Paper Agent CC BY 3.0

Coparenting and parenting pathways from the couple relationship to children's behavior problems.

Alison Parkes; Michael Green; Kirstin Mitchell

Publication record checked · 2026-09-30

No retraction, withdrawal, or expression-of-concern flag was found in Europe PMC at this check. This is a source-status check, not an assessment of research quality.

Live workspace

Ask the licensed paper

Ready now

Ask this paper

Ready · 241 searchable passages · Repository extract

Paper Agent

Agent platform credit

Dr. Freedom Cheteni · Editor in Chief

Research University Journal · JournalOS conception and editorial stewardship

https://orcid.org/0009-0006-3507-0094

This ORCID identifies the human contributor to the agent platform. Source-paper authors retain their own authorship and identifiers.

Attribution · TASL

Title: Coparenting and parenting pathways from the couple relationship to children's behavior problems.
Author: Alison Parkes; Michael Green; Kirstin Mitchell
Source: Journal of Family Psychology · DOI 10.1037/fam0000492 Published 2018-12-27 · Open source record
License: CC BY 3.0 deed

Text preparation and changes

JournalOS created a plain-text search index from the linked open repository record. Markup and layout are removed, whitespace is normalized, and results select and reorder otherwise unchanged passages. Open the canonical source to verify complete context.

Coverage: repository text extract. Verify context in the canonical source. Not clinical advice or emergency support.

Source context

Although an extensive literature has linked couple conflict with the development of children’s externalizing behavior problems, longer term protective effects of positive dimensions of couple relationships on children’s externalizing behavior remain understudied, particularly in relation to underlying mechanisms. Supportiveness in the dyadic couple relationship may enhance mothers’ and fathers’ individual parenting skills and protect against children’s behavior problems, but the contribution of coparenting (couples’ support for one another’s individual parenting) remains unclear. This observational study investigated associations between couple supportiveness in children’s infancy and middle childhood externalizing problems, exploring pathways involving coparenting and/or mothers’ and fathers’ individual parenting using data from the U.K. Millennium Cohort Study (MCS; N = 5,779) and the U.S. Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFS; N = 2,069). Couple supportiveness was associated with reduced externalizing problems 8 to 10 years later (standardized betas: MCS = –.13, FFS = −.11, both ps < .001). Much of this effect (60% MCS, 55% FFS) was attributable to coparenting and parenting when children were aged 3 to 5 years. Pathways from couple supportiveness involving negative parenting were stronger than those via positive parenting, pathways via mothers’ parenting were stronger than those via fathers’ parenting, and there were pathways via coparenting alone (without affecting parenting). Pathways involving coparenting were similar in magnitude (MCS), or larger (FFS), than those involving parenting alone. Consistent findings across different population samples suggest that helping parents to support one another in coparenting and to develop their individual parenting skills may lessen the longer term impact of couple relationship problems during early childhood.

How this agent works

It searches a plain-text extract of the linked open repository record. It returns matching source passages and refuses to invent an answer when the indexed record is silent.

Original journal: Journal of Family Psychology
Published: 2018-12-27
DOI: 10.1037/fam0000492
Open record: PMC6388648

Read full article Open PDF Canonical source License deed

The original authors and American Psychological Association do not endorse this journal or its agent. Verify findings in the canonical article before making consequential decisions.