Living with fathers strengthens teenage relationships

Living with fathers strengthens teenage relationships

Children who grow up under the same roof as their fathers feel close to them and form strong relationships that last through challenging teenage years, according to a new study.

Particularly in recent years, living in the same home was the strongest predictor of close father-child attachment during adolescence, regardless of whether the parents were married.

Researchers from the University of Michigan, the University of Nevada-Las Vegas and Ohio State University focused on father-child relationships, which are studied less often than mother-child relationships, to better understand adolescent development.

The study, which appears in a special issue of the journal Family Relations, shows how social scientists are using advanced machine learning to break new ground in the study of families.

Fathers are often excluded from research, but their perspectives are important. Studying fathers can be difficult because there is often less data available about them. “

Kaitlin Ward, UM researcher in the School of Social Work and Study co-author

For example, in long-term studies, mothers respond to surveys more often than fathers, so researchers often rely on mothers' reports. The study was unique because it included responses from thousands of racially and economically diverse fathers in the United States. This paves the way for more integrative and nuanced studies of fatherhood.

This study shows how researchers can use self-available data from fathers themselves (nearly 3,000 participants in Future of Families and Children's Well-Being) to highlight how their perspectives and childhood experiences influence the quality of their relationships with their children.

The study's results are straightforward: Simple, consistent father involvement builds closeness throughout adolescence.

"When fathers regularly talk to their children, help with homework and show interest in their lives, it strengthens their relationships over time," said Garrett Pace, the study's lead author and assistant professor at UNLV. “These everyday interactions, especially in later childhood, are key to developing lasting closeness.”

The study's authors are OSU assistant professor Joyce Lee and UM researcher Olivia Chang.

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