Father-child interactions and children's risk of injury

Unintentional injury is an important cause of infant and child hospitalisation and parents play a key role in reducing children's risk-taking behaviour. Studies show that maternal and paternal parenting and supervision of children differ, but there is little research showing how fathers’ parenting may influence children's tendency to engage in risk-taking behaviour. Recent theoretical developments suggest that father's parenting may be particularly effective in encouraging safe risk taking. In this study, we examine how well parenting practices typically undertaken by fathers predict rates of children's injury risk at three years. Questionnaire data were collected from 46 fathers. Results show that both duration of rough-and-tumble play and fathers’ encouragement of perseverance predicted lower rates of injury behaviours, while their stimulation of risk taking predicted higher rates of injury behaviours. The results are discussed in the light of developmentally appropriate risk taking and fathering.