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Father Involvement and Behavior Problems among Preadolescents at Risk of Maltreatment

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Abstract

Although there is a well-established connection between father involvement and children’s positive behavioral development in general, this relation has been understudied in more vulnerable and high-risk populations. The aims of this study were to examine how the quantity (i.e., the amount of shared activities) and quality (i.e., perceived quality of the father-child relationship) of father involvement are differently related to internalizing and externalizing behavior problems among preadolescents at risk of maltreatment and test if these associations are moderated by father type and child maltreatment. A secondary data analysis was conducted using data from the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN). Generalized estimating equations analysis was performed on a sample of 499 preadolescents aged 12 years. The results indicated that higher quality of father involvement was associated with lower levels of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems whereas greater quantity of father involvement was associated with higher levels of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems. The positive association between the quantity of father involvement and behavior problems was stronger in adolescents who were physically abused by their father. The association between father involvement and behavior problems did not differ by the type of father co-residing in the home. The findings suggest that policies and interventions aimed at improving the quality of fathers’ relationships and involvement with their children may be helpful in reducing behavior problems in adolescents at risk of maltreatment.

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Acknowledgements

This document includes data from the Consortium of Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN), which was funded by the Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (ACF/DHHS). The data were provided by the National Data Archive on Child Abuse and Neglect. This research was funded by the Ohio State University Institute for Population Research through a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver NICHD of NIH, P2CHD058484. The content is soley the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the NICHD or the NIH.

Author Contributions

S.Y.: designed and executed the study, analyzed the data, and wrote the paper. J.B.: collaborated with the design and writing of the study. W.K. and D.Y.: collaborated in the writing and editing of the final manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Social Work, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

    Susan Yoon

  2. Graduate School of Social Work, The University of Denver, Denver, CO, USA

    Jennifer L. Bellamy

  3. Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel School of Applied Social Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH, USA

    Wonhee Kim & Dalhee Yoon

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  1. Susan Yoon
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  2. Jennifer L. Bellamy
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  3. Wonhee Kim
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  4. Dalhee Yoon
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Correspondence to Susan Yoon.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Yoon, S., Bellamy, J.L., Kim, W. et al. Father Involvement and Behavior Problems among Preadolescents at Risk of Maltreatment. J Child Fam Stud 27, 494–504 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0890-6

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