Adolescent fathers: A group potentially at risk for parenting failure

Abstract

Recent attention has focused on the role of father-child interaction and relationships in child development. Usually neglected in such discussions, however, is the special group of fathers who are adolescent. For various reasons, children of adolescent fathers may receive less adequate parenting than children of adult fathers. Men who begin parenthood during adolescence frequently obtain less formal education, achieve less vocational success, and have higher divorce rates than peers who delay parenthood. Because of situational factors and, possibly, developmental factors, many young fathers may be faced with excessive amounts of stress with which they may have difficulty coping. These factors serve to interfere not only with father-chiid interaction, but also with mother-father relationships. Both relationships have an important influence on child development. Within the last decade, researchers have paid increasing attention to the influences that fathers have on their children's development. As a result, there has emerged an appreciation that children develop in the context of a family system in which each parent affects the child's development directly as well as via hisher influence on the other parent's relationship with the child.'-3 In a recent contribution to this journal, Lamb reviewed the available evidence concerning the ways in which fathers affect the socioemotional and cognitive development of their infant^.^ Several conclusions emerged from this literature review. First, as in the case of mothers, the security of the father- infant relationship appears to depend on the degree to which the adult is sensitively responsive to the infant's signals and needs .* Secure attachment relationships have positive long-term consequences, whereas insecurely- attached infants are later less persistent in task situations, less sociable with adults, and less socially competent with peer^.^-'^ The security of both infant- mother and infant-father attachments have independent influence on the