The Legend, the Madman, and the Prophet is a memoir about fathers and sons, about the experience of being a son of a man of the Rocky Mountains, a legend grown old. The narrative centers around my struggle with the fact that my father had grown old and sick while I was still young, and my consequent search for other fathers, employing two primary examples—a martial-arts instructor from my high-school years who was later exposed as a pedophile, and the eccentric figure of my ex-girlfriend’s wealthy and traditional Egyptian-American father. The memoir relates the story of my father’s impact on my perception of manhood, my own experience with depression in the wake of his death, and the story of a spiritual search he began in me, which led me from my boyhood Mormonism toward eventual conversion to Islam. This is a story about fathers and sons, about what it means to lose a father, to want a father, and to learn to be a father to myself.

This research was conducted to study the beliefs about fatherhood among social workers. Data for this project were gathered through separate interviews which were conducted using a sample of five individual social workers that worked with children and families. The participants were asked a series of questions regarding their beliefs about fatherhood. Ultimately, this study found that social workers believe that fathers are important and can contribute to their children’s lives in a healthy manner through emotional, educational, and financial support. The results from this study suggest that fathers play an important role in their children’s lives and greatly contribute to their emotional, mental, financial, educational, health, and overall well being. This study also suggests that though fathers are held in high regard by the social workers in this research study, there is still a pressing need for resources and programs for fathers that support the father/child relationship. Finally, suggestions for future study include the need for quality programs focused on the needs of fathers, training for staff to involve and engage fathers, and to identify the barriers obstructing father involvement.

The purpose of this study was to explore the various challenges and needs single Latino fathers faced in different areas such as the parent-child relationship, personal, physical, mental, and the financial aspect. It also explored the father’s perspectives and needs of formal and informal systems. This study used qualitative design using face -to- face interviews. This study found that single Hispanic fathers had a really good relationship with their children despite cultural factors that would enable them to have a challenging relationship such as the lack of acculturation, machismo, and the different fatherhood values between Hispanic and American culture. Another major theme that came up was the use of family support and the need for more formal support from local and state agencies and organizations. This study will help social workers and other professionals learn and understand the needs and challenges single Hispanic fathers face which will help social workers be competent to work with this specific population. It is recommended that more formal support such as access to counseling centers, support groups, and father-child community activities are needed to support and sustain Latino single fathers.

Parents play a significant role in how children learn to express their emotions as well as their child’s overall emotional well-being. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of positive and negative emotion socialization experiences on internalizing disorders in young adult males and females. One-hundred and forty-two young adults between the ages of 18-28 years from a southwestern university participated in the current study. It was hypothesized that early negative emotion socialization experiences would be related to higher levels of anxiety and depression in young adulthood (and, conversely, early positive emotion socialization experiences would be related to lower levels of anxiety and depression). In addition, it was expected that fathers would engage more in negative emotion socialization behaviors than mothers, especially with sons. Participants completed the Coping with Children’s Negative Emotions Scale- Adolescents’ Perceptions (CCNES-AP; Fabes & Eisenberg,1998), the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) (Beck, Epstein,Brown, & Steer, 1988), the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II) (Beck et al., 1961), and a demographics form. Results indicated that parental emotion socialization was significantly related to depression in males but not females. There were limited significant correlations between anxiety and emotion socialization for males, but not females. Findings supported the hypothesis that fathers tend to engage more in negative emotion socialization behaviors than mothers, especially with sons. The long-term impact for males but not females of early emotional socialization experiences is discussed within the context of gender differences in intimate peer relations throughout development. In addition, the long-term impact of mothers and fathers on how children learn to express their (negative) emotions, and the implications of such for males’ mental health, is also discussed.

Sex offenders are commonly grouped into categories based on the characteristics (e.g., victim age, relationship to offender) of their victims for criminal sentencing and treatment purposes. The purpose of this quantitative, quasi-experimental study was to address the gap in the lack of literature comparing recidivism rates among biological fathers and male parental figures who committed incestuous child sexual abuse in Hawai'i against children 15 years or younger. This study was the first attempt in the state to examine the number of inmates who had completed their maximum sentences and were later returned to prison for new felony incest offenses. Secondary data were obtained from the Safety Sex Offender Treatment Program (SOTP) within the state of Hawai'i Department of Public Safety (DPS) from the years 1988 to 2013. Areas of recidivism and crimes involving biological fathers, stepfathers, boyfriends of the victims' mothers, foster parents, and hana'i family members were included (N = 1,727). Three hundred and ten met the criteria for the current study. The study had 2 independent variables: the offender's relationship to the victim (e.g., biological, adoptive, stepparent, foster parent or hana'i family members); or the residency status of the offender (e.g., lived with the victim versus did not live with the victim). The dependent variable was the recidivism rates of the incest offenders (i.e., new incest offense convictions). Analysis of these variables using the ï?£2 with Cramer's V statistical test lacked statistical significance as there was no documented evidence of recidivism in either group. The potential for social change and clinical significance still exists. Further analysis of the effectiveness of the SOTP may aid in sustaining low recidivism rates.

