Development of a Scale for Measuring Co-Parenting and Gatekeeping After Divorce and Investigation of Effects of Parental Divorce on Children's Adjustment

Abstract

The purposes of the present study were to develop a scale for measuring co-parenting and gatekeeping after divorce (CGD), to examine the reliability and validity of the scale, and to investigate effects of post-divorce parental co-parenting and gatekeeping on children's adjustment. The participants (N132) were men and women who had been divorced in the past 9 years. The results indicated that the post-divorce co-parenting and gatekeeping scale had a certain degree of reliability, validity, and configural invariance between custodial parents and non-custodial parents. In addition, a hypothetical model, tested on 166 divorced mothers who were living with their children (ages 2 to 17 years), suggested that conflicting co-parenting was correlated with "total difficulty" on the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and cooperative co-parenting; on the other hand, conflicting co-parenting was not correlated directly with scores on the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire, and facilitative gatekeeping was correlated with "total difficulty" scores on the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire only for participants in the group that included a high reported level of paternal violence prior to the separation. Implications for co-parenting and parent-child relationships following divorce and psychoeducational programs for parents are discussed.