Paternity Leave Is More Than a Perk. It Builds a Baby’s Brain

One possible avenue through which these benefits pass from father to child is the quality of play. Canadian researcher Daniel Paquette observed that father’s play often includes excitement, surprise, awe, and temporary shock and disruption for children, and this kind of interaction is the foundation for crucial developmental skills like risk-taking, personal efficacy, and self-advocacy. 

Children who have more consistent positive engagement with their fathers have better outcomes across some of the main child mental-health domains, including anxiety, depression, and behavioral problems. Paternity leave creates space for and helps develop active involvement like physical play, showing up to school events, and careful listening to a child, and these are connected to healthy child development. Secure attachment, more prosocial sibling interactions, and better social competence result in other benefits, like self-regulation. This is a hallmark indicator of school readiness and success, and here, too, father engagement pays dividends. What looks like fathers rough-housing, developmentally speaking, is training for children to build capacity for self-regulation, managing arousal, and controlling impulses and emotions in real time.