Aligning over the child: Parenting alliance mediates the association of autism spectrum disorder atypicality with parenting stress

Children's symptoms of autism are robustly linked to diminished parent well-being and relationship distress, however they are less clearly linked to other aspects of family development. We focused on child atypical symptoms (i.e., behavioral stereotypies) and investigated relations to parental stress and the parenting alliance. We verified that relations between atypicality and parenting stress were partially mediated by a child-focused aspect of the parenting alliance. These results suggested that parents of highly atypical children reported less stress than parents of children with low levels of these behaviors, an effect that acted through an assessment of the parenting partner as highly involved with the child. However, parents with highly atypical children did not report a similarly better self-focused parenting alliance, indicating that direct emotional support from the partner did not differ between the groups. We discuss the possibility that, among parents who stay together in the face of severe child disability, enhanced perceptions of parenting are not uncommon.

► Parents who are highly stressed report low parenting alliance.
► Parenting alliance mediates the relationship between child atypicality and parenting stress.
► Parents reporting high child atypicality also report significantly higher parenting alliance.
► How much stress is alleviated by having a supporting partner is still unknown.