Associations Between Coparenting, Parent-Adolescent Relationship Quality, Marital Quality, and Adolescent Problem Behavior in China

Attachment theory suggests that secure attachment is associated with better adjustment among children. We hypothesized that coparenting relationship quality might be associated with child adjustment through parental attachment, inspired by the spillover hypothesis. Although couple relationship quality is also known to influence family dynamics, the specific mechanisms underlying these associations remain unclear. The sample of the current study included 1122 Chinese adolescents aged 10-13 years, 962 mothers, and 836 fathers. Mediation and moderation analyses were conducted for data analysis. The results show that adolescents’ parental attachment mediates the association between coparenting and early adolescents’ problem behaviors, based on both mothers’ and fathers’ reports. Mothers’ reports of couple relationship quality moderated the association between mothers’ perceptions of coparenting and adolescents’ problem behaviors, and fathers’ reports of couple relationship quality moderated the association between fathers’ perceptions of coparenting and adolescents’ attachment to fathers. The results indicate that enhancing coparenting quality and couple relationships may enhance adolescents’ parental attachment and reduce behavioral problems. The findings also showed a spillover effect, supporting the principle of interdependency of family subsystems within the family systems theory.