prevention efforts. Both father drinking and the coparenting relationships are important potential targets for supporting positive outcomes for both parents and children.

Paper #2
Coparenting and infant triadic emotion regulation: Associations with parental depression and negative emotionality
Author information	Role
Dr. Yana Sirotkin, Ph.D., University of South Florida, United States	Presenting author
Benedetta Ragni, LUMSA University, Italy	Non-presenting author
Carla Smith Stover, Yale University Child Study Center, USA	Non-presenting author
James McHale, University of South Florida, USA	Non-presenting author
Abstract
Children's emotional regulation (ER) is crucial for their social development (Thompson, 1994) and emerges within caregiving relationships, emphasizing the importance of family context (Morris et al., 2007). Prior work indicates that coparenting quality significantly impacts children's socio-emotional development, extending beyond dyadic caregiver-child interactions, and that children’s ER is also sensitive to parental depression (Karreman et al., 2008; McHale & Rasmussen, 1998; Thomassin et al., 2017; Teubert & Pinquart, 2010). Following the lead of McHale (2007) and Favez et al. (2006), the present study examined linkages between coparenting and infant ER during triadic interactions with parents, enabling an assessment in real time of multiple caregivers’ contributions to infant ER. Poor coparenting may hinder infants' ability to navigate triadic interactional contexts, potentially stunting their ER development (Fivaz-Depeursinge et al., 2012). This investigation explored infants’ ER during triadic family interactions using a new coding system, MITER (Measuring Infant Triangular Emotion Regulation) (Sirotkin et al., 2019). We hypothesized that: 1) children’s triadic ER strategies would positively relate to coparenting quality and negatively to children’s negative emotionality and parental depression; 2) coparenting quality and infant ER would be bidirectionally linked, per family systems theory (Gallegos et al., 2017; Kiff et al., 2011); and 3) infants’ triadic ER would buffer the effect of parental postpartum depression on children’s negative emotionality. Participants included 69 families with 12-month-old infants, part of a larger randomized controlled trial evaluating a coparenting-based intervention for unmarried Black expectant mother-father dyads (McHale et al., 2023). Parents completed the Infant Toddler Social Emotional Assessment (Carter & Briggs-Gowan, 2006), the Parenting Alliance Measure (Abidin & Konold, 1999), and the Edinburgh Depression Scale (Cox et al., 1987). Children’s triangular ER was observed via the Lausanne Trilogue Play Paradigm (Fivaz-Depeursinge & Corboz-Warnery, 1999) and evaluated with the MITER (Sirotkin et al., 2019). Analysis involved bivariate correlations and a multilevel model, accounting for within- and between-families dependencies, controlling for intervention status. Results confirmed a significant bidirectional relationship between children’s triadic ER and coparenting quality (r=.275, p<.05), establishing the MITER’s concurrent validity. Additionally, infant ER moderated the relationship between parental depression and infants’ negative emotionality (ICC=.21, p <.05): As predicted, in families with above-average infant ER (b=.26, p = .005), parental depression had a smaller effect on children's negative emotionality. Lastly, intervention group families reported lower levels of negative emotionality in their children compared to the control group. The associations between observed children's ER and parental factors illuminate the real-time interplay between coparenting behaviors and children's emotional responses, supporting family systems models. The subgroup differences in children's negative emotionality indicate a strong link between coparenting quality and children’s emotional functioning, suggesting that enhancing coparenting could improve emotional development (Feinberg et al., 2016). Lastly, the finding that the impact of parental depression on children's negative emotionality depended on the child's ER abilities highlighted the protective role of effective infant ER amidst parental mental health challenges. This research enhances the broader understanding of triadic family dynamics and emphasizes the importance of considering multiple family factors in supporting children’s emotional development.

