Father Involvement and Children’s Wellbeing
 Discussion of parenting roles and responsibilities within families, communities, and society raises important and controversial social issues. Since the 1970’s, fathers’ roles and the impact of father involvement on children’s development has become more prominent in social science research. The multiplicity of types of families in the U.S. has important implications for models of family involvement in the field of children’s mental health. Recent statistics indicate that nearly one in four (23%) children in the U.S. live only with their mothers and one in twenty (5%) live only with their fathers. A better understanding of father involvement is essential if current perspectives on ways to promote family-driven mental health care are to be expanded to support father involvement.
What do we mean by father involvement?
Father involvement has been conceptualized in a number of ways. One model that has been influential in the research literature was developed by Michael Lamb and colleagues. They describe a three-factor model of father involvement that includes the following:
- Engagement (one-to-one activity such as playing)
- Accessibility (both physical and psychological availability to the child)
- Responsibility (taking on care activities, such as arranging child care or doctors’ appointments).
Other researchers have argued that father involvement is more complex and involves multiple dimensions including both observable activities (e.g. communication, teaching) and unobservable activities (e.g. thought processes such as worrying).
What do we know from research on father involvement?
There is still debate about how to conceptualize and explain the outcomes of father involvement, particularly for nonresident fathers. Researchers are developing more sophisticated theoretical models and addressing some of the problems of earlier studies. Criticisms of earlier research include reliance on a deficit paradigm and bias that perpetuates negative stereotypes; for example, in studies of low income and African American fathers. Despite the questions that remain, there is now a substantial body of research to indicate that greater father involvement is associated with positive influences on children’s behavior and academic performance.
Supporting father involvement
Some programs have been involved in proactive attempts to promote father involvement. For example, some of the lessons from early education programs may be applicable to the field of children’s mental health. Some of the barriers to involving fathers include:
- service environments
- ambivalent staff attitudes
- family and cultural beliefs
- failure to appreciate the varying roles of fathers and father figures
- gatekeeping by mothers
- fathers’ fears of exposing inadequacies and lack of knowledge of how to become involved
- work schedules
Social and economic factors also influence opportunities for involvement. For example, less educated and lower income employees are less likely to have access to flexible work schedules. It is clear that increasing father involvement requires change in several domains. However, research also shows that even relatively simple changes can have positive outcomes. Examples include adapting records systems to include full contact information for more than one parent, duplicate mailings so that progress reports and other information is sent to both resident and non-resident parents, and invitations to special events for fathers.
We want to hear your experiences and views on this important topic. Please write your comments in the box below. As always we appreciate your thoughts and look forward to hearing your views.
Here are a few questions to consider:
- Please share your experiences as a parent or caregiver. What supports father involvement in your child’s mental health care? What barriers, if any, have you experienced?
- As a family member, what advice do you have for providers and programs? What changes are required to make it easier for fathers to be involved?
- Do you have professional experiences of supporting father involvement? Please share your experiences.
Your thoughts…
Comments:
 The Real Dads Forever Web Site address can be found at Google by inserting the name Realdadsforever. Posted Thursday, June 1, 2006 by Doug Edwards, Program Director at 09:02 AM
As a male therapist of adolescents the theoretical discussion is a bit tedious for me. It is sad to see reseach have to catch up with the organic wisdom of all human communities regarding the importance of father roles.
As a father of two and the informal grandfather of several I have been THE man in the life of several children, their only father figure. Nothing is more fun, more exhausting and more challenging. My 7 year old granddaughter - adopted from China by her single mom, literally consumes me on our weekend play dates and is beginning to ask the BIG questions about dad's and what they should be.
As a male therapist with an organic feel for the importance of dads I always reach out for the dad and buck the assumptions that the MH needs of kids are for mom's alone to address. I love the challenge of accessing the loving and sensitive side of men who have not experienced any open discussions about their roles with their kids. I love finding my way into the the male to male styles of interacting with the dads of kids I see.
But even more compelling for me are the hosts of adolescents I have seen over the years who demonstrate gross father deprivation; dad is dead, dad has disappeared, dad is a workaholic, dad is puntive and hostile and emotionally not available - including for me to work with. Those kids consume me too. There is no getting around the fact that all father deprived kids seeing male therapists will try to access dad functions from us and if we disappoint they are out the door. Sometimes I can access a dad for my patients and then I can take on uncle roles. But too often it is all on me. What is even more surprising for me is that the majority of these kids are adolescent girls. As they absorb me as a dad figure even in the relatively sparce structure of weekly appointments, they respond to my focus on their strenghts and capacities by doing better in school, they knock off serious at risk behavior socially as they don't have to search for male attention in all the wrong ways and they come back for more as young adults who want a more formal therapy -needing me less as a dad and having more successful relationships with men.
Good work to do - all of it.
Charley Huffine, MD Posted Thursday, May 18, 2006 at 08:27 AM
As the father of an adult with a severe mental disability I was excluded from involvement in her hospitalizations. Social Workers at two or three hospitals would not even return my calls. I lived 400 miles away and could not get to her before her discharges and because of discharges so soon in treatment she committed suicide. Posted Thursday, April 20, 2006 by Steven at 10:49 AM
What an awesome website this is. I hope that more dads are able to gain this kind of information to help foster their children's lives more deeply. The at-risk percentage of children today is partly due to non-involvement with and guidance to children. Posted Wednesday, April 19, 2006 by L. Coleman at 09:31 AM
There is an excellent organization devoted to Fatherhood called "Real Dads Forever" here in CT. Web site: Realdadsforever@aol.com.
Posted Wednesday, April 19, 2006 by Ellen Gilmartin, Office of Pro at 04:44 AM
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