The importance of a father figure in children's lives has been demonstrated by a new study of families with separated parents in Bristol.
After looking at couples who had split up, researchers found there was a direct relationship between their children's behavioural problems and the amount of contact they had with their natural father, and the quality of the relationship between father and child.
The effect was more pronounced in single parent families, particularly teenaged mothers. In these families the children were particularly vulnerable if they had no contact with their real father.
The findings, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry were based on data collected by the Children of the 90s study based at the University of Bristol.
Professor Judy Dunn from the Institute of Psychiatry at Kings College, London, studied 162 children whose parents had separated, over two years.
Of those children, 18 per cent had no contact with their father, and 16 per cent had contact less than once a month. There tended to be less contact if the mothers had been relatively young when pregnant.
Researchers interviewed all 162 children (initially at an average age of eight and a half) about their relationship with their mothers, fathers and stepfathers. The mothers were asked to report on children's behaviour, on whether they were aggressive or delinquent (externalising behaviour) or withdrawn, anxious, or depressed (internalising).
There were fewer externalising problems according to the child's relationship with both mother or non-resident father, and according to the extent of child-father contact and the quality of this relationship.
Internalising problems were associated with the quality of the relationship with the mother, and to infrequent or no contact with the father.
The report notes: "Earlier studies have reported some inconsistent findings on the significance of contact.