1-046 - Processes Linking Father Involvement to Children’s Development: How and When Father Involvement Impacts Children

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Accumulating research evidence points to the important influence fathers have on child development across diverse samples. This symposium meets recent calls (Fagan et al., 2014) to advance father involvement research by identifying the processes by which multiple aspects of father involvement are linked to children’s development.

The papers in this symposium draw data from different samples to examine fathers’ parenting in the context of other key father and family characteristics, including work schedules, frequency of parenting and contact, cultural values, and fathers’ earnings and parenting stress. Paper 1 examines whether father-child attachment security was differentially predicted by play and caregiving forms of father involvement on workdays and non-workdays among fathers from middle-class dual earner families. Paper 2 draws from a sample of low-income families to examine how associations between observed quality of fathers’ parenting and young children’s development in three domains varies according to the frequency of fathers’ engagement and coresidence with the child. Paper 3 considers how fathers’ parenting behaviors are associated with children’s social competence in the context of cultural value endorsement among Mexican origin fathers. Paper 4 is a longitudinal study that tests three family-based pathways (investment, family stress and cascading) by which fathers’ earnings are linked to children’s behavioral and language development. Collectively, these papers advance our understanding of the complex and powerful role of fathers in child development by identifying how and when, including across different approaches to time and contexts, father involvement influences child development.

Sub Unit

• Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Chair

• Melissa A. Barnett, University of Arizona

Individual Presentations

• Father Involvement and Father-Child Attachment Security: Differential Consequences of Fathers’ Parenting on Work vs. Non-Workdays - Presenting Author: Geoffrey Brown, University of Georgia; Sarah Mangelsdorf, University of Wisconsin; Aya Shigeto, Nova Southeatern University; Maria S Wong, Stevenson University

• Interactions Among the Quality and Quantity of Fathers’ Parenting: Links to Young Children’s Development - Presenting Author: Melissa A. Barnett, University of Arizona; Katherine Wendy Paschall, University of Texas at Austin; Olena Kopystynska, University of Arizona; Melissa Curran, University of Arizona

• Cultural Values, Father Involvement, and Child Development: A Pathway to Foster Prosocial Behavior in Young Children - Presenting Author: Henry Gonzalez, Arizona State University; Melissa A. Barnett, University of Arizona

• The long-reach of fathers’ earnings on children’s cognitive and social skills in two- parent families: A mediational approach - Presenting Author: Ronald Mincy, Columbia; Natasha Cabrera, University of Maryland; Hyunjoon Um, Columbia University