Effects of Fathers' Early Risk and Resilience on Paternal Engagement With 5‐Year‐Olds

The present study examined whether fathers' additive risk and resilience when the child is an infant and age 5 predicted paternal engagement with children at age 5. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study (N = 4,898), we found that the results confirmed the hypothesis that early risk has a negative effect and early resilience has a positive effect on engagement 4 years later. Later father risk had a stronger negative effect on nonresidential fathers than on residential fathers. The effect of early father risk on engagement at age 5 was moderated by father engagement during infancy. Implications for policy and practice are discussed.Key Words: father involvement, fragile families, paternal engagement, resilience, risk.Research has increasingly shown that fathers have a significant effect on young children's developmental outcomes (Martin, Ryan, & Brooks-Gunn, 2010). Given the significance of fathers to child outcomes, it is therefore important to examine factors that influence fathers' positive involvement with children. Researchers have suggested that parenting can be understood from an ecological systems approach, which includes various domains that influence parenting such as characteristics of the individual parent, his or her child, and the family system. A growing body of research has shown support for the ecological systems approach for fathering and father involvement (Holmes & Huston, 2010; Marsiglio, Roy, & Fox, 2005). Although this perspective provides a broad and useful means to examine the complexity of father involvement, researchers have suggested that the risk and resilience perspective is particularly useful for understanding father engagement in fragile families (Fagan & Palkovitz, 2007). Risk factors such as involvement in the criminal justice system, unemployment, and partner relationship challenges are highly relevant to these fathers who may struggle to stay involved with their children over time.Recent studies of fathers in fragile families have suggested that risk and resilience factors during the first few years following the birth of the child are critical for fathers' later involvement with the child and for child outcomes (Fagan, Palkovitz, Roy, & Farrie, 2009; Bronte-Tinkew, Horowitz, & Scott, 2009). For example, Fagan et al. found that fathers' cumulative risk during the first year following the birth of the child not only predicts father engagement when the child is an infant, but it also predicts father engagement when the child is 3 years old. The implication of these findings is that programs for fathers in fragile families should conduct early intervention both before and shortly following the birth of the child. Fathers who reduce their risk factors and increase their resilience factors during the first few years stand a better chance of being engaged with their children during the early preschool years, which are critical for children's early development. These findings would be further bolstered if early risk and resilience were also found to predict paternal engagement when the child is ready to enter school. The present study addresses this issue by examining early risk and resilience predictors of paternal engagement when the child is 5 years old using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing (FFCW) data.Theoretical PerspectiveRisk has been defined as conditions that hinder a consistent pattern of positive behavior and well-being (Fraser, 2004). The types of risk experienced by fathers in fragile families (e.g., incarceration) are often substantial and may be strongly associated with lower levels of father involvement with children. Waller and Swisher (2006) suggested that fathers with high levels of risk may passively withdraw from being involved with their children. These men may have too many problems of their own to become involved with their young child. There is also evidence that fathers with high levels of risk also experience more parenting stress, which tends to be negatively related to father engagement with children (Bronte-Tinkew, Horowitz, & Carrano, 2010). …