Sentiment usually says mothers understand their children best.
But the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences of the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom recommends speaking to dad. The researchers reported in the November 1999 Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry that when they studied 93 families and asked for insights into the children's behavior and learning problems, the fathers gave information useful in predicting future developments. The mothers were more likely to speak about their own moods, and the state of their marriages.