Advancing Research and Measurement on Fathering and Children's Development

Abstract

Fathers are more than social accidents. Research has demonstrated that fathers matter to children's development. Despite noted progress, challenges remain on how best to conceptualize and assess fathering and father–child relationships. The current monograph is the result of an SRCD‐sponsored meeting of fatherhood scholars brought together to discuss these challenges and make recommendations for best practices for incorporating fathers in studies on parenting and children's development. The first aim of this monograph was to provide a brief update on the current state of research on fathering and to lay out a developmental ecological systems perspective as a conceptual framework for understanding the different spaces fathers inhabit in their children's lives. Because there is wide variability in fathers’ roles, the ecological systems perspective situates fathers, mothers, children, and other caregivers within an evolving network of interrelated social relationships in which children and their parents change over time and space (e.g., residence). The second aim was to present examples of empirical studies conducted by members of the international working group that highlighted different methods, data collection, and statistical analyses used to capture the variability in father–child relationships. The monograph ends with a commentary that elaborates on the ecological systems framework with a discussion of the broader macrosystem and social‐contextual influences that impinge on fathers and their children. The collection of articles contributes to research on father–child relationships by advancing theory and presenting varied methods and analysis strategies that assist in understanding the father–child relationship and its impact on child development.

Fathers' food parenting: A scoping review of the literature from 1990 to 2019

“…In 2016, an interdisciplinary working group of experts in fatherhood research met to discuss methods, conceptual issues and measures of father‐child relationships. In the resulting monograph, the workgroup leaders presented a developmental ecological systems framework for investigating father‐child and family relationships 93 . Utilizing such frameworks will be critical to move the field beyond examining fathers' involvement in feeding and mother‐father differences in food parenting to consider the role of factors such as family functioning (eg, parental conflict, coparenting, maternal gatekeeping), workplace policies, cultural practices, the legal system and time on father‐child feeding interactions and implications for children.…”

Youth in Northern Ireland: Linking Violence Exposure, Emotional Insecurity, and the Political Macrosystem

“…This breakdown is consistent with the overall demographics of Belfast. Although it is increasingly acknowledged that the inclusion of fathers in developmental research provides an important perspective on family processes and youth adjustment (Volling et al, 2019), only mothers were selected to participate in this survey for pragmatic reasons. Many working‐class families in Belfast are led by single mothers, and even when families are led by both parents, the mothers were more likely than fathers to be at home during the day when the in‐home surveys took place.…”

Preverbal Production and Early Lexical Development in Children With Cochlear Implants: A Longitudinal Study Following Pre-implanted Children Until 12 Months After Cochlear Implant Activation

“…Longer recordings, possibly collected using the Language Environment Analysis (LENA) software, may increase the reliability of our results. Of interest for future studies would also be the analysis of father-child interactions (which are just as important for children’s development, see Volling et al, 2019 ) and the addition of an observation at 24 months, so as to investigate whether children with CIs have caught up with their peers by 2 years after CI activation; future research should also ideally aim to include a narrower age range to obtain a clearer picture of how language is developed in this population.…”