meaning of good father essay

23 Qualities of a Good Father – Traits & Characteristics

By: Author Jeff Campbell

Posted on Last updated: December 26, 2023

Categories Parenting

When I first became a Dad, I was clueless. So I decided to look into the characteristics, traits, and qualities of a good father.

The qualities of a good father include:

• Spending time actively involved with your kids
• Modeling the behavior you expect in them
• Taking ownership when you make mistakes
• Limiting their time on technology
• Treating their mother with dignity
• He practices being a good listener
• Understanding that our kids may have different opinions

But that’s only a quick snapshot. Being a dad is not an easy job. In fact, learning the qualities of a good father is a very challenging task.

Luckily, you aren’t the first dad on the block. There are a lot of great fathers out there and we can learn the description of a good father from all of them.

The trick isn’t to be perfect. But the trick is to learn from others as well as from our mistakes.

In this post, we’re diving deep into fatherhood, and specifically what the qualities of a good father are. More importantly, we’re looking at some simple ways you can implement these in your life today to be a better parent tomorrow.

So let’s review the . . .

23 Qualities of a Good Father You Probably Didn’t Know

1. be present and involved.

Just because we may be the ones providing for our family doesn’t mean that we should leave this duty exclusively to the moms. I get involved by communicating with my children.

I talk to my kids and know who their friends are, what troubles them, what are they afraid of, what they like to do, so on and so forth.

• Connect with them , talk to them and listen to them
• Have clear work/life boundaries – If you work from home, need time to yourself or have other projects needing to be done, just communicate your needs, set times for those that everyone is clear on and reconnect when you’re done
• Put the technology down and just talk with them

2. Say you’re sorry

When we take ownership of our mistakes, we’re teaching our kids to take responsibility for theirs.

Whether with our kids, or maybe with a subordinate at work there is nothing quite so powerful as apologizing for our mistakes. We all make mistakes and they know that.

But when we try and pretend we didn’t, or act like it never happened, that actually makes us look weaker in their eyes

3. Spend quality time with your family

You may be busy at work, but it’s important that you make time for your family.

When they’re older your wife and kids won’t remember you worked hard to provide for them; they’ll remember you weren’t there.

In the description of a good father, prioritizing your family and work/life balance are crucial .

Make them a priority. Create memories with your wife and children. Book a cruise, a beach holiday or simply watch a movie together at the theatre.

On a budget?  Board games, sports, hiking or other simple family activities work great.  Your kids just want to be with you. 

What you do almost doesn’t matter.

4. Take an active interest in their interests

Guess what?  I’m not a huge Katie Perry fan.  But you know how many times I’ve heard her music?  It’s well into the hundreds.

I also took my oldest daughter to see Panic! at the Disco in concert with one of her BFFs. Not exactly my scene (but I actually was impressed).

When you take an interest in your kid’s interests, you’re taking an interest in them.  You’re telling them you care about them as a person.

Nothing feels better to a kid than that!

5. Let kids develop their own interests

When I was 10 guess what?  I liked a lot of different stuff than what my Mom liked. And that’s OK.

It’s OK to influence our kid’s taste (that’s why I kept playing Star Wars movies until they clicked).

But we have to accept that our kids are going to not like everything we like.

They will like some stuff we don’t and that’s OK (as long as what they like is age-appropriate)

6. Don’t have a different set of rules for your kids than you do for yourself

No one likes a hypocrite, so why should our kids be any different?

Mean what you say and say what you mean.

Example: In our house, Sunday is “technology-free day”, so my wife and I do our best to avoid technology for personal use as well.

7. Model the behavior you expect from them

Don’t want them swearing at school?  Guess what you shouldn’t do in front of them?

Want to teach your sons to be respectful to women ?  They will model how you treat their mother. Lose your cool every time someone cuts you off in traffic?  You’re teaching them to be impatient and hot-headed.

The qualities of a good father have to include you leading by example.

8. Explain to them the “why” behind the rule

How many times have parents said “because I said so” or “because I’m your father”.

Guess what?  Those aren’t reasons (at least not good ones).

It’s crucial that kids understand why they are being grounded. Why a privilege is being taken away or even why they can’t watch Saw III.

As Dave Ramsey is fond of saying, “ to be clear is to be kind ”.

When they understand, they will be more apt to accept it. They’ll be less apt to do it again (if they were doing something wrong). And (perhaps most importantly) they will respect you more for taking the time to explain yourself and not just pull rank.

9. Give yourself a timeout when needed

When we talk to our kids in the heat of the moment we aren’t always in the best frame of mind to deal with them.

