Parents’ Relationship Quality and Children’s Externalizing Problems: The Moderating Role of Mother–Child Relations and Family Socio-demographic Background

Parental relationship quality and children's behavioural problems: Childcare quality as a protective factor?

“…Our findings are only partly consistent with both the assumptions of the family stress model and the spillover hypothesis, which presume that parents' positive and negative emotions are transmitted to the interactions with their children. They are in line with Garriga, Martínez-Lucena & Moreno (2019), who based on the UK Millennium Cohort Study and lagged dependent variables models found that parents' relationship quality at age 3 was associated with children's externalising problems at age 5 years when most British children also entered primary school. For the US American context, Goldberg & Carlson (2014) reported partly similar results: they analysed data of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study with fixed-effects models and structural equation models over child ages 3 through 9, and showed that greater supportiveness in the parental relationship was associated with children's reduced externalising and internalising behaviour problems.…”

“…In line with Bronfenbrenner's bioecological model of human development (Bronfenbrenner & Morris 2006), the family is one of the most powerful microsystems influencing a child's development. Several studies have established the positive link between parental relationship quality and child development (Garriga, Martínez-Lucena & Moreno 2019;Goldberg & Carlson 2014;Davies & Cummings 1994;Masarik & Conger 2017). Proximal processes, such as the amount of support and conflict in the parents' relationship, seem to be especially influential when it comes to children's externalising (e.g.…”

“…Emotional security theory (Davies & Cummings 1994) and the conflict hypothesis, both integrable into the spillover perspective, address this point. Grounded in attachment theory (Bowlby 1940;1958), emotional security theory posits that experiencing or even knowing of parental conflict threatens the children's sense of emotional security and their perception of parents as sources of support, which increases their vulnerability to psychological and social problems (Garriga, Martínez-Lucena & Moreno 2019;Davies & Woitach 2008). Very similar to this, the conflict hypothesis suggests that discord between parents is a substantial source of stress for children (Amato & Keith 1991;Krishnakumar & Buehler 2000;Wilson & Gottman 2002).…”

“…Fourth, by considering process quality as a potential moderator of the association between parental relationship quality and children's socio-emotional development, we respond to the claim that main effect models are not sufficient for current developmental research and that scholars should acknowledge, and consequently examine, the role of moderating influences to uncover especially vulnerable groups (Garriga, Martínez-Lucena & Moreno 2019;Goodman et al 2011).…”

Relationship satisfaction and concordance in attitudes to maternal employment in British couples with young children

“…This article investigates whether these attitudinal variables in conjunction with paid labor variables are associated with couples’ relationship satisfaction. Furthermore, we also investigate whether discordance, between attitudes and behaviors and within couples, proves to be of particular concern as relationship satisfaction has important implications for partners and children’s well-being (Cummings & Davies, 2010; Garriga & Kiernan, 2014; Proulx et al, 2007).…”