Happy Father's Day 2022: Tips for dads to be role models, strengthen parental bonds, engage in children's well-being
Happy Father's Day 2022: Check out these tips from playful approaches to routine activities like music and movement and constructive building blocks, through which dads can get involved in the early education of their youngsters, be role models and strengthen parental bonds.
Every year, the third Sunday of June is observed as Father’s Day in India, and this year the date is June 19, which commemorates and appreciates the role that fathers, father figures and paternal bonds play in a family and society as a whole. While it is a day of being on the receiving end of all the love, pampering sessions, heartfelt lines penned in emotional cards and other surprises, it is also a time for dads to ponder upon ways to get involved in their children's well-being.
During the last quarter of the century, there has been a significant change in the social system of urban India and there has been a clear shift from a joint family system to a nuclear family. Recent social studies of urban India indicate that 88% of homes have four members with no senior citizens and just 11% of homes in metros of India have more than two children where the roles of both the mother and the father are getting more crucial than before in this new-age structure of families.
In an interview with HT Lifestyle, Dr Amit Gupta, Senior Consultant Paediatrician and Neonatologist at Noida's Motherhood Hospital, shared, “When someone says “caregiving”, the first person that pops in our mind are moms. Mothers have traditionally led parental involvement in the whole grooming and growing of a child but the narrative is slowly changing for the better with dads eager to play an active role in their children’s life. Many dads may ask how they can play a more positive role in their children’s health and well-being. A father today plays a very important role in influencing his child / children’s health and well-being in positive ways.”
He advised, “Some ways for dads to increase their level of involvement and ensure a well-rounded social and healthy grooming of their children is adapting healthy practices like no smoking, avoiding alcohol in the presence of the child, being more engaging and responsive with child’s paediatrician, reading and learning more about the child’s needs at different age group, being supportive while their spouse in breastfeeding, less engaging in screen time and dedicating more time towards family. The most important factor that all fathers should keep in mind is their engagement from early childhood development and continue it till the kids reach a certain age of independence.”
Bringing her expertise to the same, Meghna Yadav, Child Psychologist and Head of Training at KLAY, listed some tips for dads to get involved in their children's early education and well-being:
1. Clear expectation setting - Studies have established that when fathers are actively involved in the early education of children, it not only prepares children for fighting the real battles of life but also lays the foundation for success in the later years of a child's life and to carry out such a consequential task daily, the father needs to know that his presence matters. Who better than the mother to make him realize this? Families where mothers lay out clear-cut roles and responsibilities for themselves and their partners have seen higher involvement of the fathers in the education of children.
2. Fathers as role models - Studies have shown that children need to learn basic life skills like self-control, behaviour management and emotional regulation in the early years to be “successful” in later years. Academic success and higher-order brain functioning are very much a result of a stress-free mind. In order to develop such minds in the early years, fathers are the role models for their children. Children are found to excel in leadership skills if they spend more time with their dads. So, fixing a dad-child time during the day is very effective and the benefit of starting it young goes a long way.
In countries like Iceland, Germany and Finland, playful approaches in routine activities, music and movement, and constructive building blocks are some ways through which dads are getting involved in the early education of their youngsters. These approaches can be easily replicated to get more fathers interested and involved in their child's early education.
3. Strong parental bonds - Studies suggest that the positive bond between mother and father increases a child’s well-being. Raised in considerate, cooperative, and respectful relationships, children are more apt to exhibit and seek the same qualities in their future relationships. Moreover, such parenting styles were found to be more effective in various longitudinal studies—parents were warmer, more encouraging, more responsive to their child’s needs, and better at setting limits—and their kids did better in school. Hence, investing in developing a healthy marital bond can be another great way to involve fathers in the developmental years of their child.
3. Contribution to the household - Lastly but most importantly, multiple studies indicate that those fathers that get involved in daily mundane tasks at home with children, always end up being attentive in parent-teacher meetings, ask apt questions about their child's academic growth and participate actively in parent engagement activities in preschool settings. Baking a cake, folding the laundry, cleaning up the dirty dishes, and mending a broken chair - are simple yet mundane tasks that fathers can get involved in and contribute to their child's education.