Poster #135 - A longitudinal Study of Fathers’ Warm Parenting, Children’s Internalizing Problems, and School Readiness

• In Event: 2-055 - Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

The past three decades of research on young children's development have been characterized by an evolving interest in the role of fathers. Fathers make direct and indirect contributions to young children's outcomes such as socioemotional development and preparation for school (Martin, Ryan, & Brooks-Gunn, 2010). Coley (2001) suggested that fathers' involvement is consistently associated with children's socioemotional competence, cognitive development, and school functioning. Moreover, positive parenting behaviors have been found to reduce children's behavior problems prior to the school entry ((Dishion et al., 2008; Shaw, Dishion, Supplee, Gardner, & Arnds, 2006), which could also foster children’s school readiness. However, much of the previous research on fathering with young children has focused heavily on White middle-class samples (Roggman, Fitzgerald, Bradley, & Raikes, 2002). Despite common acceptance of the assumption that positive parenting behaviors are an important determinant of children's development, fathers’ parenting behaviors and its links to children’s school readiness has been understudied in Korean families. The current study examined fathers' warm parenting and children's internalizing problems over three years during early childhood in order to explain children's subsequent school readiness.
Three waves of data collected annually were drawn from the Panel Study on Korean Children (PSKC) and included 1,682 families (father Mage = 37.3; child Mage = 4.3). Latent Curve Modeling (LCM) estimated in Mplus was conducted to examine changes in fathers' warmth and children’s internalizing problems over time, and to examine the direct and indirect pathways from fathers' warmth to child school readiness through children’s internalizing problems. First, results of unconditional LCM models with no covariates demonstrated a good fit with the data (CFI = .96; SRMR = .05 and CFI = 1.00; SRMR = .01) and indicated that there were individual differences in the initial levels of and changes in fathers' warmth and child internalizing problems over the three years (see Table 1). Next, conditional LCM models were estimated to evaluate the direct and indirect effects of fathers' warmth on child school readiness via internalizing problems after accounting for child gender, paternal education level, and family income (see Figure 1). Fit indices indicated a good fit (CFI = .95; SRMR = .05). A significant indirect effect showed that high levels of fathers' warmth were related to higher levels of child school readiness through lower levels of child internalizing problems, β = .50, p < .05, 95% CI [.03, .08].
The present study explored immediate contextual (i.e., fathers' warm parenting behaviors) and individual (i.e., child internalizing problems) factors that contribute to Korean children’s school readiness. Given that fathers and Korean families in particular are understudied in the parenting literature, this study demonstrates the importance warm parenting behaviors for Korean children’s adjustment and school readiness. These findings suggest that efforts to increase fathers' positive parenting behaviors should be considered when designing programs to improve children's behavioral and cognitive outcomes.

Authors

• Su Jung Park, Utah State University
  Presenting Author

• Aryn Dotterer, Utah State University
  Non-Presenting Author