Title:
Caregiver relationship quality and coparenting as predictors of children's social skills
Author:
Katarina A. Ament
Thesis Advisor:
Sharon Green-Hennessy
Committee Member:
Carolyn M. Barry
Committee Member:
Beth A. Kotchick
Committee Member:
Stephen E. Fowl
Committee Member:
Rachel L. Grover
Degree Granting Institution:
Loyola University Maryland--College of Arts and Sciences
Place:
Baltimore (Md.)
Publisher:
Loyola University Maryland
Date Created:
2017
Type of Resource:
text
Genre:
thesis
Language:
eng
Format:
application/pdf
Physical Form:
electronic
Digital Source:
born digital
Abstract:
The caregiver relationship has been shown to impact various aspects of social functioning. However, it is less clear how the caregiver relationship specifically impacts children’s social skills and what aspect of the caregiver relationship influences children’s social skills development. The current study examined how caregiver relationship quality and coparenting may differentially relate to children’s social skills development. In addition, identity of mother’s current partner (child’s biological father vs. a new partner) was explored as a potential moderator of these associations. Participants included 1843 mothers and teachers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS). Coparenting and relationship quality measures were developed for the study and children’s social skills were measured using a modified version of the Social Skills Rating Scale. Results indicated that neither coparenting nor caregiver relationship quality were significantly associated with children’s social skills after controlling for demographic variables. However, the demographic variables of marital status, poverty level, race, sex, and special education status were themselves found to account for approximately 17% of the variance in children’s social skills, helping to identify children who may be at risk for poor social skills development. Identity of mother’s current partner was also examined as a potential moderator of the relations between coparenting, caregiver relationship quality, and social skills. Results indicated that identity of mother’s current partner did not significantly moderate the relation between couple’s relationship quality and social skills. However, identity of mother’s current partner did moderate the relation between coparenting and children’s social skills, such that coparenting was positively associated with social skills when mothers were coparenting with the child’s biological father, and negatively associated when mothers were coparenting with another partner. Furthermore, when simple bivariate correlations were used to examine associations between variables, both relationship quality and coparenting were significantly associated with children’s social skills when mothers rated the biological father, but not when mothers rated a new partner, indicating the relationship between the biological mother and father is more strongly associated with the child’s social skills than the relationship between a mother and a new partner. Clinical implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research are discussed.
Degree:
Doctor of Clinical Psychology
Level:
Doctoral
Discipline:
Psychology
Restrictions on Access:
Author has given permission to make this work available online to Loyola Notre Dame Library basic constituency.
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Identifier:
AmentKA-17
