In a new study of Syrian refugee families with small children, fathers viewed themselves as highly involved parents; their wives often begged to differ.
The study, co-authored by Yale anthropologist Catherine Panter-Brick, found that this disagreement between spouses predicted significant deficits in their children’s social and emotional development even though the fathers’ actual level of parental involvement had no measurable effect on those outcomes.
Catherine Panter-Brick, the lead researcher, highlighted the significance of the study’s findings by stating, “It’s striking that when spouses disagree about a father’s level of involvement, you see significant shortfalls in the children’s social and emotional learning, while fathers’ actual involvement is unrelated to those outcomes.” Panter-Brick also emphasized the importance of parents being in agreement in how they divide caregiving responsibilities.
The research, published in the Journal of Child and Family Studies, involved interviews with both fathers and mothers of children aged 4 to 8 years old from Syrian refugee families. The study revealed that a father’s level of involvement, whether high or low, did not affect their children’s social and emotional learning outcomes. However, disagreements between spouses over the father’s involvement were associated with negative impacts on the mother’s mental health and the child’s social and emotional learning.
Panter-Brick further explained, “You can have very low levels of fatherly engagement with small children and still have a perfectly functional household. It’s when you have a divergence of parenting expectations or poor-quality communication between mom and dad that it creates a strained family dynamic that negatively affects the child.”
The study suggested that supporting parents in negotiating caregiving interactions and promoting responsive parenting could benefit children’s mental health and social emotional learning. The researchers recommended providing couples with assistance in navigating stressful interactions about caregiving or improving communication with each other to enhance their children’s development.
The study was a collaborative effort involving researchers from various institutions, including Trinity College Dublin, the Taghyeer Foundation in Amman, Jordan and Mayo Clinic, the Hashemite University in Zarqa, Jordan, and Queen Mary University of London.
The findings shed light on how family dynamics and parental discord over caregiving roles can impact children’s social and emotional development, particularly in the context of forced displacement.
