The increase in fathers' involvement in childrearing, particularly beyond infancy, warrants research exploring factors influencing the quality of child-father attachment relationships, and the impact of these relationships on children's social development. The current investigation explored various correlates of preschoolers' child-father attachment security to both parents, including contextual factors (i.e., socioeconomic status, child temperament, parenting stress), parental play sensitivity, and child social adaptation. Participants included 107 preschool-aged children (59 girls; M = 46.67 months, SD = 8.57) and their fathers and mothers. Results revealed that both mothers' and fathers' play sensitivity were associated with child attachment security after controlling for different contextual factors. Furthermore, the magnitude of the association between child conduct problems and child-father attachment insecurity was stronger than the corresponding association with child-mother attachment insecurity. Findings provide important information on caregiving factors associated with child-father attachment security in the preschool years and the importance of this bond to children's social adaptation.
Poor early life care often relates to cognitive difficulties. However, newer work suggests that in early-life, adversity may associate with enhanced or accelerated neurodevelopment. We examine associations between postnatal caregiving risks (i.e., higher self-reported postnatal-anxiety and lower observed maternal sensitivity) and infant relational memory (i.e., via deferred imitation and relational binding). Using subsamples of 67-181 infants (aged 433-477 post-conceptual days, or roughly five to seven months since birth) taking part in the GUSTO study, we found such postnatal caregiving risk significantly predictive of "better" performance on a relational binding task following a brief delay, after Bonferroni adjustments. Subsequent analyses suggest that the association between memory and these risks may specifically be apparent among infants spending at least 50% of their waking hours in the presence of their mothers. Our findings echo neuroimaging research concerning similar risk exposure and larger infant hippocampal volume, and likewise underscore the importance of considering developmental context in understanding early life experience. With this in mind, these findings caution against the use of cognitive outcomes as indices of experienced risk.
A number of studies have examined the role of coparenting relationships on the development of children's attachment to their mothers and fathers. However, previous research tends to interpret this link as unidirectional, thereby ignoring the possibility that, in reverse, child-parent attachment relationships could also predict the quality of the coparenting relationship. Furthermore, there is limited work examining how the child-father and the child-mother attachment relationships may interact to predict coparenting. In response to these limitations, the current study drew from an integrative family systems framework and observational measures to examine these possible relations in biparental heterosexual families. To assess child-parent attachment security, 144 preschool-aged children (83 girls; M ϭ 46.89 months, SD ϭ 8.77) completed independent separation-reunion procedures with their mother and father during counterbalanced laboratory visits. During a subsequent home visit, parents engaged in triadic play with their child, from which coparenting cooperation and competition were evaluated. Results showed that child-mother and child-father attachment security were not independent predictors of coparenting; rather, their interaction significantly predicted the quality of the coparenting relationship. In line with theoretical models calling for a family systems approach, study findings highlight the importance of considering the interactive effects of child-father and child-mother attachment relationships when examining family dynamics. Public Significance StatementThe current study suggests that the interaction between children's attachment security toward their father and mother is a more important predictor of the quality of the coparenting relationship than is either individual child-parent attachment relationship. On a broader level, these results show the need to consider the interplay between the child-father and the child-mother relationship when assessing family dynamics. At a more specific level, we also show that there is lower cooperation and higher competition when child-mother security is high but child-father security is low, whereas there is higher cooperation and lower competition when both child-parent attachment relationships present high levels of security. These results suggest that when mothers are successful in fostering a secure attachment relationship, whereas fathers are not, the coparenting relationship may suffer as a result of increased competition and decreased cooperation between parents. As such, assuming positive family dynamics based on the examination of one relationship in isolation might be short-sighted.
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