Abstract
The present study examined the role of father sensitivity and couple coparenting quality in the first 2 years of life in relation to the development of externalizing behavior problems in middle childhood, focusing on the unique role of fathers. In this study, 125 mothers, fathers, and their first-born children were followed from 8 months to age 7 years. Paternal sensitivity was rated when infants were 8 and 24 months old. Fathers were videotaped at home playing, feeding, and changing their 8-month-old infants’ clothes. They also were videotaped in a lab playing with their 24-month-olds and solving a variety of challenging tasks. At 24 months, competitive coparenting was assessed via videotaped triadic family interactions at home in which families participated in a variety of tasks (i.e., clothes change, eating a snack together and solving tasks). Teachers rated externalizing behavior problems when the children were age 7. Continuity in paternal sensitivity was documented from 8 to 24 months, and paternal sensitivity at 8 months predicted externalizing behavior in middle childhood through father sensitivity at 24 months. Moreover, paternal sensitivity at 8 months predicted competitive coparenting which, in turn, forecast externalizing behavior problems in middle childhood, even after controlling for maternal sensitivity at 8 and 24 months. These findings highlight the unique role of paternal caregiving quality during the first year of life on couple coparenting and children’s subsequent development of externalizing problems and have implications for creating effective interventions to prevent children from developing externalizing disorders.
Highlights
Externalizing behaviors in early and middle childhood include temper tantrums, defiant behavior, impulsivity, social maladjustment, and reduced tolerance for frustration (Murphy et al, 2017a)
We addressed the missing data from this longitudinal study through fullinformation maximum likelihood (FIML)
The effects of paternal sensitivity with their infants were modeled on paternal sensitivity during toddlerhood and dyadic competitive coparenting, which were modeled on child externalizing problems
Summary
Externalizing behaviors in early and middle childhood include temper tantrums, defiant behavior, impulsivity, social maladjustment, and reduced tolerance for frustration (Murphy et al, 2017a). Identifying early antecedents of externalizing behaviors is important to help prevent these maladaptive behaviors from developing. Both maternal (Lorber and Egeland, 2009) and paternal (Rodrigues et al, 2021) sensitivity during the early years, defined as accurately perceiving and appropriately responding to the child’s emotional and cognitive signals (Ainsworth et al, 1978), forecast fewer later externalizing symptoms in childhood. One explanation for the lack of systematic and rigorous research on paternal caregiving
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