The Roles of Mother-Perceived Coparenting and Child Routines on Children's Social-Emotional Competence During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The purpose of the current study was to examine the contributions of coparenting quality and child routines to children's social-emotional competence during COVID-19. Further, we investigated the indirect effects of coparenting quality on children's social-emotional competence via child routines. The participants were 403 mothers of children between 23 and 102 months old (M = 59.23, SD = 10.92). Mothers reported their children's social-emotional competence, coparenting quality, and children's routines as main variables and the COVID-19 pandemic effects (financial, resources, psychological, and within-family interaction effects). Results from the structural equation model showed that higher levels of coparenting quality and consistency in child routines were positively related to children's social-emotional competence. In addition, there was an indirect effect of coparenting on children's social-emotional competence through child routines. In detail, higher parental coparenting quality was associated with more consistent child routines, and, in turn, more consistent child routines were associated with higher levels of social-emotional competence. These findings suggest that coparenting and child routines may play a crucial role in children's social-emotional competence. Results are discussed, considering their functioning during the COVID-19 pandemic. Structural equation modeling tested the indirect effect of mother-perceived coparenting on children's social-emotional competence via child routines.Quality coparenting relationship is positively related to child routines, and in turn, child routines are positively associated with better social-emotional competence.Coparenting and child routines play a crucial role in the social-emotional competence of children.