There’s NOTHING wrong with waiting to have a conversation until you are in the frame of mind to communicate effectively .

Talking to them when we are angry at best makes them yell back.

Then it escalates the whole thing.

Neither is actually listening to the other and instead just waiting their turn to talk (or yell).  At worst, it teaches our kids to be scared of us and being scared of our parents is one of the worst feelings we can have.

Being a “do as I say, not as I do” parent has no place in your description of a good father.

Want to know the 2 Best Selling Parenting Books available on Amazon Prime?

There is How Children Succeed : Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character (CLICK HERE to check current prices on Amazon) by Paul Tough.

This book has almost 5 stars and 900 reviews.

This book covers “Drawing on groundbreaking research in neuroscience, economics, and psychology, Tough shows that the qualities that matter most have less to do with IQ and more to do with character: skills like grit, curiosity, conscientiousness, and optimism.”

Then there is also The Whole-Brain Child : 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind (CLICK HERE to check current prices on Amazon) by Daniel J. Siegel & Tina Payne Bryson.

“In this pioneering, practical book, Daniel J. Siegel, neuropsychiatrist and author of the best-selling Mindsight, and parenting expert Tina Payne Bryson demystify the meltdowns and aggravation, explaining the new science of how a child’s brain is wired and how it matures.”

This book also features upwards of 5 stars and over 800 reviews so you know both of these are excellent books.

Enjoy either one of them for free as an audiobook when you sign up for a free 14 day trial with Audible (click to learn more on Amazon) !

10. Set clear boundaries

We are their parents, not their friends.

That doesn’t mean we don’t love them unconditionally. And it doesn’t mean we don’t take an interest in their interests.

But at the end of the day, our most important job is to keep them safe and educate them so they can go on to be productive people in society.

Kids WANT structure.

They want guidelines and they crave the safety and security of knowing the boundaries.

Sure as they enter their teen years (or heck, sometimes their 3’s) they may test those boundaries but don’t ever doubt the need to set clear rules and boundaries.

11. Set clear expectations

As with #10, it’s important that kids clearly know what’s expected of them.  No one likes living with vague.

When we are clear (as in, “when you come home from school today I want you to clean your room before you go play and I want to see it when you’re done”) our kids know EXACTLY what they need to do .

Nothing feels better than knowing exactly what I need to do.

But within reason, give our kids the end goal and maybe a time frame but allow them the freedom to map out how they get there.

You won’t be there to micromanage their whole life, so letting them explore now sets them up for success later.

12. Protect your kids

Dads are traditionally known for their role as a protector of the family.

There are many ways to protect your kids beyond the physical;

• Having life insurance (click to read my best tips)  for yourself
• Saving for kid’s college   (click to read my guide)
• Making sure you have an emergency fund (click to read my article) in place for unexpected large expenses

13. Loving your kids doesn’t mean you have to love everything they do

I love my daughters, but if they spit, are mean to each other or otherwise do something I don’t like, I correct the behavior.

I do it because I love them.

The description of a good father has to include the strength to say no, correct inappropriate behavior and ensure their safety and well-being.

As you navigate what it means to be a parent, you may wonder at some point if there’s one “right way” to parent.

In truth, there are a lot of ways to parent , some better than others. But the Parenting Styles Preferred by Child Psychologists (click to read my article which reveals that), might surprise you!

14. Set consequences for poor choices

As with the above passages, kids have to learn that there are consequences for poor choices.

When we fail to set consequences we are setting them up for failure in life . After all, what country out there allows people to do whatever they want, whenever they want no matter who else it effects.

It’s not about beating them (figuratively) into submission, or suppressing their creativity; this is about teaching them physics.

For EVERY action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

That’s just the way the world works and failing to set consequences is not only setting them up for failure and disappointment, but it’s also just downright cruel.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting you spank kids, threaten kids, scare kids, etc.

Consequences don’t need to be scary ; they just need to be clear and they need to be the temporary loss of a privilege the child places value on.

The qualities of a good father must include sometimes laying down the law.

15. Don’t make others suffer for the sake of a “teachable moment”

We have all seen those parents. 

The ones whose kids go crazy, make a scene, yell and scream in an indoor public place. They otherwise disrupt everyone else’s day while the parent pretends not to notice and does nothing.

Guess what? 

In those situations:

• Remove your child from the situation (so they aren’t a danger to themselves or a disruption to others)
• Take them somewhere private
• Let them calm down
• Give clear instructions on what is needed before they can resume normal activities

Our decisions with our kids should not be a burden to others. And it’s not cute to let your 3-year-old run around the place yelling at top volume.

