The Long-term Effects of Early Paternal Presence on Children’s Behavior

The Father I Knew: Early Paternal Engagement Moderates the Long-term Relationship between Paternal Accessibility and Childhood Behavioral Difficulties

“…Our findings are somewhat consistent with prior longitudinal investigations that have observed effects of both paternal accessibility (Carlson, 2006; Craig et al, 2018; Vaden-Kiernan et al, 1995) and paternal engagement (Aldous & Mulligan, 2002; McMunn et al, 2017; Ramchandani et al, 2010) as predictors of children’s behavioral conduct. Contrary to recent findings, we did not observe any relationship between the dimensions of paternal involvement and peer interaction problems (Flouri et al, 2016; Ramchandani et al, 2010).…”

“…In any case, these findings draw focus to the generally vital first year of life with regard to the engagement of fathers and potential long-term effects. Generally, we furthered recent findings regarding paternal accessibility and total behavioral difficulties in observing similar relationships between paternal accessibility and children’s conduct, and hyperactivity problems (Craig et al, 2018).…”

“…Children who cohabitated with their fathers from birth up to 14 years of age exhibited significantly better behavioral conduct than children whose fathers had not been present since birth (Carlson, 2006); however, other evidence suggests that father–child cohabitation may only exert a positive longitudinal effect on behavioral conduct for girls (Flouri & Buchanan, 2002). More recently, we observed paternal departure from the child’s household (i.e., cessation of father–child cohabitation) by the age of 3.5 years to have significant, negative effect on child behavioral outcomes at 11 years of age (Craig et al, 2018).…”

“…In examining paternal engagement as a moderator, we expected that if fathers were less accessible, their engagement would ensure that they remained an important positive factor of influenced within children’s developmental microsystem. We predicted, therefore, that children, whose fathers were more highly engaged, would experience less behavioral problems despite any likely effects of departure from the household (Carlson, 2006; Craig et al, 2018).…”

Father involvement in infancy predicts behavior and response to chronic stress in middle childhood in a low‐income Latinx sample

“…Paternal involvement has been shown to be positively associated with self‐regulatory and executive functioning outcomes that are linked with experience of stress and dysregulation of the HPA axis (Amato & Rivera, 1999; Cabrera et al., 2007; McMunn et al., 2017; Meuwissen & Carlson, 2015; O’Gara & Calzada, 2020). For instance, father involvement in infancy has been associated with children's internalizing and externalizing behaviors (Bernard et al., 2015; McMunn et al., 2017; Schacht et al., 2009) and socioemotional regulation, including measures of attention and inhibition in toddlerhood (Cabrera et al., 2007; Vogel et al., 2006), preschool (Bocknek et al., 2014, 2017; Jaffee et al., 2003), and middle school (Flanders et al., 2010; McDowell et al, 2002), with some studies showing long‐term effects at school age and adolescence (Boyce et al., 2006; Craig et al., 2018; Grossmann et al., 2002). Most of these characteristics have long been associated with ADHD (National Institute of Mental Health, 2016), suggesting that paternal involvement in infancy may be a protective factor for attention problems.…”