Research Finds That Children Who Spend Quality Time With Dad ‘Do Better At School’

According to new research, children that spend quality time with their dads actually helps them do better at school.

The research found that if the father of the child felt he spent “nowhere near enough time” with his child, the chance of their kid reaching a ‘good level of intellectual and emotional development by the age of five’ was actually reduced by a colossal 18 percent.

Surprisingly, the time that fathers spend with their child doing painting, drawing, playing games, reading, or other types of activities, there was no similar effect found when it came to the mothers.

The study showed that just over 1 in 6 dads, or 18 percent of fathers, felt that they didn’t spend enough quality time with their kids, but only one in 20 moms, or 5 percent, felt the same way. Moreover, 41 percent of fathers felt that they didn’t spend enough time with their child.

The researchers, who were from the University of Leeds, examined the data from the Millennium Cohort Study which has more than 4,000 children born to two parent households back in 2000 and 2001, as well as the data from their survey.

What they noted was that their findings managed to hold up despite the variables that could have explained the discrepancies within the study, like the child’s gender, household income, ethnicity, as well as their parents’ employment status, which were all taken into account.

The study also found that moms were more like to say they spent enough time with their child as compared to the dads, yet, their feelings about whether they managed to spend enough time playing with them actually had little effect on their child’s progress.

Generally, the study found that ‘62 percent of girls reached a good level of achievement at school, and 47 percent of boys did so, while 39 percent of children from poorer households reached a good level of achievement, compared with 58 percent of children from more affluent households.’

One of the researchers, Dr. Helen Norman, explained, “We found that a higher proportion of children reached a good level of overall achievement in the early years foundation stage profile when fathers engaged regularly in childcare activities such as drawing and painting, playing games and reading with their children.”

She also said, “Mothers are more likely to say that the time they spend with their children is enough or more than enough, which reflects the fact that mothers tend to be the ones spending the most time doing childcare so not having enough time with children is less likely to be an issue.”

“This is reflected in our sample where only five per cent of mothers said they had ‘nowhere near enough time’ with their five-year old compared to 18 percent of fathers,” she added.

She also shared, “Early parental childcare involvement is critical for supporting children’s development, but this is a conclusion drawn largely from research conducted with mothers or parents more generally.”

In conclusion, Dr. Helen said, “Fathers’ childcare involvement should have a positive effect on children’s development, yet there has been little empirical evidence to support this before our study.”