Intrusive fathering, children's self-regulation and social skills: a mediation analysis.
For preschoolers with developmental delays, intrusive fathering sparks child dysregulation and weaker social skills one year later.
01Research in Context
What this study did
The team watched dads play with their preschoolers who had developmental delays.
They rated how often the father took over, corrected, or directed the child.
One year later they checked the child’s self-control and social skills at school.
What they found
Kids with very intrusive fathers showed more dysregulation at age five.
That dysregulation explained why the same children had weaker social skills at age six.
The chain was: pushy dad → upset child → poor peer skills.
How this fits with other research
Lifshitz et al. (2014) found the same chain, but with moms. When mothers gave calm hints instead of taking over, their kids with DD gained better emotion control one year later.
Caplan et al. (2019) flipped the coin in autistic preschoolers: responsive parenting forecast gains in social skills, showing the style matters more than the diagnosis.
Berkovits et al. (2014) seems to disagree. In elementary-age kids with DD, emotion dysregulation did NOT predict later social problems. The gap is age: preschoolers still need adult help, so poor parenting hits harder.
Why it matters
Coach fathers to wait, watch, and follow the child’s lead. A few seconds of pause can cut intrusions and save hours of social-skills training later.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
BACKGROUND: Fathers have unique influences on children's development, and particularly in the development of social skills. Although father-child relationship influences on children's social competence have received increased attention in general, research on fathering in families of children with developmental delays (DD) is scant. This study examined the pathway of influence among paternal intrusive behaviour, child social skills and child self-regulatory ability, testing a model whereby child regulatory behaviour mediates relations between fathering and child social skills. METHODS: Participants were 97 families of children with early identified DD enrolled in an extensive longitudinal study. Father and mother child-directed intrusiveness was coded live in naturalistic home observations at child age 4.5, child behaviour dysregulation was coded from a video-taped laboratory problem-solving task at child age 5, and child social skills were measured using independent teacher reports at child age 6. Analyses tested for mediation of the relationship between fathers' intrusiveness and child social skills by child behaviour dysregulation. RESULTS: Fathers' intrusiveness, controlling for mothers' intrusiveness and child behaviour problems, was related to later child decreased social skills and this relationship was mediated by child behaviour dysregulation. CONCLUSIONS: Intrusive fathering appears to carry unique risk for the development of social skills in children with DD. Findings are discussed as they related to theories of fatherhood and parenting in children with DD, as well as implications for intervention and future research.
Journal of intellectual disability research : JIDR, 2013 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2788.2012.01549.x