Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Coparenting Support In The Context Of Difficult Children: Mother And Father Differences, Victoria J. Johnson, Dongho Choi, Lorey A. Wheeler, Patty X. Kuo

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

While parenting children with difficult behaviors can intensify stress within the entire family system, families may lean on other familial relationships to mitigate that stress. The coparenting relationship is known to play a key role within the family system for child outcomes and familial interactions, but it is not clear whether it eases the stress and challenge of raising a difficult child, nor how that plays out differently for mothers versus fathers. Ninety-six couples (89.7% married) parenting young children (Mean age = 3.22 years) were included in this study. Using cross-sectional and aggregated daily response data, actor–partner interdependence models were …

Coparenting Support In The Context Of Difficult Children: Mother And Father Differences, Victoria J. Johnson, Dongho Choi, Lorey A. Wheeler, Patty X. Kuo

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

While parenting children with difficult behaviors can intensify stress within the entire family system, families may lean on other familial relationships to mitigate that stress. The coparenting relationship is known to play a key role within the family system for child outcomes and familial interactions, but it is not clear whether it eases the stress and challenge of raising a difficult child, nor how that plays out differently for mothers versus fathers. Ninety-six couples (89.7% married) parenting young children (Mean age = 3.22 years) were included in this study. Using cross-sectional and aggregated daily response data, actor–partner interdependence models were …

Investigating Moderators Of Daily Marital To Parent–Child Spillover: Individual And Family Systems Approaches, Patty X. Kuo, Kejin Lee, Victoria J. Johnson, Emily J. Starr

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Objective: We tested whether cognitive reappraisal and coparenting quality moderate marital to parent–child spillover in mothers and fathers.

Background: The influence of marital relationship quality on parent–child relationships, referred to as the spillover effect, is well documented. Factors that may attenuate the occurrence of spillover, however, remain unclear. Cognitive reappraisal, an emotion regulation strategy that promotes the reframing of emotional situations as neutral or positive, and coparenting—the intermediate subsystem between the marital and parent–child relationships—may buffer the effects of marital to parent–child spillover.

Method: Using daily diary data from mother–father couples (N = 96) of young children (M_age = …

Adverse Childhood Experiences, Psychological Distress, And Fathering Behaviors, Kevin Shafer, Scott D. Easton

Faculty Publications

Objective

This study examines the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), internalized and externalized psychological distress, and six measures of parenting behavior among fathers in the United States.

Background

Prior research on ACEs and parenting has focused almost exclusively on mothers, specific types of childhood adversity, and the intergenerational transmission of abuse, neglect, and other traumatic experiences. This study extends the literature by considering ACEs in fathers, using a multidimensional measure of ACEs, and multiple measures of positive and negative fathering behavior.

Method

Using the ecological model of father involvement, this study is based on a national sample of more …

Fathers’ Experiences Of Feeding Their Extremely Preterm Infants In Family-Centred Neonatal Intensive Care: A Qualitative Study, Evalotte Mörelius, Sofia Brogren, Sandra Andersson, Siw Alehagen

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

Background:

Extremely preterm infants need advanced intensive care for survival and are usually not discharged before they reach the time of expected birth. In a family-centred neonatal intensive care unit both parents are involved at all levels of care including the feeding process. However, studies focusing on fathers in this situation are scarce. The purpose of this study was to explore the experiences of feeding extremely preterm infants in a neonatal intensive care unit from fathers’ perspectives.

