Stability and Change in the Experiences of Parents, Stepparents and Adolescents in Stepfamilies

Coparental Communication with Nonresidential Parents as a Predictor of Couples' Relational Satisfaction and Mental Health in Stepfamilies

“…Indeed, discrepancies between each (step)parent's expectations and perceptions of responsibility are related to both depression and marital adjustment for both parents (Feinburg, 2003;Voydanoff & Donnelly, 1999). Whereas biological parents must often cope with feeling torn between their ex-spouse, their new partner, and their children as they experience stress in parenting children postdivorce (Wilkes & Fromme, 2002), Figure 1 Hypothesized Actor-Partner Interdependence Model (APIM) of Coparental Communication with Nonresidential Parents and Couples' Relational Satisfaction in Stepfamilies (N ¼ 127 dyads). Note.…”

Mother‐Stepfather Coparenting in Stepfamilies as Predictor of Child Adjustment

“…The families of our sample were thus behaving in accordance with the idea that coparenting is teamwork, regardless of who the members of the team are (McHale et al, 2002). The mother may therefore try to insulate these two dyads regarding negative emotions, this time to avoid being herself entrapped between her partner and her child; mothers in stepfamilies often report the feeling of being torn between the two (Cartwright, 2005;Wilkes & Fromme, 2002). Here again, these variations speak to the "universality" of coparenting, as the same interindividual differences in overt behaviors were observed within each group.…”

“…However, the growing number of studies on the development of relationships in contemporaneous families in their diverse forms has shown that the coparenting construct may be applied to any and all adult teams engaged in the daily rearing and education of a child, the parent-stepparent duo being one of these teams in stepfamilies (Ganong & Coleman, 2017;McHale et al, 2002;Svare, Jay, & Mason, 2004). Qualitative studies, focused on the experience of both partners in the new couple, have shown that parents and stepparents mention coordination of roles in the family, agreement about educational values, and cooperation in daily activities with regard to the family as central to the success of their relationship, that is, a set of relational processes that pertains to the coparental relationship (Arnaut, Fromme, Stoll, & Felker, 2000;Michaels, 2006;Pylyser, Buysse, & Loeys, 2017;Wilkes & Fromme, 2002). Moreover, acknowledgement by the parent of the potential help brought by the stepparent in caring for the child indirectly reinforces the development of the stepchild-stepparent relationship (Papernow, 2013;Rodwell, 2002), and, conversely, the way the child sees the stepparent is a direct function not only of the way the child assesses the behavior of the stepparent toward her, but also of the way the child assesses the behavior of the stepparent toward the parent (Ganong, Coleman, & Jamison, 2011).…”

Individual and Family Factors Related to Psychosocial Adjustment in Stepmother Families With Adolescents

“…This is especially true when stepchildren report more psychological distress. Wilkes and Fromme (2002) specifically reported in their empirical study that whereas stepparents usually found biological parents too lenient with their children, biological parents felt that stepparents were overly strict or not as understanding of their stepchildren as they were of their own children. These authors posited that such contradictions could be linked to stress, role ambiguity, boundary issues, and stepparent-stepchild problems, which in turn impact the adjustment of stepfamily members.…”