Father-child food talk: Commensality and socialization

The scientific study of fathering has been somewhat neglected, perhaps because the father role is hardly constant even within a particular culture and is subject to very great fluctuations indeed from culture to culture. In that respect the study of fathering is much more difficult than the study of mothering. Work often subsumed under the heading of "attachment theory" has shown that the mother-infant and mother-child relationships have some cross-cultural constancy and may even be described as a bio-social "given". Four methods of data collection are described and reviewed: studies of adults partially or fully deprived of adequate fathering during their childhoods; direct studies of father-infant and father-child interaction; "in-depth" psychoanalytic studies of individual psychopathology in relation to that individual's relationship to a father; and introspection and personal observation. Each of these four avenues of data collection offers certain advantages as well as certain disadvantages which are reviewed with examples from available literature. In studying the importance of the father role there is a tendency to study the importance of fathering to children, ignoring that fathering is clearly important to the psychological development and further growth of the father. That there is a psychopathology of the process of fatherhood seems obvious on reflection, and data bearing on that psychopathology are reviewed. The importance of fathering to infants and children can be reviewed according to the three areas of psychic activity: primary creativity, the basic fault, and the Oedipus conflict. In the area of primary creativity we can study the importance of fathering to infants in terms of fantasied fathers and part-time fathers, and the prenatal role of father as mother facilitator. In the area of the basic fault (two-person psychology) we can study the postnatal role of father as mother facilitator, the role of father as mother-surrogate, the pre-oedipal role of father in the determination of gender identity, the role of father in "healing by second intent", and the importance of father in separation-individuation. In the area of the Oedipus conflict (three-person psychology) we can study the role of father in the infant's resolution of the oedipus complex and the development of superego, the importance of father as a role model for post-oedipal identification, the relation of father-absence to anti-social behaviour, the role of father in fostering cognitive and general development and growth, and the role of father in the further formation of adult personality. This two-part concludes with a review of the importance of improved understanding of the father role in clinical work.

An Exploratory Study* Brent A. McBride** and Thomas R. Rane The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine the relationship between perceptions of the parenting alliance, marital quality, and the amount of involvement fathers have in raising their young children. Subjects were 89 predominately White, twoparent families with preschool aged children. Self-report and interview data were collected to measure each parent's participation in three categories of parental involvement (interaction, accessibility, and responsibility), as well as perceptions of the parenting alliance and marital quality. Multiple regression procedures suggested that fathers' perceptions of spouses' confidence in their own parenting, as well as mother's emotional appraisal of their partners' parenting and their shared parenting philosophy were significant predictors of father involvement in child rearing activities. Results are discussed in terms of future research on paternal involvement, as well as for the development of intervention programs designed to facilitate increased levels of father involvement in child rearing. Key Words: child rearing, father involvement, parenting alliance. Interest in the roles played by fathers in raising their young children emerged as a hot topic during the mid-1980s, and continues to hold the interest of researchers, practitioners, and families alike as we pass through the 1990s. Evidence of this strong interest can be seen in the recent wave of books, special issues of scholarly journals, and magazine articles aimed at parents which are devoted to this topic (e.g., Families In Society, Jan. 1993; Griswold, 1993; Hawkins & Dollahite, 1997; Hood, 1993; Journal of Family Issues, Dec. 1993; Lamb, 1997; Snarey, 1993). Much of this work has focused specifically on father involvement in nurturing aspects of child rearing. Marsiglio (1995a) suggests that three factors have contributed to this increased interest in the role of fathers: (a) changes in the demographic profile of modern families; (b) increased maternal employment and its impact on the division of household labor; and (c) increased policy debates over the well-being of children. Paralleling this increased interest in the roles of fathers has been a shift in societal expectations for fatherhood. The question is no longer one of whether men are capable of providing effective parenting as women historically have done. There is ample evidence suggesting that men can have a positive impact on their children's development when actively engaged in direct child rearing activities (e.g., Almeida & Galambos, 1991; Lamb, 1997; Snarey, 1993; Starrels, 1994; Williams, Radin, & Allegro, 1992). With the potential ability of men to provide competent parenting no longer being the central question in this area, societal expectations have emerged which call for men to assume a more active role in raising their young children (Griswold, 1993; Knijn, in press; LaRossa, 1988; Marsiglio, 1995b; McBride & Mills, 1993; Pleck & Pleck, 1997). LaRossa and his colleagues (LaRossa, Gordon, Wilson, Bavian, & Jaret, 1991) suggest that conventional wisdom has it that America is in the midst of an unprecedented revolution in men's paternal role expectations-that popular attitudes about what fathers can and should do are changing in ways not dreamed of before (p. 994). Consistent with this shift in societal expectations for fatherhood, fathers are slowly beginning to increase the amount of time they spend caring for their children. For example, in a thorough analysis of previous time use studies, Pleck (1997) identifies measurable increases in fathers' involvement with their children over the last three decades. However, these increases are small, and fathers continue to spend significantly less time than mothers caring for children. This phenomenon then raises an interesting question: what factors are related to increased levels of paternal involvement exhibited by some fathers? …

