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Scientific article
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English

Coparenting in Stepfamilies: Maternal Promotion of Family Cohesiveness with Partner and with Father

Contributors

Favez, Nicolas; Widmer, Eric; Doan, Minh-Thuy; Tissot, Hervé

Published in

Journal of child and family studies, vol. 24, no. 11, p. 3268-3278

Publication date

2015

Abstract

Coparenting refers to the support parents bring to each other when rearing a child. Supportive coparenting ensures cohesiveness of the family, which is linked with child outcomes. Little is known, however, about the co-parental relationship in stepfamilies between the custodial parent, usually the mother, and the new partner, and how it compares to coparenting with the father. This study addressed mother-reported coparenting in stepfamilies and also compared it with that in first-marriage families. Three dimensions of coparenting were considered: family integrity, disparagement, and conflict. Mothers ( N = 300) completed questionnaires on their coparenting relationship with the father and with the partner, marital satisfaction, and attachment. Half the mothers were living in a step-family with a child between 5 and 13 years old from a previous marriage, and half in a first-marriage family. The main results show that (a) mothers promote family integrity in stepfamilies either with the partner, or with the father, but not with both; (b) the older the child, the less the mothers reported integrity with the father in both families, and the more they reported disparagement against the partner and conflict with the partner in stepfamilies; and (c) maternal marital satisfaction is linked with all dimen- sions of coparenting with the father in first-marriage families, but only with disparagement against the partner and conflict with the partner in stepfamilies. Overall, coparenting has similar characteristics in both types of families, but also presents differences that should be considered when working with parents who are committed to a new relationship.

Keywords

  • Coparenting
  • Stepfamilies
  • Family cohesiveness
  • Marital satisfaction
  • Attachment

UNIGE affiliation entities

UNIGE research groups

Citation (ISO format)

FAVEZ, Nicolas et al. Coparenting in Stepfamilies: Maternal Promotion of Family Cohesiveness with Partner and with Father. In: Journal of child and family studies, 2015, vol. 24, n° 11, p. 3268–3278. doi: 10.1007/s10826-015-0130-x

Main files (2)

Article (Published version)
Article (Accepted version)

Identifiers

Additional URL for this publication

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10826-015-0130-x

Journal ISSN

1062-1024
677views
704downloads

Technical informations

Creation

21/12/2015 12:23:00

First validation

21/12/2015 12:23:00

Update

13/10/2025 21:06:12

Status update

15/03/2023 00:05:54

Last indexation

31/08/2026 09:27:38
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