Methods:

The study adopts a qualitative inductive method, reported according to the COREQ checklist. Seven fathers of extremely preterm infants (gestational age 24–27 …

Is One Secure Attachment Enough? Infant Cortisol Reactivity And The Security Of Infant-Mother And Infant-Father Attachments At The End Of The First Year, Patty X. Kuo, Ekjyot K. Saini, Elizabeth Tengelitsch, Brenda L. Volling

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Attachment security is theorized to shape stress reactivity, but extant work has failed to find consistent links between attachment security to mothers and infant cortisol reactivity. We examined family configurations of infant-mother and infant-father attachment security in relation to infant cortisol reactivity. One-year old infants (N = 180) participated in the Strange Situation with mothers and fathers in two counterbalanced lab visits, one month apart (12 and 13 months). Infants with secure attachments only to their fathers and not their mothers had higher cortisol levels than infants with a secure attachment to mother and also exhibited a blunted cortisol response …

Adult Attachment And Testosterone Reactivity: Fathers' Avoidance Predicts Changes In Testosterone During The Strange Situation Procedure, Robin S. Edelstein, Kristi Chin, Ekjyot K. Saini, Patty X. Kuo, Oliver C. Schultheiss, Brenda L. Volling

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

We assessed parents' testosterone reactivity to the Strange Situation Procedure (SSP), a moderately stressful parent-infant interaction task that pulls for parental nurturance and caregiving behavior. Parents (146 mothers, 154 fathers) interacted with their 1-year-old infants, and saliva samples were obtained pre- and post-task to assess changes in testosterone. We examined whether testosterone reactivity differed between mothers and fathers, the extent to which parents' characteristic approaches to closeness (i.e., adult attachment orientation) contributed to testosterone changes, and whether any influences of adult attachment orientation were independent of more general personality characteristics (i.e., the Big Five personality dimensions). Results revealed that mothers …

Gender Role Beliefs, Work-Family Conflict, And Father Involvement After The Birth Of A Second Child, Patty X. Kuo, Brenda L. Volling, Richard Gonzalez

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

A major task for parents during the transition to second-time parenthood is to help their firstborn adjust to their new roles as siblings. Increased father involvement has been theorized to be protective for firstborn adjustment. Fathers, however, are under increasing pressure to balance both work and family responsibilities. Here we evaluate fathers’ relative involvement in two-child families as a function of family structure, gender role beliefs, and work-family conflict in 222 dual- and single-earner families from the Midwestern region of the United States after the birth of a second child. Couples reported on father involvement with firstborns and infants when …

Shift Work, Father Engagement, And The Cognitive Development Of Young Children, Matthew Weinshenker

Sociology Faculty Publications

The present study investigates whether the effect of fathers’ positive engagement on young children’s cognitive development is accentuated when one or both dual-earner parents is employed during non-standard hours. Longitudinal regression models are fitted to three waves of nationally-representative data from the Early Child Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort. Father engagement when children are nine months old has an especially positive effect on children’s cognitive ability at age two when the father works during the day and the mother has a fixed evening or night shift. There are no interactions between shift work and engagement at age two in the whole sample, …

Supporting Recruitment And Retention Of Young African-American And Hispanic Fathers In Community-Based Parenting Interventions Research, Cristina Mogro-Wilson, Crystal M. Hayes, Alysse Melville Loomis, Aubri Drake, Melanie Martin-Peele, Judith Fifield

School of Social Work Faculty Publications

Few studies to date have provided strategies for maintaining low rates of attrition when conducting longitudinal, epidemiological, or community-based research with young, minority, urban fathers. This paper highlights lessons learned from a 5-year randomized controlled trial of a fatherhood intervention that designed and implemented state-of-the-art and culturally relevant recruitment and retention methods with 348 young fathers ages 15 to 25. Qualitative findings are drawn from interviews with fathers who had been enrolled in the fatherhood intervention (n=10). While traditional recruitment and retention methods, such as incentives, were employed in this study, non-traditional methods were used as well, such as intensive …

“Dad, Do You Want To Play With Me?” The Impact Of Fathers Who Make Time For Play, Michael S. Sitton

Theses and Dissertations--Family Sciences

With an increase in the pace of life in the United States, there comes a recognition of the importance of prioritizing time, especially for fathers. Of the two-thirds of children who live with their father, only a percentage of them have fathers who report regular play time with their children. However, literature in the field does not explain specifically whether or not this play between father and child influences the child’s later risk taking behaviors in high school. Using data from the 2003 Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), waves 3, 4, and 6, this quantitative study sought to …