Most importantly, this teaches our kids to be respectful to others and to understand that our rights end where the next person’s begins.

16. Follow through on your promises (and if you fall short every now and then, see #2)

Kids count on us for all kinds of things from homework to coming to ballet recitals.

Is there anything more torturous than suffering through watching all the other kids do ballet while waiting for that 3-minute glimpse of yours?

When we promise our kid we will be there for something, we need to make that the top priority for the day.

Missing that school play or soccer game because something came up at work or your buddies decided to go out for a beer can ruin your kid’s experience.

It teaches them that they aren’t important to us.  Nothing feels worse than that .

So one of the most important qualities of a good father is to do what you say you will do; honor your commitments.

Ultimately being a good dad or parent just means understanding your Role of Parents in a Child’s Life (click to read my article). That role will change over time, and you won’t always get it right. But it’s crucial that we keep moving forward.

If you aren’t sure what your role is, make sure to check out my linked post above which walks you through the stuff that really matters.

17. Tell & show your kids you love them every day

Sometimes, dads are not as affectionate with their children (as Moms).

Maybe it’s a dad’s nature to show kids that they are the authority? However, dads should never fail to show their love to their kids. Hug them, they need it.

That way when life gets tough they’ll never doubt your love for them.

• I say “I love you” to my kids at least twice every day (and have since they were born) It may seem simple or obvious or redundant, but it matters.
• I don’t ever want them to doubt my love and I hope that if they are ever in trouble or maybe make some poor decisions in high school (been there, done that) that they will remember that and not be afraid to ask for help.

18. Treat your spouse (or ex) with dignity

Again, it seems obvious but it’s worth repeating.

You and your spouse (or ex) WILL argue (it happens to the best of us), but don’t do it in front of the kids.

More importantly, don’t EVER let it get physical.

Focus on describing the behavior you object to and how it makes you feel. After all, it’s the behavior you disagree with and not the person as a whole.

Avoid name-calling and profanity at all costs.

Doing these negative things could damage your kid’s self-esteem and how they view you. It would also have an effect on their relationships with the women in their lives.

So one of the qualities of a good father and spouse is to treat them the way you want to be treated.

Treat them with kindness and empathy. Be open with them and be vulnerable. Take ownership of your marital mistakes and be forgiving with theirs.

Understand that the two of you are on the same team with the same goals and while you may occasionally differ on methods, never forget you both want the same things.

Related: Top Reasons for Divorce and How You Can Avoid Them (click to read on my site)

19. Don’t use profanity in front of the kids until they are in high school

Many of us in today’s world occasionally use profanity.

Some more than others, but in most segments of society, it’s still seen as crude or rude and at best it’s unnecessary.

I get this makes me old-fashioned , but I’m OK with that label and I still believe this approach is best for the kid.

That doesn’t mean I think you’re a terrible parent if you’ve dropped the occasional F-bomb around them, but one of the qualities of a good father is putting our needs second (at least some of the time) and that includes our wanting to talk like a Tarantino script when we’re around them.

Our kids will eventually hear and possibly use a lot of curse words, but they don’t need to start young and they don’t need to learn that behavior from us.

If we teach our kids at a young age to use profanity, we’re limiting their options for the future and set them up to get in trouble in school and to be judged at work and in life.

20. Let them be a kid

This ties in with the above, but between movies, video games, and technology in general, kids are inundated with all kinds of “adult” topics and amounts of violence that simply didn’t exist when I was a kid.

The world is conspiring to rob our kids of their innocence at a young age.  We need to put in the effort to slow that down, not speed it up.

Our kids will eventually grow up and trust me; it happens faster than most of us would like.

We don’t need to speed up that process by letting a 9-year-old watch Pulp Fiction just because we think it’s awesome (which it is!).

21. Teach them about finances

Your kids will appreciate you later in life if you teach them the value of money.

At an early age, you should not spoil your children by giving them anything they want. The world isn’t kind to people who feel entitled and curbing this at an early age is key.

Teach them how to save in order to buy something they want.

This is one thing that I taught my children. Now they know to work hard when they want something.  They learn to appreciate the value of hard work and they will spend less frivolously when they’re older.

Related: 7 Top Allowance Pros and Cons (click to read my article)

22. Understand the balance of smothering/helicoptering over them and keeping them safe

We have to let kids go and sometimes that means letting them fall.

As Alfred famously says to Bruce Wayne in the awesome Batman Begins, “Why do we fall sir? So that we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

If you never let them fal l, they never learn how to get back up, and once you’re no longer there to help them, that leaves them in a dangerous place. Unfortunately, such a situation is commonly seen in families whose parents think  helicopter parenting  is the best way to raise their children.