Adolescent parenting research has typically focused on the mother and ignored the father . Researchers have suggested that adolescent fathers are disregarded as the child's other parent because their parenting role is devalued. An emerging body of literature indicates that adolescent fathers are excluded from the pregnancy and parenting services provided to adolescent mothers because they are viewed as unnecessary to the parenting process and unimportant to the child's development. Moreover, researchers have alleged that service providers treat adolescent fathers as outcasts based on stereotypical beliefs that they are uncaring, irresponsible victimizers who disappear at the first mention of pregnancy. However, there is no empirical evidence to support these claims. The purpose of this thesis is to question these allegations and provide some evidence to either support or refute them. A survey of northern Utah agencies and the personnel who provide pregnancy and parenting services to adolescent mothers was conducted as the means to investigate this issue. The results of the survey do not provide conclusive evidence although they do suggest that the participating agencies and their personnel do not have policies or attitudes that intentionally exclude adolescent fathers from receiving services. Those surveyed consider fathers to be important to the pregnancy experience and the child's development. However , they do not make a deliberate effort to encourage adolescent fathers to take advantage of their services, nor do they employ effective strategies for making adolescent males aware of their services.

Despite a well-documented need for parent training in the treatment and prevention of child behavior problems, as well as the well-documented benefit of including fathers in preventative and treatment interventions, surprisingly little clinical intervention research examines the role of fathers in such trainings. This research examined the role of father involvement in behavioral parent training by examining parent-related characteristics in relation to treatment outcomes for both mothers and fathers, examining differences between mothers and fathers, and examining the additive benefit of including fathers in treatment across two studies. Both studies utilized archival data obtained from a university- and community-based parent training program for families and service providers of children displaying challenging or disruptive behavior offered through a large south eastern university medical center. The first study examined associations and relationships among parenting knowledge, parenting stress, and treatment engagement in 39 fathers and 107 mothers. The second study examined the associations and relationships among child behavior problems, treatment engagement, and therapy attitudes in 43 fathers and 98 mothers. Surprising patterns of effects were found; overall, the pattern of results of both studies across multiple levels indicated that the treatment was effective and that the pre-post changes observed were robust to a number of covariates. These findings indicate that the observed treatment efficacy was not diminished when examining specific groups of participants. It is possible that specific strengths of the program discussed in detail such as the social support and problem-solving opportunities augmented treatment benefit for subgroups of participants and mitigated the impact of group differences. While differences between mothers and fathers are often portrayed as having dramatic impacts on treatment engagement and efficacy, these group differences may not be as straightforward as is commonly depicted in the literature. Treatments that identify the nature of differential patterns of benefit and address them through treatment design may be able to deliver efficacious treatment generalizable to multiple subgroups of parents. These findings may have important implications for improving treatment engagement and treatment efficacy in the future. Based on the synthesized findings of these two studies, recommendations for treatment development, clinical practice, and future research are discussed.

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a disorder that includes persistent impairment in verbal and nonverbal communication, social interaction, and restricted and repetitive patterns of behaviors, interests, or activities. The purpose of this study is to capture the perspectives and experiences of parents who are divorced but are still coparenting their child with ASD. Current literature gives insight into how ASD affects the family system, but there is no literature to date that examines how parents coparent their child when the family system is split. ASD is a lifelong and impactful disorder impacting not just the individual’s adaptive functioning, but also all relationships within the family system. Often times, families with a child diagnosed with ASD have reported strained parental marital relationships due to the increased demands on the parents, which, at times, may lead to divorce (Cridland et al., 2014; DePape & Lindsey, 2015). This study took take a qualitative interview approach to gain insight into parents’ experiences with coparenting post divorce through the use of open-ended interviews. Inductive and deductive thematic analysis provided data to assist in understanding the experiences of parents raising a child with ASD within the context of divorce, what impact divorce has on themselves and their child, how parents work with their coparenting partner to share and divide responsibilities related to their child, how parents in a coparenting relationship work to minimize the impact of the divorce on their child diagnosed with ASD, as well as understanding what challenges persist in coparenting their child with ASD post divorce.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of Otago, 1979.

Thesis (Psy. D.)--Wheaton College Graduate School, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 65-70).