Dads may not share the same gender as their daughters, but the fact remains that a dad is a pivotal part of a daughter’s life. How you treat your daughters will set the stage for your daughter’s future love relationships even if perhaps, she decides to identify as LGBT. Being a positive role model for your girl will help her to go out into the world and feel strong and confident. Even if you happen to have a girly-girl and you can’t stand the idea of Barbies and nail polish, there are plenty of ways for you as a father, to impact your daughter positively.
Here’s how!
Postive Ways to Impact Our Daughters: The Importance of Fathers
- Quality Time
Quality time means turning off phones or lowering the volume, avoiding checking emails and social media, turning off all the rest of the tech and instead, tuning into your daughter. Don’t you want her to believe and know that she deserves her dad’s (and future partner’s) full attention? Don’t you think when you take the time to choose an activity that she enjoys and share that with her, that you are telling her: you are important to me and important, period?
There is nothing like the gift of time to really tell someone: I Love You.
2. Learn Her Interests
If your daughter is wild about origami, insane over cooking, or obsessed with major league baseball, learn about the topic. When fathers learn about their daughters’ interests, this helps make the perfect bridge for communication with your daughters whether they are three years-old or fifteen years-old! Daughters are dying for dads to take an interest in their passions. Taking an interest in their passions shows them that you are curious to learn about them and believe that they are interesting people. It also helps create conversation and closeness.
3. Don’t Freak Out When She Cries or Shows Emotions
I understand emotions can be hard for certain men who were not raised to emote, but don’t just sit back and let mom handle a crying fit or a break up or perhaps, a friend fight. Listening to her feelings and empathizing with her and especially, sharing some of your childhood stories will really resonate with her. It teaches her that people do care about her feelings and find her feelings to be important. Listening is an act of true love. When you take the time to be there for your daughter, you are investing in her and this means later on, she will invest in herself. She will invest self-respect and self-love into her very core.