Predictors of Parenting Stress During Early Adoptive Parenthood

Abstract

Parenting stress has a crucial influence on the parent-child relationship, the functioning of the family, and the development of children. Few studies have examined parenting stress in adoptive families during early parenthood, and fewer still have considered this issue in association with the quality of both couple and social relationships. The current study was intended to investigate predictors of parenting stress in a community sample of 56 adoptive parents from Italy, for a total of 112 participants. Our goals were to: 1) evaluate parenting stress among adoptive parents during the first postadoption year, and 2) identify whether and to what extent parenting stress can be predicted by certain characteristics of the child (gender, age at adoption, years of institutionalisation, presence/absence of disease on arrival, emotional and behavioural difficulties), of parents' individual well-being (e.g., the presence of depressive symptoms), of relationships within the couple (sexual satisfaction, tenderness between partners, quarrelling) and with the social context (real and potential social support). In the analyses parents' gender effect and intercorrelations between the partners were taken into account. Results of multiple regression analysis and relative weight analysis highlighted the great importance of children's age at adoption and their emotional and behavioural difficulties in predicting both mothers' and fathers' stress, but also the contribution of the couple relationship quality as a protective factor that could reduce the level of parenting stress.

“What Makes Us Strong?”: Dyadic Coping in Italian Prospective Adoptive Couples

“…Results showed that prospective adoptive couples reported high levels of positive dyadic coping and low levels of negative dyadic coping, suggesting partners’ ability to successfully cope together with a common stressor, a high level of relationship satisfaction, and an average level of couple generativity. In line with the literature (Lansford et al, 2001; Ceballo et al, 2004; Rosnati et al, 2013; Canzi et al, 2017b), adoptive couples resulted to be well-equipped and to have relational resources, especially in terms of couple relationship functioning. It could be that couples choosing adoption are those who can count on a wide range of resources.…”

“…Much less investigated were their relational and marital resources (e.g., Levy-Shiff et al, 1990). Although research conducted on adoptive parents during later stages of the adoption transition evidenced a global positive quality of adoptive couples’ relationship (Lansford et al, 2001; Ceballo et al, 2004; Rosnati et al, 2013; Canzi et al, 2017b), we do not know much about prospective adoptive couples’ relationship more generally and about their coping ability more specifically. Nonetheless, a study examining adoptive couples relationship quality across the transition to adoption shows that pre-adoptive coping resources represent a protective factor against a pre to post-adoption decrease in satisfaction (Goldberg et al, 2010).…”

“…Becoming parents is a crucial family transition associated with significant relational, psychological, and social changes. Prospective adoptive couples have to face specific challenges and tasks that make them particularly vulnerable to stress (Canzi et al, 2017b). Most prospective adoptive couples, for example, faced infertility (Cohen et al, 1993; Daniluk and Hurtig-Mitchell, 2003), struggling with the related elaboration process.…”

Early adversity and children's regulatory deficits: Does postadoption parenting facilitate recovery in postinstitutionalized children?

“…Fourth, in addition to providing adoptive parents with skills to better their parenting abilities directly, caregivers may benefit from supports to reduce the stress they experience during the transition. Previous research demonstrates that some adoptive parents may experience increased parenting stress (Canzi et al, 2019). Moreover, increased parenting stress in internationally adopting parents is associated with their own rates of depressive symptoms and perceptions of children's behavioral difficulties (Judge, 2004; Viana & Welsh, 2010).…”

“…However, a child's entry into the family also results in the reorganization of the family system and new roles for both first-time parents and at the entrance of additional children (Lewis, Owen, & Cox, 1988; Volling, 2012). While adoptive parents do not on average experience greater parenting stress than biological parents, there are individual differences in parenting stress such that greater perceived child behavioral difficulties and longer durations of institutionalization are predictive of increased parenting stress during the initial transition for internationally adopting parents (Canzi, Ranieri, Barni, & Rosnati, 2019). Parenting stress can impede parents' abilities to be effective caregivers to children that in turn contribute to poorer child outcomes (Deater-Deckard, 1998).…”