Mothers’ and Fathers’ Sensitive Parenting and Mother–Father–Child Family Alliance During Triadic Interactions

Abstract

Observing parent–child dyadic interactions has helped researchers understand how maternal and paternal parenting contributes to child development, whereas the study of mother–father–child triads has documented the role of family-level relations. Dyadic and triadic interactions have rarely been observed, however, within the same families in a single study. This study aimed to investigate how the quality of parenting, in terms of parental sensitivity, influenced or was influenced by the quality of family alliance (FA), with repeated measures at 3 (T1), 9 (T2), and 18 months postpartum (T3). Results showed that sensitivity was greater in cooperative FAs and improved over time, with no difference between mothers and fathers. Moreover, both parents’ sensitivity was a key determinant for reaching a cooperative FA at T1, but its importance decreased later in the postpartum period. These findings stress the need to study parent–child relations in different contexts.