His, Hers, Or Theirs? Coparenting After The Birth Of A Second Child, Patty X. Kuo, Brenda L. Volling, Richard Gonzalez

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

This study examined changes in coparenting after the birth of a second child. Mothers and fathers from 241 two-parent families reported on their spouse’s coparenting cooperation and conflict with their firstborn child before (prenatal) and four months after the birth of a second child. Parents completed questionnaires (prenatal) on gender role attitudes, marital satisfaction, and firstborn children’s temperamental characteristics. Parents also reported on the secondborn infant’s temperament at 1 month following the birth of the second child. Coparenting conflict increased across the transition, whereas cooperation decreased. Couples in which fathers reported greater marital satisfaction were more cooperative 4 months after …

Dads And Dyads: Stress And Coping When A Child Has Retinoblastoma, Rob Downie

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Child psychosocial oncology research offers limited examination of fathers’ and dyadic stress and coping. Retinoblastoma (Rb) is a rare genetic eye cancer occurring at birth or early childhood. This qualitative sociological study examines individual and dyadic stress and coping across 4 fatherhood role categories when their child is diagnosed/treated for Retinoblastoma. Using purposive sampling, 23 Canadian Rb couples and 7 unmatched parents completed individual in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Findings confirm fatherhood role identity is diverse, influenced by the current situation, elements of discourse, and cultural references. Often contested in public and private spheres, fathering roles show transitional or permanent change tied …

Truer Than Fiction: Flannery O'Connor's Fictional Fathers, Addison Crow

English Class Publications

Flannery O’Connor grew up with a loving and supportive father, so it is perplexing that she fills her stories with fathers who portray the opposite. O’Connor’s fictional fathers, when they are included in the story, are controlling, harsh, and malicious—the complete opposite of her father, Edward O’Connor. Why would O’Connor create fathers whose image so intensely contrast that of her own supportive, gentle, and loving father? My purpose in this paper is to examine O’Connor’s fictional fathers in her short stories, “The Artificial N” and “The Comforts of Home,” and her novel, The Violent Bear It Away, and attempt …

Focusing On Men And Fathers: A Challenge For Social Work Research And Practice, Kevin Shafer, Jennifer L. Bellamy

Faculty Publications

In introducing this special issue of Social Work Research, we feel it is important to discuss why social work practice and research with men and fathers is of critical importance and deserving of specific attention. Social work researchers and practitioners need to focus on men and fathers, both as a special population and as subpopulations of other groups. A focus on men and fathers is critical because (a) it is a social justice issue for men, women, and children; (b) men are underserved by helping professionals, including social workers, particularly in certain contexts and programs; (c) social workers are uniquely …

Contributions Of Television Use To Beliefs About Fathers And Gendered Family Roles Among First-Time Expectant Parents, Patty X. Kuo, L. Monique Ward

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

TV content has been documented to portray a limited range of gender roles, and to frequently depict fathers as incompetent parents. Accordingly, this study explored whether first-time expectant parents’ beliefs about gendered family roles and the importance of fathers to child development were related to their TV use. Participants were 201 individuals (122 women, 79 men) from across the United States expecting their first biological child in a cohabiting heterosexual relationship. Participants completed an online survey assessing weekly TV exposure, exposure to TV programs featuring fathers, perceived realism of TV, use of TV to learn about the world, and beliefs …

Nonstandard Parental Employment Schedules And Father Involvement, Matthew Weinshenker

Sociology Faculty Publications

This study assesses the impact of nonstandard employment schedules (shift work) on parenting among U.S. fathers of young children in dual-earner couples. The outcomes examined include total caregiving, caregiving without the mother present, and the elements of father involvement proposed by Pleck: positive engagement, warmth, and control. Models with latent variables and with lagged dependent variables are estimated using three waves of nationally-representative data from the Early Child Longitudinal Study – Birth Cohort (ECLS-B). The results indicate that employment scheduling mainly shapes the context in which involvement takes place. Compared to dual-earner couples who are each employed during the day, …

Research Brief: "Strong, Safe, And Secure; Negotiating Early Fathering And Military Service Across The Deployment Cycle", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief summarizes an analysis on how military fathers of young children often endure repeated separations from their children and how these may disrupt the early parent-child relationship.

