Low‐income, Minority Fathers’ Control Strategies and Their Children's Regulatory Skills

Abstract

The current study explored the bidirectional association of children's individual characteristics, fathers' control strategies at 24-months and children's regulatory skills at pre-kindergarten (pre-K). Using a sample of low-income minority families with 2-year-olds from the Early Head Start Evaluation Research Program (n = 71) we assessed the association between child gender and vocabulary skills, fathers' control strategies at 24-months (e.g., regulatory behavior and regulatory language), and children's sustained attention and emotion regulation at pre-kindergarten. There were three main findings. First, fathers' overwhelmingly use commands (e.g., do that) to promote compliance in their 24-month old children. Second, children's vocabulary skills predict fathers' regulatory behaviors during a father-child interaction, whereas children's gender predicts fathers' regulatory language during an interaction. Third, controlling for maternal supportiveness, fathers' regulatory behaviors at 24-months predict children's sustained attention at pre-kindergarten whereas fathers' regulatory language at 24-months predicts children's emotion regulation at pre-kindergarten. Our findings highlight the importance of examining paternal contributions to children's regulatory skills.

Forward Progress of Scientific Inquiry Into the Early Father–child Relationship: Introduction to the Special Issue on Very Young Children and Their Fathers

“…The papers included in the current special issue of IMHJ contribute to the expanding research literature on fathers and their very young children. For example, Jenessa Malin and colleagues () investigate fathers’ control strategies as directly observed during semi‐structured play with their toddlers. Lauren Altenburger and colleagues () include observer ratings of father and infant behavior as well as fathers’ reports of their own subjective representations of parenting.…”

“…There are notable exceptions (e.g., Corboz‐Warnery, Fivaz‐Depeursinge, Bettens, & Favez, 1993; Favez, Frascarolo, Lavanchy Scaiola, & Corboz‐Warnery, 2013; Feldman, Masalha, & Alony, ; McHale, Fivaz‐Depeursinge, Dickstein, Robertson, & Dalye, ), including James McHale and Erica Coates's () paper in the current special issue. Further, also in the current issue, Malin et al () statistically control for maternal contributions to children's outcomes when testing unique effects of fathering, and Goodman and colleagues address the ways in which fathering moderates the transmission of risk between maternal psychopathology and infant development. These strategies indicate emerging methodological trends in research on fathers.…”

“…In the current special issue, papers address subpopulations that are typically underrepresented including fathers in low‐income, African American families (Mchale & Coates, ; Thullen et al., ). Malin and colleagues () focus on low‐income African American and Latino fathers and their children while Cerniglia and colleagues () examine preschoolers in Italy, and Bureau and colleagues () sample bilingual and low‐risk (SES) families in Canada. Rosenblum and colleagues () present a study with military fathers of young children, a subpopulation at once under examined and contemporarily critical in scientific, programming, and policy environments.…”

Retooling: Evolution in Research on Fathers – A Commentary

“…In some respects, the study by Malin, Cabrera, Karberg, Aldoney, and Rowe () serves as a counter weight to the Cerniglia et al ) study. Malin and colleagues examined the use of regulatory language and behaviors among low‐income minority fathers using event based coding of father–child interactions.…”

“…Our expanded model conveys that paternal parenting represents an evolving relationship in which “influences” are bidirectional. The studies by Malin et al () and Bureau et al () take the notions of dyadic relationships and bidirectionality strongly into account. Our expanded model demarcates multiple types of contextual influences on paternal behavior – “I am a part of all that I have met”.…”