Create memories with your child this Christmas through traditions. From simple outings to creative projects, find inspiration to make it truly special.
Dad: Water Your Daughter’s Heart with Positive Words
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: Like a plant needs water, dad, your daughter needs your encouragement & affirmation. Nurture her heart. Help her thrive.
Connecting Through Fashion: Understanding Your Daughter’s Unique Style
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: Your daughter’s style expresses who she is, and a wise dad enters in and seeks to understand that part of her.
Let’s TALK: 4 Keys to Connecting with Your Daughter
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: Relating to your daughter can be challenging, and you need a skill set to communicate with her consistently.
A Dozen Activities to Help You Win Your Daughter’s Heart
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: Dad: give your time, energy, and creativity to communicate to your daughter that she’s worth celebrating.
Perfume Day: A Powerful Dad-Daughter Holiday Tradition
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: Why not adopt a new tradition and create lasting memories of positive interaction with your daughter?
Mars, Venus, and the ABCs of Fathering Daughters
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: Here are three quick-and-to-the-point components of being a dialed-in dad for your daughter.
What to Do When You Dread Father’s Day
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: If you feel angry, sad or confused on Father’s Day, here are some truths to hold to and suggested steps to take.
What Dads of Daughters Need to Know in 3 Words
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: Dad, you will do more damage to your daughter’s heart through your anger than anything else.
Daughters, Legacy and Thinking Backward
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: Though you won’t be around forever physically, you will live on in the deposits you leave in your daughter’s life.
Treat Your Daughter Like Royalty
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: Here’s a glimpse inside the hearts of daughters and two concepts that strike a chord in most every girl.
Let the Selfies Begin: Creative Summer Fun for Dads & Kids
Dr. Michelle Watson started this silly tradition with her dad, and you can do something similar with your children to increase laughter and strengthen your bond.
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Welcome to the fathers.com fathering library.
On the left you will see how our blogs and articles are categorized. Choose your stage in the fathering journey under Your Kids, click on a specific situation that applies to you, or browse through the items in our hot topics and fathering fundamentals. Also, check out Tools for the Journey – short downloadable pieces with tips for specific challenges.
Fathering is a Marathon: Embrace the Journey
by Ken Canfield, Ph.D. Dad, while you’re in the middle of dashing around as a busy dad, I want to provide some perspective and an important reminder: Fathering is a marathon. Being a good dad is a distance run. It’s a long, trying journey and we must be disciplined if...
Beyond Conditional Love: Rethinking Expectations
When it comes to your kids, dad, What do you expect? We’ve often heard comments like these from grown sons and daughters: “My brother was an all-state quarterback, but I played tennis, and I never quite measured up for my dad.” “I made a B average in school, but Daddy...
Valentine’s Day Tips for Dads of Daughters – and Sons
Your Valentine’s Day shopping and planning for your wife is surely well under way, if not complete—and that’s good! Some may view this "holiday" as just another excuse for greeting card and flower companies to make money—as well as jewelry, candy and clothing...
Entering Your Child’s World: 5 Areas for Dads to Stay Connected
Dad, are you really plugged into what’s going on in your children’s lives? Do you have a good handle on what happens in their typical day, who is influencing them, and how they are processing the things they see and hear? In today’s world these can be unsettling...
Self-Disciplined Kids & the Power of Saying “No”
by Dr. Ken Canfield Dad, are you instilling in your children a strong “internal locus of control”? You’re probably thinking, What does that mean? And I get it. It’s a term that I’ve come across as a researcher from time to time through the years. Some years ago, one...
Everyday Heroes: Dads Have Superpowers!
by Donald Calkins That’s right, dad. Your children believe the world revolves around you; they see you as holding the universe in your hands. While that may be exaggerated, the truth is that most dads have extraordinary influence over their children. I remember going...
Make Every Day Count: A New Year of Fathering
Dad, what will it take to make this year the best ever for you and your kids? The media has a New Year tradition of remembering well-known people who died during the past year. A few years back, one of those people was a man who really seemed to “get it” as a father,...
16 Ideas for Father-Child Holiday Traditions
by Michelle Watson Canfield, PhD, LPC One December back in the late 60s, a father-daughter tradition began. One afternoon, my father drove my younger sister and me—seven and five at the time—two hours away in our turquoise station wagon to cut down our family...
Single Dads: Will it Really be OK this Holiday Season?
by Matt Haviland If the holiday season ushers in an assortment of emotions to most people, that’s even more true for single dads this time of year. Joy, laughter, and anticipation may be at the forefront. What about dread, anxiety, or doubt? “Yes” to all of the above,...
Ways to Give Meaningful Gifts to Your Kids
How do you decide what gifts to give your children this time of year? Maybe your family has settled into an annual routine that seems to work pretty well. Maybe the kids create lists to help you know what they want. Maybe most of the gifts have already been bought...
From Duty to Delight: Transforming Your Fatherhood
What’s the secret ingredient of good fathering? And maybe more importantly for many dads: What can you do if you never saw that kind of father as you grew up? Jeff is a committed dad who has a great perspective on fathering. He’s passionate about being the dad his two...
Time: Are You Spending or Investing?
by Ron Nichols There’s a common expression that we use all the time. It’s pretty harmless in itself, but as fathers we need to think differently with it. It’s the simple concept of spending time. We always say, “I spent a lot of time on that project,” or, “I spent 20...