Fathers' involvement in their children's healthcare.

Fathers' involvement in the routine healthcare of young children was investigated, and fathers' relative participation in two tasks, staying home with a sick child and taking the child to the doctor or dentist, was assessed. The relationships between fathers' involvement in healthcare and several other measures, including mothers' employment status, fathers' attitudes toward women's rights and roles, the amount of time fathers spent at work, and fathers' involvement in housework, were also examined. The subjects were 50 fathers of young children in intact, White, middle-class families. Both staying home with a sick child and taking a child to the doctor or dentist were usually performed by mothers, but when mothers were employed, fathers were significantly more involved, regardless of the child's sex. Staying home with a sick child and taking a child to the doctor or dentist were positively related to fathers' involvement in housework. Fathers' staying home with a sick child was significantly correlated with fewer hours at work and liberal attitudes toward women's rights and roles; these variables were not related to taking a child to the doctor or dentist. Positive correlations between fathers' involvement in housework and staying home with a sick child and taking a child to the doctor or dentist suggests that fathers' involvement in childcare is viewed as an aspect of family work.     

Maternal employment and development of the father-infant relationship in the first year.

This study investigated links between maternal employment and fathers' parenting quality when their infants were 4 and 12 months old. Sixty-three fathers were videotaped interacting with their infants and completed questionnaires regarding their involvement in caregiving, parenting stress, and marital quality, and mothers reported on children's temperament. Fathers whose wives either did not work outside the home or worked part time were more sensitive and responsive to their children when they were more involved in caregiving; men whose wives worked full time exhibited more negative affect and behavior when they participated more in child care. Men whose wives were not employed also were more positive in their interactions when they were happier with their marriage, whereas men whose wives worked either part time or full time exhibited a negative relation between parenting behavior and marital quality. Maternal work circumstances were not related to fathers' parenting stress; rather, marital quality and child temperament predicted parenting stress at 4 and 12 months for all fathers.     

Factors Associated with Perceived Paternal Involvement in Childrearing

Interest in paternal involvement in child care has increased as the demands on the time and resources of maternal caretakers have increased. The purpose of the present study was to examine variables associated with perceived paternal involvement in child care. Participants were 137 (90 European American and 47 African American) fathers of children between the ages of 2 and 6. Hierarchical multiple regression and analyses of variance indicated that ethnicity, gender role orientation, and perceived skill at child care were associated with higher levels of perceived paternal engagement in and responsibility for child care. Partners' work status was associated with perceived paternal responsibility for, but not engagement in child care. Data suggest that fathers' perceptions of their abilities, gender role, and family requirements may combine to influence child care involvement.     

Gender and Generativity Issues in Parenting: Do Fathers Benefit More Than Mothers From Involvement in Child Care Activities?

This study explored fatherhood from an Eriksonian developmental perspective and proposed parenting as a key stimulus for fathers' societal generativity. The aims of the study were to examine (1) whether parental generativity (greater time spent in child care activities and higher levels of psychological involvement in the role of parenting) was related to higher levels of societal generativity in fathers, (2) which kinds of child care activities were related to the development of societal generativity in fathers, and (3) whether the same relationships applied to mothers. A total of 134, predominantly White, middle class, Australian cohabiting parents completed questionnaires. Results indicated that parental generativity was related to fathers' societal generativity, but not to mothers. However, particular child care activities that promoted children's social–emotional development were related to fathers' societal generativity, whereas activities that promoted children's academic–intellectual development were related to mothers' societal generativity.     

Mothers' and fathers' support for child autonomy and early school achievement

Data were analyzed from 641 children and their families in the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development to test the hypotheses that in the early school years, mothers' and fathers' sensitive support for autonomy in observed parent-child interactions would each make unique predictions to children's reading and math achievement at Grade 3 (controlling for demographic variables), children's reading and math abilities at 54 months, and children's level of effortful control at 54 months and that these associations would be mediated by the level of and changes over time in children's observed self-reliance in the classroom from Grades 1 through 3. The authors found that mothers' and fathers' support for autonomy were significantly and uniquely associated with children's Grade 3 reading and math achievement with the above controls, but only for boys. For boys, the effect of mothers' support for child autonomy was mediated by higher self-reliance at Grade 1 and of fathers' support for child autonomy by greater increases in self-reliance from Grades 1 through 3.     

After-school activities and the development of low-income urban children: a longitudinal study.