Having said the above, the description of a good father has to have clear and age-appropriate boundaries to keep them safe and healthy (physically, mentally, and otherwise).

Learning to balance between these things, knowing that we sometimes will swing too far one direction or the other, is crucial in learning how to be a good father.

Learn about all the different parenting styles (click to read my article on the worst ones), the pros, and cons including the worst ones, in one of the top parenting posts on the Middle Class Dad site.

23. Limit their time on technology

Steve Jobs may not have been a perfect father, but despite the fact that he is responsible, more than any other 1 person in recent decades, for creating a lot of technology that drives our society, he strictly limited his kid’s time on technology.

See more on that story in a great piece by the New York Times. Technology limits our ability to connect with others on a human level.

It also Affects the Brain Negatively (click to read my article on how) in ways that can really impact grades, attitudes, and relationships.

It has a place in our world, to be sure, but it should not be something that goes unchecked

Have clear limits, clear times where it’s OK or not OK and stick to those, and have those limits for ourselves too!

Don’t let your kiddos pick up on these bad tech habits. https://t.co/dzDBgqDBqX #technology #habits #parenting pic.twitter.com/ipMUdW3GW6 — Gabb Wireless (@GabbWireless) October 1, 2020

Frequently Asked Questions

What defines a good father.

A good father is simply one who spends time with his kids and cultivates a good work-life balance. Providing financially for kids isn’t as important as actively being in their lives and helping mold and shape their personality, values, and character.

The old-school model of a great dad was that to be a great dad meant working a 9-5. The dad provided most, if not all of the financial support for the family.

The qualities of a good father in the 1950s were often limited to tucking the kids in at bedtime and playing ball with them on the weekends.

As much as that 50’s Dad scenario might sound appealing, that’s no longer the world most of us live in.

No; for many of us, it takes a 2 parent income to survive.

It takes 2 parents working in collaboration with each other on after-school activities, homework, morning routines and especially keeping up with the household chores.

It’s not just enough to put food on the table, kiss them goodnight and play with them an hour or 2 on the weekends. The qualities of a good father in this day and age go much further than in past decades.

Plus in the world we live in today, many dads work nights and weekends anyway.

I wrote a recent piece about the changing face of the Nuclear Family (click to read on my site), so take a moment and check that out.

1960 – The sitcom “My Three Sons” debuted on ABC-TV. pic.twitter.com/K3F58IR75Q — Today In TV History (@tvhistorytoday) September 29, 2020

How the qualities of a good father have changed

For previous generations, fathers were the breadwinner for the family, the disciplinarian, and often played the role of the strong, silent type. The qualities of a good father have morphed, however, into dads needing to be a lot more well-rounded, and more active day to day in their kid’s lives.

I still remember becoming a father for the 1st time.

How Life Changes When You Have A Baby @DadFuture @johnsonsbaby “My life and perspective on things has changed so much” #baby #parenthood pic.twitter.com/7GS7XpKsDz — BabyCentre UK (@babycentreuk) April 19, 2017

• I asked myself what are the qualities of a good father?
• Would I make a great father? I want to be the best father for my kids. But at the same time, I worry about measuring up.
• Would I be able to do it? What if I fail?

I discovered that the qualities of a good father aren’t complicated.

You simply have to prioritize your family’s needs ahead of your own, to try your best and the really be there for them. I gathered all the tips and advice on the qualities of a good father and picked out the very best ones.

What makes an effective father?

An effective father is one who instills values and character in their child, but also encourages and nurtures the child’s own personality to come out. Effective fathers know when to protect their kids and set boundaries, but also when to let them go and allow them to learn the lessons from the child’s mistakes.

All of us have doubts about how to be a good father (or husband for that matter); we do and that’s totally normal.

And unless you go out of your way to read up on fatherhood, becoming a dad doesn’t come with an instruction manual.

But of course, many of us dads don’t read manuals anyway, right?

The questions that came to my mind when I first became a Dad were:

• What is the description of a good father?
• How do we learn these skills?
• What do we do when we fall short of that goal?
• How do we pick up the pieces when we fail?

We lead busy lives so its crucial that we stay in communication.

We check egos at the door and ask for what we need in a clear, specific and loving way. And we work together in driving our household.  I won’t lie; sometimes we fall short of that!

In short, you can’t be the best parent you can be if your relationship is suffering.

