Exploring the Relationship Between Father Involvement and Externalizing Behaviors Among Children in Informal Kinship Care

Background and Purpose

Over 2.7 million children in the United States are currently living in a relative’s home, many without either of their biological parents present. Majority of these children are not under the supervision of child welfare agencies and are living in familial arrangements classified as informal kinship care. Children enter informal kinship care for various reasons, including abuse and/or neglect, parental incarceration, parental substance abuse, or parental illness. Although it might be assumed that biological parents are not involved in their children’s lives, research suggests that parents maintain involvement to various degrees. While researchers have explored the impact of biological parent involvement on child and adolescent outcomes in other fragile family arrangements, little work has considered parental involvement in informal kinship care. Understanding the relationship between father involvement and child wellbeing is of particular importance given the potential negative consequences related to lack of father engagement and the current federal policy foci on Responsible Fatherhood.

Method

This secondary analysis examined data collected from 104 informal kinship caregivers at four points in time (258 observations). Child externalizing behaviors were measured using the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL). Father Involvement was measured using single item measures of frequency of contact with the child, father-child relationship quality, and father’s residential status. Higher scores on each of these measures indicated higher levels of externalizing behavior problems, more frequent contact and higher quality relationships. Data were analyzed in SPSS 21 using Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE). GEE models are used to account for the within subject correlation of repeated measures predictor variables when exploring causal relationships. A population averaged GEE approach was used in this analysis to model the average response for observations across all subjects.

Results

The majority of children were African American (89%), and male (52%), with an average age of 7 years. Approximately ninety seven percent of the children had nonresident fathers. When accounting for factors known to significantly impact externalizing behaviors in this sample (child’s age, family functioning, caregiver’s employment status, mother-child relationship, and caregiver-child relationship), father’s involvement was a significant predictor of children’s externalizing behaviors. The frequency of father-child contact was inversely related to child externalizing behaviors (β= -1.22, SE = 0.57, p < .05). The quality of the father-child relationship was also inversely related to child externalizing behaviors (β= -2.66, SE = 0.84, p < .01). Compared to children with resident fathers, having a nonresident father was associated with lower levels of externalizing behaviors (β= -5.88, SE = 2.39, p < .01).

Conclusions and Implications

Results of this analysis suggest that biological fathers have a significant impact on the level of externalizing behaviors displayed by children in informal kinship care. These results have implications for the development of policies and programs that will promote healthy relationships between fathers and their children living in relative care.