Paper #3
Adjustment to parenthood for new parents: The roles of coparenting, infant temperament, and prenatal expectations
Author information	Role
Tinu Oduloye, Ohio State University, USA	Presenting author
Sarah Schoppe-Sullivan, The Ohio State University, USA	Non-presenting author
Abstract
The transition to parenthood is a critical and often challenging period, as parents must adjust to their new roles and to significant changes in their daily lives (Perry-Jenkins & Schoppe-Sullivan, 2019). Parents’ adjustment to the demands of parenthood plays a crucial role in their well-being, the quality of their parenting behavior, and the development of their children. Two critical components of adjustment are parenting self-efficacy, which refers to a parent’s belief in their ability to successfully care for their child (Teti & Gelfand, 1991), and parenting daily hassles, which refers to the perceived intensity of everyday parenting stressors (Crnic & Greenberg, 1990). One factor in new parents’ adjustment is the quality of their coparenting relationship. Coparenting refers to the extent to which parents cooperate as a team in raising their child. High-quality coparenting can ease the demands of parenting by fostering a collaborative environment (Feinberg, 2003), and therefore may boost self-efficacy and reduce stress. However, the quality of coparenting is not the sole factor in parental adjustment. The temperament of the infant, specifically negative affectivity (e.g., fussiness, fearfulness), may also affect parents’ adjustment. When infants have higher negative affectivity, their parents may feel less efficacious in parenting and may perceive daily hassles as more intense. This study aimed to (1) examine associations between new parents’ perceptions of coparenting and their adjustment to parenthood; (2) examine the role of infant negative affectivity in parental adjustment; (3) consider whether patterns differ for mothers and fathers. Data were drawn from a longitudinal study of 182 dual-earner couples (predominantly White and of moderate-to-high SES) in the Midwestern U.S. who were followed across their transition to parenthood. Mothers and fathers reported on their parenting self-efficacy expectations during the third trimester (Teti & Gelfand, 1991), perceptions of coparenting (Feinberg et al., 2012) and their infant’s negative affectivity (Putnam et al., 2014) at 3 months postpartum, and parenting self-efficacy (Teti & Gelfand, 1991) and intensity of daily hassles (Crnic & Greenberg, 1990) at 9 months postpartum. A preliminary path analysis model (Figure 1) fit the data well. Expectant parents with higher parenting self-efficacy expectations reported greater parenting self-efficacy at 9 months. When fathers had higher parenting self-efficacy expectations, they perceived their infants as lower in negative affectivity at 3 months, and perceived daily hassles as less intense at 9 months. When mothers perceived their infants as higher in negative affectivity at 3 months, they felt less efficacious in parenting at 9 months. When fathers perceived coparenting more positively at 3 months, they reported greater parenting self-efficacy and lower intensity of daily hassles at 9 months. Perceptions of coparenting were not associated with maternal adjustment. These findings suggest that perceptions of coparenting are more important to fathers’ adjustment to parenthood, whereas infant temperament is more important to mothers’ adjustment to parenthood. Interventions could focus on improving coparenting relationships, boosting expectant fathers’ confidence in parenting, and helping mothers feel more capable and less overwhelmed when taking care of infants with challenging temperaments.

Paper #4
Effects of a transition-to-parenthood intervention on coparenting quality and infant socioemotional development.
Author information	Role
Douglas M. Teti, Ph.D., The Pennsylvania State University, United States	Presenting author
Liu Bai, Capital Normal University, China	Non-presenting author
Damon Jones, The Pennsylvania State University, USA	Non-presenting author
Liat Tikotsky, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel	Non-presenting author
Mark E. Feinberg, The Pennsylvania State University, USA	Non-presenting author
Abstract
The present study reports on findings of an evidence-based transition-to-parenthood coparenting intervention, Family Foundations (Feinberg & Kan, 2008), examining the role of prenatal coparenting expectations as a moderator of intervention efficacy. The present trial consisted of two intervention arms, one the originally formulated Family Foundations intervention (FF), and one (FFsleep) adapted to emphasize coparenting and parenting around infant and parent sleep. 210 first-time pregnant mothers and their partners were recruited from a tertiary care OBGYN clinic and Facebook advertising. Parents were largely middle class, over 18 years old, and mostly White (80%). Families were randomly assigned to a control (n = 50), FF (n = 78), or FFsleep (n = 77) group, using a weighted random assignment procedure that yielded greater numbers in the two intervention arms. Five families dropped before group assignment. All families received a prenatal, pre-intervention assessment (3rd trimester), and were assessed again at 1, 3, 6, and 12 months postpartum. Each intervention arm delivered 5 prenatal sessions and 4 sessions in the early postpartum. The Coparenting Relationship Scale (CRS) (Feinberg et al., 2012) was used to obtain coparenting perceptions from mothers and fathers. From the CRS, a positive (e.g., agreement, support) and a negative coparenting score (conflict, undermining) was derived for each parent at each time point. In addition, at the prenatal assessment mothers’ and fathers’ expectations about coparenting were assessed by modifying CRS items to inquire about what each parent expected the coparenting relationship to be like after the baby’s birth. Infant socioemotional outcomes were assessed with the Infant and Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (ITSEA) (Carter et al., 2003) when infants were 12 months old, from parent report. Multi-level modeling (MLM) intent-to-treat analyses revealed that positive coparenting decreased and negative coparenting increased across the year (ps. < .001). However, an effect of the FFsleep intervention was found on negative coparenting (p = .017), along with a marginal effect of the FF intervention on negative coparenting (p = .09). These effects were moderated by infant age and prenatal coparenting expectations. Compared to controls, the FFsleep intervention predicted a greater decrease (p = .001) in negative coparenting among parents whose prenatal expectations about negative coparenting were high (less favorable), compared to parents whose prenatal expectations about negative coparenting were low (more favorable). In addition, compared to controls, parents in both the FF and FFsleep groups reported lesser decreases over time (ps = .02 and .001, respectively) in positive coparenting when prenatal positive coparenting expectations were low but not when prenatal positive coparenting expectations were high (see Figure 1). Additional analyses revealed no direct intervention effects on any infant ITSEA dimensions. However, a mediational analysis revealed that intervention reduced infant internalizing and dysregulation symptoms at 12 months indirectly, via intervention’s more immediate effects on mothers’ negative coparenting reports, averaged across 1, 3, and 6 months (see Figure 2). These findings further contribute to the evidence base of Family Foundations. Additional analyses will examine the differential effects of FF and FFsleep, particularly on infant and parent sleep outcomes.

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