While I have a number of posts on relationships, if your relationship isn’t all it could be, I highly recommend you take a moment and check out a post I have about Empathetic Listening Skills (click to read my article).

Most of us weren’t taught how to empathize with others or how to be a good listener . Those skills are crucial in life, but they especially important for the qualities of a good father.

Happy Daughters Day! Here’s to all the dads lucky enough to have daughters. ❤️ pic.twitter.com/P7VvOi7rhn — Brian Walsh (@NYCSoccer1) September 25, 2020

Why dads are important to daughters

Dads play a special role in the lives of their daughters and are hugely important for the daughter’s self-esteem, feelings of self-worth, and confidence. Daughters with active fathers are less likely to suffer depression, develop eating disorders, or experiment with drugs or alcohol.

Make no mistake, kids need two active, involved, and loving parents.

But life happens, and sometimes people get divorced. We also have gay and lesbian couples with kids, so while I do want to talk about why I think fathers are super important in raising daughters , I don’t want that to come across as derogatory towards other family models.

Ultimately if you and your spouse or ex put the needs of the kids first , take ownership of your behavior and strive to do the right thing, that makes you a great parent.

That being said, there’s just something special about the relationship between a father and daughter.

After all, I (to my daughters) am the first man they knew and loved and all their future relationships and friendships with men will be, in part, based on how they see and interact with me.

A recent study by the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect noted the following benefits of having a father consistently in a child’s life:

• Better cognitive, language, and social development
• Improved academic achievement
• Stronger sense of self-esteem
• Lower incidents of depression

But those are just the beginning of the Benefits of Father Involvement (click to read more on my site).

Rose McGowan is set to plead no contest to drug possession charge https://t.co/Uz6RKsTVxA pic.twitter.com/6BgQVdAfvq — Page Six (@PageSix) January 10, 2019

How absent fathers affect their daughters

Absent, neglectful, or abusive fathers often lead to daughters with eating disorders, depression, drug and alcohol addictions, and sexual experimentation and often they are unable to develop healthy relationships with men.

Ultimately if I am a terrible dad who isn’t involved, is lazy, treats their mother poorly, or is overly critical or abusive, I am literally setting them up for a series of failed relationships with horrible men.

It can also destroy their feelings of self-worth and self-esteem.

They will also, according to a study published by OrgScience, stand a much higher chance of developing a dependency on drugs or alcohol.

That study goes on to say that women with the “worst relationships with their fathers” “are at higher risk for a wide range of behavioral and physical health problems, including sleep disturbances, obesity, high blood pressure, asthma, alcoholism, smoking, heart disease, chronic pain disorders, somatic symptoms, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, and autoimmune diseases”.

On the other hand, if I am present, involved, loving while setting clear boundaries and expectations, taking ownership of my mistakes and doing my best to treat them and others with love and kindness, I set them up for success.

With sons, but especially daughters, fathers are critically important and the ultimate role model.

As parents, one of the things we rely on the most is recommendations from other trusted sources. That’s the reason I created a page on my website for Top Parenting Resources (click to see my page).

I have compiled what I believe to be the absolute best parenting resources out there on a wide variety of needs. So no matter what your parenting challenge, I bet you’ll find a solution there.

How does childhood affect parenting?

How we parent as an adult is directly influenced by our own childhood. While adult parents who had bad, absent, or neglectful parents of their own sometimes go 180 degrees in the opposite direction with their own kids, most often, we tend to parent in similar ways to our own parents, for better or for worse.

Some of us weren’t taught the qualities of a good father by our dads. In my own life, my relationship with my Dad was complicated.

My folks split up when I was 6 months old and by the time I was 2 my Mom had remarried and we moved from Dallas to Philadelphia.

I grew up calling my step-father Dad, and my own Dad, who I only saw a handful of days a year until I was around 11, I called by his first name.

In all the most crucial ways, my birth father simply wasn’t there for me physically or emotionally.

It wasn’t until I was in my 30’s that I forced myself to start calling him Dad. My step-father had passed away decades earlier, and over time that became comfortable. Eventually, we grew closer.

We never really developed what I think of as a traditional father/son relationship.

But there was a lot of love and friendship . And I’ve missed him every day since he passed in 2014. I detailed my story with him in what has become my most popular blog post about Growing Up with a Gay Father (click to read my story).

My relationship with my step-father, the man I called Dad, was also complicated.

I loved him and he loved me. He also exhibited some of the qualities of a good father. But he had a problem with alcohol that led to a lot of drama & violence. Eventually (thankfully) my Mom left him as I approached my 11th birthday.

