Assessing coparenting in families of school-age children: Validation of the Coparenting and Family Rating System.

Studied (1) the psychometric properties of an observational co-parenting measure and (2) the relationship between co-parenting and the adjustment of school-age children. Ss were 67 couples in the US with a 1st-born, 7-11 yr old child. Family interactions during unstructured family play in a laboratory setting were coded with the Coparenting and Family Rating System (CFRS; J. P. McHale et al, 2000). Three self-report measures of marital adjustment, the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL), and the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale were administered. For boys, the CFRS measure Hostility-Competitiveness correlated with anxiety (Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale) and with mother-reported internalizing, externalizing, and overall problems (CBCL). For girls, the CFRS measure Parenting Discrepancy correlated with mother-reported internalizing (CBCL). The possibility of sex differences in co-parenting-adjustment links is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)