I am not a man that is great at many things. I nitpick and criticize everything. Not to be cynical, but in a way that is always pushing myself to improve. I am a 27 year old father of two little ladies. They are ages 5 and 7. I am constantly working to help find ways to improve. I work harder at being a father than I have ever worked toward anything in my entire life. I am also a psychology student and much of what I have learned from my studies in this field has not been based on knowing anything. I never set out to definitively know anything. That may sound a bit counter-intuitive, but I think there is more knowledge to be found in trying to understand than trying to know something with complete absolution.
This is my approach to parenting. Nothing is definitive. Each situation is different. Each circumstance requires a consistent touch that alters depending upon the event. I approach parenting with a style that is incredibly authoritative, but this is because I have expectations for my children. I expect them to always be working to gain life experience that will help them to be a better person. I am not a general, I am a father, but most importantly to my little ladies, I am Daddy. My ladies know that Daddy is strict, but Daddy is fair. Daddy will listen and Daddy will do everything in his power to fix anything and everything. It’s what I believe a father should be.
Each moment that you have with your children is a teaching opportunity. I, unfortunately only have the blessing of having my children three days a week. In that time I feel like I have to be a “Super Father”. For the first years of their development I have worked to instill an ethical and moral base that is built upon accountability, responsibility, and stability. There are rules and expectations in our home. We’ve found that by having these our ladies have excelled and are still able to be children. I think this is important.
This is a parenting habit that is not necessarily a negative one. However there does come a time when I believe a father needs to take a step back and allow his children to develop into the people that they are going to become. This is not saying that as a parent you set your children up to only let them go, but more along the lines that there comes a time in a child’s life when they need to have room to spread their wings before they fly. They need that room to develop their already forming personalities and become the great people that you know they have the ability to become. Being in a constant mode of teaching is a habit that I have fallen into that I know is no longer needed to be as unwavering. As your children grow older and begin to develop into the person that you have helped create, you need to take a step back and adapt. You have to teach in a different way and allow them to grow. I’ve been working on this for the entire year and the progression I have witnessed from my little ladies makes this Daddy amazed with the beautiful little people that inhabit our home.
