How important are fathers? And what makes a good father? These are the questions addressed in the current edition of "TerraXplore", in which Prof. Dr. Katja Nowacki provides scientific insights.
In the ZDF program, psychologist Leon Windscheid gets to the bottom of "being a father" and wants to find out how fathers shape their children. To do so, he met with winter sports legends Christian (father) and Felix (son) Neureuther in the Bavarian mountains, spoke to researchers and dared to conduct a studio experiment.
Prof. Nowacki, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Social Studies, contributes her research expertise to the show. She emphasizes the particular importance of reliable relationships in childhood and underlines that early bonding experiences shape later life, but that changes are also possible. "We are not responsible for what has influenced us, but we are responsible for what we do with it," explains the researcher. "In attachment research, we see that early relationship and attachment experiences influence us, but that we can also change things." From the researcher's point of view, it is therefore also important to take a differentiated view of parental relationships.
In a study, Prof. Nowacki spoke to fathers who themselves experienced a childhood with broken bonds. In "Fatherhood between investment and denial: Broken-home experiences and paternal competence" (PubliDo)(Opens in a new tab) , she explores the question of how these experiences affect their own role as a father. One result: fathers with their own traumatic childhood experiences, often from youth welfare contexts, show a strong motivation for a good father-child relationship despite higher psychological stress.
The results of a study on fathers' own image of masculinity are also fascinating. In it, Prof. Nowacki and Prof. Dr. Katja Sabisch from Ruhr University Bochum refute the theory that children who grow up without a father do not become "real men".
