Linking the Risky Behaviour of Fathers and Their Children

Abstract

Using data from the UK's Millennium Cohort Study, this study examined whether the father's involvement in childcare, father-child closeness and conflict was associated with risky behavior of their adolescent children. Further, the study explored whether these associations were moderated by the fathers' risky behavior. A set of logistic regressions was run to evaluate the associations of interest, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. The analysis also controlled for the mother-child relationship and mother's risky behavior. The estimated models did not show significant associations between the father's and children's risky behavior, however some evidence of a positive association between these constructs arose from a cross-tabulation analysis. The main analysis did not provide evidence in support of the association between father-child relationshipand risky behavior in early adolescence. However, an additional analysis revealed a negative association in early adolescence between the father's involvement and the odds of the children's risky behavior. By contrast, in all estimated models the father's involvement in childhood was strongly associated with lower odds of risky behavior in early adolescence. The associations between the father's and children's risky behavior were moderated by father-child relationship, however the direction of the moderation effect could not be consistently established in this study.