A Penn State College of Health and Human Development study shows that warm, supportive father–infant interactions can improve co-parenting and are linked to better heart and metabolic health markers in children years later
A father’s early behaviour toward his baby can shape family dynamics in ways that influence a child’s heart and metabolic health years later, according to a new study by researchers at the Penn State College of Health and Human Development.
Published in Health Psychology, the study found that fathers who displayed warmth and developmentally supportive behaviour toward their infants at 10 months of age were more likely to engage in positive co-parenting with the child’s mother by the time the child reached two years. In families where this pattern was observed, children showed healthier biological markers at seven years of age. By contrast, the mother’s warmth during infancy, as well as her positive or negative co-parenting behaviours at age two, did not independently predict the child’s physical health outcomes at age seven.
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The researchers emphasised that these findings do not diminish the role of mothers in child development.
“Everyone in the family matters a lot,” said Alp Aytuglu, postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Biobehavioral Health. “Mothers are often the primary caregivers, and children are experiencing the most growth and development. The takeaway here is that in families with a father in the household, dads affect the environment in ways that can support or undermine the health of the child for years to come.”
Previous research has shown that children growing up in high-conflict or unstable households face higher risks of health problems, including inflammation, impaired blood sugar regulation and obesity. However, much of that work has focused primarily on maternal influences. This study aimed to capture a more comprehensive picture by examining the interactions among all family members.
The analysis drew on data from the Penn State Family Foundations project, funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, involving 399 U.S. families with a mother, father and first-born child. Most participating families were non-Hispanic white and had above-average education and income levels.
Researchers conducted home visits when children were 10 and 24 months old, recording videos of parents interacting with their child. These recordings were assessed by trained evaluators who coded parenting behaviours such as responsiveness, warmth and age-appropriate engagement. Co-parenting dynamics were also examined, including instances where parents competed for the child’s attention rather than interacting cooperatively.
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“No one will be surprised to learn that treating your children appropriately and with warmth is good for them,” said Hannah Schreier, associate professor of biobehavioral health, Penn State Social Science Research Institute co-funded faculty member and senior author of this study. “But it might surprise people that a father’s behavior before a baby is old enough to form permanent memories can affect that child’s health when they are in second grade. It is generally understood that family dynamics affect development and mental health, but those dynamics affect physical health as well and play out over years.”
“Researchers studying parenting are often forced to rely on parents’ self-reports of their behavior,” said Jennifer Graham-Engeland, Elizabeth Fenton Susman Professor of Biobehavioral Health and co-author of this study. “When any of us self-report something, we can be influenced by what we remember or how we want to be seen which may not represent how we actually behaved. And, of course, children this young can’t report on how their parents acted. The Family Foundations data made possible this intimate look into family lives as well as the connection of those interactions to later biological indicators of health. We believe this allowed us to create a more accurate picture of the influence of fathers than was possible previously.”
“The lack of clear results based on the mothers’ coparenting was not expected,” said Graham-Engeland, associate director of the Penn State Center for Healthy Aging. “There could be many reasons for this, but one theory in the literature relates to the father’s role in the family that may play out in different ways. In two-parent families like the ones in this study the mother is frequently the primary caregiver; so, it is possible that whatever the mother’s behavior, it tends to represent the norm in the family, whereas the father’s role tends to be one that reinforces the norm or disrupts it. It is also likely that mothers affect children’s health in ways other than those specifically examined in this study.”
