3. The key elements of father-inclusive practice
Father-inclusive practice – What is it?
Father-inclusive practice occurs when the needs of fathers (biological and social) are responded to through the planning, development and delivery of services. It recognises families as a system, and acknowledges a balance between the needs of fathers and the family as a whole.
Many family-based services have evolved to respond primarily to the needs of mothers and children, and therefore father-inclusive practice may require a process of planned change and managed learning. This involves building sustainable relationships between staff, family members and the community.
The father-inclusive practice model:
- recognises the diverse circumstances, strengths and interests of fathers
- takes a positive approach to the diversity of men, their needs and expectations
- encourages men and service providers to openly celebrate and value fathering.
Father-inclusive practice – How will it help?
Father-inclusive practice will help service providers to:
- improve workplace relations
- enrich programs as a result of inclusion of fathers in organisations
- meet performance indicators
- satisfy the requirements of funding bodies
- align with FaHCSIA’s strategic directions.
Father-inclusive practice will help fathers to:
- enhance existing parenting skills
- develop a peer network with other fathers, who share similar like experiences
- encourage positive father-child interaction
- increase parenting information and confidence
- promote father involvement within the family unit
- reduce father isolation by networking with other fathers and professional support staff
- increase the amount of time father and child spend together
- increase the number of positive interactions between father and child.
Father-inclusive practice – Positives
It is believed that when fathers are actively involved in their children’s lives there can be many varied and positive outcomes for families, children, fathers and communities.
Why engage fathers?
- Fathers are committed to their children and are looking for ways to be involved in their lives.
- The relationship between fathers and mothers has a significant impact on the health and wellbeing of children.
- Many fathers want to parent differently from the way in which they were parented.
- Fathers think differently to mothers.
- To increase the number of men engaging in services.
- More men are becoming primary caregivers and are expressing their needs as fathers.
- To reduce the parenting skills gap between mothers and fathers.
- To challenge traditional roles and workplace structures.
- To provide opportunities to promote team parenting through father-inclusive practice.
Richard Fletcher from the Family Action Centre at the University of Newcastle notes some comments in emerging literature on the importance of positive father involvement in the lives of their children:
- the 2003 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes found that most males (90 per cent) and females (91 per cent) agreed or strongly agreed with the statement ‘a father should be as heavily involved in the care of his children as the mother’
- ‘fathers are now seen as vitally important in the way children develop’, with studies measuring father-child interactions at an early age and children’s wellbeing some years later.
Research
Fletcher provides several examples of studies measuring the impact of father’s involvement with their children and notes that ‘studies such as these provide a powerful argument for supporting fathers to be directly involved in their children’s lives’.
- A 2004 study examining parental factors (parental sensitivity to a child’s
cues and support for autonomous activity) that predict school readiness
for pre-school and first graders conducted by the American National Institute
of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). The study used a cohort of
above average income families with two residential parents. The study suggests
that:
- children with less behavioural problems and higher social skills have fathers who are sensitive and supportive of their child’s autonomy
- emotionally intimate marital relationships add to the positive impact of these factors.
- A study of parental influence on children’s cognitive development,
using a cohort of low income families with two year old children published
in the Early Childhood Research Quarterly 22 (2007).
The study assessed parent-child interactions to examine the impact of both
positive qualities (sensitivity, positive regard and cognitive stimulation)
and negative qualities (detachment, hostility and intrusiveness). A later
assessment of children’s maths and language levels showed that:
- children with two supportive parents achieved the highest scores in maths and language
- children, both of whose parents were unsupportive, scored lowest, and if only one parent was supportive, the positive effect on cognitive ability was not dependent on which parent this was.
- Data examined in 2005 from the US National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which used a nationally representative sample of young people to examine the effect of parent-child relationships on depression levels in young people found that the quality of the father-young person relationship was just as important to mental health as the mother-young person relationship.
Fletcher (2008) notes that this indicates the impact of father involvement on their child’s wellbeing does not stop at childhood.
He also indicates that there are additional indirect benefits of positive father involvement with their children. For example, in families where the mother is depressed, positive father-infant relationships are linked with:
- improved treatment outcomes for mothers
- reduced behaviour problems for infants in later childhood.
Fathers however can also have a negative impact on their children’s wellbeing where fathers are:
- engaged in high levels of antisocial behaviour (the more time they live with their children the more misconduct problems their children experience)
- violent family members and/or abusive towards their children.
Outlined in Attachment 1 is a case study that further supports the positive involvement of fathers in families.
Father-inclusive practices – Barriers
- Men generally have less experience in parenting and parenting programs.
- There is less social pressure to be involved in parenting programs.
- Fathers tend to be more socially isolated as parents.
- Men may find it difficult to participate in services that are held in the day during the work week.
- Fathers are often seen as less competent than mothers.
- Family arrangements and socio-economic realities can be serious barriers.
- Fathers are often open to support, however, there is little available to them in the community.
- Fathers may not be aware of services already in place or assume that those they know about are ‘for women’.
Fletcher (2008) also notes:
- many father’s have initial high expectations of involvement with their children which result in disappointment and even grief about limited contact
- there is little information on how couples decide ‘who does what’ when they start a family, although some research indicates couples tend to figure it out on the run, are often unaware of other options, and tend to operate from assumptions about men’s and women’s roles and expectations.
Some common false beliefs about men looking after children can also be barriers to father-inclusive practice. These include:
Only mothers can bond with babies.
Men can be super-sensitive to babies; their heart rates race as fast as a woman’s when they hear a baby cry. Fathers can recognise their infants by the feel of their baby’s hands after only 60 minutes touch, even when blindfolded.
Fathers don’t make much difference.
Young children with involved fathers fit in better at day-care and school, learn better and have fewer behavioural problems. They make friends more easily and are better able to understand how other people feel. Later, they have more contented love lives, better mental health and are less likely to get into trouble with the police. All this is true for girls as much as for boys, whether or not they live with their fathers.
A father’s main job is making the money.
Child care statistics show that fathers are increasingly prioritising their child care responsibilities. According to the 2002 ABS Child Care Survey, 30 per cent of employed fathers of children aged under 12 years made use of family friendly work arrangements to care for their children. This has increased from 24 per cent in 1993.
Only mothers really look after children.
Australian fathers are increasingly spending more time with their children. The 1997 ABS Time Use survey found that men are spending 20 minutes more a day playing with their children and 18 minutes more during weekend days teaching and helping their children, than they were in 1992.
(Adapted from ‘Dad myths’ card, www.fathersdirect.com and ABS data.)
Sources of additional information and useful links on father-inclusive practice can be found in Section 13 of the Guide.
We worked with a group of primary school teachers at a small rural school running events for fathers at the school. After almost a year of activities and meetings one of them commented ‘You know, now when I see parents coming in the gate I don’t just see parents, I see mums and dads’.