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As a new year begins, I start thinking about resolutions. Making concerted efforts to achieve self-improvement goals appeals to me. In the past, I gave up drinking soda for a year. Another year, I gave up watching TV. Over several years, I have set out vague goals to exercise more, with limited success, as the treadmill continues to serve as a clothes hanger. Rarely, however, have I thought about resolutions as a father.
I believe there are ways to improve as a dad, and here are some ideas for dad’s resolutions for 2020.
1. Be more present. This is my focus for 2020. Nowadays, I think many parents and adults don’t have time management challenges--it is attention management. There are far too many times when I am home, but my face is in front of a screen doing something else. So, although I am physically present, I am not there. And, this carries over to family time, where I am checking email or social media instead of watching the dance routine my daughter has created or coloring with her because she wants company. For the next year, I am making a conscious effort to be present when I am with my family.
2. Spend more one-on-one time. Many dads don’t have opportunities to spend time alone--without their partners--with their children. I also am guilty of this. It is easy for dads to cede parental duties in the presence of moms, but this results in the father-child relationship being through mom. If we want to know what is happening in our children’s lives, then we have to build the trusting, communicative relationships to allow that to occur. That can only occur when dads are with kids on their own because the focus of parenting at that time becomes you, the dad. Kids get the opportunity to know what we are like as people and how we are there for them when we are the sole parent.
3. Take time for yourself. Among work, raising kids, and just keeping the household functioning, there is rarely personal time for dads as individuals. This resolution may seem in contrast to number two, but it isn’t. This action is about finding time to do something that is about you as a person. Some dads retreat into their work as a refuge of the demands from home because work may be predictable and controllable in ways that raising kids is not. Without taking time for yourself, I think that dads can get lost. Taking time for yourself can also include your romantic partner! My wife and I have too few times where we take time on our own away from our daughter to be with one another and live in the adult world. In the next year, I plan to spend some personal time attending to our neglected yard and hiring a babysitter more often.
4. Play more. In our garage, we have all kinds of bats, balls, frisbees, jump ropes, hula hoops, bikes, and, in the house, there are board games and card games. Although we have accumulated these over the years, they are used without regularity. When they are used, it is usually just my daughter or her with a friend for a short time. As a dad, there are just other things that draw my attention, and I don’t think about playing with my kid unless requested. This summer, when it got hot, my daughter wanted to play in the water wiggler (like a sprinkler) in our narrow backyard. My daughter was fine, but she wanted company. At first, I resisted because I didn’t want to get wet, muddy, or cold, but then I thought how often she is going to have the chance to run through the sprinkler comfortably, given our cool climate and with her dad. I obliged, and we had lots of messy fun. If I play with her, she is learning skills as valuable as reading a book. Besides, playing with her is an easy way to incorporate exercise that I often neglect for myself.
5. Yell less. Yup, when I get frustrated with my headstrong, independent daughter, my volume goes up (and up). I don’t like being late, I don’t like being rushed, and I don’t like being defied by a kid. But, these are my issues, not my daughter’s. As a dad, yelling comes easy but is a poor tool to get her to do what I want. I often forget that, in her world, something shiny is a more attractive activity than is brushing your teeth and getting ready for school or other activities. As a kid, she lives in the present and has not absorbed our adult focus on punctuality, work ethic, among different values. So, I am working on keeping myself in check and using other strategies to keep her on track to enjoy the things she wants to do. I don’t want to be a yelling dad--I want to be a loving dad.
Dads, now is the time to think about how over the next year what goals you can set to improve as a parent. Resolutions should be clear and achievable--even the smallest gesture can accumulate and add up to significant impacts in the lives of your children. Let 2020 be the year of a better dad.
Robert (Rob) S. Weisskirch, MSW, Ph.D., CFLE is a Professor of Human Development at California State University, Monterey Bay and is a Certified Family Life Educator. He and his wife are parents to a chatty 5-year-old daughter and reside in Marina.