Coparenting A Conceptual and Clinical Examination of Family Systems

Strictly defined, "co-parenting" is a relationship in which the biological or adoptive parents are not in a marriage, cohabitation, or sexual relationship with each other. Co-parents may be members of the extended family, divorced or foster parents, or other specialized caregivers. The editors of this volume bring together a wide range of research to explore the various caregiving arrangements and dimensions that the term comprises. Part I of Co-Parenting examines the concepts, theories, and empirical research underlying this dynamic socialization force characteristic of all family systems. Part II explores clinical applications-the various assessments and interventions that promote co-parenting. The volume concludes with policy implications for human services agencies, courts, and educational systems to encourage good co-parenting as a powerful support for at-risk children's social, emotional, and behavioral needs.

James P. McHale, PhD, is chair of the Psychology Department at the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg. He received his doctoral degree in clinical psychology from the University of California, Berkeley, and trained as a family therapist in both Palo Alto, California, and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
 
His research studies of early infant, child, and family adjustment, grant-supported by the National Institutes of Health since 1996, have investigated the nature of children's interpersonal experiences in their families. His theoretical contributions have sought to instigate fresh, inclusive dialogues about how adults in diverse family systems collaborate to support children's care and upbringing.
 
In 2004, Dr. McHale's Decade of Behavior Lecture for the World Association for Infant Mental Health, "When Infants Grow Up in Multiperson Relationship Systems" (published in Infant Mental Health Journal, 2007), championed a paradigm shift in the field of infant mental health, and in 2007 his book Charting the Bumpy Road of Coparenthood received the Irving B. Harris National Book Award of the Zero-to-Three Press.
 
Professionally, he has provided coparenting trainings for the judiciary, physicians, child care professionals, child welfare advocates and professionals, Healthy Start and Early Head Start care coordinators, foster parents, postdivorce parenting coordinators, statewide fatherhood programs, and other contingents that serve infants and toddlers.
 
Dr. McHale directs the University of South Florida, St. Petersburg's Family Study Center and is a member of the boards of directors for the Florida Association for Infant Mental Health and the Healthy Start Coalition of Pinellas, Inc.
 
Kristin M. Lindahl, PhD, is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Miami, Florida. She received her doctoral degree in clinical psychology, specializing in child clinical psychology, from the University of Denver, Colorado. After completing her internship at Children's Hospital Boston, she accepted a faculty position at the University of Miami, which she has held since 1992.
 
Her research focuses on systemic family functioning and the impact of difficulties in marital and parent–child subsystems, as well as the whole family, on child adaptation. She has been a principal investigator or coprincipal investigator on several National Institute of Mental Health-funded studies examining how family subsystems are interrelated, including how marital conflict is related to family cohesion and parenting strategies, and the role of family functioning on parent and child adaptation to a son or daughter's disclosure of gay or lesbian identity.
 
She has published and presented widely on topics related to coparenting, observational coding of family interactions, and dyadic and triadic family dynamics as they relate to child functioning.