Responsiveness in FatherChild Relationships: The Experience of Fathers

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Responsiveness in Father-Child Relationships
The Experience of Fathers

• Lynda M. Ashbourne
• Kerry J. Daly
• Jaime L. Brown
• University of Guelph

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Current Study

• Understanding mens development and the fathering
  experience by exploring the influence on men of
• Engaging in fathering
• Attending to their children
• Experiencing their own responsiveness

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FIRA National Study

• Seven subpopulations of fathers facing unique
  challenges
• New fathers, Young fathers, Immigrant fathers,
  Gay fathers, Indigenous fathers, Fathers of
  children special needs, Separated / Divorced
  fathers
• 215 fathers interviewed
• individual, couple, or focus groups

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Thematic Analysis

• Central thematic questions cutting across diverse
  cluster groups
• Providing important perspectives on key fathering
  issues
• Broad inductive analysis of interview data

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Sensitizing Concepts

• Bidirectionality
• Attunement
• Relational Synchrony

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Fathers Responsiveness

• Utilizing principles of Grounded Theory
  Methodology
• Responsive nature of father-child relationship
  and consequent influence on fathers themselves
• Childrens needs expressed by children and
  understood by fathers
• Fathers values and priorities

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Emergent and Responsive Nature of Father-Child
Relationships
I want to be a part of that. I want to
experience that with them those are the types of
things I want out of parenting, for me and for
(childs name), that we have a relationship that
we can talk about issues as time goes on, and as
he gets older, when hes, you know, a big man
(New Father 12)
When my daughter was born I was right there. For
the whole nine months before she was born, I
would sing to her in the womb. When she was born,
they cut the umbilical cord and placed her on her
mothers chest. She was about to cry, when I
grabbed my drum and I started to sing her a
welcoming song Soon as she heard the song, she
did not cry and stared at me. I really cherish
that I was able to do that. (Indigenous Fathers
4003)
In the Moment
As children get older you have to make that
adjustment you cant just say do what I tell you
and dont ask I kind of fought that part of the
change in my parenting. It took me a while to get
over and make that changecant just say Do
this. Dont question it I have to be ready to
explain it (Father of Child with Special Needs 10)
Future Orientation
When I get too frustrated, I start singing... and
when I start singing, he sings with me, he
doesn't cry. And that makes me laugh and simmer
down, and then I'm singing and he stops whining,
and that helps me relax even more (Young Father
2).
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Responsive to Childrens Expression of Need
Its amazing how much a 1 year old, or an 18
month old, or a 3 year old can communicate about
what they want, what they like and what they
dont like about what Im doing. And its up to
me to pay attention theyre teaching about how
to be a dad (Indigenous Father 1009)
Interviewer At what point did you really feel
like a father? Honestly, might sound funny but
its when I changed that first diaper my son was
having gastro problems, helping him, thats when
I felt like I was a father, not when my child
first came out, when he was first born, I mean
the doctors are doing everything when I stepped
in and started doing stuff when my child was at
home thats when I started to feel like a
father. (Young Father 19)
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Responsive based on Fathers sense of what is
Important
We do it homework anyways and we tell him that
it is just part of life that sometimes you have
to do things that are not always fun. You arent
going to make too much money if you cant do
math. (Indigenous Father 5001)
I have to follow through on those ideas that I
want to instigate into my childrenI have to
accept that choice with no anger and move on
(Separated and Divorced Father 8)
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Men learning about and redefining themselves as
Fathers
When my son was first born, I found I could get
impatient quickly, and some of that comes from
his you know, hes impatient, hes not able to
communicate well, so hes upset, and everybody
gets a little, you know, excited, lets say. You
know you just gotta take a second to catch your
breath, focus, and understand set expectations
for whats going to come out of this scenario,
and then, you know, proceed accordingly. That
has improved dramatically, in my mind I
definitely feel like I have matured in the
role. (New Father 5)
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Contribution

• Begin to articulate fathers experience of
  responsiveness
• Occurs in the process of mutual interaction
• Fathers attunement and sensitivity to childrens
  unique needs developmental stages allows for
  responsive provision of context for evolution of
  a mutually satisfying relationship
• Occurs in relation to contextual cues, other
  relationships
• Adaptive over time

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Contribution (cont.)

• Understanding parents experience of how
  childrens needs influence their own behaviour
  and experiences
• What are they responding to
• How are they responding

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Contribution (cont)

• Implications for supporting fathers involvement
  with their children

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Limitations Directions for Future

• Quality of data
• Diversity as strength and challenge