Time with dad good for self-esteem

Kids need a dad and a mum, not just “parents”, because, as a new study shows, dad does different things for the growing child than mum does, at least some of the time. I know this will not impress die-hard gender egalitarians, but most mums and dads will quickly see the point.

The study tracked nearly 200 families with at least two children, over a period of seven years — from age 8 to 15. (It is not clear from this report whether all the families had both parents at home.) The families were not representative of the whole of the US, being “almost exclusively European American, working and middle-class families living in small cities, towns and rural communities,” say the researchers from Penn State University. Read more

Sources

Carolyn Moynihan is a New Zealand journalist with a special interest in family issues.

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News category: Analysis and Comment.

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