Margaret B. McFarland; Child Psychologist

Margaret B. McFarland, 83, the child psychologist who children’s television show host Fred Rogers described as “the most major influence in my professional life.” In 1953 Miss McFarland co-founded the Arsenal Family and Children’s Center with Dr. Benjamin Spock and Erik Erikson and served as its director until 1971. She helped establish the department of child development and child care within the psychiatric department of the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Medicine in the early 1950s. “She was so other-directed that when you were in her presence you felt you were important,” said Rogers, host of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” which is produced at a Pittsburgh public television station. After earning a doctorate at Columbia University she became an associate professor of psychology in that school’s psychiatry department from 1951 through 1975 and associate professor emeritus in 1976. In Morgan, Pa., on Monday.