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Fathers' parenting attitudes during a child's first year
1Department of Parent-Child Nursing, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta 30912, USA.
Insights
Fathers
Area of Science:
- Developmental Psychology
- Parent-Child Interaction Studies
- Family Studies
Background:
- Parenting attitudes are crucial for child development and are influenced by various factors.
- Understanding how paternal involvement shapes parenting attitudes is essential for promoting positive family dynamics.
- Existing research often focuses on maternal parenting, necessitating more studies on paternal roles.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of fathers' interactions with their children from prebirth to one year on their parenting attitudes.
- To measure changes in paternal parenting attitudes using the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI).
Main Methods:
- A nonrandomized, longitudinal, descriptive study design was employed.
- Participants included 293 well-educated, upper-middle-class fathers attending prenatal classes in the southeastern United States.
- Data were collected at three time points: prebirth, 3 months postpartum, and 1 year postpartum, with decreasing sample sizes at each follow-up.
Main Results:
- Fathers showed significantly lower scores in expectations and belief in corporal punishment at 3 months postpartum.
- No significant differences were found in fathers' empathy or perceptions of appropriate family roles at 3 months.
- The Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI) revealed significant changes in specific parenting attitude constructs.
Conclusions:
- Fathers require targeted education on age-appropriate expectations for 3-month-old infants.
- Information on alternative, non-corporal discipline methods is necessary for these fathers.
- Interventions should address paternal expectations and discipline strategies to support positive parenting.
Objective:
To determine whether fathers' interactions with their children from prebirth to 1 year of age changed the fathers' parenting attitudes as measured by the Adult-Adolescent Parenting Inventory (AAPI).
Design:
Nonrandomized, longitudinal, descriptive study.
Setting:
Private obstetricians' offices, prenatal clinics, and prenatal classes in a large city in the southeastern United States.
Participants:
White, well-educated, stable, upper-middle class fathers attending prenatal education classes. At time 1 (prebirth), n = 293 with 228 first-time fathers and 65 experienced fathers. At time 2 (3 months), n = 62 with 46 first-time fathers and 16 experienced fathers. At time 3 (1 year), n = 42 with 30 first-time fathers and 12 experienced fathers.
Main Outcome Measures:
Parenting attitudes as measured by the AAPI.
Results:
Repeated measures analysis of variance revealed a significant difference in two of the four constructs measured by the AAPI. When their children were 3 months old, fathers scored significantly lower in the areas of expectations and belief in the use of corporal punishment, and their raw scores did not significantly differ in the areas of empathy and appropriate family roles.
Conclusion:
These fathers need education about appropriate expectations of a 3-month-old child and information regarding alternative methods of discipline.