Changes in Relationship Skills and Parenting Stress Among Vulnerable Couples Participating in Couple Relationship Education Before Versus During the COVID-19 Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic marked sudden changes for many parenting couples that heightened levels of parenting stress. A strong couple relationship can serve as a protective buffer against parenting stress, especially during acute stress resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Couple relationship education (CRE) teaches couple relationship skills (CRS) that can promote positive couple functioning and, in turn, lower levels of parenting stress. Guided by the Vulnerability-Stress-Adaptation model and the spillover hypothesis, multigroup latent growth curve modeling (LGCM) was used to compare trajectories of change in CRS and parenting stress for 859 parents receiving child welfare services who attended CRE programming prior to the COVID-19 pandemic versus 144 parents who attended CRE during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although both samples reported significant positive change in CRS, only the pre-COVID sample showed significant declines in parenting stress over time. Additionally, findings showed a significant association between increases in CRS and a decrease in parenting stress in the pre-COVID sample only. These findings suggest that couples who attend CRE may experience benefits in their couple relationship that spillover to their roles as parents. However, the association between positive changes in CRS and decreases in parenting stress may not be as strong when parents are experiencing an acute stressor (i.e., pandemic-related stressors).