Fathers’ Interactions with their 3–6 Year-Old Children: An Examination from the Perspective of Emotional Abuse

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Abstract Emotional abuse is the behavior that occurs when caregivers consistently fail to do what they should do; prevents the fulfillment of children’s basic psychological needs, significantly affects children’s behavioral, cognitive, emotional and psychosocial development; and causes them to feel worthless or unloved. Paternalism and emotional abuse are complex and interconnected issues that have attracted significant attention in the literature. The present study examines the emotional abuse perpetrated by fathers with children aged 3–6 years to their children. The study was conducted in the instrumental case study model, one of the qualitative research designs. The study includes 18 fathers with different levels of education determined by snowball sampling, one of the non-probability sampling methods. The data collected with semi-structured interview questions obtained through expert opinions and pilot study were analyzed by content analysis method. The findings are revealed in three main sections: Father-Child Relationships and Interactions, Fathers’ Approach to Undesirable Behaviors and Fathers’ Disciplinary Method. The results showed that fathers, in addition to positive discipline practices such as explanation and modeling, mostly exhibit negative behaviors such as reward-punishment use, authoritarian attitude, intimidation, stern warnings, and violence, which can lead to emotional abuse when applied continuously. It is thought that training programs and awareness studies should be designed to develop fathers’ parenting skills and prevent emotional abuse. In addition, considering the scarcity of studies specifically targeting fathers, research on emotional abuse by fathers should also be conducted.