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Children benefit from an active father figure in their lives

Active father figures have a key role to play in reducing behaviour problems in boys and psychological problems in young women, according to a recent review (Acta Paediatrica, February 2008). Swedish researchers also found that regular positive contact reduces criminal behaviour among children in low-income families and enhances cognitive skills such as intelligence, reasoning and language development.

‘Our detailed 20-year review shows that overall, children reap positive benefits if they have active and regular engagement with a father figure,’ says Dr Anna Sarkadi from the Department of Women’s and Children’s Health at Uppsala University, Sweden. ‘For example, we found various studies that showed that children who had positively involved father figures were less likely to smoke and get into trouble with the police, achieved better levels of education and developed good friendships with children of both sexes.

‘Long-term benefits included women who had better relationships with partners and a greater sense of mental and physical well-being at the age of 33 if they had a good relationship with their father at 16.’

However the authors point out that it is not possible to conclude what type of engagement the father figure needs to provide to produce positive effects. ‘The studies show that it can range from talking and sharing activities to playing an active role in the child’s day-to-day care. However, our review backs up the intuitive assumption that engaged biological fathers or father figures are good for children, especially when the children are socially or economically disadvantaged,’ says Dr Sarkadi.

The researchers are urging healthcare professionals to increase fathers’ involvement in their children’s healthcare and calling on policy makers to ensure that fathers have the chance to play an active role in their upbringing.

The review looked at 24 papers published between 1987 and 2007, covering 22,300 individual sets of data from 16 studies. 18 of the 24 papers also covered the social economic status of the families studied. The smallest study focused on 17 infants and the largest covered 8,441 individuals ranging from premature babies to 33 year-olds. They included major ongoing research from the USA and UK, together with smaller studies from Sweden and Israel.