Fewer Kid Behavioral Issues If Dad is Home

A review of 24 studies from four countries revealed children who lived with a mother and father had fewer behavioral problems than those with only a mother.

The review, published in the journal Acta Paediatrica, found active father figures have a key role to play in reducing behavior problems in boys and psychological problems in young women.

The review also found that regular positive contact with a father figure reduces criminal behavior among children in poor families, and enhances cognitive skills such as intelligence, reasoning and language development.

The review looked at 24 studies conducted in the United States, Britain, Sweden and Israel published from 1987 and 2007, covering 22,300 individual sets of data. The smallest study focused on 17 infants and the largest covered 8,441 individuals ranging from premature babies to 33-year-old adults.

Our detailed 20-year review shows that, overall, children reap positive benefits if they have active and regular engagement with a father figure, Dr. Anna Sarkadi of Uppsala University in Sweden said in a statement.

Long-term benefits included women who had better relationships with partners and a greater sense of mental and physical well-being at the age of 33 if they had a good relationship with their father at 16.