Links among coparenting quality, parental gentle guidance, and toddlers’ social emotional competencies: Testing direct, mediational, and moderational models

Abstract

The present study examined three hypothesized models that describe associations among coparenting quality (as perceived by both parents), parents’ gentle guidance, and toddlers’ social emotional competencies: (a) direct associations; (b) mediational associations (coparenting quality is associated with toddlers’ social emotional competencies through individual parents’ gentle guidance); and (c) moderational associations (co-parenting quality moderates the relations between parents’ gentle guidance and toddlers’ social emotional competencies). Sixty-seven mostly middle-class, two-parent families with toddlers were observed in a laboratory setting. Parents completed a questionnaire describing their perceived coparenting quality and their children’s social emotional competencies. As hypothesized, there was evidence for a mediational association of coparenting quality with toddlers’ social emotional competencies through mothers’ gentle guidance but not fathers’ gentle guidance. The direct and moderational models of associations between coparenting quality and children’s social emotional competencies were not supported by the data.