Fathers’ reactions to child distress predict distinct socioemotional outcomes two years later

A new study published in Development and Psychopathology has found that the way fathers respond when their young children are upset can shape their emotional and social development in surprisingly different ways over time.

When children become frightened or overwhelmed, parents typically step in to comfort them. However, not all parents respond in the same way—while some minimize the situation, others become overly involved.

Past studies have shown that insensitive responses can contribute to anxiety, behavior problems, and social difficulties. However, most of that work has focused on the form of the behavior—such as being harsh or overprotective—rather than the function the behavior serves in the parent-child interaction. Additionally, research on parenting has focused mostly on mothers, leaving fathers’ roles less understood.

Cory Platts, Melissa Sturge-Apple, and Patrick Davies from the University of Rochester sought to address this gap. The study team invited fathers and their three‑year‑old children (235 pairs, 55% girls) into a laboratory designed to resemble a living room.

After a brief warm‑up period, a stranger dressed either as a clown or in a black trash bag entered the room and silently approached the pair. The goal was to create a mild but realistic moment of child distress, allowing researchers to observe how fathers naturally responded.

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From these observations, the team identified two distinct caregiving patterns. The first, called caregiving deactivation, involved fathers who downplayed the situation, offered little physical comfort, rarely made eye contact, or appeared emotionally flat.

The second, caregiving hyperactivation, involved fathers who became overly involved—holding their child tightly, using exaggerated “sing-song” tones of voice, or even heightening the sense of threat by forcing the child to interact with the stranger.

Two years later, the researchers followed up with the families. Based on behavioral questionnaires completed by the children’s mothers, the team discovered that children whose fathers showed deactivation during the distressing situation actually showed reductions in oppositional behavior and hostility over time. These children became less defiant and less prone to angry outbursts.

Platts and his team suggested a reason for this: “parenting that is rejecting of children’s distress bids can communicate to children that intense emotional displays will not be tolerated, leading children to both conceal expressions of negative emotion and comply to parental authority so as to increase the likelihood of receiving affection from parents.”

In contrast, children whose fathers showed hyperactivation experienced increases in general anxiety and social withdrawal. These children became more nervous, more easily overwhelmed, and less likely to engage with peers. The researchers believe that when fathers respond in ways that heighten the sense of threat or overwhelm the child with intrusive care, children may come to see the world as more frightening and themselves as less capable of handling challenges.

“Overprotective parenting is not only thought to limit the child’s autonomy but also restrict the development of children’s self-efficacy,” the authors noted.

Importantly, the two caregiving patterns predicted different outcomes. Deactivation was linked only to externalizing behaviors like defiance, while hyperactivation was linked to social disengagement and internalizing symptoms like general anxiety (though notably, it was not linked to separation anxiety).

The study does have limitations. For example, mothers’ caregiving behaviors were not included for comparison, and the novel observation method utilized has not yet been widely validated. Furthermore, because child adjustment was assessed via mother reports, the outcomes primarily reflect the children’s behavior in the home setting, which may differ from how they act at school or with peers.

The study, “Patterns of father responsiveness to child distress and children’s socioemotional outcomes,” was authored by Cory R. Platts, Melissa L. Sturge‑Apple, and Patrick T. Davies.