The Apple of Dad’s Eye: Paternal Affective Attitudes Predicting Early Childhood Behavior Problems

Abstract

ABSTRACT Objective The Family Affective Attitude Rating Scale (FAARS) uses an audio-recorded speech sample to measure parents’ affective attitudes toward their children. The present study investigated the psychometric properties of this scale for use with fathers, concurrent predictors of paternal affective attitudes (parental depressive symptoms, inter-parental relationship quality, observed paternal parenting), and associations between fathers’ positive and negative affective attitudes toward their two-year-old children and children’s behavior problems one year later. Methods Participants were a sample (N = 226) of families from the Early Steps Multisite Study, a longitudinal study of low-income parents and children. Participants were racially and ethnically diverse (65% white; 23% Black or biracial; 12% Latinx). Results Initial validation results support the reliability and validity of FAARS coding in fathers of preschoolers, a previously untested group. Both maternal and paternal depressive symptoms and interparental relationship quality were significantly associated with fathers’ affective attitudes toward their children. Further, fathers’ positive affective attitudes predicted lower mother-reported child behavior problems one year later, controlling for a host of demographic covariates, fathers’ observed parenting, mothers’ affective attitudes, and child baseline behavior problems. Conclusions Results indicate that fathers’ positive attitudes toward their young children are a unique and robust predictor of lower levels of early behavior problems.