Fathers’ and mothers’ attachment styles, couple conflict, parenting quality, and children’s behavior problems: an intervention test of mediation

ABSTRACT

A diverse sample of 239 primarily low-income couples participated in a random controlled trial of the Supporting Father Involvement couples group intervention. In this report, we examined the value of adding measures of fathers’ attachment style and parenting to mothers’ measures in order to explain variations in children’s behavior problems. We also tested the hypothesis that the link between intervention-induced reductions in couple conflict and reductions in anxious/harsh parenting can be explained by intervention effects on parents’ attachment insecurity or on anxiety and depression. Fathers’ attachment security and parenting behavior added significantly to mothers’ in accounting for children’s internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors. Fathers’ anxious attachment style and anxiety/depression mediated the link between post-intervention reductions in parental conflict and anxious/harsh parenting. For mothers, only improvements in attachment security accounted for those links. The findings support the need for attachment researchers to consider the contributions of both parents to their children’s development.

KEYWORDS:

• Fathers
• attachment
• family systems
• child behavior problems
• mediation

Acknowledgments

We want to acknowledge the support of the California Health and Human Services, Office of Child Abuse Prevention; Linda Hockman, Teresa Contreras, and Lee Ann Kelly served as directors through most phases of the intervention study. We also thank the SFI staff at each of the 5 county sites; Project Directors, Group Leaders, Case Managers, and Data Supervisors. Finally, we are most grateful to the couples who were study participants, all of whom devoted a great deal of time and effort toward the success of this project.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the California Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Child Abuse Prevention [69750].