The role you play as a dad in your family will depend on what your children are like, what you and your partner are like, and the type of work you both do. But it all starts with what your children need. And the more attention you pay to all their needs, the less you’ll be asking, “What’s my role?”
I imagine many dads may struggle with staying calm in the midst of challenging times. Despite our best effort, something can always push our buttons and result in momentarily losing control of our voices. That being said, it’s crucial to learn better ways to respond in the moment and communicate in calm, respectful ways. Making this change is important if you truly want to raise confident and successful children.
The goal of this post is not to condemn the fact you yell – it’s to help you decrease, and ultimately stop yelling at your kids. From personal experience, let me tell you it’s worth the time and energy to improve in this area.
There are so many types of dads out here and the term “being present” means so many things. To the dad who lives at home with his kids, being present may look like putting down your digital device long enough to give your kids attention. To the long-distance dad, being present may look like using creative ways to spend time with your children. To empty nest dads, finding a way to stay involved in your children’s lives when they no longer live at home is a challenge.
As dads, we have a big part to play in establishing the relationship ‘atmosphere’ in our home. The more you can embrace healthy relationship skills, model, and reinforce them – the more you’ll see your children respond.
The reality is that any time you have more than one child there is bound to be some fighting. Despite that fact, you can still set your kids up for success. By helping them learn important skills and modeling how to work through conflict you can tame the tensions.
An important part of calm and alert parenting is knowing how to manage stress and to recover your positive energy after stress. Stress, tension, anxiety and anger all burn our energy. That’s energy we could use to make good parenting judgments, have fun with our kids or do other positive things. So, when you’ve burned up energy because of stress, you need to help yourself recover that energy.