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Mary Gordon says that “love grows the brain”. A new study from Leeds University in the UK reveals that fathers engaging in interactive activities with their children, such as reading and playing, significantly improve their kids’ primary school performance.

An article in Neuroscience News called ‘Dad Time Boosts Kids’ School Success’ by Mia Saunders shares the inside scoop.

“Analysis of the Millennium Cohort Study showed children of involved dads performed better by ages five and seven. The benefits were observed irrespective of the child’s gender, ethnicity, or household income. The study underscores the essential role fathers play in their child’s academic journey.

See Dr Andrew Meltzoff’s very short video below on why “love grows the brain”.

Key Facts:

1. Interactive activities between fathers and their three-year-olds improve children’s academic performance by age five.
2. Mothers primarily influence children’s emotional and social behaviours, whereas fathers have a significant impact on educational achievement.
3. The research recommends even just ten minutes of interaction per day between fathers and their children for educational benefits.

Fathers can give their children an educational advantage at primary school by reading, drawing and playing with them, according to a newly published report.

Research led by the University of Leeds has found that children do better at primary school if their fathers regularly spend time with them on interactive engagement activities like reading, playing, telling stories, drawing and singing. 

Analysing primary school test scores for five- and seven-year-olds, the researchers used a representative sample of nearly 5,000 mother-father households in England from the Millenium Cohort Study – which collected data on children born 2000-02 as they grew up.  

According to the research, dads who regularly drew, played and read with their three-year-olds helped their children do better at school by age five. Dads being involved at age five also helped improve scores in seven-year-olds’ Key Stage Assessments. 

Dr Helen Norman, Research Fellow at Leeds University Business School, who led the research, said: “Mothers still tend to assume the primary carer role and therefore tend to do the most childcare, but if fathers actively engage in childcare too, it significantly increases the likelihood of children getting better grades in primary school. This is why encouraging and supporting fathers to share childcare with the mother, from an early stage in the child’s life, is critical.” 

Dads’ involvement impacted positively on their children’s school achievement regardless of the child’s gender, ethnicity, age in the school year and household income, according to the report. 

There were different effects when mums and dads took part in the same activities – the data showed that mums had more of an impact on young children’s emotional and social behaviours than educational achievement. 

The researchers recommend that dads carve out as much time as they can to engage in interactive activities with their children each week. For busy, working dads, even just ten minutes a day could potentially have educational benefits.  

They also recommend that schools and early years education providers routinely take both parents’ contact details (where possible) and develop strategies to engage fathers – and that Ofsted take explicit account of father-engagement in inspections. 

The research was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and led by Dr Helen Norman, Research Fellow at Leeds University Business School, in collaboration with co-author Dr Jeremy Davies, Head of Impact and Communications at the Fatherhood Institute, and co-investigators at the University of Manchester. 

Dr Jeremy Davies, Head of Impact and Communications at the Fatherhood Institute, who co-authored the report, said: “Our analysis has shown that fathers have an important, direct impact on their children’s learning. We should be recognising this and actively finding ways to support dads to play their part, rather than engaging only with mothers, or taking a gender-neutral approach.” 

Andrew Gwynne MP, Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Fatherhood, said: “This study shows that even small changes in what fathers do, and in how schools and early years settings engage with parents, can have a lasting impact on children’s learning. It’s absolutely crucial that fathers aren’t treated as an afterthought.” 

Lovework

There you have it. The message is critical. Fathers are very important in giving a child the best start in life.

Read, play, draw, and have fun with your children until they get married and leave home. Their brains are growing all the time.

As the man said, “You gotta be in it to win it.”

Yours for High-Achieving Children,
Warwick Marsh

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Originally published at Dads4Kids. Photo by Antoni Shkraba.