Family: Fathers do their share with computers
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Fathers with a flair for computers are spending more time helping their children to study at home, a survey published today shows.
They are increasingly being tempted away from their heavy workloads to use the family computer as a teaching tool. But they prefer to leave the more traditional forms of homework and the housework to women, according to a BT HomeCampus survey of 1,174 parents or guardians of under 16-year- olds.
Only 9 per cent of them admitted to being involved in their child's learning at home generally but this figure jumped to 16 per cent once the family had bought a computer, according to the survey.
A total of 64 per cent of computer-using fathers would happily surf the Internet, 45 per cent would delve into desktop publishing and 42 per cent would use word processing if it meant helping their child to learn.
Out of these fathers, only 10 per cent said they made sure that homework was done if it did not involve computers.
Child psychologist Dr Charlie Lewis, of Lancaster University, said: "PCs and the Internet are providing fathers with the opportunity to forge links and interact with their children, which previously did not exist.
"This goes against a popular school of thought that the use of computers results in social isolation."
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments