Show summary
Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out there! On this week’s episode, we review a list of seven facts based on research about how fathers can affect a child’s development. We talk about the surprising importance of roughhousing, how fathers encourage courageous exploration and many other relatively unknown facts that will change the way you think about fathers.

Show notes
- Analyzing statistics with a critical eye and remembering that studies don’t always use the same research methodologies

- A good rule of thumb for reliable research: if at least three studies show similar results using similar research methodologies, then the results are probably reliable

- Fathers encourage courageous exploration; they push you to your limits and help you achieve your potential (Research article)

- Having a father in your house decreases the chances of having shorter telomeres (Research article)

- Clarifying the terms: non-resident fathers, resident fathers and fatherlessness

- Rough-and-tumble play with fathers has many benefits such as: children being able to delay gratification (the marshmallow test), they have better spatial awareness in social situations, they don’t confuse assertiveness with aggression and they learn their physical limits, and can better read others’ emotional cues (Research article) (YouTube video - The absolute necessity of fathers: Warren Farrell/JB Peterson)

- Discipline and punishment are two completely different things

- Are hands-off policies in schools desocializing children? (News article about a hands-off policy in a Canadian school)

- Boys who don’t have fathers tend to join gangs; gangs are a poor substitute for a father’s masculinity (Research article)

- Children who are emotionally close to their fathers are 80% less likely to spend time in jail during their lives (White paper on the importance of fathers)

- Children with actively involved fathers have better academic performance and lower risk of dropping out of school (NCES publication)

- Working fathers earn 22% more than non-father workers, and the more children a father has the more they earn (Trades Union Congress report)

- The postmodernist view of families