Father’s Day: The pleasure & the pain

Fathers have a powerful and lasting impact on the psychological development of their children, cognitively, emotionally, and interpersonally.   Father’s Day is a beautiful occasion for honoring fathers who parented in a healthy way.  What exactly are the gifts imparted by healthy fathering, and what are the wounds inflicted by unhealthy fathering?*  Let’s looks at three aspects of this.

1. Children whose fathers were involved, nurturing, and playful have higher IQs, start school more academically ready, are more patient, and can handle the stresses of schooling more readily than children with less involved fathers.  In adolescence, they have better verbal skills, intellectual functioning, and academic achievement. 

In contrast, children of fathers who are unavailable, inattentive, or unkind perform worse academically and intellectually.

2. Children who have an involved father are more likely to be emotionally secure, feel confident to explore their surroundings, and, as they grow older, have better social connections with peers. They are less likely to get into trouble at home, at school, or in the neighborhood, and are more sociable and popular with other children throughout early childhood.

Fathers generally do more stimulating, playful activity with children than do mothers.  From these interactions, children learn how to control their feelings and behavior.  Fathers often push achievement, independence, and an interest in the outside world, while mothers stress nurturing, both of which are important to healthy development.  As a result, children who grow up with involved fathers are more comfortable exploring the world around them and more likely to exhibit self-control and healthy social behavior.

Children with good relationships with their fathers are less likely to experience depression, to exhibit disruptive behavior, or to lie.  Boys with involved fathers have fewer school behavior problems and girls have stronger self-esteem.  Children who live with their fathers are more likely to have good physical and emotional health, to achieve academically, and to avoid drugs, violence, and delinquent behavior.

​In contrast, children of fathers who are unavailable, inattentive, or unkind often grow into adults who lack self-esteem, social skills, self-control, and emotional resilience.

3. Fathers influence their children dramatically through the quality of their relationship with the mother of their children.  Fathers who have a good relationship with the mother of their children are usually more involved and spend more time with their children, and have children who are psychologically and emotionally healthier. Similarly, mothers who feels affirmed by her children’s father and who have a happy relationship are often better mothers.

A positive relationship between mother and father provides vital modeling for children. Fathers who treat the mothers of their children with respect and deal with conflict within the relationship in an adult and appropriate manner are more likely to have boys who understand how they are to treat women, and who are less likely to act aggressively toward females. Girls with involved, respectful fathers see how they should expect men to treat them, and are less likely to become involved in violent or unhealthy relationships.

In contrast, research has shown that husbands who display anger, show contempt for, or who stonewall their wives (i.e., “the silent treatment”) are more likely to have children who are anxious, withdrawn, or antisocial, and who as adults lack self-esteem, social skills, and emotional resilience, and have more difficulty establishing and maintaining healthy marriages themselves.

THE BOTTOM LINE
​
Father’s Day is a pleasure for those whose father was loving, but a pain in the heart of those whose father was disappointing.  A small but real percentage of today’s older adults were or are not good parents to their now adult children.  For these adult sons and daughters, my CODOP (Children of Difficult Older Parents) program offers concepts, insights, and skills for overcoming the challenges of relating to their parents today.  If you are, or know, a child of a difficult older parent, I hope you will connect with me about how to join our community.  It is free of charge, and I am confident that it will prove valuable to participants.  Just give me a call, or use the contact page on this website.  Learn to effectively love your hard to love parent.  I look forward to hearing from you.
 
*The material about healthy fathering presented here is drawn liberally from: https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/fatherhood.pdf