Father-child attachment and paternal involvement: Two key concepts to better predict the development of the child
Until now, father-child attachment and paternal involvement have been kept apart as two distinct fields of research. We have learned that like mothers, fathers are an important attachment figure for the child. However, we know little of what predicts the quality of father-child attachment. Moreover, the actual instruments used in attachment research do not allow measuring its full impact. Those instruments have often been validated with mothers only and they are mostly focused on the behaviour of the child in case of distress. With research on paternal involvement, we have observed that fathers act rather as openness toward the world figure for the child than as a comforting figure. With this in mind, more and more researchers are beginning to consider that father-child attachment develops differently than mother-child attachment. However, researches on paternal involvement show that in the last years, the difference between paternal and maternal involvement has grown smaller. Fathers are acting more and more as child care providers. What we don't know yet is if with this change fathers are acting more like a comforting figure as well. The authors suggest that studying paternal involvement at the same time as father-child attachment would help to better understand how attachment to father develops and to better predict child development.