Dr. Ken Canfield and NCF introduce the 7 Secrets Master Class, featuring a self-scoring profile and videos that go deeper into each area.
Our Children Need Tender-Hearted Dads
How to Be a Better Dad by Dave Clark – There is a real need right now for fathers who love, serve and lead their families, and who are not afraid to be tender.
Dad: Your Most Effective Tool Is Showing Up
by Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield – What really makes a difference in being a great dad is creating positive patterns that keep repeating over time.
Leverage Life Moments for Your Kids’ Future
How to Be a Better Dad by Brian Phipps – Paint a picture of a preferred future for your kids, and leverage every life moment to help them accomplish it.
How to Be a Better Dad: A Blog Series
What’s the most crucial aspect of being a dad? We’re asking dads and writers to boil it down to their essential insights in a short guest blog.
Become a Better Dad – One Step at a Time
Pick one fathering challenge, find a way to address it, and make some positive things happen.
5 Power Strategies a Dad Can Use to Lead His Daughter
by Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield As we all know, it can be a daunting task for dads and daughters to talk about the hard stuff, the deep stuff, the vulnerable stuff, and the complex stuff. And a lot of dads have told me they prefer to leave some of those heavier topics...
Affirming Touch from Dad – 7 Tips
There’s great power and affirmation in a father’s touch. A kiss on the forehead. A rub of the head. A bear hug. A squeeze on the knee. A fist bump. A pat on the back. An arm around the shoulder.
4 Ways to Ring in Your New Year of Fathering
Think of Father’s Day as a milestone, the start of a new year in your fathering, when you end one season and begin another.
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.
Is Your Father an Example or a Lesson?
All fathers start out as sons. Many of us probably didn’t even think about becoming fathers until it was just a few years or months away. But once we did start imagining ourselves as fathers, the obvious and natural role models we thought of were our dads. By that...
Daughters and the Power of Listening
When dads and daughters get together and focus on each other, good things happen. We saw it over and over years ago when we hosted father-daughter events all over the country, and it’s a big reason why we’re starting them up again. We heard incredible stories of...
Fatherhood and the Waiting Game
by Ken Canfield, Ph.D. If you’re a dad, you know that waiting is part of the gig. {And please note: this is a somewhat lighthearted look at fatherhood, but I don't want to minimize the very real and difficult waiting that many couples do when they're trying to...
Mars, Venus, and the ABCs of Fathering Daughters
by Michelle Watson Canfield, PhD, LPC Men are from Mars. Women are from Venus. I’m sure you’ve heard that phrase before. Maybe you’ve even read the book by John Gray, though it first came out more than thirty years ago. I find his book title to be fitting in...
The Power of Knowing Your Child’s Needs
How well do you know your child's developmental milestones and progress? A study at the University of Rochester discovered that about one-third (31.2%) of parents of 9-month-olds are "clueless" about child development milestones, such as when babies talk, learn right...
Dad: Communicate High Value to Your Kids
Rick and his family were out at the lake, staying in a cabin for a week, getting some well-deserved vacation time. One morning they were getting ready to go fishing, and Rick was walking along the dock toward the boat with his arms full of gear. He stumbled on a loose...
Dad, Help Prepare Your Kids for the School Year—Here’s How
Getting ready to go back to school impacts the entire family... For kids, a new school year means new teachers, new classrooms, and possibly new responsibilities. Sometimes it means new friends. The first days at a new school—or first days in middle school or high...
A Public Commitment to Fatherhood
by Ken Canfield, Ph.D. Some years back, a reporter for The Wall Street Journal set out to write a story that she believed would really impact her readers. She wanted to interview a CEO of a publicly traded company who was committed to his family and actively involved...
Summer and Free Time
Ahh, the sounds of summer. No, this isn't about the crack of the bat, or fireworks, or even the sizzle of the barbecue. This is about the droning whines of your offspring. Maybe this summer you've heard statements like: “Dad, There’s nothing to do around...
Military Dads & the Price of Freedom
A few years ago, one of our staff had the chance to talk to an active military dad during an airport layover. Jim, an officer in the Air Force, had been away from his wife and kids for four months, and he had missed Christmas with them for the second time. It was...
4 Things I Learned as a Single Father
by Matt Haviland I was a single father for almost a decade. They were challenging years, but looking back I realize that some of my hardest moments taught me the greatest lessons. That doesn’t mean everything got easier as time went on, or that I achieved some level...
9 Ways to Leap Beyond Father’s Day to Dad Awesome Day
by Jeff Zaugg I’ll never forget the joy that swelled up inside my 9-year-old heart as I watched my dad leap into a swimming pool from a raised perch in front of hundreds of cheering cruise ship passengers. It was the biggest event of the four-day cruise: the Belly...