The activation relationship theory serves as a complement to Bowlby’s attachment theory to better understand the impact of fathering on child development, focusing primarily on parental stimulation of risk taking and control during children’s exploration. The first aim of this study was to confirm that the activation relationship as assessed with the observational procedure, the Risky Situation, is primarily determined by paternal stimulation of risk taking as assessed by questionnaire. The second aim was to verify the link between the activation relationship and attachment disorganization. The third aim was to verify the existence of a sex difference in father-toddler dyad activation relationships. The Strange Situation procedure and the Risky Situation procedure were conducted with 58 father-toddler dyads. Fathers completed questionnaires on child temperament and parental behavior. Paternal stimulation of risk taking explains activation once child sex and temperament, the attachment relationship, and emotional support are taken into account. Moreover, there is no relation between the father-child activation relationship and attachment disorganization. Finally, data confirm the existence of a sex difference in the activation relationship in toddlers: fathers activate their sons more than their daughters. 1. Introduction Little data on father-child attachment has been collected, at least insofar as young children are concerned. What data we do possess has been obtained through the use of the Strange Situation, a method validated with mothers and used primarily with fathers who are secondary attachment figures for their children. The low stability, low transmissibility, and low predictability of father-child attachment have caused increasing numbers of researchers to question the pertinence of using the Strange Situation with fathers who have little involvement in daily caregiving [1–3]. Grossmann and Grossmann [4] and Grossmann et al. [5], for example, have suggested finding a more appropriate method to assess father-child attachment. Others agree that this relationship develops through mechanisms that may be different from those involved in mother-child attachment [6–10]. In fact, fathers’ activities with their children are often unlike from those of mothers: fathers tend to excite children and to engage in more physical play with them than mothers do, especially with boys [11, 12]. According to Labrell [13], children must learn to respond to unforeseen events and it is fathers who facilitate such learning by teasing them and destabilizing them with
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