Fathers' Involvement in Family and Youth's Delinquent Behaviour

Abstract

In this paper, we developed an Arabic Fathering Scale using data from 450 middle and high school students in Qatar between 12 and 19 years of age (M=15.24, SD= 1.74). We developed 38 items about father involvement in various aspects of children's lives (e.g., support, and emotional closeness). All items were rated on a 5-point Likert scale from "never happens" (1) to "always happens" (5) with higher scores indicating greater father involvement. Parenting styles were assessed using a 15-item Alabama Parenting Questionnaire. The items were rated on the same 5-point Likert scale reported above. Finally, we created a list of 13 delinquent behaviours (e.g., cheating) and asked students to indicate whether they engaged in each of the listed deviant behaviours over the past 12 months using binary (0 = no, 1 = yes) responses. The items were summed to create a scale with higher scores signifying greater delinquent activities. Exploratory factor analysis of the Fathering Scale produced three factors labelled Accessible Father (9 items), Father Moral Role (3 items), and Engaged Father (3 items). The scale explained 58% of the variance in the data. The Cronbach's alpha for the entire scale was .92. The relationships between Fathering Scale and punishment style, positive parenting, poor supervision, and delinquent behaviour were-.22, .66, -.20, and -.28, respectfully. Fathering Scale has excellent psychometric qualities and has shown to be useful in understanding children's engagement in delinquent activities and parental practice of harsh discipline. In sum, involved fathers (1) were less likely to engage in harsh discipline, (2) were more likely to engage in positive parenting style and closely supervise their children. Finally, children of involved fathers were less likely to engage in delinquent behaviour.