How do high expectations and conditional love impact our children and our relationships with them? Here are 5 tips for using expectations positively.
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.
Three Responsibilities of a Father
What should a committed father do? Jeff Hamilton suggests all dads focus on three areas to help equip their kids for life.
Single Fathers: 3 Do’s and 2 Don’ts
From Matt Haviland: No matter what your specific challenges may be as a single father, these five foundational principles will prove helpful.
4 Habits of Dads Who GET IT
Some men just seem to know how to be great dads. How do we know? Here are four habits that showed up again and again in interviews.
Dad: Communicate High Value to Your Kids
We dads too easily let our cell phones, our work schedules or even our hobbies rule our lives at the expense of investing in our children.
“I’m Proud of You Because …”
Many of us notice our kids’ positive qualities and accomplishments, but we put words to our pride far too seldom. Here are 3 steps to take.
Laugh with Them. Cry with Them.
by Jay Payleitner: When a child reveals a clear emotion, reflect their demeanor back to them. Celebrate with them in their joy or join them in their sorrow.
Meeting Your Children’s Basic but Important Needs
With all the uncertainty in today’s world, we must not underestimate what a difference it makes when kids feel safe, loved, valued, and heard.
“Dad, I Wish We Could Talk About ________”
A group of teenagers provides insights into topics they wish they could talk about with their dads.
Hold Your Daughter Safe Through the Downpours of Life
Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield: “There’s just something about seeing a daddy protecting his little girl that has a way of reaching in and touching a deep place in all of us.”
Giving Our Kids Focused Attention
We’re thinking about them–what’s happening in their world. We’re stepping out of our own issues and concerns and being all about theirs.
Categories
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...