After-school activities of 194 African American and White children from low-income households were studied from 3rd to 5th grade to determine relations with (a) child, family, and contextual variables and (b) children's adjustment over time. Girls were more likely to engage in academic activities and socializing, whereas boys were more likely to play coached sports. Children who attended after-school programs spent more time on academic and extracurricular activities, whereas children in informal care settings spent more time watching TV and hanging out. Evidence of transactional relations between after-school activities and child adjustment was found. Time spent in activities between 3rd and 5th grades was related to children's adjustment in 5th grade. In addition, child adjustment measured in 3rd grade was associated with time in different activities in 5th grade.     

Division of household labor and child care in dual-earner African-American families with infants

This study examined 63 middle- to lower-middle income dual-earner African-American mothers' and fathers' involvement in child care with their infant and in household work, and the degree of support they received for child care. Although analysis revealed gender-differentiated patterns of involvement in care giving and household work along traditional lines, African-American fathers were far from being distant or uninvolved in these activities. Father involvement in child care and household activities did not vary as a function of whether mothers worked full time or part time. The data are discussed with respect to possible gender role convergence in child care and household work in African-American families.     

父亲参与对儿童延迟满足能力的影响：儿童性别的调节作用

以92名35~74个月的健康儿童为被试,采用选择等待范式测查儿童的自我延迟满足能力,通过父亲参与问卷和母亲参与教养问卷测查儿童父母的参与程度,考察控制母亲参与和儿童年龄的情况下,父亲参与对儿童延迟满足能力的影响以及儿童性别在其中的调节作用。结果表明：（1）父亲参与的互动性、可及性、责任性均能显著正向预测儿童的延迟满足能力;（2）儿童性别可以调节父亲参与的互动性及责任性与儿童延迟满足能力的关系。父亲参与的互动性和责任性可以显著预测男童的延迟满足能力,但均不能预测女童的延迟满足能力。     

Custodial mothers' perceptions of visitation and payment of child support by noncustodial fathers in families with low and high levels of preseparation interparent conflict

The purposes of this study were (a) to compare families with low (n = 47) and high (n = 44) levels of preseparation interparent conflict on mothers' report of paternal involvement (frequency, regularity, and length of visitation as well as regular payment of child support), children's adjustment, and mothers' level of stress; (b) to intercorrelate the four dimensions of paternal involvement; and (c) to relate the four dimensions of paternal involvement to children's age, children's gender, length of parental separation, children's adjustment, mothers' stress, paternal investment in the children, degree of environmental change, and children's level of interpersonal understanding. Children's mean age was 10.24 years, and parents had been separated a mean of 13.15 months. Compared to fathers in low-conflict families, fathers in high-conflict families visited less regularly and were less regular in their payment of child support. Mothers reported more adjustment problems for children in high-conflict families. All four dimensions of paternal involvement were intercorrelated only for high-conflict families. For both low- and high-conflict families, paternal involvement was related to paternal investment in the child but was unrelated to children's age, children's gender, and length of separation. Paternal involvement was most frequently related to children's adjustment in high-conflict families. For low-conflict families, paternal involvement was related low environmental change and children's well-developed interpersonal understanding skills.     

Parental involvement, child temperament, and parents' work hours: Differential relations for mothers and fathers

This study examined how child temperament was related to parents' time spent accessible to and interacting with their 2-year-olds. Bivariate analyses indicated that both fathers and mothers spent more time with temperamentally challenging children than easier children on workdays, but fathers spent less time with challenging children than easier children on non-workdays. After accounting for work hours, some associations between temperament and fathers' workday involvement dropped to non-significance. For fathers, work hours also moderated the relation between irregular temperament and workday play. For mothers, work hours moderated the relation between both difficult and irregular temperament and workday interaction. Mothers also spent more time with girls (but not boys) who were temperamentally irregular. Results speak to the influence of child temperament on parenting behavior, and the differential construction of parenting roles as a function of child characteristics and patterns of work.     

Maternal gatekeeping, coparenting quality, and fathering behavior in families with infants

The present study examined the role of maternal gatekeeping behavior in relation to fathers' relative involvement and competence in child care in 97 families with infant children. Parents' beliefs about fathers' roles were assessed prior to their infant's birth. Parents' perceptions of maternal gatekeeping behavior (encouragement and criticism) and coparenting relationship quality were assessed at 3.5 months postpartum. The authors assessed fathers' relative involvement and competence in child care using a combination of parent report and observational measures. Results suggest that even after accounting for parents' beliefs about the paternal role and the overall quality of the coparenting relationship, greater maternal encouragement was associated with higher parent-reported relative father involvement. Moreover, maternal encouragement mediated the association between coparenting quality and reported relative father involvement. With respect to fathers' observed behavior, fathers' beliefs and parents' perceptions of coparenting relationship quality were relevant only when mothers engaged in low levels of criticism and high levels of encouragement, respectively. These findings are consistent with the notion that mothers may shape father involvement through their roles as "gatekeepers."     

