Testing a Contextual Model of Effects of Father Involvement on Child Behaviors
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Testing a Contextual Model of Effects of Father Involvement on Child Behaviors Jamel Slaughter1 · Craig T. Nagoshi2
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract To conduct secondary data analyses to test a heuristic contextual model of father involvement (mother and father report of father caregiving) at 5 years of age on children’s internalizing, externalizing, and delinquency behaviors subsequently measured at middle childhood. Data from two waves of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study were analyzed. Path analyses found that mother-reported father involvement was significantly negatively predictive of child externalizing in girls and delinquency in boys, even after controlling for the effects of father age, socioeconomic status, and health, and including the effects of mother involvement in the models. Mother involvement was significantly positively predictive of child externalizing in girls and delinquency in boys. In the context of a model that explicitly considers the confounding effects of father characteristics and mother involvement, early father involvement was found to be predictive of later lessened child externalizing behaviors. Keywords Delinquency · Early and middle childhood · Externalizing · Father involvement · Internalizing · Mother involvement Interest in father involvement and behavioral outcomes in children has gained attention, with researchers finding that behavioral problems in childhood are linked to various family and parenting factors (Goodman et al., 2011; Kawabata, Alink, Tseng, van Ijzendoorn, & Crick, 2011). Children’s behavior problems are generally characterized as falling into two categories: externalizing behaviors (e.g., conduct problems and aggression) and internalizing behaviors (e.g., depression and anxiety) (Otto et al., 2015), which are important predictors of future functioning (Copeland, Shanahan, Costello, & Angold, 2009). Externalizing problems can be identified in the toddler and preschool years, and they persist at moderate levels across the transition to middle childhood (Campbell, Pierce, March, Ewing, & Szumowski, 1994; Moffitt & Henry, 1991). Additional studies identified early symptoms and disorders of internalizing behaviors that can impair development and psychosocial functioning in * Craig T. Nagoshi [email protected] 1
School of Social Work, University of Texas at Arlington, Arlington, TX 76019, USA
Department of Psychology, University of Texas at Arlington, Box 19528, Arlington, TX 76019, USA
2
interpersonal interactions, learning, or leisure time and can be seen in children as early as 3–6 years of age (Bufferd, Dougherty, Carlson, & Klein, 2011). Studies have linked father involvement and lower prevalence of child internalizing and externalizing behaviors (Amato & Rivera, 1999; Carlson, 2006), however, there is little extant literature on the short-term and long-term impact of early father involvement (Phares, Fields, Kamboukos, & Lopez, 2005). This study, based on secondary data analyses of data from
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