Assessing children’s perceptions of the co-parenting relationship: preliminary validity of an adapted version of the co-parenting relationship scale

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This study aims to preliminarily validate the Italian version of the Coparenting Relationship Scale for Children (CRS-C) with 141 mothers, 141 fathers, and 141 children (48.6% males) aged 8–14 years. We tested the factorial structure of the CRS-C, which included five factors (support, endorsement, undermining, agreement, and exposure to conflict), and the convergent validity of the CRS-C considering the following measures: CRS for Parents, Children’s Perceptions of Interparental Conflict Scale, Security in the Interparental Subsystem, and the Child Behaviour Checklist. Finally, we investigated which dimension of CRS-C could impact the children’s perceptions when exposed to interparental conflict and their internalizing and externalizing behaviours. Results showed that the 5-factor model of the CRS-C fitted the data adequately. A good convergent validity between CRS-C and the measures explored was achieved. Moreover, some distinct negative and positive dimensions of CRS-C were predictors of children’s appraisals and behaviours.