Changes in Stepparents' Coparenting and Parenting Following Participation in a Community‐Based Relationship Education Program

• Published date: 01 December 2015
• Date: 01 December 2015
• Author: Francesca Adler‐Baeder,Chelsea L. Garneau
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/famp.12133

Changes in Stepparents’ Coparenting and Parenting

Following Participation in a Community-Based

Relationship Education Program

CHELSEA L. GARNEAU*

FRANCESCA ADLER-BAEDER

†

Studies of coparents typically center on the relationship between parents who share a

biological child; limited attention in research on community-based programs is given to

the coparenting relationship within a stepfamily, even though clinicians note the chal-

lenges inherent in this relationship. We examined changes in coparenting agreement,

parenting efficacy, and parental involvement for 96 stepparents following participation in

a coparenting-focused community education program. A significant main effect of time was

found for improvement in coparenting agreement, yet a significant time 9gender int erac-

tion effect suggests that this is driven by improvements for stepmothers on ly. Parenting

efficacy improved, regardless of gender, race, residence, or curriculum. A signif icant

time 9race interaction effect on change in parental involvement indicates increases in

parental involvement for European American participants only. Finally, increases in co-

parenting agreement were associated with increases in parenting efficacy, and increase s in

parenting efficacy were associated with increases in parental involvement.

Keywords: Coparenting; Parenting; Stepparents

Fam Proc 54:590–599, 2015

Coparenting refers to the relational interactions among two or more adults whic h are

focused on their shared childrearing (Baker, McHale, Strozier, & Cecil, 2010; Burton

& Hardaway, 2012; McHale, 1997; McHale & Lindahl, 2011; Waller, 2012). Research on

coparenting has increased in recent decades as fathers’ roles in childrearing have become

more active (e.g., Cabrera, Tamis-LeMonda, Bradley, Hofferth, & Lamb, 2000), divorce

and remarriage have become more prevalent (e.g., Cherlin, 2010), and findings have

linked cooperative coparenting to positive outcomes for children, often via various aspects

of parenting (e.g., Feinberg, Kan, & Hetherington, 2007; Margolin, Gordis, & John, 2001).

Roughly one million children experience parental divorce each year (Elliott & Simmons,

2011), leading to a significant proportion of coparenting relationships which exist across

multiple households. The quality of postdivorce coparenting has been found to be particu-

larly important for children’s outcomes and has been a central focus of research on

coparenting (e.g., Gasper, Stolberg, Macie, & Williams, 2008). To date, the majority of co-

parenting research involving stepfamilies, a common postdivorce family structure, exam-

ines the coparenting relationship between former partners across households (Pruett &

Donsky, 2011), and interventions have been developed and implemented in community

*Department of Human Development & Family Studies, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO.

†

Department of Human Development & Family Studies, Auburn University, Auburn, AL.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Chelsea Garneau, Department of Human

Development & Family Studies, University of Missouri, 312 Gentry Hall, Columbia, MO 65211.

E-mail: garneauc@missouri.edu.

590

Family Process, Vol. 54, No. 4, 2015 ©2015 Family Process Institute

doi: 10.1111/famp.12133