A coparentalidade e o apoio social, em situação de rutura conjugal e o ajustamento dos filhos
: estudo com famílias multidesafiadas, com filhos em idade pré-escolar

  • Ana Rita Ventura Verças (Student)

Student thesis: Master's Thesis

Abstract

The main objective of this mixed research is to understand the relationship between coparenting and social support in the adjustment of children in situations of marital dissolution multi-challenged families. Ninety eight preschool children and 78 parents (48 mothers and 30 fathers) were recruited in an IPSS of Cascais and took part in the quantitative study. The research protocol consisted of a sociodemographic questionnaire, the questionnaire of coparenting (Margolin et al., 2001), the Medical Outcomes Study Social Support Survey (MOS-SSS; (Sherbourne & Stewart, 1991) and the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman, 1997). In a second step, a sub-group of 10 mothers, from the original sample, were selected for the qualitative study. This sub-group answered to a semistructured interview and completed the "convoy model" scheme (Kahn & Antonuci, 1980). The results from both studies suggest an influence of coparenting and social support in the child adjustment to divorce. Children whose parents have higher levels of conflict have greater difficulty, compared with children whose parents have higher levels of cooperation and communication. Mothers whose support networks are larger and provide more diverse support have higher levels of cooperation, and their children have no difficulties, according to the SDQ. It was noticed that the factors related to child adjustment to divorce or parental separation are various and their impact is visible when occurring together. Maternal age proved to be a factor influencing the coparenting and child adjustment, in the sense that mothers with more than 30 years have higher levels of cooperation and communication with the ex-spouse, compared to mothers under 30 years. Mother’s economic difficulties, father’s financial support and support during leisure time, combined with the time that the mother spends with the child are some of the important indicators for the child's adjustment to separation/divorce. Some guidelines were defined about social and family mediation in poverty contexts.
Date of AwardOct 2012
Original languagePortuguese
Awarding Institution
  • Universidade Católica Portuguesa
SupervisorAna Isabel Pereira (Supervisor) & Rita Francisco (Supervisor)

Keywords

  • Marital dissolution
  • Divorce
  • Parental separation
  • Multi-challenged Families
  • Coparenting
  • Social support
  • Children´s adjustment
  • Preschool children

Designation

  • Mestrado em Ciências da Família

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