13 Ways to Be a Better Dad
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Could you be doing a better job at being a father? Are you ready to make some improvements in your role as a father? Do you know where to start?
This article will guide you through my best tips as a daughter, wife, and mental health professional.
If you are reading about this topic, you are motivated to improve your role as a father.
Something inside tells you you need to change or do something you are not doing.
Let’s go ahead and explore the different ways you can be a better father to your child or children.
#1 How Involved Are You?
A father who is involved in the upbringing of their children makes a big difference.
It used to be that entire cultures, such as the Hispanic culture, believed the mother raised the children.
With so much information and research at hand nowadays, we have realized that fathers play a pivotal influence on their children and an essential role in raising them.
Take Action:
If you think your wife should be raising your children, consider what you can add to help raise them. Think about your gifts and talents and support your wife in this effort.
#2 Build a Connection
Unlike mothers who have an instant chance of connecting with their baby in the womb, dads need to make an extra effort to communicate from the start.
As a father, you must slowly build a connection with your baby.
Start working on that connection from the beginning by:
- Singing or talking to the baby in the womb.
- Having skin-to-skin time with your newborn.
- Talking and making funny sounds when you change diapers.
- Helping bathe the baby and make him smile while doing so.
- Singing a song to your toddler for him to fall asleep.
- Reading books to them.
These all require involvement, and the baby must know you are there and you care. It builds a connection, especially when you make him laugh or wait for him to stop crying.
Take Action:
Plan on doing any of the above activities for you to connect and get to know your baby.
#3 Show You Care for Them
Be present in small things, such as playing with your kids, or more significant events, such as attending their plays or games at a school, etc.
Many parents have realized the importance of planning one-on-one activities with their children—Father-daughter dances, dad-and-son hiking trips, etc.
You can plan hikes, outings, or anything you enjoy doing together. The key is to get to know your child from the get-go.
Your presence in your children’s lives is powerful. Knowing you are there for them and care for their interests and hobbies is crucial for their self-esteem and upbringing.
Take Action:
Plan vacations, trips, or organize the events that matter to your children and plan to be there for them.
What if you are separated from your wife?
It may be extra challenging to connect if you are divorced from your wife, but possible. To be a better dad, you will find ways to have that connection.
I have a picture of my dad holding my hand when I walked for the first time.
- He was always in the picture, even though he was not with my mother.
- He made sure he visited us and was good friends with my mother.
- He maintained a relationship with my whole family. He took all of us on vacation every year, despite the difficulties and circumstances he was going through in his personal life.
My father genuinely wanted to be involved in my sister’s and my life. This is something I highly suggest you do as well.
#4 Have a Good Sense of Humor
It may seem trivial, but a father with a sense of humor can make a big difference in how everything is perceived and your children’s communication style.
A father with a good sense of humor can laugh easily about himself and other circumstances.
To another type of person who takes things too seriously, many things could stress him out, and as a consequence, the child does not learn to see things in a more positive light.
I understand; we all deal with some level of negativity. Try your best to keep those levels down by laughing often.
Think about it, nobody wants to have memories of a father who could not smile, was always giving orders, was grumpy, or was in a bad mood most of the time.
Take Action:
Next time you find yourself grumpy about things your child is doing, try to laugh and show your child that you can help light up the burden of many unintentional mistakes or misbehavior.
#5 Expand Your Ability to Sacrifice
As a dad, it may be difficult to see how you need and can sacrifice for your children.
For example, you come tired from work and want to kick back and relax.
A psychologist who helped me understand life used to give an anecdote that may be useful here.
He explains that when he comes back from work, before opening the door, he asks himself, “Are you ready to die for your children and wife?” And if the answer is no, he will wait outside for a moment and muster the will to do just that, be ready to die to himself for his family.
Instead of asking what I want to do now that I am home? He would ask his wife what you need me to help you with?
Some days she said help me finish dinner; others, I need a shoulder massage or you to help me bathe our son, etc.
Being ready to serve others is much more fulfilling of your mission as a father and husband than selfishly sitting on the couch and waiting for people to bring you food and leave you alone.
As a father, you can look back at those years and say: “I’m glad I died to myself and was able to love those around me the way they needed to be loved.”
Take Action:
Ask yourself often if you are ready to die for your family. Then ask how you can help with anything that may be needed.
#6 Strive for a Balanced Life
To have a balanced life, you need to be clear on your values, your priorities for those values, and a discipline to achieve your short and long-term goals to improve those areas of your life.
To be a better dad, strive to be a person with goals in every area of your life. I have a whole article where I go in-depth on achieving your short-term goals here.
Why is this important? Because there is always room for improvement. But how can you improve if you think everything is ok?
You need to realize what you care about and invest your time in those things.
I had a friend who was a newlywed. I visited her, and the first thing she did was complaint bitterly about her husband’s excessive use of his time on video games.
Their marriage was struggling because of the fights about his use of time to perfect his video game skills. Now, unless you are a pro and plan on competing to win a national championship, many hours of video playing a day is too much. My friend was justified in her feelings.
This friend was disappointed that all he did was play video games all day long!! He wanted to improve his skills as a video game player, but what about family, friends, work, school, community, health, and faith?
Have you thought about what you want to improve in every area of your life?
Every time you work on improving any area of your life, your children benefit.
You will invest your time in each area if they are essential to you. There is little time to waste when working on what you have identified as critical.
Take Action
To be a better father, set goals to improve in each area that is a core value in your life.
