Frightened fathers, frightened children?
Susan Bögels has been awarded a Vici grant for her unique research into the role fathers play in the development of fear in children
Professor of Special Education in the Family and at School Susan Bögels believes that fathers play a crucial role in the development of fear in children. She received a Vici grant of € 1.5 million for her research entitled Do fathers know best?
Babies are born with instinctive fears that protect them from danger. Excessive fear, however, can be harmful to their development. Professor of Special Education in the Family and at School Susan Bögels believes that fathers play a crucial role in the development of fear in children. She received a Vici grant of € 1.5 million for her research entitled Do fathers know best?Should I be afraid of that dog? Is it safe to climb onto this chair? From the time they are babies, children assess risks by looking at how their parents react. This process is called social referencing. Depending on the signals that the parents send out (encouraging or fearful and averting), the child decides whether to do certain things or not. They also learn what things or situations are dangerous.
The specific role of fathers in this process has hardly ever been studied, while it may in fact be a crucial one, thinks Professor of Special Education in the Family and at School Susan Bögels. ‘We know that, in a number of ways, the brain's responses are evolutionary. From prehistoric times, women have been adept at caring, feeding, comforting and so on, while men have more expertise when it comes to the external environment (dangerous animals, driving away strangers, finding new land). According to my theory, this fact may cause children to trust their fathers rather than their mothers when assessing external dangers.'
Mothers that care, fathers that hunt... It all sounds like a confirmation of traditional role divisions and not very feministic.
‘Happily, I am a feminist myself so I am entitled to say so', Bögels laughs. ‘While I am certainly not saying that men really know more about the external environment, it is a fact that they have an evolutionary advantage over women in this area. And much more important: in assessing external risks, children possibly turn instinctively to their father. We want to find out if this really is the case. If it is, it means that fathers play a crucial role in both preventing excessive fear and triggering it. After all, the father is seen as the expert on external danger and, consequently, any fear exhibited by the father is more readily copied by the child.'
From your literature research, it seems that fathers also play an important role in how fear influences children.
‘That's right. And it also pointed up the fact that so little research has in fact been conducted on the specific role of fathers in the development of children. What research has been done focuses mostly on aspects typical of the mother's role, such as sensitivity and understanding baby babble - areas that women tend to be better in. Perhaps a father's inability to understand baby babble actually serves a purpose. That specific role of the father has always been rather ignored.'
Why is this?
‘Mothers have always assumed the lion's share of the responsibility for raising their children and hence their role is considered more important.'
A major part of your research consists of experiments. What kind of experiments are they?
‘We involve both fathers and mothers in the experiments since we want to conduct a sound comparative study. Moreover, we test children of various age categories. This is because different types of fear do not begin until specific ages. Take, for example, the fear of heights: babies up to eight months can't discern depth and therefore don't yet have a fear of heights. Children around the age of four easily give a talk in front of their parents, while 10-year-olds suddenly find the prospect intimidating. One of our experiments, for example, involves 10-month-old babies that have to climb over a visual cliff, a glass sheet under which a deep fall can be seen. We have the father and mother send out either encouraging signals or fearful and averting signals and examine how that affects the child's reaction: will he climb over the sheet?'
Do the parents have to act out that fearful or averting behaviour?
‘That is one of the techniques we are going to use because it has proved effective in other research. But we also manipulate the fear of the parents by, for example, first giving them threatening or reassuring information.'
And there are also experiments for older children.
‘Indeed there are. We have children aged 10-12 give a speech and we feed the parents either "threatening" information (e.g., there's a lot at stake, the audience is critical) or "reassuring" information (e.g., it's only an exercise). What we are trying to find out in all these experiments is whether the child attaches more value to the father's judgment or the mother's.'
Let's say that the theory proves to be correct; that fathers do play a crucial role in developing fear in children. What implications would that have?
‘The world of children is currently very feminised. The home situation, childcare, education: children are mostly raised by women. If my theory is correct, we would need to reassess this situation. We would have to ensure that fathers - or other male role models - become more visible. And fathers would always have to be involved in any therapy for treating excessive fear and anxiety disorders in children.'
Author: Esther van Bochove, FMG Communication Department