Emotion regulation, parental stress and family functioning: Families of children with disabilities vs normative families.
Supportive dyadic coping is the best lever we have to lower parent stress and couple conflict in families of children with disabilities.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Efstratopoulou et al. (2023) asked two groups of parents to fill out surveys. One group had children with disabilities. The other group had children without disabilities.
The surveys measured parental stress, how happy couples felt, and how often they argued. They also asked how much moms and dads back each other up when life gets hard.
What they found
Parents of kids with disabilities said they feel more stress and fight more with their partner. They also felt less happy in their relationship.
When these parents still backed each other up, the stress and fights dropped a lot. This buffer worked better for them than for the other group.
How this fits with other research
Older studies saw the same stress gap. Sivberg (2002) and Pisula et al. (2010) both found parents of children with autism feel more strain and use weaker coping styles. Maria’s team widens the lens to any disability and points to dyadic coping as the key fix.
Bigby et al. (2009) showed that positive reappraisal lowers stress in Down syndrome families. Maria adds a couple-level twist: it’s not just how you think, but how you and your partner cope together that counts.
Tyler et al. (2021) found kids with autism get more upset when parents argue. Maria shows the flip side: when parents unite, conflict falls and kids likely feel safer.
Why it matters
You can add “partner back-up” skills to any parent training. Teach moms and dads to share the load, speak kindly, and problem-solve as a team. A short daily check-in or shared praise moment can cut stress and shield the whole family.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Childhood disability is a major challenge for families. The aim of the present study was to explore differences between families of children with disabilities and normative families, analyzing the association of emotion dysregulation with relationship satisfaction, through parental stress and interparental conflict, using supportive dyadic coping by oneself (SDCO) as a moderator. For a sample of 445 Romanian parents, results showed higher levels of parental stress and interparental conflict and lower relationship satisfaction in families of children with disabilities compared to normative families, as well as a direct relationship between parental stress and relationship satisfaction and a stronger direct effect for SDCO with relationship satisfaction. For normative families, SDCO moderated the relationship between emotion dysregulation and parental stress, and for families of children with disabilities SDCO interacted on the link between emotion dysregulation and relationship satisfaction. Only families of children with disabilities presented indirect effects between emotion dysregulation and relationship satisfaction through parental stress, moderated by SDCO. These effects increased in impact as the use of SDCO was higher. Conditional indirect effects by SDCO were also found for the link between emotion dysregulation and relationship satisfaction through interparental conflict for both families, with this effect being higher in families of children with disabilities. These findings highlight the need to implement specific programs that can adjust to the needs of these families, strengthening parents' emotional competencies, as well as stress and conflict management abilities.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2023 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2023.104548