I’ve also written my story about Growing Up with an Alcoholic Father (click to read my story), so both those posts could be well worth reading if you have faced similar challenges in your life.

Final Thoughts

In this post, we took an in-depth look at the description of a good father and how to be the best dad possible.

Bear in mind the qualities of a good father are a subjective thing. There are, however, some basic principals for what a great dad is.  And also realize that just by taking the time to read a blog like this YOU ARE BEING A GOOD DAD !

You are taking the time to examine your own thoughts and behavior. You’re looking at how it applies to your kids. And you’re willing to make changes and recognize possibly destructive patterns of behavior.  You are open to change and improvement!

THAT MAKES YOU A GOOD DAD!

Looking for first fathers day gifts? Every father’s day is special, but there’s nothing quite like that very first one. Just click that link to check out some great options!

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What Is Your Purpose as a Father?

Sooner or later, our kids will make us suffer. When they’re babies, their crying keeps us up at night. Later, their teenage shenanigans might rob us of more sleep. Some of us stay at jobs we hate so that our kids will never have to wonder where their next meal will come from. We can battle with our co-parents over issues like housework and discipline, testing love we might have once thought would last forever.

These stresses and sacrifices can be painful, but studies are finding one thing that can help us to weather them: a sense of purpose. That is to say, our long-term, meaningful goals as fathers.

A sense of purpose shapes day-to-day goals and behavior. Seeing a destination on the horizon helps us to lift our eyes over the dirty dishes and temper tantrums, to a future that is better than the present. Purpose makes that pile of dishes matter . It reminds us that we matter, if only to our kids. Purpose keeps us at home with them when we wish we were elsewhere.

While purposes can vary, recent studies suggest that just having one is good for you and your family. So, what does purpose look like in a father’s life? How can you find your purpose as a father? These are existential questions that every man must answer for himself. But research does provide some insights to help us understand ourselves better—and see the fathers we want to become.

The evolution of purpose

The chances are good that your purpose is different from the one held by your own father and grandfathers. Scholars say that fathers of previous generations saw their purpose as financially supporting their families and providing discipline to their children. Some saw themselves as leaders and role models for their families, especially when it came to religious instruction. Inherent in these missions is a sense of authority, which could sometimes become authoritarianism —“the enforcement of strict obedience to authority at the expense of personal freedom,” as the dictionary says.

As a group, today’s fathers see their role somewhat differently.

For more than a century, the number of women in the workforce has steadily increased . Today, there are roughly as many women as men working for pay—though men still tend to make considerably more money than their female coworkers, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics .

More on Fatherhood

Discover how your body and brain change when you become a father.

Explore how nature helps fathers nurture .

Learn six obstacles to father involvement , and how to overcome them.

Find out how to be a happy working dad .

What does this have to do with purpose? As women made more money, men’s participation at home started climbing. Today’s dads are spending much more time with their children than did their fathers. Moreover, the United States has become increasingly diverse . Immigrants have brought new conceptions of fatherhood to America. Fathers of color face challenges that are shaping their sense of purpose.

As a result of these developments, many fathers today add “nurturing” to their purpose, along with “providing.” In a discussion I hosted on my Facebook wall , a number of dads said their purpose was to be better than their fathers—and to raise kids who would be better than them. What they meant by this, more often than not, was to be physically and emotionally present in the lives of their children.

“I lost my dad a few months ago,” said Jason Avant, a dad in California. “Nowadays I find myself looking through the lens of my childhood, and I do my best to be everything he was, and everything he wasn’t.” San Francisco writer Andrew O. Dugas , one of those who defines his purpose as “to be a better father than mine was,” says: “My son turned out better than I did. Stronger. Tougher. Kinder. Smarter. Wiser.”

For many men, raising kids means that they need to make self-improvement and self-care part of their purpose. After the birth, “It was no longer acceptable for me to simply go through the motions,” said Blake Overbay, a sergeant with the Massachusetts Army National Guard. “I had to outwardly demonstrate that I was working to better myself. Like deliberate and exaggerated movements to warm-up before a workout.”

In fact, a new study links a strong sense of purpose to healthier behaviors. Boston College psychologist James R. Mahalik and his colleagues surveyed over 200 men (“mostly white, employed, heterosexual, and married”) about their sense of purpose and health behaviors like eating right or exercising, and then analyzed how those factors interacted.

“Our results suggest that when men who are fathers experience greater purpose, they lead healthier lives,” write the authors. “It would be logical to presume that they do so to promote outcomes such as improving their health to make a difference in their children’s lives.”

This finding adds to a rising number of studies that show that more purposeful people are happier , have better health and cognitive functioning , and live longer .

