Marital interaction, family organization, and differences in parenting behavior: Explaining variations across family interaction contexts

Family systems theories remind us that, in two-parent families, children en counter their parents in multiple family configurations, including parent-c hild dyads and mother-father-child triads, or whole families. There are, ho wever, relatively few empirical investigations of differences in parenting behavior which tend to emerge when a dyad is transformed into a whole famil y unit. Using a sample of 82 families with a kindergarten-age child, the pr esent study offers support to earlier studies reporting that mothers' and f athers' parenting behavior differs when observed in dyadic and whole family interaction sessions. The present study then turns to examining explanatio ns for these differences in parenting behavior. Limited support was found f or the hypothesis that observations of marital interaction are associated w ith differences in parenting behavior across family interaction contexts. F amily level assessment of adaptive organization was found to explain differ ences in fathers' parenting in the dyad and when the entire family is toget her, but not differences in mothers' parenting behavior. The clinical and m ethodological implications of these findings are discussed.