The related issues of food security and obesity among North American Indigenous children are serious public health concerns. This community-based participatory study sought to gain deeper understanding of young First Nation children's lived experience with food and to learn, from their perspective, about food security issues in their community. In this Photovoice investigation 26 young children attending a rural reserve school in Canada were asked to take photographs of the food they ate. Nine high school students from the same school were trained as co-researchers: they interviewed the younger students, helped identify emerging themes and contributed to knowledge translation. Data analysis incorporated conventional content analysis, grounded theory's constant-comparative method, and examination of photos and texts. Five primary findings emerged from photographs and interviews: (1) children had a dualistic understanding of healthy vs. unhealthy foods; (2) packaged, quick-preparation foods played a dominant role in children's everyday food experiences; (3) families were critical to children's food-related experiences; (4) although traditional foods are viewed as central to Aboriginal health, few were depicted in the photographs; and (5) photos do not tell the whole story - despite the smaller numbers of fruits and vegetables in photos, children like to eat these foods when they are available at home. The study improved understanding of children's everyday food-related experiences, provided insight into community food security, and demonstrated the contribution of children and youth as experts on their lives and matters affecting them. A photobook representing findings provided a rich, visual tool for communicating the food-related experiences of children and messages about healthy eating within the school and to community members and leaders. Intervention efforts can build on participants' understanding of healthy versus unhealthy foods and on the critical role of family for healthy eating.

This paper reports findings from a research and development project to support fathers’ involvement with their children’s literacy development. Eighty Emirati fathers attended workshops about sharing reading with their young children, where they were provided with a variety of children’s picture books in both Arabic and English, and reported their experiences of sharing reading in their homes with their young children. In the context of a rapidly evolving United Arab Emirates, the role of fathers is changing within this multilingual society to encompass enhanced engagement with their young children. Emirati fathers reported their experiences via WhatsApp voice-notes and text messages, which offered a naturalistic and culturally appropriate way for them to share their everyday shared reading activities. The overarching takeaway from these responses indicates a sense of their joy at engaging with their children in such volitional shared reading experiences. This leads to a feeling of wellbeing for themselves and their children, as well as a way of being more engaged in child-rearing in this nation which is moving towards more shared spousal responsibilities and more of an emphasis on the importance of connecting with their young children, for not only their children’s benefit but also their own.