Research Brief: "Fathering After Military Deployment: Parenting Challenges And Goals Of Fathers Of Young Children", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This study was conducted in conjunction with the STRoNG Military Families program, and consisted of interviews with fathers of young children. It was found that deployed fathers shared similar issues upon reintegration, and many were interested in connecting with other deployed fathers to learn from their parenting experiences. Future research recommended highlighting that this sample was exclusively male and predominantly white, and acknowledged that the demographics of future studies should be expanded to include women and people of color. Likewise, a greater sample size from other armed forces branches is needed.

Physical Activity Barriers And Facilitators Among Working Mothers And Fathers, Emily L. Mailey, Jennifer Huberty, Danae M. Dinkel, Edward Mcauley

Health and Kinesiology Faculty Publications

Background: The transition to parenthood is consistently associated with declines in physical activity. In particular, working parents are at risk for inactivity, but research exploring physical activity barriers and facilitators in this population has been scarce. The purpose of this study was to qualitatively examine perceptions of physical activity among working parents.

Methods: Working mothers (n = 13) and fathers (n = 12) were recruited to participate in one of four focus group sessions and discuss physical activity barriers and facilitators. Data were analyzed using immersion/crystallization in NVivo 10.

Results: Major themes for barriers included family responsibilities, guilt, lack of …

The Phenomenal Characteristics Of The Son-Father Relationship Experience, Chris L. Hickey

Antioch University Dissertations & Theses

The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine what the son-father relationship experience feels like (the phenomenology of the son-father relationship), and how the relationship experience affects leadership development, specifically in the son.I chose to reverse the order of the typical reference on this topic (father-son) in order to emphasize the significance of the son (role) being the central character or object of interest, even in instances where the character is a father in addition to being a son.Additionally, it should be noted that all fathers are sons, but not all sons are fathers (biologically, and/or socially, and/or conceptually).My …

Neural Responses To Infants Linked With Behavioral Interactions And Testosterone In Fathers, Patty X. Kuo, Joshua Carp, Kathleen C. Light, Karen M. Grewen

Department of Child, Youth, and Family Studies: Faculty Publications

Few fMRI studies have investigated the brain-behavioral basis of parenting in human fathers. Ten fathers were videotaped and gave salivary testosterone samples while interacting with their 2–4 month old infants, and viewed video clips of their own infant and an unfamiliar age-, ethnicityand sex-matched other infant during an fMRI protocol. Infant stimuli activated a network of prefrontal and subcortical brain regions. Furthermore, a subset of these regions activated significantly more to own (OWN) than other (OTHER) infants. Finally, neural responses to OWN versus OTHER were linked with paternal sensitivity, paternal reciprocity, and testosterone. In sum, our results provide a novel …

Fathers Of Flourishing Families, Daniel H. Erickson, Randal D. Day

FHSS Mentored Research Conference

Researchers have found that father involvement is a critical part of healthy child development. Fathers’ perspectives and qualities greatly influence and affect children. Researchers’ findings tell us that father involvement is correlated to positive outcomes in children, including increased cognitive competence, increased empathy, less sex-stereotyped beliefs, a greater internal locus of control, and acting out less often. The purpose of this study is to advance the extant literature by showing how father involvement over time impacts child self-esteem, depression, perseverance, hope, and leadership in the lives of 500 teens.

