Marital and Parental Relationships in Adoptive and Nonadoptive Families: The Mediating Role of Coparenting

Abstract

In the adoption field, there is evidence that parent–child relationship quality represents a crucial source of resilience for families. However, little is still known about the variables that may influence parental relationship and the mediating role played by coparenting in the association between marital and parental relationships. This study intended to explore the links between mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions of marital and parental relationships, assessing the mediating role of coparenting in adoptive families with internationally adopted adolescents in comparison with nonadoptive families. Participants were 91 Italian adoptive married couples and 69 nonadoptive married couples with an adolescent child. A self-report questionnaire was administered to participants. Results highlighted similarities and differences concerning mothers’ and fathers’ relationships within adoptive and nonadoptive families; the association of the marital relationship with the parental relationship through coparenting especially emerged within adoptive families. Results were discussed in relation to practical implications for family preventive and enrichment intervention.

Keywords:

• Couple relationship
• coparenting
• parent–child relationship
• mothers’ and fathers’ perceptions
• adoptive and nonadoptive families

Notes

1 We calculated the Mahalanobis distance, which provides the standard test for outliers in multivariate data (Mahalanobis, 1936), and we did not find any outlier that needed to be removed prior to the analyses.