Parenting stress and family relationships: analysis of modern research

Parenting stress (PS) originates within the family, however, it has not been sufficiently studied in the context of the family system, which is a significant problem for understanding the mechanisms of MS influence within it. In this regard, the purpose of this work is to analyze PS research in relation to family relationships: partnership, parent-child relationship, and relationships with parents in childhood. The result of the analysis of partnerships and PS found that a positive assessment of the quality of one's marriage and satisfaction with it are associated with lower PS levels. Parents with a low level of quality of relationships with a partner (support) had high rates of PS, and this stability persists as the child grows up. The study of PS and the phenomenon of co-parenting, which includes: consistency and support in educational tactics, as well as involvement in the upbringing of both parents, showed their mutual influence: on the one hand, co-parenting mitigates the impact of PS on the quality of upbringing, child-parent relations and the level of partner's PS, and on the other, PS influences co-parenting and the level of conflict between parents. An analysis of PS and child-parent relations (parental attitudes and parenting style, interaction, type of attachment) found that parents with high rates of PS are more likely to have negative parental attitudes. PS has a negative impact on the parenting strategies of a parent, and dysfunctional interaction in the parent-child dyad, as well as the attachment style of parents (anxious and avoidant), contribute to the strengthening of PS. An analysis of the influence of the parental family on the level of PS experienced demonstrates that negative educational experiences from the parental family are transferred to the existing one, reinforcing violations of educational strategies. Thus, we can talk, on the one hand, about the protective role of positive family functioning for the occurrence of PS, and on the other, about the negative impact of PS on all aspects of family relations, both partner and parent-child.