Main description:

This handbook provides a comprehensive review of the impact of fathers on child development from prenatal years to age five. It examines the effects of the father-child relationship on the child's neurobiological development; hormonal, emotional and behavioral regulatory systems; and on the systemic embodiment of experiences into the child's mental models of self, others, and self-other relationships. The volume reflects two perspectives guiding research with fathers: Identifying positive and negative factors that influence early childhood development, specifying child outcomes, and emphasizing cultural diversity in father involvement; and examining multifaceted, specific approaches to guide father research.

Key topics addressed include:

Direct assessment of father parenting (rather than through maternal reports).

The effects of father presence (in contrast to father absence).

The full diversity of father involvement.

Father's impact on gender role differentiation.

Father's role in triadic interactions of family dynamics.

Father involvement in psychotherapeutic family interventions.

This handbook draws from converging perspectives about the role of fathers in very early child development, summarizes what is known, and, within each chapter, draws attention to the critical questions that need to be answered in coming decades.

The Handbook of Fathers and Child Development is a must-have resource for researchers, graduate students, and clinicians, therapists, and other professionals in infancy and early child development, social work, public health, developmental and clinical child psychology, pediatrics, family studies, neuroscience, juvenile justice, child and adolescent psychiatry, school and educational psychology, anthropology, sociology, and all interrelated disciplines.

Contents:

PART I FATHERS, DEVELOPMENTAL SYSTEMS, AND RELATIONSHIPS

Overview: Fathers, Developmental Systems, and Relationships

Hiram E. Fitzgerald

1 Fathers and Their Very Young Children: A Developmental Systems Perspective

Hiram E. Fitzgerald, Kai von Klitzing, Natasha Cabrera, Julia Scarano de Mendonca, and Thomas Skj thaug

2 Fathering and being Fathered: Developmental Interdependence

Rob Palkovitz

3 The Role of Fathers in the Intergenerational Transmission of (Dis)advantages: Linking Sociological Stratification Questions to Developmental Psychology Research.

Renske Keizer

4 Fathers Reflections of their Fathers: The use of Text Mining to find Meaning in Narratives

Jeffrey K. Shears, Seong-Tae Kim, Joshua Kirven, and Tanya M. Coakley

5 Fathers' Place and Role in Family Relationships

France Frascarolo, Nicolas Favez, Herve Tissot, and Elizabeth Fivaz-Despeuringe

6 A Family Systems Perspective on Paternal Absence, Presence, and Engagement

Erika Bocknek

7 Fathers and Public Policy

Cynthia Osborne

PART II PRENATAL AND PERINATAL INFLUENCES

Overview: Prenatal and Perinatal Influences

Thomas Skj thaug

8 Biological Influences on Fathers

Lee Gettler

9 Neural Plasticity in Human Fathers

Leah Grande, Rebekah Tribble, and Pilyoung Kim

10 Pathways to Parenting: The Emotional Journeys of Fathers as they prepare to Parent a New Infant

Carolyn Dayton, Johanna Malone, and Suzanne Brown

11 Ghosts in the Ultrasound: Expectant Fathers' Experience of Trauma

Richard M. Tolman and Tova B. Walsh

12 Antecedents of Fathers' Stress in Fatherhood

Thomas Skj thaug

13 Prenatal and Postnatal Depression

James Paulson, Kelsey T. Ellis, and Regina L. Alexander

14 Is it Easier the Second Time Around? Fathers' Roles across the Transition from One Child to Two.

Brenda L. Volling, Emily J. Steinberg, and Patty X. Kuo

Part III FATHER-CHILD TRANSACTIONS IN EARLY DEVELOPMENT

Overview: Father-Child Transaction in Early Development

Natasha Cabrera

15 Father-Child Attachment Relationships

Geoffrey L. Brown and Alp Aytuglu

16 Fathers and the Activation Relationship

Daniel Paquette, Carole Gagnon, and Julio Macario de Medeiros

17 Fathers' Emotional Availability with Their Children: Determinants and Consequences

Sarah Bergmann and Annette Maria Klein

18 Fathers and Social Development

Avery Hennigar, Natasha Cabrera, and Yu Chan

19 Fathers and Young Children at Play: A Scoping Review of Studies of Father Figures Play with Sons and Daughters from Birth to Preschool.

Claire Vallotton, Tricia Foster, Tamesha Harewood, Jody Cook, and Anike R. Adekoya

20 Father's Language Input and Child Language Development

Nadya Panecsofar

21 How do Australian Fathers Engage Their 3-year-olds during Shared Bookreading?

Elisabeth Duursma, Cheryl Jialing Ho, Michelle L. Townsend, Brin F. Grenyer and Jane S. Herbert

22 Fathers and Children's Executive Functions

Alyssa S. Meuwissen

PART IV FATHER INVOLVEMENT IN CONTEXT

Overview: Fathers' Involvement in Context

Julia Scarano de Mendonca

23 Fatherhood and Early Childhood Development in Sub-Saharan Africa

Stephan Rabie, Sarah Skeen,and Mark Tomlinson

24 Father-Child Interactional Synchrony as a Function of Maternal and Paternal Depression in Low-Income Brazilian Families.

Julia Scarano de Mendonca and Vera Silvia Raad Bussab

25 African American Fathers and Their Young Children: Lessons from the Field Vivian L. Gadsden and Iheoma Iruka

26 Latino American Fathers and their Preschool Children

Cristina Mogro-Wilson

27 Native American Fathers and their Sacred Children

Joshuaa D. Allison-Burbank and Thosh Collins

28 Stay at Home Fathers

Shawna J. Lee, Joyce Y. Lee, and Olivia D. Chang

29 Fathering Across Military Deployment and Reintegration

Tova B. Walsh, and Kate Rosenblum

PART V FATHERS' AND CHILDREN'S MENTAL HEALTH

Overview: Father's and Children's Mental Health

Kai von Klitzing

30 Fathers' Antisocial Behavior and Early Childhood

Stephanie Godleski and Rina D. Eiden

31 Fatherhood, Substance Use, and Early Child Development

Thomas J. McMahon

32 Fathers in Psychotherapy

Kai Von Klitzing and Lars White

33 Engaging Fathers of Young Children in Low Income Families to Improve Child and Family Outcomes: An Intervention and Prevention Perspective.

Kyle Pruett and Marsha K. Pruett

34 Connection, IT and Identity: SMS4dads as Health Promotion for New Fathers

Richard Fletcher, Jacqui A. Macdonald, and Jennifer Mary StGeorge

35 Designing and Tailoring Preventive Interventions for Fathers' Parenting

David S. DeGarmo

36 Fathers and their Very Young Children: Future Directions

Robert H. Bradley

Index