Fathers’ participation in the social development of their children under six years: Challenges and strategic implications.
- Title
- Fathers’ participation in the social development of their children under six years: Challenges and strategic implications.
- Author(s)
- Okeke, C.I., & Adams, C.G.G. See all items with this value
- Date
- 2021 See all items with this value
- Description
-
When fathers are actively participating in the early social development of their children, such children tend to do much better later in their lives trajectory. Given this dictum, the research reported in this paper explored the roles South African fathers play in their children’s early social development. Previous literature found that fathers appear to be confronted with constraints that impact their abilities to get involved in more ways than one. Therefore, the
main aim of this study was to establish whether the fathers selected for the study had experienced any difficulties in participating in their children’s early social development. The convenient sampling technique was used to select fathers (n = 20) whom the researchers
thought were experienced to respond to the various issues raised during the semi-structured in-depth interviews. A thematic approach was employed to make sense of the data obtained from the fathers. Opportunely, the cohort of fathers who participated in the study appeared to desire to be involved in the early social development of their children under six years. However, the findings of the study reveal that these fathers faced numerous constraints as they battled to get involved. The results shows that strained partner relationships a major source of constraint to fathers. Furthermore, results also show that working long hours was a major challenge to father involvement in the early social development of the child. Data also
revealed that lack of experience in childcare constituted a source of constraint to fathers’ participation in the early social development of their children. Time spent at work by fathers was a major issue as to how and when they want to get involved in their children’s social
development. However, the father effect connotes the quality of time fathers spend with their little ones as well as the benefits that accrue from such paternal presence on the early social development of the child. It is therefore recommended that fathers be adequately equipped to participate in the early development of their children. - Publisher
- South African International Conference on Education (SAICEd) See all items with this value
- Keywords
- Children; Early development; Fathers participation; Social capital; Social development See all items with this value
- pages
- 199-210
- Item sets
- Conference Papers/Proceedings
- Media
-
PDF