De Relatie tussen Opvoedgedrag van Vaders en de Sociaal-Emotionele Ontwikkeling van Zoons en Dochters

Abstract

Nowadays fathers seem to take on a more prominent role in raising their children, but research about this role is still lacking. Therefore, the purpose of this thesis was to examine if there is a relation between fathers’ discipline and stimulation and the social-emotional development of young children and whether this relationship differed for boys and girls. For this reason, fathers (N = 184) completed multiple questionnaires about the way they discipline and stimulate their children and about the social-emotional development of their children. The results revealed that there is no link between fathers’ positive discipline, stimulation and the social-emotional development of the child. However, fathers’ negative discipline and the childs’ social-emotional development are positively correlated. Thus, a higher amount of negative discipline is associated with more social-emotional problems. As expected, gender did not moderate these relations. The current results suggest that fathers seem to have an influence on their childs’ social-emotional development, especially when it comes to negative discipline. This insight can be used to involve fathers more in research and parenting programs, which generally focus on mothers. Hopefully, this will enhance the social-emotional development of children. Limitations of this thesis were discussed and recommendations for future research were given.