Effect Of Social Support On Father Involvement

Lamb(1975)pointed out that " fathers are the facilitators of the growth of forgotten children".The physical and mental health development of children not only depends on the input of the mother,but also needs the active participation of the father.The father has a unique role in the development of children,which is different from that of the mother.The physical development of children,the establishment of rules and the cultivation of the will of children cannot be separated from the upbringing of the father.Development context theory believes that the development of children is the result of interaction of many factors,including the remote environment is through the proximal environment more indirect effects on children,existing research has proved that father involvement by multiple factors such as individual,family,social influence,thus improve the father to participate in the quality of the frequency,optimization of father involvement,need to focus on the influence factors of father involvement and explore the mechanism of action of complex between various factors,in order to provide empirical basis for children's father involved in parenting.In view of this,this study intends to explore the relationship between social support,parenting sense of competence,family socioeconomic status and father involvement,and to reveal the possible mediating or moderating effects of parenting sense of competence and family socioeconomic status on social support and father involvement.The main objectives of the study are :(1)investigating the general characteristics of father involvement of children aged 3-6 years;(2)revealing the relationship between social support,parenting sense of competence,family socioeconomic status and father involvement,as well as the complex mechanism of the relationship between parenting sense of competence and family socioeconomic status and social support and father involvement.586 fathers of children aged 3-6 years in 2 kindergartens were selected as the research objects,and data were collected on the social support,parenting sense of competence,family socioeconomic status and father involvement by using the father report method.The researchconclusions are as follows:(1)The overall level of infant father involvement is above the middle level,and there are significant differences among different dimensions,among which emotional expression and indirect support score is the highest,followed by academic encouragement,and rule constraint and interaction supervision score is the lowest;Among the dimensions of father involvement,only in the dimensions of interactive supervision and emotional expression,the scores of fathers of only children participating in parenting were significantly higher than those of fathers of non-only children.The father involvement varies with his age,occupation and education level.The older he is,the higher his professional level and education level,the higher his involvement.(2)Social support can directly predict parenting satisfaction and parenting efficacy in the sense of parenting competence of fathers;The dimensions of social support and parenting efficacy can directly predict the father involvement.Social support can also through the parenting efficacy indirectly affect the father involvement,namely the parenting self-efficacy plays an intermediary role between social support and father involvement,social support can affect father further acts on the father involvement,but don't have a forecast about father involved in parenting satisfaction.(3)Family socioeconomic status(SES)plays a moderating role in the mechanism by which parenting efficacy affects father involvement,and has a greater influence on fathers' participation in parenting in families with low socioeconomic status than in families with high socioeconomic status.