Incarcerated Coparenting Over Time: Understanding the Mediating Role of Fathers’ Resilience in Mitigating Barriers Within Parent–Child Relationships

Abstract

Despite the United States’ high incarceration rate, limited research has been done on father–child relationships and fathers’ relationships with their focal child’s mother, the risk factors that can sabotage them, and the protective mechanisms that can effectively alleviate the negative consequences of these adversities. Using data from the Multi-site Family Study on Incarceration, Parenting, and Partnering, this study evaluated these associations using family resilience theory. A total of 1,796 fathers were surveyed across five states. The effects of challenges with their selected child on fathers’ relationships with their partners were assessed using a structural equation model, which was mediated by fathers’ parenting attitudes and warmth. The analysis considered covariates that may influence the mediating and outcome variables. Fathers’ reported parenting attitudes had a negative correlation with fathers’ warmth toward their focal child because fathers’ reported challenges with their focus child varied between models at baseline. Accounting for the four covariates in the path between fathers’ reported challenges with their focal child and fathers’ attitude about parenting, fathers’ warmth had a direct positive effect over the relationship with the focal child’s mother. More practice-based scholarship, as well as more clinical research on incarcerated father–child connections and coparenting relationships are needed to guide future policy and research.