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Today, June 19th 2011 is Father’s Day in America. It is a time to spend time with our beloved children and celebrate the importance of the role played by dads in their children’s lives. Fathers play an important role in the development and emotional growth of their children. Many times the role of Fathers is downplayed, and they are seen as nothing more than providers of income and discipline. Nothing could be further from the truth; in fact research shows that children with involved Fathers have a greater chance of succeeding in school and life in general. Children with involved tend to get in to less trouble, get better grades, and excel in many areas that their peers with uninvolved Fathers.
Texas A&M AgriLife Extension provides a list of why a child needs an active Father:
1. Lets your child know that you love her. Love involves more than saying the words, “I love you.” Fathers who love their children demonstrate their love by spending quality and quantity time together. Children who feel loved are more likely to develop a strong emotional bond with their father and a healthy self-esteem.
2. Provides your child with greater financial resources. Research clearly indicates that families with an active father are “better off” financially. This means that children with active fathers will be more likely to have access to resources that facilitate healthy development (e.g., food, clothing, shelter, quality medical care).
3. Provides your child with a positive male role model. Children, regardless of gender, need positive male and female role models. Children tend to model behavior (positive and negative) that they witness on a consistent basis. Active fathers can promote positive behaviors by setting a proper example for their children.
4. Provides your child with emotional support. In addition to financial support, children also need emotional support from their parents. Active fathers listen and support their children when they experience joy, sadness, anger, fear, and frustration. Fathers who support their children emotionally tend to raise children who are more in-tune with the needs of others.
5. Enhances your child’s self-esteem. Self-esteem refers to how a person feels about himself. Children with high self-esteem tend to be happier and more confident than children with low self-esteem. Active fathers promote their children’s self-esteem by being fully involved in their lives and letting them know that they are highly valued.
6. Enhances your child’s intellectual development. Children who are raised with actively involved fathers tend to score higher on measures of verbal and mathematical ability, and also demonstrate greater problem-solving and social skills.
7. Provides your child with guidance and discipline. From infancy, children need proper guidance and discipline. Active fathers play an important role in teaching their children proper behavior by setting and enforcing healthy limits.
8. Gives your child someone to play with. One of the primary ways that fathers bond with their children is through play. According to researchers, there are qualitative differences in the ways fathers and mothers play with their children. Fathers tend to use a more physical style of play (e.g., wrestling) that offers a number of benefits to children, including enhanced cognitive ability.
9. Provides your child with someone to talk to when she has questions. Young children are full of questions. This natural curiosity helps them learn about their environment. Active fathers can be a valuable source of information for children who are seeking answers to life’s important questions.
10. Increases your child’s chances for academic success. Children whose fathers are actively involved in their lives are more likely to achieve academic success than children whose fathers are not actively involved. These academic benefits appear to extend into adulthood.
11. Provides your child with an alternative perspective on life. Research indicates that men and women often differ in their parenting styles; however, one style is not necessarily better than the other. Instead, it can be healthy for children to be exposed to different perspectives on life, such as a father’s.
12. Lowers your child’s chances for early sexual activity. Children with actively involved fathers are less likely to engage in early sexual activity, thus reducing their chances for teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.
13. Lowers your child’s chances for school failure. Children with actively involved fathers are less likely to drop out of school than children with uninvolved fathers.
14. Lowers your child’s chances for youth suicide. Children with actively involved fathers are less likely to commit suicide than children with uninvolved fathers.[i]
15. Lowers your child’s chances for juvenile delinquency. The benefits of having an active father throughout a child’s early years extend into the teen years as well. Children with active fathers are less likely to commit juvenile crimes than children with inactive fathers.
16. Lowers your child’s chances for adult criminality. The chances that a child will commit crimes as an adult also diminish when he grows up with an actively involved father.
17. Provides your child with a sense of physical and emotional security. One of the major benefits that fathers can provide to their children by being actively involved is a sense of security (physical and emotional). By being actively involved in a child’s life, a father promotes a trusting relationship. The child does not have to worry about being abandoned.
18. Facilitates your child’s moral development. Children need a moral compass to guide them when they face difficult moral choices. Fathers, like mothers, help children to develop a sense of right and wrong that serves as a foundation for establishing moral character.
19. Promotes a healthy gender identity in your child. Boys and girls benefit from having healthy role models from both sexes. Research points to the fact that mothers and fathers socialize their children in different ways. Fathers can help their children, especially boys, to develop a healthy sense of what it means to be a male.
20. Helps your child learn important life skills. Most of the essential life skills that children need to survive are learned within the home. Fathers have a unique opportunity to teach their children valuable skills that will enable them to grow up to be healthy and productive adults [1]
The National Fatherhood Initiative (NFI) [2] has provided information on the need for involved Fathers.