This study examined parental work hours and household income as determinants of discretionary (energy-dense, nutrient-poor) food and beverage intake in young children, including differences by eating occasion. Secondary analysis of cross-sectional data. Three hierarchical regression models were conducted with percentage of energy from discretionary food and beverages across the day, at main meals and at snack times being the outcomes. Dietary intake was assessed by 1 × 24-h recall and 1-2 × 24-h food record(s). Both maternal and paternal work hours were included, along with total household income. Covariates included household, parent and child factors. Data from the NOURISH/South Australian Infants Dietary Intake studies were collected between 2008 and 2013. Participants included 526 mother-child dyads (median (interquartile range) child age 1·99 (1·96, 2·03) years). Forty-one percentage of mothers did not work while 57 % of fathers worked 35-40 h/week. Most (85 %) households had an income of ≥$50 k AUD/year. Household income was consistently inversely associated with discretionary energy intake (β = -0·12 to -0·15). Maternal part-time employment (21-35 h/week) predicted child consumption of discretionary energy at main meals (β = 0·10, P = 0·04). Paternal unemployment predicted a lower proportion of discretionary energy at snacks (β = -0·09, P = 0·047). This work suggests that household income should be addressed as a key opportunity-related barrier to healthy food provision in families of young children. Strategies to reduce the time burden of healthy main meal provision may be required in families where mothers juggle longer part-time working hours with caregiving and domestic duties. The need to consider the role of fathers and other parents/caregivers in shaping children's intake was also highlighted.

The paper reminds readers of the importance of ‘playful talk’ in bridging home and school discourses. Through a number of excerpts of bilingual and monolingual children drawn from homes and classrooms over the past decade, it illustrates how school discourse may be taken home and transformed into ‘home talk’ through play. During this transformation, children take ownership of both the language and cultural practice of the classroom. Similarly, it shows the importance of providing the interspace for children to bring home talk into classrooms during socio‐dramatic play. The paper also illustrates the role of family members, particularly siblings and grandparents, in enabling young children to construct bridges between home and school during play activities. Finally, the paper stresses the importance of teachers in recognizing children's different linguistic and cultural resources in their classroom practices and provision.

The role of fathers' psychopathology in the intergenerational transmission of captivity trauma: A twenty three-year longitudinal study

Whilst there is a growing body of literature considering the different settings in which young children spend their time, less explored is how children travel to and from the different everyday spaces of childhood. Although research on gendered carescapes has identified the central role of mothers in caring for and escorting children, as well as the changing role of fathers, little attention has been paid to the role of and expectations from fathers in relation to undertaking these escorting tasks. Drawing upon research conducted in the UK with young children and their families, this paper contributes to existing debates by exploring the role of fathers in escorting children to a variety of settings, considering how fathers may have diverse experiences of escorting. It also explores how cars play a particularly important role in fathers' escort of children, and how fathers' involvement may create particular masculine styles of caring which are distinctive from those children experience with mothers.

The role of fathers in parenting young children differs dramatically across societies. Policymakers in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are increasingly focused on increasing the amount of early childhood stimulation and other investments received by young children in an attempt to increase human capital accumulation, promote school readiness, and improve long-run outcomes. Until recently, few interventions targeted fathers, and most impact evaluations implicitly assumed that fathers played no meaningful role in parenting. We survey the emerging literature on fathers’ involvement in early childhood stimulation and parenting in LMICs and summarize the patterns of results from rigorous impact evaluations. We find that fathers spend less time stimulating their children's development than do mothers or other adults who live in the same households in almost every country in our sample, and that mothers’ and fathers’ investments are positively associated. We also find evidence that fathers’ take-up of parent training programs tends to be low, but that such programs have had effects on changing fathers’ knowledge and—to a lesser degree—behaviors.

The role of fathers with young children has changed considerably in our society in the past four decades. They now play a far more active part in the lives of their children. Since the development of object relational theories and the move from drive theory, the mother has occupied the central role in psychoanalysis. This paper seeks to link the changing role of the father in society to the fathering role in psychotherapy and consider the relational approach as furthering that scope for change. The traditional role of the father in society and in therapy has been a supporting one which often implied a certain distance from direct caring. Societal changes in the paternal role and relational ideas which advocate a greater presence of the therapist can lead to the creation of broader therapeutic relationships for male therapists and their patients. In the British context this shift in technique has been made possible by object relations and attachment theory and has directly affected the way that therapists approach their work. It would be interesting to think about whether or not the male therapist would be seen to play a more active role in the story of the patient's early development by engaging with pre-oedipal disturbance or misattunement.

