Relationships between parents and children: understanding the interplay of the parental and coparental relations

Research has shown the styles and parenting practices and their effects on the development of children. The coparenting is defined by the joint involvement and reciprocal of both parents in the education of children. This article highlights relationships between parenting styles and coparenting. It is about a descriptive and correlational exploratory study with twelve biparental families with a five to seven years old child, at least. Two instruments were used: the Coparenting Relationships Scale (CRS) and the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ). A descriptive and correlational statistic was used by the SPSS 18.0 statistical package. Results had shown that validation (endorsement) of the partner's parenting appeared as a relevant factor in parenting styles. The more mothers reported to endorse the parenthood of their spouses, the more they mentioned the use of a democratic reciprocal style. The validation by mothers was positively related to coparental support: the more they realized the support of their husbands, the more they endorsed their parenting. The coparental sabotage had a positive relationship with the use of a permissive style (lack of firmness) for both. Noteworthy is the relationship between lack of parental firmness and the use of punitive strategies; and both with coparental sabotage. The overall results show the relationship between coparenting and parenting styles, and they can be used for psychological and psychoeducational interventions in promoting the development of children and their families in different contexts.