What Are The Benefits Of Having A Father Who Is Involved In Their Children's Lives?
 

 

Here are five simple facts collected from recent studies that show the benefits from having a father who is

involved with their children. 

1.  Children with involved and nurturing fathers compared to children who have uninvolved fathers are significantly more likely to:

  • To do well in school, have healthy self-esteem, exhibit empathy and pro-social behavior
  • Avoid high-risk behaviors such as drug use, truancy, and criminal activity

 

2.  Having a loving and nurturing father is just as important for a child's happiness, well being, and social and academic success as having a loving and nurturing mother.

3.  In some studies, the presence of a father’s love was actually a better predictor than the presence of a mother’s love for certain outcomes, including delinquency and conduct problems, substance abuse, and overall mental health and well-being.

4.  A study on parent-infant attachment found that fathers who were affectionate, spent time with their children, and had a positive attitude were more likely to have securely attached infants.

5. A survey of over 20,000 parents found that when fathers are involved in their children's education including attending school meetings and volunteering at school, their children were more likely to get A's, enjoy school, and participate in extracurricular activities and less likely to have repeated a grade.
 

 

Research Findings

Taken From
Father Facts: Fourth Edition

written by
Wade F. Horn, Ph.D. and Tom Sylvester

  • In a poll of 1,031 adults, 28% of respondents said their fathers were more influential in their upbringing, 53% credited their mothers are more influential, and 15% said both parents influenced them equally.
  • 80% of survey respondents agreed that it is more difficult to be a father today than it was 20 years ago. Younger respondents, aged 18-24, consistently rated their fathers about 10 - 20% points lower at doing an "excellent" or "good" job at raising them than did older respondents, ages 65 and up.
  • Children who were part of the "post-war generation" could expect to grow up with 2 biological parents who were married to each other. 80% did. Today, about 50% of children will spend their entire childhood in an intact family.
  • In America 24 million children, 34%, live absent their biological father.
  • Martial status is the strongest predictor of father presence/father absence. Compared to children born within marriage, children born to cohabiting parents are three times more likely to experience father absence, and children born to unmarried, non-cohabiting parents are four times as likely to have an absent father.
  • Sixty-six percent of black children, 35 percent of Hispanic children, and 27 percent of white children are living in homes absent their biological fathers.
  • Over a quarter of all American children (26.6 percent, or 19.2 million) live in homes without a biological, adoptive, or stepfather present. Over 16 million children (22.4 percent) live in mother-only families.