Effects of Parent’s Gender, Child’s Gender, and Parental Involvement on the Academic Achievement of Adolescents in Single Parent Families

We used a national database (Educational Longitudinal Study) to investigate the effects of parent’s gender, child’s gender, and parental involvement in school on the academic achievement of adolescents in single-parent families. A three way 2 × 2 × 2 (parent’s gender × child’s gender × parental involvement) MANCOVA was conducted with four student academic achievement indicators as dependent variables and SES as a covariate. The results indicated that parent gender and child gender interact with parent involvement to affect adolescents’ academic achievement differentially. Specifically, daughters who lived with highly involved single-fathers performed better academically than the other groups did. These findings suggest that researchers who study single-parents’ involvement in their adolescents’ academic achievement need to pay more attention to gender-specific effects.     

Spillover to triadic and dyadic systems in families with young children

Research has evidenced support for the spillover model, which asserts that parents' marital functioning influences their parenting and coparenting behavior in dyadic (mother-child and father-child) and triadic (mother-father-child) family contexts. However, few studies have simultaneously investigated the spillover model in both parenting and coparenting systems, preventing examination of whether spillover impacts both systems equally or differentially. Further, little research has examined whether quality of the marital system influences children's behavior toward their parents, as well as their parents' behavior, in dyadic interactions. We examined the spillover model using observational measures of parent and child behavior in parent-child dyadic interactions as well as coparenting in triadic interactions. We also explored parent and child gender differences in spillover effects. Participants were families with children aged 3 to 6 years (n = 149). Findings indicated that spillover occurs to multiple family systems, but the effects varied according to whose behavior (mother, father, child) was explored. In families of boys and girls, the marital system influenced warmth in triadic interactions, as well as fathers' responsiveness and children's responsiveness to mothers in dyadic interactions. Spillover effects were largely equivalent for girls and boys, but spillover to coparenting hostility in triadic interactions was limited to families raising girls. Parent gender also moderated associations between marital functioning and parent-child interactions: Spillover was significantly stronger for fathers' responsiveness (vs. mothers' responsiveness) and child responsiveness to mothers (vs. child responsiveness to fathers).     

Mothers' and fathers' depressive symptoms and conflict-resolution strategies in the marriage and children's externalizing and internalizing behaviors

The authors examined mothers' and fathers' avoidance and attacking conflict-resolution strategies in the marriage and their depressive symptoms as they related to children's externalizing and internalizing behaviors. A nonclinical community sample of 51 families and their children's 1st-grade teachers (N = 41) participated. Both mothers and teachers completed a behavior-problem checklist in order to evaluate the incidence of internalizing and externalizing behaviors in the children. Correlational statistics revealed significant associations between parents' avoidance and attacking strategies and their depressive symptoms. Also, parents' use of avoidance was related to more internalizing behaviors in the children. When hierarchical regression analyses were used to examine the contributions of the parents' attributes to children's externalizing and internalizing behaviors, mothers' avoidance and an interaction between mothers' and fathers' avoidance were identified as significant predictors of children's internalizing behaviors.     

Challenging behaviors in young children: the father's role

In this study, the authors examined the parenting practices, developmental expectations, and stress levels of 136 fathers and the challenging and prosocial behaviors of their 1- to 5-year-old children. In addition, the authors systematically addressed fathers' qualitative concerns about their parenting. The authors divided the participants into 4 groups and controlled for family socioeconomic status (SES) and the focus child's gender. Results showed a significantly higher use of corporal and verbal punishment and parenting stress among lower income fathers. Secondary analyses demonstrated a significant effect of paternal disciplinary practices that emphasized the frequent use of corporal and verbal punishment on child behavior problems, regardless of SES level. On a positive note, fathers from both lower and higher SES groups had reasonable developmental expectations for their boys and girls, and they reported similar frequencies of their children's prosocial behavior. The authors discuss the need for early parent education programs that include fathers and that teach specific strategies to address child behavior problems.     

Relationships Among Paternal Involvement and Young Children's Perceived Self-Competence and Behavioral Problems

We examined the relationships of father involvement to young children's perceived self-competence and fathers' and mothers' perceptions of their children's internalizing and externalizing behavioral problems. The results indicated that mothers in families in which father involvement is high may have a more positive outlook regarding their child's behavior than do mothers in families in which father involvement is low. Fathers who were highly involved indicated their children have more behavior problems than fathers who were not highly involved. High father involvement was associated with increased children's feelings of paternal acceptance, a factor that plays a role in the development of self-concept and esteem.     

