Active father involvement in child care can promote the mental and physical development of toddlers, while reducing maternal stress.
- Paternal involvement in infant care may be beneficial for young children’s development.
- Fathers’ active involvement in infant care was associated with a lower risk of developmental delay in the areas of gross motor skills, fine motor skills, problem solving, and personal and social life.
- This also helped reduce maternal stress.
In developed countries, the amount of time fathers spend caring for their children has increased steadily over the past few decades. However, there is a lack of research on the link between paternal care and children’s developmental outcomes. That’s why researchers at Doshisha University in Japan conducted a study to examine the father-child bond and its impact on infant development.
7 Questions to Determine Paternal Involvement in Child Custody
For the purposes of the work published in the journal Pediatric Researchthe team used data from a Japanese cohort on environment and children. A total of 28,050 children who had received paternal care at 6 months of age were assessed at various developmental milestones at 3 years of age using a specific questionnaire. Paternal childcare was assessed using seven key questions about important childcare tasks, such as feeding, changing diapers, bathing, putting the children to bed, playing with them at home, taking them outside, and changing their clothes. Fathers were then assessed on their involvement. The potential mediating effect of maternal stress was also examined at 1.5 years of age.
Motor skills: low risk of developmental delay when fathers are involved in childcare
Fathers who “never” offered help with a certain task were given a score of 0 for child care. According to the results, high father involvement in child care was associated with a lower risk of developmental delays in the areas of gross motor skills, fine motor skills, problem solving, and personal and social life, compared with low involvement. In addition, active father involvement in toddler care during early childhood decreased mothers’ stress.
“Our research results indicate that increased father involvement in child care could bring benefits to both children and mothers,” said Tsuguhiko Kato, lead author of the study, in a statement.
