The Importance Of Fathers - Part 2

Me and my eldest son, Jake. 

My last blog instalment finished highlighting that you, as a father, are important. The early years of a child’s development is influenced by you as a dad.

For me, when Jake was born, I had a choice to make. How would I raise him? Would I do it through control, causing him to conform or face punishment? Or, would I exercise patience, nurture and love to encourage a healthy relationship with my son?

This was an important decision and, let’s face it, our perception on how to raise children, as a father, is determined by our own experiences with our dad.

I chose the patience, nurture and love approach. Now, don’t get any misconceptions that I find this approach easy. As Jake has grown up, many factors began to influence his behaviour, for instance, mine and Laura’s relationship, starting nursery and the arrival of our second son, Malachi.

Sometimes patience and love seemed so far over the horizon I didn’t know if I could continue down the path of patience, nurture and love. In the hard moments I would catch myself thinking what would my dad have done to me in this situation? It did not bear thinking about.

But, for every hard moment, there have been 20 heart-melting moments when I look down at his little face and think, you make it so hard to be angry. Sometimes, all my boy needs is a hug to stifle what I deem to be bad behaviour.

There it is dads, revelation, what is bad behaviour? To Jake his behaviour is normal, he is after all, a child. He sees it as exploring his personality, having fun and taking the stance that this is how he sees other children behaving, so that’s how I’m going to act.

It then dawned on me, it’s me that perceives his behaviour to be bad. Why? The fact is in my experience as a child, my dad would have ‘punished’ me for certain types of behavioural displays that my son has, and now continues to exercise.

We need to avoid raising our children as our father raised us, we are different people. We don’t need to follow old patterns, we need to find our own identity as dads, a ‘voice’ that communicates with our children that we love them, we are for them and we would give anything for them.

The importance of us as dads is that, for the early part of their lives, we give children their identity until such a time they are ready to venture out in search of their own. What identity we give them at such an early age is determined by our actions and our words.

Are we developing children of confidence that are assured that their dad loves them? Or, are we developing children that are suppressed by fear with no confidence that their father loves them?

How important are you as a dad? You have the power to cultivate a fully functional relationship with your child that bears fruit in years to come. This is your role, this is your goal, to prepare the next generation knowing that they are loved. That’s how important a dad is in a child’s life.

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