red dot icon
Journal Article Numerous studies have shown that children's temperamental characteristics impact the quality and quantity of parent–child interactions. However, these studies have largely focused on middle‐class samples, have not compared multiple domains of parenting across mothers and fathers, and have not considered the possibility of nonlinear associations between temperament and parenting. The present study addresses these gaps by examining the potentially nonlinear role of two temperamental characteristics—negative emotionality and sociability—in predicting the quality and quantity of low‐income…
red dot icon
Journal Article Literature in developmental psychology suggests that mothers and fathers both play unique and important roles in their children’s development. However, research investigating the unique contributions and psychological functioning of fathers of youth with developmental disabilities, and the role that fathers play in effective intervention, remains limited. Whereas evidence suggests that parent-mediated interventions for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can lead to increased engagement from parents, and reduced stress and psychopathology commonly experienced by parents of youth with…
red dot icon
Journal Article Despite high heritability, no research has followed children with ADHD to parenthood to study their offspring and parenting behaviors. Given greater prevalence of ADHD in males and lack of research involving fathers, this study evaluated offspring of fathers with and without ADHD histories for ADHD and disruptive behavior and compared fathers’ parenting behaviors. Male fathers (N = 29) from the Pittsburgh ADHD Longitudinal Study (PALS) participated with their preschool-aged offspring. Fathers completed self-reported measures, and father-child dyads completed an interaction task. ADHD…
red dot icon
Journal Article In the families of the new cohort of war veterans now entering the civilian population in the United States are over two million young children (Cozza, Haskins & Lerner, 2013; Institute of Medicine, 2013). Several noteworthy studies have shown that children exposed to separation from a parent due to combat-related deployment are at elevated risk for a variety of negative consequences (Lester & Flake, 2013). Cozza et al. (2013) argue that existing studies of military children focus too much on the stresses or deficits they experience, failing to give sufficient attention to their…
red dot icon
Journal Article We focused on coparenting support, partner relationship quality, and father engagement in families with young children that did not change structurally over 4 years of participation in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study (N = 1,756). There was a significantly stronger and more robust positive association between fathers' perceived coparenting support at age 1 and father engagement at age 3 among nonresidential nonromantic parents compared with residential (married or cohabiting) and nonresidential romantic parents. There was a significantly stronger and positive association…
red dot icon
Journal Article Fathers were compared with other key figures for the extent to which they appear to serve as role models to their sons in adolescence and young adulthood. The relationship between fathers' role model statuses at these periods and their sons' vocational functioning in young adulthood was explored. It was found that only fathers' service as role models to their adolescent sons was predictive of sons' vocational adjustments in young adulthood and that father role model categories at the 2 time periods were differentially related to sons' functioning in young adulthood. (Author abstract)
red dot icon
Journal Article The Infant Health and Development Program is a two-generation early education model designed to improve parenting competence and child well-being. As part of an 8-site randomized clinical trial involving low birthweight premature children, assessments of children and parents were gathered at the time of program completion (age 3), with follow-up at ages 5, 8, and 18. Two key parenting processes were assessed at age 18 based on theory stipulating the centrality of parenting to long-term development in children. Analyses based on 283 control group and 178 Infant Health and Development Program…
red dot icon
Journal Article Research Findings: In the present meta-analysis, information from 21 studies (representing 22 separate samples) was pooled across a 10-year period (1998-2008). Across 2 primary dimensions of direct father involvement (frequency of positive engagement activities and aspects of parenting quality) and 5 dimensions of children's early learning (representing social and cognitive domains), findings revealed small to moderate associations. Among group differences tested to further explain the relationships between these constructs, residential status and the ethnic/racial identification of fathers'…
red dot icon
Journal Article This article assesses the longitudinal effects of risk and resilience on unmarried nonresident fathers' engagement with children across the first 3 years of their lives. The authors used a subsample of 549 men from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study who were unmarried and noncohabiting at the time of the child's birth. They found not only that risk and resilience factors had a direct effect on paternal engagement but also that their association with engagement was mediated by fathers' continued nonresidence and mother-father relationship quality. Men who leave trajectories of high…
red dot icon
Journal Article This issue of The Future of Children seeks to integrate existing knowledge about the children and families of today's United States military; to identify what we know (and don't know) about their strengths and the challenges they face, as well as the programs that serve them; to specify directions for future research; and to illuminate the evidence (or lack thereof) behind current and future policies and programs that serve these children and families. At the same time, it highlights how research on nonmilitary children and families can help us understand their military-connected counterparts…
