Pathways to Children’s Behavioral Problems during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Fathers’ Parenting Stress and Parenting Approaches

Abstract

Although the family stress model theoretically focuses on the roles of both mothers and fathers as predictors of children’s outcomes, studies generally have focused on mothers. The pandemic has brought additional burdens to parents’ daily functioning, including fathers’ involvement in childcare. The current study aimed to examine the contributions of fathers’ parenting stress and parenting approaches to their children’s behavior problems during the COVID-19 pandemic. Particularly, we examined the indirect effects of parenting stress on children’s behavior problems via parenting practices. The participants were 155 fathers (Mage = 36.87, SD = 5.11) and their children (71 girls, 84 boys; Mage = 59.52, SD = 14.98) from Turkish contexts. The fathers reported their parenting stress, approaches, and children’s behavioral problems. The results from the path analysis showed that parenting stress predicted children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors. Parenting stress also predicted severe punishment and obedience as parts of the parenting approach. Finally, parenting stress was indirectly related to children’s externalizing behaviors via the punishment-based parenting approach of fathers. The findings of the current study highlighted the importance of examining the roles of fathers during the COVID-19 pandemic. Intervention programs targeting reducing fathers’ parenting stress and negative parenting approaches would also be beneficial for reducing children’s behavioral problems.

Preschool Emotional Problems in the Post-Pandemic Era between Parental Risk and Protective Factors

“…According to the family stress model, environmental stressors, such as those related to the pandemic situation (e.g., social isolation, difficult balancing work time and family time due to smart working, financial difficulties, risk of job loss, trouble managing homeschooling, and increased parenting duties) interfere with family dynamics, can negatively affect parenting [98][99][100]. Due to a spillover effect, parental stress leads to intensified negative interactions between parents and children and, as a cascade, an increased risk of negative outcomes in children [100]. Individuals respond to stress differently depending on their subjective perception of the situation and the coping strategies they employ [101,102].…”

The Relationship between Paternal Alexithymia and Children’s Internalizing and Externalizing Behavioral Problems during Early Childhood

“…This study thus aims to help fill the gap by focusing on fathers. The literature has long highlighted the specific role fathers play in child development and psychosocial outcomes [57][58][59][60][61][62]. Alexithymia in fathers may be an interesting focus of investigation in that research indicates that men have more difficulty than women identifying and communicating feelings [45,63].…”