Fathering Behaviors

Like the lines of a secret map made dimly apparent by the chemical potion brushed on a piece of paper from a child's detective kit, the outlines of what may be a substantial behavioral biology of human life seem to be coming clear. From genetic science at its most molecular to demography with its assessment of the vital experience of massive populations, there is a growing understanding of the various ways in which the human species reveals underlying commonalities of experi ence through the life cycle and over the web of interactions that constitutes the basic matter of social life. At the same time, research has been successful in two super ficially and contradictory directions: first, in showing the enormous variation in human arrangements and consciousness across and with in cultures; and second, in showing the similarity between cultures as far as basic processes of physiology, neurophysiology, and even so ciallife are concerned. But the contradiction only exists in the absence of an understanding of the fact that in a species living under as many ecological, historical, and economic niches as Homo sapiens, cultural variation is what one would naturally expect.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

This volume focuses upon the complex nature of the work-family interface, and how families around the globe deal with the inherent dilemmas therein. Chapters examine how work affects families in both overt and discrete manners, as well as how family life, in turn, affects paid employment.

How do men think about fathering? How does this differ across different regions of the world? And what effect does this have on child development? Fathering in Cultural Contexts: Developmental and Clinical Issues answers these questions by considering a broad range of theoretical and conceptual models on fathering and childhood development, including attachment theory, developmental psychopathology, masculinity and parenting typologies. Roopnarine and Yildirim provide a comprehensive view of fatherhood and fathering in diverse cultural communities at various stages of economic development, including fathers’ involvement in different family structures, from two-parent heterosexual families to community fathering. This book’s interdisciplinary approach highlights the changing nature of fathering, drawing connections with child development and well-being, and evaluates the effectiveness of a range of father interventions. Fathering in Cultural Contexts will appeal to upper level undergraduate and graduate students in human development, psychology, sociology, anthropology, social work, and allied health disciplines, and professionals working with families and children in non-profit and social service agencies across the world.

How fathers affect their daughters' social, academic, intellectual, athletic, and psychological development is then considered. Factors that can weaken father-daughter relationships, such as divorce, including various theoretical perspectives, are explored in chapters 5 and 6. Father-daughter relationships of racial or ethnic minorities and an array of potentially destructive situations that affect these relationships are the focus of chapters 7 and 8. The impact of fathers who are incarcerated, abusive, alcoholics, gay, or sperm donors are considered. The book concludes with suggestions on where we go from here.

This insightful volume presents important new findings about parenting and parent-child relationships in ethnic and racial minority immigrant families. Prominent scholars in diverse fields focus on families from a wide range of ethnicities settling in Canada, China, Israel, Italy, the Netherlands, and the United States. Each chapter discusses parenting and parent-child relationships in a broader cultural context, presenting within-group and cross-cultural data that provide readers with a rich understanding of parental values, beliefs, and practices that influence children’s developmental outcomes in a new country. For example, topics of investigation include cultural variation in the role of fathers, parenting of young children across cultures, the socialization of academic and emotional development, as well as the interrelationships among stress, acculturation processes, and parent-child relationship dynamics. This timely reference: • explores immigration and families from a global, multidisciplinary perspective; • focuses on immigrant children and youth in the family context;• challenges long-held assumptions about parenting and immigrant families;• bridges the knowledge gap between immigrant and non-immigrant family studies;• describes innovative methodologies for studying immigrant family relationships; and• establishes the relevance of these data to the wider family literature. Parental Roles and Relationships in Immigrant Families is not only useful to researchers and to family therapists and social workers attending to immigrant families, but also highly informative for persons interested in shaping immigration policy at the local, national, and global levels.

Depression is a widespread condition affecting approximately 7.5 million parents in the U.S. each year and may be putting at least 15 million children at risk for adverse health outcomes. Based on evidentiary studies, major depression in either parent can interfere with parenting quality and increase the risk of children developing mental, behavioral and social problems. Depression in Parents, Parenting, and Children highlights disparities in the prevalence, identification, treatment, and prevention of parental depression among different sociodemographic populations. It also outlines strategies for effective intervention and identifies the need for a more interdisciplinary approach that takes biological, psychological, behavioral, interpersonal, and social contexts into consideration. A major challenge to the effective management of parental depression is developing a treatment and prevention strategy that can be introduced within a two-generation framework, conducive for parents and their children. Thus far, both the federal and state response to the problem has been fragmented, poorly funded, and lacking proper oversight. This study examines options for widespread implementation of best practices as well as strategies that can be effective in diverse service settings for diverse populations of children and their families. The delivery of adequate screening and successful detection and treatment of a depressive illness and prevention of its effects on parenting and the health of children is a formidable challenge to modern health care systems. This study offers seven solid recommendations designed to increase awareness about and remove barriers to care for both the depressed adult and prevention of effects in the child. The report will be of particular interest to federal health officers, mental and behavioral health providers in diverse parts of health care delivery systems, health policy staff, state legislators, and the general public.

Shifting marriage and divorce patterns, transformation in the workplace, the growth of the women′s movement and the development of the men′s movement, all these social and cultural changes have changed fathers′ traditional family roles and forced a reexamination of how fathers and children interact. Progress in this new understanding of fathers is highlighted in Fatherhood, a volume of empirical and theoretical research on fathers in families. The research pieces, written by such well-known scholars as Furstenberg, Seltzer, and Greif, examine differences in culture, class, nationality, and custodial status. The chapters focus on legal, economic, and policy questions, as well as on the interaction between fathers and children within the family. Some of the topics explored are fathers′ involvement in child care, fathering in the inner city, and single fathers who have custody of their children. Fatherhood is the most current assessment of our research base on fatherhood available for professional, scholarly, and classroom use and is important reading for those interested in men′s studies, family studies, gender studies, sociology, psychology, and social work.