#7 Work on Your Personal Growth
To be a healthier person, most of us need help from professionals.
We all could use the help of a psychologist to help us process old wounds. But, if you suspect you have difficulty managing anger, substance use, etc., you must seek help as soon as possible.
Resolving heavy things such as childhood trauma, addiction, PTSD, ADD, or any other mental illness can make a big difference in your ability to be a better father.
Your children need a father who can be present, give examples, and continuously improve the skills of a good father, but mental health can make those things extra tricky, and it has a very negative impact on your children.
If you think therapy is unnecessary in your case, strive to be open to learning how you can grow and conquer things like low self-esteem, fears, anxiety, etc. Chances are you will have a child needing your help in any of these areas one day.
Take Action
Book a therapy session today, or be a lifelong learner of how to grow.
#8 Show your Vulnerability
When your child says, “You hurt my feelings,” or you need to say, “I am sorry, I made a mistake yelling at you,” Be bold and say what you need to say.
My dad had a great sense of humor, but often he laughed even about serious things. I later learned this was his way of putting up a wall and avoiding discussing the things that hurt or the complicated stuff we all want to ignore.
You and I could be better. My dad would never be perfect, but we all need to be ready to say I am sorry, I made a mistake, or talk about those feelings that make us human.
They are not bad feelings; they are just feelings we can learn to discuss and process. The lesson you will teach your children is that they can feel and it is ok to have those complicated feelings, and that you are there to listen.
A father who can show weakness and strength teaches his child about life, ups, and downs.
Of course, you want to show your child that difficult times are opportunities to grow, not to get stuck complaining.
Take Action:
Create opportunities to talk with your child about their feelings, and lead by example by showing him vulnerability, to the point of crying in front of them if needed.
#9 Hug, Kiss, and Say I Love You
Be a dad that hugs, says I love you, and gives kisses.
Dads in certain cultures needed to show they were strong, did not cry and did not feel weak.
You would be a better dad if you showed affection to your children. Both boys and girls need to receive demonstrations of love from dad.
The lack of affection does not produce strong children; it makes the relationship feel distant. The lack of love can also create children with low self-esteem, anger management issues, or simply unhealthy relationship with others due to the unmet need for love from the father figure.
Take Action:
Hug, kiss, and say I love you often.
#10 Learn From The Experts
You will be a better dad instantaneously if you take action and pick that book someone recommended to read to learn how to deal with your little kids.
It will instantly make you a better dad because picking up that book makes you better than most dads. You are taking action and genuinely want to learn.
Whenever there are difficulties that you do not know how to deal with, may it be with your toddler or children, you look up a good book to read. I have seen firsthand with my husband how reading a book about parenting has made him a better dad.
I highly recommend the book Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids: How to Stop Yelling and Start Connecting by Dr. Laura Markham.
Read a short review about Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids here: Timeless Books to Read and That you Will Love
You may also like: How to Read More with These 11 Easy and Effective Tips
Take Action:
Read a book about parenting or take a class whenever possible.
#11 Improve Your Relationship with Your Children’s Mother
It may be your wife, or perhaps it is your ex-wife, but the mother of your children is co-parenting with you.
How does good communication with their mom make you a better father? As a psychotherapist, I have seen too many times how divorce parents feel guilty for what their children are going through, and so they spoil their children.
There are no rules, or if mom says no, dad wants to say yes so the child will not complain. The result? Manipulative children.
The cure? The cure is to be on the same page with the co-parenting person. Be on the same page with the rules and the discipline you want for your children.
If you are married to the mother of your children, having excellent communication is critical to being a better dad.
Children need to see and feel the love parents have for each other. To be a better dad, you must show empathy, thoughtfulness, servitude, and devotion to your wife.
Moreover, when the time comes to model good behavior for kids, they need to see it in both parents, especially dads. Mom cannot be the only one reinforcing the rules.
So, a couple’s communication is vital to being a better and more effective dad.
Communication will always be a work in progress. You need to tune it, enhance it and work on it constantly with your spouse because the other person and yourself continually evolve and change.
Take action:
Improve communication with your children’s mother and seek couples therapy if necessary.
#12 Last but not least, be a Man of God
If you believe in God, strive to be a good disciple.
You have much to learn from Our Father in Heaven as a father. If God has entrusted you with your child or children is because he has given you what it takes to raise them well. But it would be best if you asked the question directly to him:
Abba, Father, what would make me a better father?
No one can give you a better answer than the one who has created you and has allowed life to grow to provide you with a human being you can call a son or daughter.
Children are a gift from God, and the first and last thing that Jesus taught us was to serve others.
On the day he was going to die, he washed his disciple’s feet. He came to serve, not to be served.
Have a servant’s attitude. Help your wife with the chores of the home or with the children.
To be a better father, you need to practice what you preach. If you want your children to be helpful, caring, honest, and charitable, you must show them by example. It is not the same to say to your child, “Go do this or that because you need to learn to obey,” than to see you helping others.
Take Action:
If you are a believer, seek God today and ask him to lead you in imitating Him so you become more like Him every day. God is a merciful and loving father.
#13 Be the Same Person Inside and Outside of your Home
If your children see you doing differently than what you ask them, they will know a vice, such as lying, instead of learning a virtue, such as honesty.
Take action:
Be bold, examine yourself, and correct those incoherent behaviors you may be repeating.
There is no other role in life that will purify you like gold in the fire, such as parenting. And we all need to improve something in our roles as parents.
You are a fantastic dad for wanting to be better at parenting!
