Dad’s the word

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By Tim Kahn — Inclusion Officer at Pre-school Learning Alliance

Parents, on the whole, are the most important people in children’s lives, so why is it so tough to involve fathers in children’s early years care, and how would involving them more benefit a child’s development?

We’re delighted to have worked closely with Pre-school Learning Alliance and Families Need Fathers to bring you a round-up of recent research and recommendations about the practical things that you can do to involve fathers in your setting.

Where’s Dad?

Research shows that children do better across a range of measures when fathers are involved in their lives. Researchers and policymakers support father involvement, but what do children, fathers and mothers think about involving fathers in early years services? Pre-school Learning Alliance shares the results of its ‘Where’s Dad?’ research with Nursery Ed PLUS!

The project

The project took place in three early years settings in London. We ran focus group interviews with the mothers and fathers, and asked them what they thought about involving fathers in early years settings. In two settings, we suggested a number of child-friendly ways that the settings could ask the young children for their views.

These were, for example, based around reading them the storybook My Dad by Anthony Browne (Corgi Children’s Books), and asking them to draw their mums and dads, and talk about their pictures as they drew them.