Fathers’ Involvement in Child Health Care: Associations with Prenatal Involvement, Parents’ Beliefs, and Maternal Gatekeeping

Using data from 182 dual-earner couples experiencing the transition to parenthood, this study examined associations between prenatal involvement, gender role beliefs, and maternal gatekeeping and new fathers’ involvement in child health care. Results indicated that prenatal father involvement was associated with both fathers’ direct engagement in child health care and fathers’ perceived influence in child health-related decision-making. Fathers also demonstrated greater direct engagement in child health care when mothers held more nontraditional beliefs about gender roles. Moreover, when mothers were more encouraging of fathers’ involvement in childrearing, fathers felt more influential in child health-related decision-making, whereas when mothers engaged in greater gate closing behavior, fathers with more traditional gender role beliefs felt less influential in child health-related decision-making. This study suggests that fathers’ prenatal involvement, mothers’ beliefs, and maternal gatekeeping may play a role in the development of new fathers’ involvement in child health care at the transition to parenthood

The Role of Infant Temperament in Stability and Change in Coparenting Across the First Year of Life

The current study investigated the role of infant temperament in stability and change in coparenting behavior across the infant’s first year. Specifically, bidirectional relations between infant temperament and coparenting were examined and temperament was further considered as a moderator of longitudinal stability in coparenting behavior

Parental beliefs, infant temperament, and marital quality: Associations with infant–mother and infant–father attachment.

The present research examined parental beliefs about the importance of the paternal caregiving role, mothers’ and fathers’ reports of infant temperament, and observed marital quality as predictors of infant-mother and infant-father attachment security, over and above the effects of parental sensitivity. Infants’ attachment security to mothers and fathers were observed in the Strange Situation at 12- and 13-months, respectively (N = 62 two-parent families). Hierarchical regression models revealed that mothers who viewed the paternal caregiving role as important were less likely to have securely attached infants, but only when infant fussiness was high. Additionally, fathers who viewed the paternal caregiving role as important were more likely to have securely attached infants, but only when infants’ fussiness or marital quality was high

Parents’ differential susceptibility to the effects of marital quality on sensitivity across the first year

The current investigation examined the differential susceptibility of parents to the effects of marital quality on changes in parenting. We predicted that parents who were high on the personality constructs Negative Affect and Constraint would be more susceptible to the effects of marital quality on their level of sensitivity. Sensitivity was assessed at 3.5 and 13 months for both mothers and fathers during a triadic interaction. Consistent with the differential susceptibility theory, results suggested that when mothers were high on Negative Affect and when fathers were high on Constraint, their marital quality was associated with changes in sensitivity. This investigation suggests that personality factors may create “vulnerabilities” in parents that make them differentially susceptible to the effects of the family environment on parentin

Estimating the Effect of Romantic Relationship in Adolescence With IPTW: Using Machine Learning to Compute Propensity Scores

Romantic relationships are prevalent during adolescence and engagement in romantic relationships may affect socio-emotional development (Collins, Welsh, & Furman, 2009). For instance, Beckmeyer (2015) found that participation in serious romantic relationships was associated with increased odds of substance use, including alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana. The current study takes a step further to distinguish causation from selection effect of serious romantic relationship participation on adolescents’ socio-emotional development, by computing each adolescent’s probability to participate in romantic relationships (i.e., propensity scores) and adjusting the model using the scores (i.e., Inverse Probability to Treatment Weighting; IPTW). IPTW balances the baseline covariates among treatments, therefore reducing the non-randomness in treatment assignment (i.e., adolescents engage in romantic relationships or not), and creates an experiment-like condition to allow for causal inference (Austin & Stuart, 2015). Estimating propensity scores is more of a prediction problem than an explanatory problem. However, most studies estimate propensity scores with logistic regression (Westreich, Lessler, & Funk, 2011). Very limited attention has been paid to evaluating model assumptions and cross-validation errors. Westreich et al. (2011) suggested considering machine learning methods, and in particular, using boosting algorithms as an alternative to logistic regression. Boosting methods are robust against overfitting issues and perform well in classification problems (Schapire, 2003). Using information about adolescent’s family background, physical development, and socio-emotional development in middle childhood in NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD), the boosting model correctly predicted whether the adolescent participated in serious romantic relationships in 75% of the cases with test data, with both specificity and sensitivity greater than 70%. Applying the inverse probability weighting with resulting propensity scores, we found that adolescents who participated in serious relationships were less work-oriented and more likely to take risks. However, these adolescents were also less lonely and perceived themselves to be more popular

Same Behaviors, Different Outcomes: Mothers’ and Fathers’ Observed Challenging Behaviors Measured Using a New Coding System Relate Differentially to Children’s Social-Emotional Development

This study used a newly developed coding system for measuring the quality of parenting behavior to examine associations with children’s social-emotional development. The Risky Interaction Support and Challenge Scale (RISCS) measures the extent to which parents engage in behaviors that present physical and regulatory challenges to children, as well as parents’ tendency to allow children to pursue action goals autonomously. These behaviors were observed while parents (n = 57 fathers; n = 55 mothers; n = 50 pairs) interacted with their 1-year-olds who played on a structure that included a slide, a small climbing wall, and a tunnel. Trained raters reliably used the RISCS to measure several dimensions of parent behaviors related to children’s exploration, and all but one of the dimensions captured adequate variability in parent behavior. Although mothers and fathers did not differ in any of the dimensions, the associations between parent behavior and children’s social-emotional development did not overlap. Fathers who engaged in greater autonomy allowance and lower overprotection had toddlers with lower levels of internalizing behavior, whereas mothers who challenged children’s regulatory competence had toddlers with lower levels of externalizing behavior and greater competence. We discuss the implications of the findings for the literature on attachment theory and father-child relationships

Trajectories of Mother-Child and Father-Child Relationships Across Middle Childhood and Associations with Depressive Symptoms

Using a family systems perspective, we examined the trajectories of father-child and mother-child closeness and conflict across Grades 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6, and their associations with child depressive symptoms across middle childhood among 685 families in the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD). Father-child and mother-child relationship conflict increased, whereas relationship closeness decreased from Grades 1 to 6. Girls with more slowly increasing father-child conflict, and more slowly decreasing father-child closeness, were at lower risk for depressive symptoms. Boys with more slowly increasing mother-child conflict were at lower risk for depressive symptoms. These findings highlight the important roles of both father-child and mother-child relationships in children\u27s emotional adjustment during middle childhood