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Journal Article This study examines the efficacy of ParentCorps among 4-year-old children (N = 171) enrolled in prekindergarten in schools in a large urban school district. ParentCorps includes a series of 13 group sessions for parents and children held at the school during early evening hours and facilitated by teachers and mental health professionals. ParentCorps resulted in significant benefits on effective parenting practices and teacher ratings of child behavior problems in school. Intervention effects were of similar magnitude for families at different levels of risk and for Black and Latino…
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Journal Article Contextual, mother-, child-, and father-level variables were examined in association with fathers' emotion talk to infants during a shared picture book activity, in an ethnically diverse, low-income sample (N = 549). Significant main effects included the rate of emotion talk from fathers' romantic partners (i.e., the infant's mother), infant attention and distress, and sensitive parenting. Significant interactions were also found. Higher income African American fathers referred to negative emotions more than non-African American higher income fathers. In addition, African American fathers who…
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Journal Article Considerable debate exists regarding whether religiousness promotes or impedes greater father involvement in parenting. Our study addresses this issue using a Midwestern longitudinal data set that tracks the transition to first parenthood for 169 married couples. We focus on performance of the "messier" tasks of infant care. We find little evidence that religiousness enhances father involvement in this domain. Biblically conservative couples exhibit a greater gender gap in child care than others, with mothers more involved than fathers. The gender gap is also greater the more fathers work…
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Journal Article Using longitudinal data from the Youth Development Study (analytic sample N = 712), we investigate how age, adult role acquisition and attainments, family resources, parent-child relationship quality, school attendance, and life events influence support received from parents in young adulthood. Parental assistance was found to be less forthcoming for those who had made greater progress on the road to adulthood, signified by socioeconomic attainment and union formation. The quality of mother-child and father-child relationships affected parental support in different ways, positively for…
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Journal Article The present study examined the effects of nonresident fathers' involvement -- measured by the frequency of fathers' contact with their children and the quality of fathers' parenting -- on their children's behavior problems. Using data from a subsample of African American single and non-cohabiting mothers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, results indicate that more frequent contact between fathers and their child and fathers' more adequate parenting were associated indirectly with fewer child behavior problems transmitted through more adequate parenting by mothers. The…
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Journal Article OBJECTIVE: To examine the associations between depression in fathers of 1-year-old children and specific positive and negative parenting behaviors discussed by pediatric providers at well-child visits. METHODS: We performed a cross-sectional secondary analysis by using interview data from 1746 fathers of 1-year-old children in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. Positive parenting behaviors included fathers' reports of playing games, singing songs, and reading stories to their children 3 days in a typical week. Negative parenting behavior included fathers' reports of spanking…
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Training Materials NFI has released Understanding Domestic Violence, a three session curriculum module that can be used to raise awareness about this critical issue. Through three, interactive sessions, fathers will learn more about domestic violence, its warning signs, and its cyclical nature and effects. (Author abstract modified)Note: For more information, visit https://store.fatherhood.org/fathertopics-booster-session-understanding…
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Training Materials This trainer's guide and trainee's guide provide information on working with African American fathers involved in the child welfare system. The materials discuss the historical relevance and current impact of slavery on African American fathers, the biases against African-American fathers by child welfare social workers and their agencies, solutions to the systemic biases against African-American father within child welfare, and the application of the principles of fairness and equity and associated skills and strategies in working with other culturally diverse families within child welfare…
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Journal Article This study investigates how unemployment, traumatic sexual experiences, substance use, intimate partner violence, and parental involvement collectively contribute to involvement with child protective system (CPS) and court-restricted access to children among low-income, ethnically diverse fathers. Participants were 164 fathers involved in a statewide fatherhood program. The majority of the fathers in the program were unemployed (76%) and ethnic minorities (66%). Logistic regression revealed that traumatic sexual experiences and number of children were significant predictors of CPS involvement…
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Journal Article Much is known about how having a teenage mother influences children's outcomes, but the relationship between teenage fatherhood and children's health and development is less well documented. Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, the authors investigated how teenage fathers matter for children. They expected teenage fathers' influence on children to differ from adult fathers' in three domains: the household context, the father' mother relationship, and the father-child relationship. Teenage fathers were less often married and more often cohabiting or nonresident, and their…