The role of fathers in promoting early literacy skills in young children is a new area for both research and the development of intervention programs. The research literature examines how frequently fathers read to their young children, why do fathers read to their children and what are some of the barriers that limit father involvement in literacy activities. The research suggests that fathers engage in reading less frequently than mothers and they may not take the same level of responsibility for promoting early literacy in young children. Programs to engage fathers in early literacy activities with their children range from one-time events to weekly activities over a period of 5 months. Fathers appear to enjoy the programs and they increase the amount of time that fathers read and find it useful to learn new strategies for reading to their children. The chapter ends with some specific suggestions for program design and implementation.

This study investigated the patterns of father involvement and the influence of acculturation in a sample of Indian immigrant families in Pennsylvania. The participants were 40 two-parent Indian families who were rearing their IS- to 44month-old children. Two 1-hour, naturalistic home observations per family were conducted near dinner time to record father-child interactions. Cluster analysis revealed three types of fathers: engaged, caretaker, and disengaged. Information on acculturation was gathered via parental self-reports and observational measures. Examination of the relation between fathering and acculturation revealed that men belonging to the least acculturated families were the least involved (were disengaged), and the most acculturated fathers were more involved in almost all dimensions of fathering (were engaged). Key Words: acculturation, fathering, immigrants, Indians, parenting, Southeast Asian families. Compared with previous generations, fathers today have an expanded role in the family in the United States. In addition to protecting and providing for the child, they also share the responsibility of basic child care. Investigations of White, middle-class families have documented the nature of father-child interactions in naturalistic and laboratory settings. (For a review, see Lamb, in press.) Such research indicates that men engage their children in diverse ways and that they not only are competent and skillful, but also are sensitive in their interactions with the infant and young child (Belsky, 1979; Parke, 1981; Parke & O'Leary, 1976; Parke & Sawin, 1980). Nevertheless, many men are still involved with their children on a limited basis only (Daly, 1993; Hochschild, 1989; LaRossa, 1988). Contemporary research focuses on the determinants of individual differences in fathering. Parent and child attributes have figured prominently in studies, as has the marital relationship (Belsky, 1990; Jain, Belsky, & Crnic, 1996; Levy-Shiff & Israelashvili, 1988; Volling & Belsky, 1991). Diversity in parenting and in fathering roles also has been associated with culture-related variables, such as social structure (Seymour, 1980), women's status (Coltrane, 1988), power and privileges (Hondagneu-Sotelo & Messner, 1994), and parental beliefs and ethnotheories (Harkness & Super,1992). At the same time that interest and research on the father's role has changed, so has the composition of U.S. society. For political, social, and economic reasons, large numbers of immigrants are moving to the U.S., continuing a tradition that dates back to the nation's founding. Data from Immigration and Naturalization Services show that the number of legal immigrants to the U.S. in 1991 was 1.8 million (Martin, 1996). One of the obvious issues that immigration raises pertains to the lifestyles that immigrants adopt. Do they retain their native culture? Do they adopt the host culture? Or do they demonstrate characteristics of both cultures? Taft (1985) conceptualizes the process of adaptation or acculturation in terms of a resocialization model that involves changes in the physical environment and the biological (changes in eating habits and nutritional status), cultural, and social contexts. (See also Berry, 1990.) In order to effectively adapt to the host society, immigrants either resist or readily adopt the new language, values, beliefs, roles, and norms of social interactions (Mendoza & Martinez, 1981). Historically, immigration was considered a unidirectional process, based on the premise of the acquisition of values and characteristics of the host culture with a simultaneous loss of native culture (Fong, 1973; Olmedo, Martinez, & Martinez, 1978). Acculturation was seen as the immersion of the immigrant culture in the new culture. Current models, however, stress the selective and multidimensional nature of the immigrant process (Mendoza, 1989; Mendoza & Martinez, 1981; Rueschenberg & Buriel, 1989). …

