Abstract:

Co-parenting is a complex construct that is different from parenting, which focus on the ways that caregivers work together in their roles as parents. Majority of studies suggest that co-parenting have significant influence on child adjustment, directly or indirectly, by the Parent-Child relationship system and marriage relationship system. However, there is no consensus among the researchers about the definition of co-parenting and its evaluation system. Future studies should focus on the basic theory of parenting (such as co- parenting internal structure, evaluation system, etc. ) issues and the co-parenting’s mechanism on child adjustment, as well as combining with the common characteristics of some special types of family as children left home, divorce family, grandparents raising families, families of prisoners.

Key words: co-parenting, child adjustment, family system theory, Parent-Child relationship system, marriage relationship system