African American Fathers’ Mental Health & Child Well-Being: A Cultural Practices, Strengths-Based Perspective

Abstract

Black fathers, and specifically fathers who identify as African American, represent a group of parents who are at once not well understood and pervasively stereotyped in negative ways. In this chapter, we describe the risks and resilience of Black fathers and their children, with a special focus on mental health and coping with stress. We emphasize a cultural practices approach that takes into account both the risks specific to Black fathers’ capacity to parent their children and a theoretical foundation for understanding the inherent strengths of Black men and their families. Finally, we address the need for early childhood educators to partner with Black fathers as a means to best support children and their families.

Citation

Bocknek, E.L., Lewis, M.L. and Raveau, H.A. (2017), "African American Fathers’ Mental Health & Child Well-Being: A Cultural Practices, Strengths-Based Perspective", African American Children in Early Childhood Education (Advances in Race and Ethnicity in Education, Vol. 5), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 221-243. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2051-231720170000005010