From an evolutionary perspective, it makes sense that purpose might lengthen life —and that the purpose that comes with fatherhood might drive healthier behaviors that could be taken up by our kids. After all, evolution involves passing on our genes. Our offspring have a better chance of growing old enough to have their own children if we stick by their side to make sure they stay healthy and strong. A sense of purpose is a tool evolution put into the hands of fathers, to remind us to do that.

The strength of our purpose

In the Facebook discussion I hosted, many fathers mentioned how a sense of crisis—the pandemic, police brutality, and economic turmoil—is affecting or clarifying their sense of purpose.

For Berkeley, California, writer Shawn Taylor and his daughter, “My primary purpose is to prepare her for the racist and sexist bullshit she’ll encounter, without robbing her of her sense of wonder and joy.”

As the author Ta-Nehisi Coates once told me, in an interview for my book, The Daddy Shift : “I just thought, it was the ultimate service to black people if I can be a great father. It was almost a nationalist, Afrocentric way of seeing it.” For San Francisco attorney David Pai, “watching younger generations rise up” has energized his sense of purpose:

Their inherent curiosity, empathy, and “general goodness” makes me believe that, while I may not see it in my lifetime, I can certainly help lay the foundation for my daughter’s generation to build a more sustainable and equitable world. So that means being very intentional and self-aware in my thoughts and actions (avoiding cynicism is my challenge), not just around her, but touching upon nearly everything I do. Or, in a nutshell, trying hard not to pass on negativity, even in the end times.

A sense of crisis hasn’t fundamentally changed the paternal purpose of Scott Behson, a professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University and author of The Working Dad’s Survival Guide . However, the #metoo and Black Lives Matter movements have led him to redouble his efforts “to make sure that he is a good man to women and a good ally to people of color.”

COVID-19 has powerfully affected how writer and Dads4Change founder Whit Honea sees his purpose. The global pandemic has provided “many more examples of right, wrong, empathy, kindness, ignorance, sacrifice, and all the isms. The lesson plan changes by the headline.” Right now, he said:

History isn’t only being told, but fought, lived, and written. It has made my boys realize that their previous, comfortable view of the world was framed in window treatments and could benefit from a brick or two. Granted, these are the lessons my wife and I have been teaching our boys all along, but the reality of the moment is that they are now paying more attention. They are finding their voice and amplifying others. Their masks can’t muffle the message and they don’t hide anything. We’ll yell again tomorrow.

John Anner has three grown daughters—and he has found that raising them has changed his sense of purpose in life. Today, he is the business development director for a nonprofit called Women for Women International .

I long ago landed on my two central values—generosity, and care for women. So, my purpose, as I age, is to focus intently on those two things, building off the things my daughters have taught me. Women in general, and Black women in particular, have labored for too long for no recognition and no pay. The world is built on their uncompensated and unacknowledged labor. So now is a great time for old white guys like me to do the work—for free—and make sure women get paid.

Oakland author and illustrator Innosanto Nagara sees his purpose as going beyond the self—a quality inherent in the scientific definition of purpose, which includes goals that are not just meaningful to us but make a difference in the world. Nagara sees his mission as creating the space for his son “to explore, challenge himself, and push his limits, take risks, fail, and succeed but not incur/cause irreparable damage/trauma in the process.”

For Nagara, this goes back “to the basic Khalil Gibran idea that our children are not ‘our’ children. They are the children of life’s longing for itself. They are with us but don’t belong to us. Their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which we cannot visit, not even in our dreams.”

How can dads find their purpose?

There are almost no recent scientific studies of how fathers develop a sense of purpose. However, researchers are starting to understand the factors that shape our purposes across our lifespans, providing insights that can help fathers to find their purpose. Here are some of the pathways you might take to explore your own purpose.

1. Read books and watch movies

There are countless novels, comic books, movies, and TV shows that thoughtfully portray fathers, as well as nonfiction books and articles on the history and meaning of fatherhood. When I was becoming a father, I found particular inspiration in Michael Chabon’s novels, the short stories of Alice Munro, the graphic-novel series Starman , movies like The Pursuit of Happyness , daddy blogs , and books by feminist scholars like Stephanie Coontz and Arlie Hochschild .

The stories that inspired me may not inspire you. Perhaps you’ll look more to religious texts, or even to the stories of sports stars. The important thing is the search for inspiration. Seeing the purposes of other fathers, both real and imagined, can help you to see your own.

2. Talk to your co-parents, friends, and family

More on Purpose

Learn how to find your purpose in life and in midlife .

