Coparenting: Parents' Team-Work in Child Rearing

Coparenting is a multidimensional construct which describes parents' collaboration in child rearing. Since the 1980's, coparenting became an important field of research in American developmental psychology. This article summarizes different conceptualizations of coparenting and integrates them in a coparenting framework which includes the dimensions "cooperation", "conflict", "undermining" and "triangulation". Furthermore, this paper summarizes methods for assessing coparenting, current research findings about the relation between coparenting, marriage quality, parenting style, and parents' characteristics, as well as the impact of coparenting on the social and emotional adjustment of children and adolescents. Conclusions are stated regarding the need for further conceptual and empirical work, as well as regarding practical implications of research on coparenting.