父亲教养态度与儿童在4～7岁间的问题行为和学校适应

对54名儿童在4岁和7岁时的问题行为及其父亲的教养态度进行追踪研究,在儿童7岁时,根据教师报告考察其学校适应情况。结果发现：父亲的过分关心能显著预测男孩的外显和内隐问题行为;父亲的拒绝和控制能显著预测儿童在学校中的助人行为;从4岁到7岁．父亲的教养态度既有稳定性,又有一定的变化;父亲对待男孩和女孩的教养态度差异显著。     

The influence of parents and family context on children's involvement in household tasks

To determine the relative impact of a number of family variables on children's performance of gender-typed household tasks, this study took account of the gender of the child, the gender of a sibling within the same age range (8–14 years), whether a first or second child and three parental variables: the degree of encouragement given to perform masculineand femininetasks, parental involvement in the same tasks, and parents' general egalitarianism. The sample consisted of 191 white, mainly Anglo Australian two-parent families, with the two oldest children in a boy—boy, girl—girl, boy—girl, or girl—boy sequence. To check on the robustness of effects, measures were taken on two occasions, on average 16 months apart. Among the family context variables, the gender of the child was the strongest contributing variable, with girls doing more feminine tasks than boys and boys doing more masculine tasks than girls. There was limited support for the proposition that first children do more housework than second children of the same gender, while the results for gender of sibling were small and inconsistent. Among the parental variables, encouragement had strong positive effects for feminine tasks (i.e., more encouragement by parents corresponded to more involvement by children). In contrast, parental involvement in the same tasks (modeling) and parental egalitarianism predicted only the performance of masculine tasks, and the direction of the effects was mostly negative (e.g., the more a father was involved in masculine tasks, the less a child did of those tasks). The results point to involvement in gender-typed activities being influenced by multiple factors, with parental encouragement and gender of child being most prominent among these. They also point to the value of sampling on more than one occasion and of considering separately the performance of feminine and masculine tasks. This research was financially supported by the Australian Research Council. We are happy to acknowledge that support, together with the essential assistance of the Department of Education and the many parents and children who participated in the study.     

城市父亲参与儿童教养的特点及其与性别角色的关系

以400名3到7岁城市儿童的父亲为被试,考察父亲参与教养的基本特点及其与性别角色的关系.结果发现,小学一年级儿童的父亲对子女的规则约束显著多于幼儿园小班和中班儿童父亲,父亲参与教养水平不存在儿童性别的显著差异.双性化的父亲对儿童的互动监督、规则约束、情感表达、间接支持、学业鼓励均显著多于其他性别角色的父亲;男性化的父亲对儿童的规则约束显著多于女性化的父亲;女性化的父亲在互动监督、情感表达、间接支持和学业鼓励方面均显著多于未分化的父亲.     

A comparison of fathers' and mothers' contributions in the prediction of academic performance of school-age children in Hong Kong

Asystematic study of the linkages between gender issues and parenting is made among Chinese families. This study examines sex differences in parenting attributes across fathers and mothers and towards sons and daughters, and compares the contributions of fathers and mothers to the prediction of academic performance across boys and girls. Four parenting attributes are included: nurturance, psychological control, parental involvement in education, and parental academic efficacy. Data were collected from 461 Chinese father-mother-child triads of children studying Grade 3 to 5 in Hong Kong. Findings of this study, based on multivariate analysis of variance, showed that parental roles followed traditional Chinese cultural expectations. Compared to the fathers, Chinese mothers of school-age children in Hong Kong were more loving and caring, more involved in children's education, and more efficacious in promoting children's academic performance. Results of hierarchical regression analysis examining the role of child's sex as a moderator showed cross-sex influence in parental contribution to academic performance with respect to parental psychological control and academic efficacy. Specifically, boys benefited more from maternal efficacy than girls did and they were also more hampered by mothers with high psychological control, while girls' academic performance was more enhanced by paternal academic efficacy than boys. A gender-balance approach that highlights the significance of gender in moderating parental contributions to academic performance was thus supported. Future research should continue to focus on psychological control and domain-specific parental attributes as potential sources of gender-linked parent-child associations. Investigations should also explore other cognitive and noncognitive domains of child outcome, different child age groups, as well as Chinese populations in various geographical regions.