Background: Few studies have been conducted that considered the fathers’ role in proper nutrition of infants and young children. Mothers are the ones perceived to offer optimal care and feeding to infants while fathers are often responsible for the income related support especially in low-income class families. Therefore, this study was intended to find out to what degree fathers were involved in infants’ care and feeding. AIM: The study was aimed at investigating perceptions, practices, and challenges of fathers in infancy (1-12 months) care and feeding. Method: A qualitative study was conducted in Ha Mafefooane in Roma, Maseru district of Lesotho. Six fathers, who had children between 1-12 months, participated in the study. Individual interviews in Sesotho language were carried out. Thematic analysis was adopted to identify emerged themes from the data. Results: The study showed that, traditional fathers are partially involved in infants’ care and feeding. Based on their perceptions, practices, and challenges of everyday infants’ care and feeding, fathers perceive routine child care and feeding as mothers’ duty and they only get involved as the way of assisting mothers as well as income generation. The findings showed that fathers lack knowledge of their role in child care and feeding practices. Conclusion: This study helped to reveal the perception, practice and challenges of fathers with respect to the care, infant feeding. Fathers generally think that their role is to provide money for the house, while it is the duty of the mother to take care of the child by feeding and caring. The findings of this study suggest that educating fathers could raise awareness of their importance in infants’ care thus ensuring optimal infants’ feeding, growth and development.

Review studies of the father’s role in child care and father involvement, attitudes, and values associated with it, and strategies for promoting their participation. This review aims to analyze fathers’ involvement in child care and father behavior, as well as associated values and strategies for development. To study the father-child connection and factors such as the child’s social behavior, academic performance, and health-related psychological factors. They are more sensitive, loving, and encouraging toward their young children. When it comes to their young children, they are more receptive, affectionate, and assured. They are also better at maintaining their composure when dealing with rebellious toddlers. A child’s emotional and social development is significantly influenced by how fathers cooperate with their children through play. Compared to mothers, fathers spend a far larger volume of their one-on-one time with infants and preschoolers engaging in stimulating play activities. PubMed and Google Scholar Searches were conducted using Medical Subject Headings terms and related keywords. This study examined the various reviews on the relationship between the roles of fathers in childcare and the factors that may influence the same. Traditional gender norms in child care influence the group of people’s images of fathers’ obligation and serve as a barrier to their involvement in the community. In most populations, fathers can support their families financially. They act as positive role models for their children, defend their families from harm, and exercise control over their wives, children, and other family members. Fathers may provide for and nurture their children. Fathers play and teach their children alone or hold them when their mothers are busy. Interventions focused on improving fathers’ and mothers ideas and attitudes about child care, and the relevance of shared childcare duties may improve fathers’ engagement. Fathers’ participation has various impacts on the child’s healthy development of character, social skills, understanding, intellect, academic achievement, gender roles, morality, and emotion. Fathers’ participation in childcare is affected by family and society, and fathers’ personalities affect children’s personalities to some extent. Father involvement, results also revealed that father involvement was low in childcare responsibilities only; however, other subareas of involvement were high. It was found that especially mothers were responsible as primary caregivers for child care.

The role of fathers in proper nutrition of young children has not been a frequent topic of studies. Mothers are usually the primary caregivers for young children. However, the father is often responsible for the financial choices of the household, especially in developing countries; we wondered to what extent fathers were involved in child feeding. This study aimed to investigate the extent of perceptions, practices, and challenges of fathers from low-income settings in routine child care, particularly in relation to child-feeding practices. A qualitative study was conducted in northern Ethiopia. Ten fathers, who had children between 6 and 23 months, were participated in the study. To validate fathers' comments, 10 mothers (from different households) also participated. In-depth interviews and focus group discussions were carried out. A thematic analysis was completed to identify emergent themes within the data. In general, traditional fathers, fathers in transition, and modern fathers are the 3 types of fathers identified based on their perception, practice, and challenges of routine child care and feeding. Our findings provide new insight to the literature in describing fathers' roles and challenges in routine child-care and feeding practices. We have developed a model that could help researchers, programmers, policy makers, and health workers to approach fathers in different child intervention research and plans. Our findings suggest that targeting fathers may be a worthwhile approach and that it seems justifiable to plan interventions involving fathers.