The Effects of Father’s Warm Parenting Behavior on Children’s Academic Achievement and School Adjustment During The Transition to Elementary School: The Mediating Role of Children’s Peer Play Behavior

Abstract

Objectives: Children’s "Play" plays a central role in their development, and a father’s participation in raising children is as important as a mother's. This study examined the extent to which fathers’ parenting behavior with their preschool children influenced their academic achievement and school adjustment through children’s’ peer play behavior during the period of transition to elementary school.Methods: Using the Panel Study of Korean Children (PSKC), the present study included data on a total of 1,526 children and their father from 2013 (Time 6) to 2015 (Time 8). The hypothesized model was analyzed using structural equation modeling in Mplus 7.31.Results: Findings indicated that warmth of father’s parenting behavior at age five positively influenced children’s peer play behavior at age six, increasing interaction and reducing disconnection. It also influenced children’s school adjustment at age seven. Results indicated that the effects of the role of father’s warm parenting behavior on children’s academic achievement and school adjustment were mediated through peer play behavior. These results suggest the importance of father’s warm parenting behavior and children’s peer play behavior for their academic achievement and school adjustment during the transition to elementary school.Conclusion: These findings support the proposition that fostering a father’s parental warmth and encouraging children’s peer play would be a fruitful avenue to promote academic achievement and school adjustment during the transition to elementary school. In other words, this study explains the continuity of development from infancy to early school age and verifies that fathers’ parental warmth and children’s peer play in infancy are not limited to infancy through a series of long-term developmental pathways. Therefore, to improve school adaptation that affects social and cognitive development after entering elementary school, measures should be presented to support children’s play, and to support fathers’ warm parenting behavior in the future.