Abstract
The study aims to investigate the development of family interactions from pregnancy to preschool age in a longitudinal perspective, using multilevel analysis. Also, it explored the impact of couple relationship and father involvement in childcare on the developmental trend of the quality of mother–father–child interactions. One hundred and three primiparous families were assessed at 7th month of pregnancy, 4th, 9th, and 18th months of child’s life and during preschool age (36–48th), using the observational procedure named, Lausanne Trilogue Play. Parents’ perception of marital satisfaction was assessed with the Dyadic Adjustment Scale at each point of measure; moreover, in the postnatal assessment, parents completed the Father Involvement Questionnaire. Results showed that family interactions increase over time. Secondly, a decrease of marital adjustment is associated with an improvement of the quality of family interactions. Moreover, father involvement predicts the quality of family interactions from the earliest stages of child’s life. In a longitudinal perspective, family interactions and marital quality show opposite developmental trends and father’s involvement represents a particularly important feature of the family.
Highlights
Reviewed by: Leslie Leve, University of Oregon, USA Michelle Dow Keawphalouk, Harvard University–Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
This study focused on the examination of father involvement in childcare and of dyadic satisfaction, interpreting them as dimensions related to the quality and/or the development of family interactions
According to the unconditional model in our dataset there was much greater variability within family between times than between families, indicating that the quality of family interaction assessed by LTP was not stable over time
Summary
The study aims to investigate the development of family interactions from pregnancy to preschool age in a longitudinal perspective, using multilevel analysis. It explored the impact of couple relationship and father involvement in childcare on the developmental trend of the quality of mother–father–child interactions. Father involvement predicts the quality of family interactions from the earliest stages of child’s life. Family interactions and marital quality show opposite developmental trends and father’s involvement represents a important feature of the family. This study used a growth modeling approach to investigate family interactions from prenatal to preschool age, including the examination of predictors of their trajectories, namely, marital satisfaction and father involvement. Little research has focused on mother–father–child triad and has used longitudinal designs, aimed at examining developmental family trajectories
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