Fathers of gay sons are an understudied population in counselor education literature, which underscores the lack of counseling approaches for this population. This nonexperimental quantitative research study of 70 fathers of gay sons in the United States explored how father involvement with a gay son during childhood and adolescence was impacted by the father's levels of father-role confidence and the father's involvement with their own fathers. The data analysis of the online survey results was based on Pearson r correlations and linear multiple regression analysis tests performed in SPSS. As hypothesized, the results indicated that fathers of gay sons' involvement with their own fathers and reported levels of father role confidence predicted father involvement with their gay sons during their childhood and adolescence. First, a statistically significant relationship was found between the participants' father-role confidence and their own father's involvement. Second, the participants' level of involvement with own father was found to predict their levels of father-role confidence scores, and thereby, indirectly predict the levels of father involvement they recalled having with their gay sons. Third, the participants' father-role confidence and their own father's involvement scores were significantly and positively correlated with their father involvement scores. Fathers of gay sons in this study predominately performed indirect and low-engagement types of father involvement activities during their gay sons' childhood rather than direct and high-engagement types of father involvement activities. Implications from the results presented in this study may be used by counselors to inform existing therapeutic approaches with fathers to resolve factors, such as low father-role confidence and low levels of involvement with their own fathers, that impede ongoing involvement with their gay sons.
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