Table of Contents
Most books and articles that examine the parent-child relationship focus on the mother daughter and mother son relationship. If the father’s relationship with his children is talked about at all, it is mostly the father son relationship, and it is more likely to describe what a father DOESN’T do for his children. Given this difference, it is not unusual that school professionals and therapists don’t have enough information about the nature of the father-daughter relationship and how it influences a young girl’s mental, emotional, and spiritual development.
The good news is that married fathers are spending much more time with their daughters than generations past. On average, a working father in a marriage spends 2 hours per work day and 6 hours per weekend day with his children, engaged in different activities. This means that an engaged, caring father will influence his daughter’s academic achievement, the friends she makes, and the kind of dangerous activities she may be exposed to. This father will also influence how his daughter deals with blended and step families, how she faces life’s grief and losses, and how she becomes independent as she grows.
More good news is that most daughters and fathers say that they love each other and report fewer fights during the difficult adolescent years than mothers and daughters. These father and daughter pairs also report that their relationships are affectionate and supportive. But it remains that many fathers don’t feel as important to their daughters as they do to their sons. Many of these fathers also confide more in their sons and are likely to maintain that bond when a family is broken by separation or divorce. In this e-book, we will explore how a father can establish and maintain a strong bond with his daughter that withstands life’s difficulties.
When your daughter is born, she recognizes your voice as deeper than her mother’s voice. As a toddler, she looks up at your enormous frame and realizes that you are big, smart, and tough. In her grade school years, she instinctively turns to you for direction. Whatever outward impression she gives, her life is centered on discovering what you like in her, and what you want from her. She knows you are smarter than she is. She gives you authority because she needs you to love and adore her. She can’t feel good about herself until she knows that you feel good about her. So you need to use your authority carefully and wisely. Your daughter doesn’t want to see you as an equal. She wants you to be her hero, someone who is wiser and steadier and stronger than she is.
Many girls who face disciplinary action in school or who are sent to counseling, detention centers, or halfway homes are not girls who had authoritative fathers. Troubled young women spend most of their time in counseling describing the hurt they felt from fathers who abandoned them, retreated from their lives, or ignored them. They describe fathers who failed – or were afraid – to establish rules. They describe fathers who wanted to avoid any conflict and so shied away from engaging in their daughters in conversation or challenging them when they made bad decisions.
The early years provide the strong foundation for the father-daughter relationship. These years build the trust and love that are important in the relationship in later years and they also contribute to a young girl’s healthy childhood, teen years, and early adulthood. For the father, they offer a chance for the healthy relationship to continue into his later years.
Talk to your daughter constantly. You might find this exasperating, but she needs to hear the words. She wants to know why you feel the way you do, to test your sincerity. Men can find this frustrating, but you can never underestimate its importance. Girls who are seven years old might be satisfied with “I love you.” Girls of seventeen will want an explanation. She’s not trying to push your buttons. She genuinely wants to know. So you need to be ready. Reflect on your daughter’s character, praise her best attributes, and talk about her sensitivity, compassion, or courage. Your daughter will draw a picture in her mind of how you see her, and that’s the person she’ll want to be.
Many daughters say that their fathers listen better and are angry less than their mothers. However, that is not the whole story. It’s more difficult to get a father’s attention. Mothers are thought to be better at reading a child’s mood and are more likely to ask questions about what is going on in her life. But that doesn’t mean that a father who builds a strong connection with his daughter can’t be as sensitive to his daughter’s mood. And your daughter will sense that you are truly interested in what she has to say – and that makes a daughter feel important, worthy, self-confident, and loved.
Listening is not easy, particularly when the words don’t make sense and the ideas seem unnecessary. But listen anyway. Sit down. Pay close attention. Don’t let your mind wander and don’t let there be too much silence between you. Your efforts will be rewarded by daughter’s trust, respect, and love. Remember that nearly half of young girls who have faced problems with drugs and alcohol have complained that their fathers did not listen to them.
Being a father means sharing some of your time doing activities that are enjoyable and useful to your daughter. It can be challenging. Most fathers spend a great deal of their time working. When you come home and there are even more demands on your time, you might feel overwhelmed and exhausted. This is especially true for fathers who work in demanding and stressful conditions.
Your daughter sees this, and will be most likely eager to please you and be a comfort to you. Many young girls, especially school-aged ones, might not tell their fathers how much they need his time. They can sense that you are stressed and overstretched in trying to support your family financially. This means that you have to take the initiative to spend time alone with her.
Many good fathers feel pressured regarding available time to engage in activities. There isn’t enough, for any of us, and the lack of time or misuse of it causes great anxiety. We carve out time slots for our children, and we don’t want to waste that time. We want to ensure that it’s productive and meaningful. This only adds to the pressure. However, spending time with your daughter shouldn’t be stressful because that will come through in both spirit and practice. If she feels as though you are not enjoying the time with her, she will feel guilty and inappropriate.
There is good news, though. Most likely, your daughter simply wants to spend time with you. So don’t stress about finding busy or expensive activities to entertain her. She simply wants to be engaged in conversation with you, to spend time laughing, and for you to notice how much she has learned and how well she navigates the world. All of these mean a lot more to her that the type of activity or how much money it costs.
Many fathers are uncomfortable being alone with their daughters. One-on-one time can be tough. If you begin dad-and-daughter time when she’s a toddler, it will bring you closer when she’s an adolescent. The rewards can be tremendous. Daughters often say the most meaningful conversations of their lives were one-on-one with their dads. Keep one-on-one time simple. Avoid activities that put you in competition with your daughter. Always use this time for emotional balance, for relaxing and having fun. You can work out conflicts later.
If you think this is a waste of time, think again. One of the primary treatments for girls with eating disorders is to spend time like this with their dads. These fathers learn not to harp on problems but to focus on having fun together, which helps daughters center themselves on this healthy relationship and disassociate their illness from who they are. Eating disorders can make girls agitated, manipulative and volatile; they can make them lie, yell, break down in tears, and be disrespectful. In short, they can be really hard to deal with. So telling a dad to spend time alone with his daughter might not be what he wants to hear. However, spending enjoyable time together teaches father and daughter that beneath her illness, and the misbehavior it can cause, she is still a girl to be loved, and that’s the first big step toward her recovery.
Free time has diminished over the decades. One result of this is that the communication between family members is worse than it used to be.
For divorced parents, the challenges are even greater. And for fathers (who usually don’t have custody of the children) the time lost can discourage the building of a strong father-daughter relationship. For this reason, you need to find those small pockets of time to be with your daughter. That time can make a difference to her. Your physical presence alone is
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