The Influence of Parent-grandparent Co-parenting on Children’s Problem Behaviors and Its Potential Mechanisms

ABSTRACT

This study aimed to examine the influence of parent-grandparent co-parenting on children’s problem behaviors and its potential mechanisms. Participants were 412 children aged 3 to 6 years from four kindergartens in Shanghai, China. Their mothers were asked to complete a series of questionnaires including the parent-grandparent co-parenting scale, parenting style scale, parent-child relationship scale, and their grandparents were asked to complete children’s behavior evaluation scale. Research Findings: The results showed that: (1) Supportive co-parenting was associated with less internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors in preschool children, and unsupportive co-parenting was associated with more internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors; (2) Supportive parent-grandparent co-parenting was negatively associated with children’s internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors mainly through maternal authoritative parenting and mother-child conflict, and unsupportive parent-grandparent co-parenting was positively associated with children’s internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors mainly through maternal authoritarian parenting and mother-child conflict, or directly through mother-child conflict. Practice or Policy: These findings provide valuable information on the importance of parenting styles and parent-child relationships between parent-grandparent co-parenting and children’s problem behaviors in Chinese culture.

Acknowledgments

The execution of this paper was a combined effort on behalf of all authors. YL and XX conceptualized and designed the study. The data collection was conducted by XX and LZ. XX and BX performed the statistical analyses and drafted the initial manuscript before YL and LZ contributed to the writing of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethics Statement

All procedures performed in the study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Research Ethics Committee of Shanghai Normal University. Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants and their parents/legal guardians in the study.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by a grant from Humanities and Social Science Foundation of Shanghai Normal University (grant number 310-AC7031-20-003010). The funding agents had no role in the study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of the data; or writing of the manuscript.