Fathers and their roles

                 Good morning my wonderful people. I hope yesterday was a day of a good time as you enjoyed spending moments with your family during thanksgiving.  Today, I will enumerate some facts and influences fathers have on their children. I will list five points that are the keys to most children's success in society. These points come from research on fathers' involvement. I decided to do that not to compare the roles of fathers with mothers but to help my audience that you realize how important it is for children to have both parents in their lives 

1) Cognitive development

Infants of highly involved fathers, as measured by the amount of interaction, including higher levels of play and caregiving activities, are more cognitively competent at 6 months and score higher on the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. By one year they continue to have higher cognitive functioning are better problem solvers as toddlers, and have higher IQ’s by age three. When compared with mothers, fathers’ talk with toddlers is characterized by more wh(e.g. “what”, “where” etc.) questions, which requires children to assume more communicative responsibility in the interaction. This encouraged toddlers to talk more, use more diverse vocabulary, and produce longer utterances when interacting with their fathers.

2) emotional development and well-being 

Children of involved fathers are more likely to demonstrate a greater tolerance for stress and frustration have superior problem-solving and adaptive skills be more playful, resourceful, skillful, and attentive when presented with a problem, and are better able to manage their emotions and impulses in an appropriate manner. Father involvement contributes significantly and independently to adolescent happiness and found a positive relationship between paternal warmth and child well-being in non-residential father families. A close, non-conflictual stepfather-stepchild relationship improves adolescent well-being, and close relationships with both stepfathers and non-resident fathers are associated with better adolescent outcomes in regard to grades, self-efficacy, internalizing and externalizing behaviors, and acting out in school.

3) social development 

Father involvement is positively correlated with children’s overall social competence, social initiative, social maturity, and capacity for relatedness with others. This impact begins early in child development. For example, Kato, Ishii-Kuntz, Makino, and Tsuchiya (2002) found a direct influence on men’s participation in childcare for children’s pro-social development among three-year-olds. Children of involved fathers are more likely to have positive peer relations and be popular and well-liked. Their peer relations are typified by less negativity, less aggression, less conflict, more reciprocity, more generosity, and more positive friendship qualities. Adolescents who are securely attached to their fathers report less conflict in their interactions with peers. Furthermore, fathers’ levels of direct involvement are positively related to adolescents’ friendship and peer experiences. Conversely, negative paternal affect such as high levels of hostility had significant direct and indirect effects on adolescents' negative social behavior, which in turn predicted decreased peer acceptance.

4) physical health

Fathers can indirectly influence the physical health and well-being of their children by facilitating optimal health outcomes for mothers. When fathers are emotionally supportive of their spouses, wives are more likely to enjoy a greater sense of well-being, and good postpartum mental health has a relatively problem-free pregnancy, delivery process, and nursing experience, and maintain or adopt healthy pregnancy behaviors. Single mothers are twice as likely as married mothers to experience a bout of depression and experience higher levels of stress suggesting that fathers have a positive impact on mothers’ health and children’s well-being.

5) decrease in negative child development outcomes 

Father involvement protects children from engaging in delinquent behavior (Harris et al., 1998), and is associated with less substance abuse among adolescents less delinquency, less drug use, truancy, and stealing. For example, father involvement when the youth was in 10th grade was associated with less problem behavior (drug use, delinquency, violent behavior) the next year, especially if the father provided school support. The relationship between peer drug use and adolescent marijuana use is attenuated by both closeness to the father and the perception that parents would catch them for major rule violations. Having a close, positive father-child relationship predicts a reduced risk of engagement in multiple, first-time risky behaviors. In addition, when fathers have a positive relationship with their children, the negative effect of having a father with an authoritarian or permissive parenting style on the increased risk of engaging in delinquent activity and substance use is reduced Bronte-Tinkew, Moore, & Carrano, 2006.

To conclude, I would like to assert that my experience with my dad has helped me to acquire many of the qualities evoked in this article. I felt fulfilled because of the example he has set for me as a dad and finally because of what he taught me. So it is always a good thing to have both parents raise their children together because each of them adds up many vital things to the life of their children that would have been found nowhere else except at home and in their family.