Parent-grandparent coparenting and young children’s adjustment in Chinese immigrant families in New Zealand

Abstract

The thesis aimed to provide insight into parent-grandparent coparenting relationships in Chinese immigrant families in New Zealand, as well as to examine relationships between parent-grandparent coparenting relationships and young children’s (aged 3 to 5 years old) adjustment, using a mix-method design. Forty-three parents and 41 grandparents from 43 families each completed a questionnaire about their parenting practices and parent/grandparent parental teamwork on a modified version of the Parenting and Family Adjustment Scale (PAFAS; Guo et al., 2017). Each participant also rated their child/grandchild’s behavioural and emotional adjustment problems on a modified version of the Child Adjustment and Parental Efficacy Scale (CAPES; Guo et al., 2018). Results showed that in coparenting dyads, parents reported significantly higher levels of child behaviour problems than grandparents. Parents perceived significantly more disagreements in the coparenting relationship than grandparents, whereas grandparents reported significantly higher levels of dysfunctional parenting practices and inconsistent parenting practices than parents. Grandparent-reported child’s adjustment problems (including behavioural and emotional problems) were associated with grandparent-reported parental teamwork problems and dysfunctional parenting practices. Also, parent-reported child’s emotional problems were associated with parent- and grandparent-reported dysfunctional parenting practices. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 14 parents and eight grandparents (seven of them were coparenting dyads), which provided in-depth insight into parents’ and grandparents’ perspectives of their coparenting roles, child-rearing strategies, and management of child-rearing disagreements in Chinese immigrant parent-grandparent coparenting families. This is the first known study with an immigrant Chinese sample that has collected parenting and child adjustment data from both the parents and grandparents in coparenting dyads. The thesis identified some implications of the findings for parenting and ii family support services for Chinese immigrant families. The finding of a relationship between grandparents’ dysfunctional parenting practices and child adjustment problems, suggests that involving grandparents in parenting programmes, such as the Grandparent Triple P Program, may help to reduce the behaviour problems in Chinese immigrant children.