Father involvement in early childhood development has a deep impact on a child’s healthy development in all domains: language, thinking, physical, and social–emotional. When fathers spend quality time with their children, playing or doing activities together, they can expect their children to grow more resilient and healthily.
This evidence does not show fathers’ influence as superior to that of mothers, but as a separate, important factor in children’s successful transition though infancy to adulthood. A fathers’ influence on children’s cognitive development, social skills, mental health, literacy and maths achievement is found to be different to that of mothers.
How does a father’s involvement impact early childhood development?
- Fathers have a significant impact on their child’s wellbeing, happiness, and life satisfaction.
- Children with supportive and sensitive fathers during early childhood have better language development outcomes.
- Children who have fathers with consistently high, warm parenting styles have fewer emotional and behavioural problems later on.
- When fathers use more words with their children during play, children have more advanced language skills a year later. This is especially important because language skills are correlated with academic success.
- Fathers play is different to mothers and children of supportive fathers who play with them are more likely to be socially competent. They are likely to have more positive friendships and are able to control their emotions more.
- The more time fathers spend in enriching, stimulating play with their child—such as playing pretend or sharing stories—the better the child’s math and reading scores are at 10 and 11 years old.
At the fathering project we say “Play is a game changer”. Playtime not only represents a fantastic opportunity for you to interact in meaningful and positive ways with your child; it also provides them with valuable learning and development in a fun way.
