Be Your Kid's Best Dad: 5 Strategies to Use Right Now

In honor of an early Father's Day, here are some parenting strategies that you can use to right now to give your child a real gift back. Parenting is a real struggle for some men, and a lot of guys that I talk with feel like they're not giving their kid everything that I can, or aren't there for their child as much as they'd like to.There are plenty of distractions, from keeping a demanding work schedule, domestic responsibilities, and a happy marriage. We want the very best for our kids, and want to give them more, but sometimes don't know exactly how to do that.To make matters worse, sometimes our kids elicit those negative parts of ourselves that we don't really like, which make it all the more confusing and frustrating to know how to "do it right." We think we're doing the best job we can, but it doesn't always feel that way.

Here are five strategies to be a better dad that you can use now, to improve the relationships with your kids:

• Keep your anger in check:
  Most frustrated guys that I talk with say that their kids are too well versed in pushing their buttons and getting deep under their skin. For men, it's easy to get frustrated and explode, or take it out on their kids. Learning how to divert your frustration and anger, so as to not bring it down on your kids, is really important to building a better relationship with them. If we're already angry about the numerous life stressors that affect our lives, it's sure to be made worse when our kids upset us. Kids will internalize your anger, and translate it to mean that it's something wrong about them, or how they aren't "good enough" for you. Try to practice using a soft tone, and communicate with your kids with your feelings, whether you're frustrated, concerned, afraid that they'll hurt themselves, or whatever. Watch this short video on "Supereasy Anger Management Tips" I shot a while back to help cool some of the anger you might be putting on your kids.

• Use natural and logical consequences:
  Teaching your children to experience the natural or logical consequences of their actions is one way that you can help promote acceptance of responsibility. The idea here is that there are real-world consequences for certain behaviors, and allowing your child to experience them on their own, without parental intervention, is one approach to helping children learn from their own actions and behaviors. Here's more information on using natural and logical conquences with your child.

• Be consistent with your spouse on parenting:
  A lot of times, spouses are not on the same page about how to parent their children together. With this inconsistency, kids often seek out the cracks in parenting, and go to more permissible parent to get what they want.This sets up a problematic family system and bad family dynamics, and it's then one parent against the other. Your kid ends up fueling further marital tension. Get on the same page with your wife or girlfriend, and create a parenting alliance so there's no misunderstandings between anyone in your family. Decide early on how you will parent your child around the issues that matter most, whether that's on homework, eating, sleep times or other areas of life that will inevitably come up.

• Validate and affirm your kid:
  Your son or daughter wants to know that you care about them, and that they feel special to you. Too often, we either inadvertently criticize or judge our kids, even when we're not meaning to, or are so busy that we don't attend to our kids. Overparenting, or underparenting, can have negative effects on your son or daughter. Kids need to feel that you care, and that they are worthwhile to you. Make regular time with your kids, but make the time focus on making your kid feel good. Really practice the "quality" in qaulity time. Validate their efforts in school or play, and tell them things that make them feel loved and cared for by you. For some men, this is really hard if they didn't get it from their parents growing up, but it's super important so that your kid grows up feeling good about themselves, and has high self-esteem and competency.

• Watch how you overcompensate from your own childhood:
  Problems we experienced as kids, growing up in our own family of origin, usually leave deep impressions on us subconsciously. The dads that I talk with have some awareness about the effects those problems have on them. Most times, they overcompensate with their own kids, which is to say that they do the opposite of what they received as kids. For example, if they were neglected and invisible as kids, they will make it a point to work to extremely (if not too) hard to make their own children feel visible and important. This can create its own set of problems. If you're not resolved around your own childhood issues, they're probably spilling out onto your own parenting and onto your kids.

If you’re interested in learning more about the Men’s counseling , or if counseling might be right for you, please feel free to contact me directly or visit our Men’s counseling page for detail.