Overall, marital dissatisfaction was associated with less warm and sensitive parenting, cross-sectionally and longitudinally for both mothers and fathers. These findings provide support for the `spillover hypothesis' in that negative mood, affect or behavior experienced in the marital relationship transfers to the parent–child relationship. The decreased satisfaction parents experience shifts to the parent–child relationship, resulting in inconsistent discipline strategies and less optimal parenting techniques (Easterbrooks & Emde, 1988). Interestingly, previous research has found a positive association between marital interaction and parental involvement when children were 3 months and 9 months old for fathers, but not for mothers (Belsky et al., 1984). Consistent with these findings, in the current study marital satisfaction was associated with warm/sensitive parenting at each time point (12, 24, and 36 months of child age) for fathers. However, for mothers marital satisfaction was associated with warm/sensitive parenting only at the 24 and 36 month assessments. This suggests that the marital relationship may become more relevant for parenting for mothers as children get older and the developmental demands placed on parents increase. During such times, additional partner support
