Tips to Become a Great Dad
Most men today want to be more than just breadwinners, and they also want to share in as many aspects of parenting as possible. In fact, many dads today want to have a closer bond with their sons, something they never had with their own fathers, and most are determined to have a better relationship with their own kids.
Here are seven great ideas to help dads form a closer relationship with their kids:-
1. Find something you have in common with your kids: Dads will relate a lot better with their kids if there is a shared interest. This can sometimes be tricky, as most men tend to relate better when being active and tend to teach through games. If sport is not something you have an interest in, than you need to find something that your child enjoys doing, and take an active interest in that. For example, Let your child involve you in their hobbies or sporting activities.
2. Spend quality time with your sons: From the age of five, a boy thinks their dad is much like Superman or their favorite superhero, and tends to give their mother a much harder time at this stage. Dads need to find the time to spend as much time with their sons as possible in these years, and not make each game a lesson or push them too hard.
3. Share the discipline: Dads are traditionally the ones that get to do all the fun play but they also tend to miss out when it comes to disciplining their children. Some dads are great at getting their kids excited before bedtime, and then expect their partner to settle them down. Both parents should take a more active part in disciplining their children’s behavior as it’s not only the mother’s role.
4. Treat your daughters with respect: Daughters that have strong links with their dads tend to have a much healthier outlook. Dads should teach their daughters about how they should be treated by males and they should also treat their daughters with respect, so they learn to expect this in their future relationships with men.
5. Learning to let go of your Superman persona: Most teenage boys will be programmed to challenge their dads, and its all part of their development and growing up phase. Most sons will take great pleasure in verbal jousting matches with their dads, where they delight in proving their dads fallibility. Dads at this stage need to maintain a sense of humour and a willingness to stand back and allow other male mentors to come into their son’s life.
6. Be supportive of your partner: Many dads play an important and integral part in their children’s lives, as well as a profound effect on the mothering that their children receive. A mother that can share the emotional and financial burdens of raising children with a supportive and understanding partner is more likely to be a loving and much stronger mother.
7. Adapt as your child changes: One day they’re children, and the next they’re teenagers. The most effective dads are those that can change their parenting style to suit their child’s developmental and growing stages. Fathers who lack confidence in their parenting skills, especially as their children become older should seek parenting advice and also become more involved in as many aspects of parenting as they can, as this allows them to actually learn through ongoing parenting.
