The Fatherhood Collaborative

The Importance of Responsible Fatherhood

The Mission of the Fatherhood Collaborative is to foster increased recognition of the importance of responsible fatherhood in the lives of children, youth and families in the U.S. Virgin Islands. In a variety of ways, the Foundation has focused on issues related to fatherhood and has provided leadership in a number of different fatherhood-related efforts.

Ten Positive Effects of a Father’s Presence

  1. Father-child interaction has been shown to promote a child’s physical well-being, perpetual abilities and competency for relatedness with others even at a young age.
  2. When both boys and girls are raised with engaged fathers they demonstrate “a greater ability to take initiative and evidence self control.”
  3. When fathers are involved in their children’s education, including attending school meetings and volunteering at school, children are more likely to get A’s, enjoy school, and participate in extracurricular activities and are less likely to repeat a grade.
  4. Fathers who spent time alone with their kids performing routine child care at least two times a week, raised children who were the most compassionate adults.
  5. Father involvement is associated with better quantitative and verbal skills, intellectual functioning, and overall academic achievement.
  6. Children with an involved father are exposed to more varied social experiences and are more intellectually advanced than those who only have regular contact with their mother.
  7. Well-fathered children have a greater breadth of positive social experiences than those exclusively raised by their mothers.
  8. Children who shared important ideas with their fathers and who perceived the amount of time they spent with their fathers as excellent had fewer behavior problems and lived in more cognitively stimulating homes than their peers who did not share important ideas or view the amount of time they spent with their fathers as excellent.
  9. Children whose fathers are highly involved with them attain higher levels of education and economic self-sufficiency than children whose fathers are not highly involved.
  10.  A high level of paternal involvement and improved father-child relations throughout adolescence is associated with lower levels of delinquency and better psychological well-being.