The Nature Of Mothers' Work And Children's Schooling In Nepal: The Influence Of Income And Time Effects, Ashish Bajracharya

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

Using nationally representative cross-sectional data from the Nepal Living Standards Survey, this Population Council working paper examines the influence of the nature of mothers’ work on Nepali children’s schooling outcomes. It analyses whether the engagement of mothers (and fathers) in nonagricultural work has significant consequences for their children’s school attendance and grade attainment, compared with these consequences when parents’ work is in traditional subsistence agriculture. Results indicate that children of parents who both work in the nonagriculture sector are significantly more likely to have attended or currently be attending school and have higher grade attainment, compared with children whose parents …

And How Will You Remember Me, My Child? Redefining Fatherhood In Turkey, Gary Barker, Deniz Dogruoz, Debbie Rogow

Poverty, Gender, and Youth

This issue of Quality/Calidad/Qualité profiles the AÇEV Father Support Program, a series of 13-week-long support groups for fathers across Turkey. Fatherhood (and men’s roles in the lives of children in general) is an ideal starting point for engaging men in gender equality for two key reasons: most men want to be involved in the lives of children, whether their own biological children or younger siblings, nieces, or nephews; and responsibility for the care of children is at the heart of gender inequality. The program reached nearly 10,000 men, teaching them about their role in the development of their children and …

Incarceration And Unwed Fathers In Fragile Families, Charles E. Lewis Jr., Irwin Garfinkel, Qin Gao

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Criminal justice policies have resulted in millions of Americans being incarcerated over the past three decades in systems that provide little or no rehabilitation. This study uses a new dataset-The Fragile Families Study-to document poor labor market outcomes that are associated with incarceration. We find that fathers who had been incarcerated earned 28 percent less annually thanfathers who were never incarceratedT hese previously incarceratedfa thers worked less weeks per year, less hours per week and were less likely to be working during the week prior to their interview. We also found that fathers who had been incarcerated were more likely …

Review Of Fathers Under Fire: The Revolution In Child Support Enforcement, By Irwin Garfinkel, Sara S. Mclanahan, Daniel R. Meyer, And Judith A. Seltzer, Ryan E. Spohn

Criminology and Criminal Justice Faculty Publications

The title of this book adequately reflects its timely focus on nonresidential fathers facing increased child support enforcement, examining how child support contributions (or failure to meet child support obligations) affect the lives of children as well as the fathers themselves. As the authors suggest, nonresident fathers have generally been treated as financial resources, with little attention paid to their rights as parents or their needs as providers for their children. A particular focus of this collection of studies is the role of indigent nonresident fathers and their role as parents and providers. Consequently, the scope of study adopted by …

Predictors Of Paternal Involvement In Childcare In Dual-Earner Families With Young Children, Julie N. Jacobs, Michelle L. Kelley

Psychology Faculty Publications

Dual-earner parents (N = 119) of preschool children enrolled in licensed childcare centers completed anonymous questionnaires that examined work and family variables as related to paternal involvement in three areas: engagement (i.e., one-on-one interaction with the child), responsibility (i.e., taking care of the child’s needs), and accessibility (i.e., being available to the child without directly interacting). Paternal responsibility was predicted by beliefs about fathering and structural variables (e.g., hours fathers and mothers worked). The percentage of time fathers spent as their child’s primary caregiver was predicted by structural variables (e.g., mothers’ work hours) and belief variables (e.g., men’s beliefs about …

Fathers' Religious And Family Involvement At Home; And Work And Family Outcomes, Roxane O. Whyte

Theses and Dissertations

This study proposes and confirms two new predictors of work and family outcomes, thus far unexplored in existing work-family literature: fathers' religious involvement at home and fathers' family involvement at home. It is the first study to date to document that these produce a crossover effect to positively influence work-related outcomes including work-family conflict, work-family fit and job satisfaction.
Data come from employed married fathers and their spouses participating in the 2001 BYU Marriott School of Management Alumni Work and Family Survey (n = 210), all members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS). Findings are that …

A Study Of African American Fathers' Involvement With Their Preschool Children, Susan Rich

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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