Father and Daughter Reunited!

This story goes to show that a father leaves a hole in the heart in the shape of a dad. The little girl needed her father and sought him out...

Fatherhood Story of the Day...

Interesting story - However, the Dad expresses no self-awareness of how what he is doing will impact his daughter. He did all of this under the concept of he was taking care of his daughter, but what he daughter really needed was an involved, responsible, and committed father.

Men Do Follow Instructions:

Day 46 - Dads are Different Than Moms

It’s a good thing that dads are different than moms—kids need them to be! In many families, moms might send a message that they know the “right” ways to do things with the children and may have taken over most of their care. But children need fathers’ styles, too, so be sure to carve out plenty of time with your offspring.All children need to learn from their dads—about the world, how language works, how dad interacts with others, and how he accomplishes things.

Dads can build on their interests, skills, and personalities to help their children grow and learn. Here are some ideas of how to capitalize on your strengths. If you are:

• Physically active and love to roughhouse — do this everyday. Physical activity gets kids mentally and physically primed for learning. Follow physical activity with calmer activities such as building something, reading or “talking” a book together, or playing a game.
• The analytical type — use your thinking and planning skills to make your child racecars and spaceships from boxes for pretend play, create a daily “schedule” for your child to build reassuring routines. Schedule in plenty of free play and interactive play with a parent. Carefully plan any TV or movie watching so you can see how much of that passive activity is in your child’s daily experience, and replace watching that exceeds an hour a day with more productive activities. Plan to have the TV off more than it is now.
• Technically‐minded — take lots of digital photos of your child during family activities, print the best, and make a storybook for each place you have gone together. Print or type some appropriate sentence descriptions under each picture, according to your child’s language level. Sit down with your child and review at least one of your custom books every day. You could also set up a great slideshow for your child with one of the digital picture frames on the market. This could be especially helpful to the youngster who doesn’t have a very large vocabulary yet. Take pictures of common or favorite items in his life.
• Musically inclined — have “jam” sessions with your child and put on a concert for the rest of the family. Make posters and props for your shows.
  Dramatic or funny — make plays together or practice stand‐up comedy or magic tricks. Get a kid‐friendly microphone. Videotape these great shows. To boost language development, make lots of straightforward comments to your child, and resist the urge to ask a lot of questions. You are your son or daughter’s best male mentor. Make the most of your child’s early years—share your talents.
  

By Mary Lou B. Johnson, M.S.,CCC-SLPThis article has been sent to GreatDad by Mary Lou B. Johnson , Speech-Language Pathologist and creator of www.HelpYourChildSpeak.com

Day 45 - How to Be a Good Dad.

How to Be a Good Dad.

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Day 42 - Why Everyone Needs to be concerned about Father Absence

Involved, Responsible, and Committed Fathers: Critical to our Nation's Success

Why should policymakers care about responsible fatherhood?

The federal government spends $100 billion every year to support father-absent homes.In June 2008, National Fatherhood Initiative released The One Hundred Billion Dollar Man, a ground-breaking study that showed that the federal government spends $100 billion each year supporting father-absent homes. And that's a conservative estimate - the study did not measure impact for related costs such as the criminal justice system, which is overwhelmed by men who grew up in father-absent homes.

The most challenging social problems of our time are connected to father absence.If you want to address poverty, child abuse, crime/recidivism, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, or education, then restoring fatherhood is an integral part of the solution. Father absence is not a single issue, and its social and economic consequences are felt across society.

Father absence has a direct impact on the well-being of millions of children. 25 million children, 1 out of 3, grow up in homes in which their biological fathers do not live. In the African-American community, the rate is 2 out of 3. These children are significantly more likely to live in poverty, drop out of school, engage in risky behaviors…all issues the government grapples with every day.

Day 41 - The Importance of Good Partnerships

The National Fatherhood Initiative maintains a database of links related to fatherhood issues (links will be opened in a new window). A listing in our database does not necessarily mean an endorsement; the National Fatherhood Initiative is not responsible for the content of these sites.If you know of a site that should be listed here, please contact us and let us know.

Category: general
AAA Parent Coaching Services AAA Parent Coaching Services exists to help all parents be the parents they want to be every day.http://www.aaaparentcoach.com

At-risk.org At-Risk.org has been compiled as a resource for parents and the general public in search of information about at-risk youth. This site will present you with information and articles about helping at-risk youth. The Works Cited page of this site will reference any at-risk youth resources that were used to compile the content for this site.http://www.at-risk.org

Heart Touch, Inc. Heart Touch, Inc., is a non-profit organization that provides remedial training services for fathers to help the become more responsible.http://www.hearttouchinc.org

I miss you, Daddy"A touching tribute to Daddies overseas from the little ones left behind. It identifies what our children feel, but cannot express."http://www.imissyoudaddy.com

Little Pen Pal A service that encourages reading, stimulates children's fantasies, and teaches them about other cultures and languages. Contains a gallery of exciting, fictional characters that send out real paper letters every week about their adventures.http://littlepenpal.com

Michigan Family Support Council The Michigan Family Support Council is a non-profit organization that was established in 1982 and consists of members who work in child support and understand Michigan's needs for professional development training, and the importance of program involvement to support Michigan families.http://www.mifsc.org/default.htm

Minnesota Fathers & Families Network The Minnesota Fathers & Families Network offers a comprehensive website for Minnesota-based professionals interested in working with fathers. The site includes resource documents, a calendar for professionals, news updates, and a database of over 100 direct service programs for fathers across Minnesota.http://www.mnfathers.org

Netlinks Searchable Database Netlinks is a database of over 1,000 Internet resources (compiled and maintained by the Media/Materials Clearinghouse) useful to people working in health, population, and international development. Because these are interdisciplinary fields that include public health, health education, demography, environment, communication, public policy and others, links are made to a wide variety of organizations and government agencies. Each entry includes, in addition to a link to the resource, a brief description, a link to the E-mail address, the street address, phone number, and fax number when available.http://www.jhuccp.org/netlinks/

Radio Dad This is the web home of the "Radio Dad"! "Radio Dad with Mike Austin" is heard on radio stations nationwide, Monday - Friday. This daily, one minute feature offers tips, ideas, expert interviews and stories about positive fatherhood and grandfatherhood.http://www.radiodad.com

Rural Fathers RuralFathers.com is a website dedicated to help professionals work with fathers and young children living in rural America through staff training, father child development activities, father child group activities, male involvement meetings, an online bulliten board and other multimedia links.http://www.ruralfathers.com/

Sloan Work and Family Research Network The Sloan Work and Family Research Network is designed to support research and teaching, promote best practices at the workplace, and inform state policy on issues that affect the lives of working families and the places where they work.http://wfnetwork.bc.edu

The Alternative Educators' Network A web site for presenting alternative education issues to parents.http://www.AltEdNet.org

Today's Child Magazine This preeminent national parenting magazine is dedicated to black and other parents of color raising children from infancy through their teen years. Backed by the experts and inspired by parents and caregivers - Today's Child Magazine delivers accurate and up-to-date information on parenting, child health and development, education, lifestyle and relationship issues.http://www.todays-child.com