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Journal Article African American men are not commonly thought of favorably as fathers, especially in regard to their children's education. Using an adapted qualitative version of the quantitative fathering involvement scale, which is based on engagement, accessibility, and responsibility, this study investigates how 9 African American men attempt to be good fathers as well as what they do to help their children in school. The findings suggest that African American men can indeed be good fathers and positively influence their children's educational outcomes. The interviewed African American fathers' parental…
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Journal Article The authors performed a cluster analysis on data from 270 divorced or separated parents to classify their perceived coparental relationship with their ex-spouse and test if parents' perceptions of their children's postdivorce adjustment differed based on their perceptions of their postdivorce coparental relationship. The cluster analysis resulted in three types of coparenting relationships: cooperative and involved, moderately engaged, and infrequent but conflictual. Despite the expectation that children fare better if their divorced parents' develop a cooperative coparenting relationship,…
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Journal Article Preschool children living in low-income families are at increased risk for poor outcomes; early intervention programmes mitigate these risks. While there is considerable evidence of the effectiveness of centre-based programmes in other jurisdictions, there is limited research about Canadian programmes, specifically programmes that include children and parents. The purpose of this study was to evaluate a single-site, two-generation preschool demonstration programme for low-income families in Canada. A single group, pre-test (programme intake) /post-test (programme exit) design with a 7-year-…
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Journal Article This pilot study reports the preliminary evaluation of an emotion socialization parenting program for fathers of preschool children. The program, Dads Tuning in to Kids (DadsTIK), is a specifically modified version of a universal evidence-based prevention program, Tuning in to Kids (Havighurst & Harley, 2007). DadsTIK teaches fathers emotion coaching parenting skills that have previously been linked to children's social-emotional competence and fewer behavior problems. The 7-session (14 hours total) group program was delivered to 43 fathers who completed pre- and post-program…
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Journal Article More than 1.5 million children have a father in prison, yet little is known about what fathers experience as parents while detained. The author describes common issues that more than 250 fathers have raised during 4-week fathering groups at a federal holding facility. Issues center on their concerns about how to interact with their children and with the mother(s) of their children. Suggestions for work with the fathers and, by extension, their family members are discussed. (Author abstract)
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Journal Article Although often eagerly anticipated, reunification after deployment poses challenges for families, including adjusting to the parent-soldier's return, re-establishing roles and routines, and the potentially necessary accommodation to combat-related injuries or psychological effects. Fourteen male service members, previously deployed to a combat zone, parent to at least one child under seven years of age, were interviewed about their relationships with their young children. Principles of grounded theory guided data analysis to identify key themes related to parenting young children after…
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Journal Article The situation of children exposed to intimate partner violence ( IPV) raises certain issues related to child neglect. Little is known about how children exposed to IPV perceive and describe their living conditions. This paper addresses this lack by analysing aspects of fathers' care in descriptions given by children whose fathers have subjected the mothers to IPV. The analysis is based on qualitative interviews with 10 children aged 8-12 years. Three themes constitute the results. First, the fathers are not described by the children as engaged and responsible care providers. Second, in their…
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Journal Article Fathers' interactions with their young children are understudied. Variations between families in the masculine nurturance of toddlers can be expected, depending on personal characteristics, gender, family structures, and cultural contexts in which they are situated. This is a qualitative study, focusing on probing the nature of the exchanges between female toddlers and their male caregivers, to gain an understanding of the dynamic nature of these interchanges. We observed four thriving 30-month-old girls in Italy, the UK, Peru, and Thailand, wherein filmed transactions between them and their…
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Journal Article In the past 20 years, social change and expectations for both maternal and paternal responsibilities have highlighted the need for services for families to better understand the role of a father in family relationships. In Australia, as well as internationally, there have been many contested understandings about what constitutes "good fathering" in research, social media and in the political sphere. More specifically, there has also been an emerging trend to understand the challenging task of recruiting and maintaining men's involvement in child and family services programmes, particularly…
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Journal Article Fathers' and mothers' views on mothers' satisfaction with paternal behaviour as well as the respective processes of origination were studied in 393 cohabiting couples from three different stages of the family life cycle. Data on paternal competence and the couples' relationship characteristics were included as predictors in multiple regression analyses, and the stages of the family life cycle were taken into account with multigroup regression analyses. Results showed that the mothers were more satisfied with paternal behaviour than the fathers thought the mothers were. Moreover, mothers were…
