This study explored the relation between paternal depressive symptoms and child adjustment across the domains of children’s depressive symptoms, risky behavior, and academic achievement. Participants included 201 families made up of married mothers and fathers and their first-born child from the first two waves of a longitudinal study of family relationships and gender dynamics. OLS regression analyses demonstrated links between paternal depressive symptoms and children’s levels of risky behavior and academic achievement, controlling for maternal depressive symptoms. No relation was found between paternal depressive symptoms and children’s depressive symptoms. Findings were consistent with Belsky’s (1984) process model of parenting, which asserts that parenting is shaped by the interplay between child characteristics, contextual stressors and supports, and parents’ individual characteristics, including parents’ personality and psychological resources, all of which impact child development.
