Co‐Parenting Programs: A Systematic Review and Meta‐Analysis

• Published date: 01 July 2021
• Author: Cindy Eira Nunes,Yves Roten,Nahema El Ghaziri,Nicolas Favez,Joëlle Darwiche
• Date: 01 July 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fare.12438

C E N, Y  R,  N E GUniversity of Lausanne

N FUniversity of Geneva

J DUniversity of Lausanne

Co-Parenting Programs: A Systematic Review

and Meta-Analysis

Objective: This article aims to provide an

overview of the efcacy of co-parenting

programs on outcomes related to child’s

adjustment, parents’ well-being, and quality

of the co-parenting, romantic, and parent–child

relationships.

Background: Numerous co-parenting pro-

grams have been developed, supported by

empirical ndings associating quality of

co-parenting to the overall family well-being.

However, to our knowledge, the efcacy of those

programs has not yet been assessed.

Method: This article included 38 articles cor-

responding to 27 randomized controlled trials

(RCTs) presenting 23 programs. We conducted

a meta-analysis to estimate the efcacy of

co-parenting programs and a review of pro-

grams to identify the ingredients of co-parenting

programs that may contribute to this efcacy.

Results: Results support a small but signicant

effect of co-parenting programs on outcomes

related to parents’ well-being and the quality of

co-parenting and romantic relationships.

Conclusion: Finally, despite the heterogeneity

of the programs, some commonalities are iden-

tied, such as the use of psychoeducation and

skills training.

IP-SSP Géopolis, Université de Lausanne, CH-1015

Lausanne (cindy.eiranunes@unil.ch).

[Correction added on June 26, 2020 after rst online publi-

cation: The fourth author’s afliation has been corrected.]

Key Words: co-parenting, efcacy, family, intervention,

meta-analysis, systematic review.

Implications: Our work supports the added

value of co-parenting programs for both

vulnerable families and families with no appar-

ent major difculties. Future directions in terms

of study and program designs are proposed to

promote high-quality research in this eld.

Over the past 20years, the elds of family and

developmental sciences have focused increasing

attention on co-parenting, dening its impor-

tance to family functioning (e.g., Gable, Crnic,

& Belsky, 1994; Margolin, Gordis, & John,

2001). At rst, studying co-parenting allowed

researchers to describe the importance of

divorced parents’ relationship quality for their

children (e.g., Maccoby & Mnookin, 1992).

Subsequently, the concept was applied to intact

families as diverse as classic nuclear families,

single parents, or same-sex parents (Favez,

Widmer, Frascarolo, & Doan, 2019; McHale &

Lindahl, 2011).

Co-parenting refers to the relationship

between parents that goes beyond the romantic

relationship. Parents remain related to each

other through co-parenting even after separation

(Favez & Frascarolo, 2013). Co-parenting also

may be dened as the shared activities under-

taken by the adults responsible for the care and

upbringing of a child (McHale & Lindahl, 2011).

It is a multidimensional concept including pos-

itive dimensions, such as support, coordination

between parents, communication, and loyalty;

as well as negative dimensions, such as conict

regarding children, competition, undermining

of the other parent, children’s triangulation (i.e.,

Family Relations 70 (July 2021): 759–776759

DOI:10.1111/fare.12438

760 Family Relations

involving children in parents’ conict; Teubert

& Pinquart, 2010). Both positive and negative

dimensions can coexist (Frascarolo, Darwiche,

& Favez, 2009). However, the importance of

negative and positive dimensions inuences the

quality of co-parenting, which can either be a

protective factor or a risk factor for the family

well-being (Favez & Frascarolo, 2013).

Research to date has shown the importance

of co-parenting quality for both the well-being

of family members and the quality of other

family relationships (McHale & Lindahl, 2011).

The quality of co-parenting has largely been

related to the quality of the romantic relation-

ship. Positive co-parenting featuring cohesion,

cooperation, and support has been associated

with marital satisfaction (Favez & Frascarolo,

2013; Talbot & McHale, 2004), whereas low

cooperation and high competition between

parents have been associated with romantic

conicts and dissatisfaction (e.g., Christopher,

Umemura, Mann, Jacobvitz, & Hazen, 2015).

Furthermore, empirical data showed that

co-parenting support promotes parents’

well-being, for example by reducing par-

ents’ stress (e.g., Schoppe-Sullivan, Settle, Lee,

& Kamp, 2016). The impact of co-parenting

on parents’ well-being appeared to indirectly

affect parenting. For instance, Bonds, Gondoli,

Sturge-Apple, and Salem (2002) rst conrmed

that co-parenting support reduced parents’

stress. They additionally found that, in turn, low

parenting stress facilitated optimal parenting.

Studies also revealed a direct effect of

co-parenting on parenting and the parent–child

relationship. Pedro, Ribeiro, and Shelton (2012)

have found that low co-parenting triangulation

and conict, as well as high cooperation, were

associated with fewer negative parenting prac-

tices, such as rejection and control attempts.

Co-parenting support also seemed to facilitate

fathers’ engagement toward their children by

reducing obstacles such as maternal gatekeeping

(P. A. Cowan, Cowan, Cohen, Pruett, & Pruett,

2008).

Through positive parenting and fathers’

engagement, co-parenting quality appeared

to reduce risks of externalizing and internal-

izing problems behaviors for children (e.g.,

P. A. Cowan etal., 2008; Maccoby, 1980).

The risk of negative co-parenting for child

sociodevelopment and cognitive functioning

have been largely documented (Favez, 2017).

In their meta-analysis, Teubert and Pinquart

(2010) reviewed more than 50 studies both

cross-sectional and longitudinal. They showed

that co-parenting predicted the psychological

adjustment of children between the ages of

7months and 16years old. Co-parenting coor-

dination also was positively associated with

child’s social functioning and secure attach-

ment, whereas co-parenting conict was related

to more frequent externalizing symptoms (Teu-

bert & Pinquart, 2010). Co-parenting appears to

be the key concept to enhance family well-being

and high-quality relationships between family

members.

Numerous co-parenting programs have been

developed, boosted by empirical ndings link-

ing quality of co-parenting to overall family

well-being. We may describe these programs’

implementation in three phases of development

over time (Favez, 2017). First, therapeutic work

on co-parenting was integrated into family ther-

apy in the 1970s. Salvador Minuchin is often

cited as the pioneer of this integration because

he was the rst to focus his interventions on

parents’ coordination (Minuchin, 1974). In the

second phase, programs based on co-parenting

interventions were developed for separated

or divorced parents. These interventions are

designed to support parents as they struggle

to maintain a good co-parenting relationship

while ending their romantic relationship (Favez,

2017). The third phase corresponds to the cre-

ation of co-parenting programs for nondivorced

parents. These programs seek to prevent dif-

culties induced by transitions in the family,

predominantly during the transition to parent-

hood, as new parents are building their own

co-parenting relationship (McHale & Lindahl,

2011). In this article, we focused on programs

of the second and third phases of co-parenting

programs development.

Research supports the key role of

co-parenting for family well-being, and

co-parenting interventions appear to provide

a powerful framework that has the potential

to impact both the family relationships and

family members’ well-being. The added value

of co-parenting programs is supported also by

the importance of promoting active investment

of both parents (Pilkington, Whelan, & Milne,

2015) to enhance the quality of family function-

ing. To our knowledge, the effects of targeting

the co-parenting relationship when working with

parent couples have not yet been summarized.

Meta-analyses and reviews have focused on