A CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY OF THE EARLY FATHER-DAUGHTER/SON FEEDING AND PLAY INTERACTIONS

Laura Vismara

;Cristina Sechi;Loredana Lucarelli

2022-01-01

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Abstract

The observation of the feeding and play interactions of the child with her/his caregiver offers the opportunity to evaluate the quality of their relationship within diferent domains. Considering the increasing role of fathers in the care of young children, in this study we evaluated the exchanges between fathers and their infants. 142 fathers-infant/toddler dyads (MAge = 36.9 years, SD = 5.8 years) - 51% boys and 49% girls - were cross-sectionally evaluated through the Feeding Scale (FS; Chatoor et al., 1997) and "e Play Scale (PS; Chatoor et al., 2018) at different developmental stages, from 1 month to 3 years of the child's age. Analyses demonstrated significant correlations between dyadic reciprocity during feeding and during play showing that positive interactions during play carry over into feeding and vice versa. On the contrary, paternal unresponsiveness and intrusiveness during play correlated significantly with paternal conflict during feeding highlighting paternal difficulty to tune into the child in both situations. "e observation of maladaptive father and child behaviours during feeding and play interactions can, at first, orient intervention, and, later, highlight the occurring changes within father–infant/toddler interactions during and a)er intervention.