Parenting of divorced fathers and the association with children's self-esteem

J Youth Adolesc. 2012 Dec;41(12):1643-56. doi: 10.1007/s10964-012-9783-6. Epub 2012 Jun 28. La crianza de los hijos de padres divorciados y su asociación con la autoestima de los niños. Bastaits K, Ponnet K, Mortelmans D. Research Centre for Longitudinal and Life Course Studies, University of Antwerp, Sint-Jacobsstreet 2, 2000 Antwerp, Belgium. kim.bastaits@ua.ac.be Research suggests that high parental support and control improves children's well-being. However, a large part of these studies have focused on the parenting of married parents. Research on parenting after a divorce, mainly has focused on parenting of divorced mothers, with few exceptions concentrating primarily on non-residential fathers. Therefore, we compared both parenting dimensions support and control of fathers in different family structures (non-residential fathers, fathers in joint custody and married fathers). We also investigated the association between fathers' parenting dimensions and children's self-esteem, controlled for the parenting dimensions of the mother. Data from 587 children (50 % girls) between 10 and 18 years old and their parents were examined. Results revealed that non-residential fathers (n = 225) were less supportive and controlling than fathers in joint custody (n = 138) and married fathers (n = 224).  Nevertheless, having a supportive father was beneficial to children's self-esteem in each family structure. We conclude that, even after a divorce, fathers have the capacity to enhance children's self-esteem and we suggest that future research should investigate this capacity.