Coparenting, mental health, and the pursuit of dignity: A systems-level analysis of refugee father-mother narratives
Authors: Qusai Khraisha, Lama Sawalha, Kristin Hadfield, Majd Al-Soleiti, Rana Dajani, Catherine Panter-Brick
Citation:
Research on coparenting is virtually absent from the refugee literature, despite its importance for family systems, children's bio-behavioural and emotional development, and intergenerational responses to social change. In 2022, we conducted 30 semi-structured interviews with Syrian refugees in Jordan and used thematic analysis to examine how fathers and mothers (n = 15 dyads) enacted parenting together. We identified four approaches characterising how couples navigated coparenting interactions, family cohesion, and intergenerational change. These were negotiation, mirroring, anchoring, and transformation. Specifically, Syrian couples negotiated how to balance responsibilities, sought emotions and behaviours that reflected calm and respect, prioritised family togetherness over education or resettlement opportunities, and, strikingly, adopted gentler parenting approaches to transform intergenerational experiences. Underpinning these four themes were efforts to uphold family dignity. Syrians described themselves as ordinary parents, eschewing the label of refugee parents and building a normal life for their families after war and displacement. Our thematic analysis offers methodological and conceptual advances in exemplifying how to capture a dyadic understanding of coparenting and why refugees strive to parent in ways that sustain mental health and dignity. This systems-level analysis of coparenting in dignity is specifically relevant to strengthening the processes of family-level communication and to designing integrated programs that support caregiving, wellness, and family unity. Our findings lay the groundwork for developing a relational, agentic model of family caregiving systems in the context of precarity and forced displacement.