Activation parenting includes behaviors that challenge children to
approach novel situations, explore their environments, and take physical and
socioemotional risks through a balance of encouragement and limit-setting. Although
components of activation parenting have been linked to lower levels of
children’s problem behaviors, comprehensive measures of activation parenting
and longitudinal research on families from low socioeconomic backgrounds are
lacking. The goal of the present study was to test associations between paternal
activation parenting at age 3 and children’s externalizing and internalizing
problems at age 5 in a sample of low-income, ethnically diverse fathers.
Participating fathers (N = 171;
9% Black, 47% white, 8% Latinx; mean household income =
$25,145) and their children (51% female) were drawn from the Early Steps
Multisite Study. Activation parenting during a teaching task at child age 3 was
associated with lower levels of internalizing problems at age 5 and decreases in
externalizing problems from baseline (age 2). Implications of the current findings
are presented for future research on associations between activation parenting and
child problem behaviors, including the potential for the development of prevention
and intervention programs.