http://news.webindia123.com/news/Articles/World/20080213/887409.html

Father's love good for children
13 February 2008

Father's love proves beneficial for children to behave better and
learn more, a study shows.

A good relationship between fathers and children had a positive effect
that could last for decades as father's love goes far in a child's
life, researchers found.

''Overall, children reap positive benefits if they have active and
regular engagement with a father figure,'' Daily Mail quoted Anna
Sarkadi, of Sweden's Uppsala University as saying.

''Children who had positively involved father figures were less likely
to smoke and get into trouble with the police, achieved better levels
of education and developed good friendship with children of both the
sexes,'' she added.

In low-income homes, regular contact also lead to less juvenile crime.

The study showed the value of the father's input as a role model from
babyhood to the teenage years. The smallest study focused on 17
infants and the largest covered 8,441 people ranging from premature
babies to 33-year-olds. It was found that children who lived with both
the mother and father had fewer behavioural problems than those who
lived with their mother only. Behavioural problems in boys, and
psychological problems in girls, were seen less frequent.
Intelligence, reasoning and language were more advanced in children
who had good contact with both the parents. ''Fathers and mothers
complement each other and together provide a rich care within the
family which can't be replicated in any other setting,'' she
concluded.

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