Fathers Reduce the Chances of Teen Pregnancy:
Separation or frequent changes increase a woman’s risk of early menarche, sexual activity and pregnancy. Women whose parents separated between birth and six years old experienced twice the risk of early menstruation, more than four times the risk of early sexual intercourse, and two and a half times higher risk of early pregnancy when compared to women in intact families. The longer a woman lived with both parents, the lower her risk of early reproductive development. Women who experienced three or more changes in her family environment exhibited similar risks but were five times more likely to have an early pregnancy. [3]
Researchers using a pool from both the U.S. and New Zealand found strong evidence that father absence has an effect on early sexual activity and teenage pregnancy. Teens without fathers were twice as likely to be involved in early sexual activity and seven times more likely to get pregnant as an adolescent. [4]
Fathers Reduce the Instances of Substance Abuse:
In a study of 6,500 children from the ADDHEALTH database, father closeness was negatively correlated with the number of a child’s friends who smoke, drink, and smoke marijuana. Closeness was also correlated with a child’s use of alcohol, cigarettes, and hard drugs and was connected to family structure. Intact families ranked higher on father closeness than single-parent families. [5]
Fathers Bring Greater Success in School:
Fatherless children are twice as likely to drop out of school. [6]
Father involvement in schools is associated with the higher likelihood of a student getting mostly A's. This was true for fathers in biological parent families, for stepfathers, and for fathers heading single-parent families. [7]
Students living in father-absent homes are twice as likely to repeat a grade in school; 10 percent of children living with both parents have ever repeated a grade, compared to 20 percent of children in stepfather families and 18 percent in mother-only families. [8]
A study of 1330 children from the PSID showed that fathers who are involved on a personal level with their child schooling increases the likelihood of their child's achievement. When fathers assume a positive role in their child's education, students feel a positive impact. [9]
Half of all children with highly involved fathers in two-parent families reported getting mostly A's through 12th grade, compared to 35.2% of children of nonresident father families. [10]
The Consequences of Uninvolved Fathers:
Children who live absent their biological fathers are, on average, at least two to three times more than their peers who live with their married, biological (or adoptive) parents to:
-Be poor
-Use drugs
-Experience educational problems
-Experience health problems
-Experience emotional problems
-Experience behavioral problems
-Be victims of child abuse
-Engage in criminal behavior [11]
Essential Components of Effective Fatherhood:
1. Fostering a positive relationship with the children's mother.
2. Spending time with children.
3. Nurturing children.
4. Disciplining children appropriately.
5. Serving as a guide to the outside world.
6. Protecting and providing.
7. Serving as a positive role model [12]
So on this Father’s day, as you spend time with your children, consider the roles you play in their lives. Though sometimes as Fathers we may feel unimportant or insignificant, the importance of our involvement is invaluable. Imagine the consequences of not being there, and not providing the guidance, play, education, discipline, and protection that is vitally important to the success of our children.
Remember, whether you and the child(rens) mother are together, or separated as a Father, you have the responsibility of guiding your child through life and showing him/her what it is to be a responsible, reliable, and intelligent human being. Regardless of the relationship you and the child’s mother have; it is important that you share the positive points of the mother with that child. Remember, regardless of what problems YOU may have with the mother, that child still loves her. Even if that is not practiced on the other side, you will be teaching the child another valuable life lesson; how to be the bigger and more mature person.
Finally, if you are sitting at home, alone today and not spending the day with your children, due to whatever circumstances you may be subject to. Let this Father’s day be your wake up call. Let this day be the day that you make the decision to devote yourself to your child(ren). Do not allow your child to become a statistic, do not allow your child to be a burden on society. Become active, do not “grudgingly” make the time, instead HAPPILY take the time to devote yourself to your child(ren). Whether you are sitting with them watching a movie, throwing a ball, wrestling, going for a walk, riding a bike, or fishing the moments you spend with that child will create memories that will last a lifetime. Your involvement will also create a happy, productive, engaged, and successful child that will become a future leader of America. Do your part, stand up for your children by being an involved and engaged father.
[1] Prepared by Stephen D. Green, Ph.D., Child Development Specialist, Texas AgriLife Extension Service, October
2000.
Source: Wade F. Horn, David Blankenhorn, and Mitchell B. Pearlstein (Eds.), The Fatherhood Movement: A Call
to Action. New York: Lexington Books.
[3]Source: Quinlan, Robert J. “Father absence, parental care, and female reproductive development.” Evolution and Human Behavior 24 (November 2003): 376-390.
[4] Source: Ellis, Bruce J., John E. Bates, Kenneth A. Dodge, David M. Ferguson, L. John Horwood, Gregory S. Pettit, and Lianne Woodward. “Does Father Absence Place Daughters at Special Risk for Early Sexual Activity and Teenage Pregnancy.” Child Development 74 (May/June 2003): 801-821
[5]Source: National Fatherhood Initiative. “Family Structure, Father Closeness, & Drug Abuse.” Gaithersburg, MD: National Fatherhood Initiative, 2004: 20-22.
[6]Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. National Center for Health Statistics. Survey on Child Health. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1993.
[7]Source: Nord, Christine Winquist, and Jerry West. Fathers’ and Mothers’ Involvement in Their Children’s Schools by Family Type and Resident Status. (NCES 2001-032). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2001.
[8]Source: Nord, Christine Winquist, and Jerry West. Fathers’ and Mothers’ Involvement in Their Children’s Schools by Family Type and Resident Status. (NCES 2001-032). Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2001.
[9]Source: McBride, Brent A., Sarah K. Schoppe-Sullivan, and Moon-Ho Ho. "The mediating role of fathers' school involvement on student achievement." Applied Developmental Psychology 26 (2005): 201-216.
[10]Source: National Center for Education Statistics. The Condition of Education. NCES 1999022. Washington, DC: U.S. Dept. of Education, 1999: 76.
[11] www.fatherhood.org
[12] "The Importance of Fathers in the Healthy Development of Children," authors Jeffrey Rosenberg and W. Bradford Wilcox