Read how one millennial is finding purpose and connection in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Explore the five childhood experiences that lead to a more purposeful life.

While purpose is a very personal thing, it often emerges from our connections to other people .

It’s important to thoughtfully, intentionally sit down with your co-parent and talk explicitly about what shapes your idea of a good father and what your goals are—and to listen to what the other parent has to say. It was incredibly meaningful for me to interview my grandfather and father for my book, The Daddy Shift , because in my family, we never discussed fatherhood. You can talk to the fathers in your own family right now.

If your kids are young, think about joining a neighborhood group for moms and dads—and then, later, volunteering at school. All of these conversations will help inform and sustain your purpose as a father.

3. Look to your hurts—and turn them into healing

Many men have described to me feeling hurt by their own fathers. Sometimes, the pain came from physical punishment. More often, it’s emotional, arising from absence or verbal abuse. As we saw in my Facebook discussion, men do turn this pain into a purpose to be better than their own fathers. Other fathers described being hurt by racism or some other form of collective discrimination—and so are raising their children to fight back against injustice.

You’ll incur hurts as a parent, too, when you feel overwhelmed or heartbroken. Instead of beating up on yourself, you can ask yourself what that pain means and how you can do better next time. Your purpose as a father never stops evolving, because we learn something new (about ourselves and others) at every stage of our child’s life.

4. Move toward joy and meaning

There’s more to purpose than pain, of course. Many fathers describe their purpose as raising happy kids, and so they try to be happy themselves. “I want my kids to be happy and to put good into the world, to do the right thing rather than the easy one,” says Honea. “My purpose is to model that, sometimes (often) fail, and let them see me learn from it.”

In his book The Path to Purpose , Stanford psychologist William Damon argues that purpose happens when our skills meet the needs of the world. While that idea doesn’t precisely translate into parenting, it’s always the case that we’re better at some aspects of parenting than others. When you play with your kids, you shouldn’t always just do the things they enjoy; it’s important to do the things you like to do, too. If you’re good at baseball, see if they’ll play ball with you. If it’s Star Wars you love, watch the movies over and over with your kids, and talk about the messages the movies impart .

“We constantly inject joy into our lives,” said Taylor. “We dress up, we play, we talk about what make us happy and ask what makes each other happy.” He’s on the right track: There is a great deal of research suggesting that fostering positive emotions —like happiness and gratitude —can lead us to a sense of purpose.

That can be difficult to do in the face of disease and quarantine, violence and protest, unemployment and uncertainty. But making the pursuit of positive emotions a part of your purpose as a father can help your family to navigate the multiple, interlocking crises that we are facing. Confronting those crises provides us with a sense of purpose, too. That’s why I go with my son to Black Lives Matter protests, and why I talk with him about the work I’m doing at home, in quarantine, for the Greater Good Science Center. In this way, I teach my son to have a sense of purpose—and so open the door to its benefits for him.

The gift of having a sense of purpose is that it reminds us of the future we want for our children, and it shows us how we can work toward that future today.

This article is part of a GGSC initiative on “ Finding Purpose Across the Lifespan ,” supported by the John Templeton Foundation. In a series of articles, podcast episodes, and other resources, we’ll be exploring why and how to deepen your sense of purpose at different stages of life.

About the Author

Jeremy Adam Smith

Uc berkeley.

Jeremy Adam Smith edits the GGSC's online magazine, Greater Good . He is also the author or coeditor of five books, including The Daddy Shift , Are We Born Racist? , and (most recently) The Gratitude Project: How the Science of Thankfulness Can Rewire Our Brains for Resilience, Optimism, and the Greater Good . Before joining the GGSC, Jeremy was a John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University.

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15 Essential Qualities of a Good Father

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In this article we’re going to discuss the qualities of a good father all dads should strive to have.

* disclosure : some of these links might be affiliate links.

Introduction to the Attributes of a Good Father

There are many things needed for the success of the family.

Along with that for the successful development of kids.

Good fathers and good mothers are an essential piece in the equation.

Society at times tends to devalue the importance of fatherhood and how critical a father is in the home.

We know it’s not the case and research on fatherhood says otherwise.

I do know as a first-time dad it can be overwhelming.

You might not know which quality is essential to develop.

To make matters worse many times, the information you receive can be conflicting.

(the media doesn’t help, but more on that below)

We’ve come up with our own list of the best qualities of a father.

We hope you’ll find this list beneficial on your fatherhood journey.

What it Means to Be a Father

We’ve covered what being a father means . If you missed it, you should go check it out! Here are some highlights from that article.

For starters being a father can be very challenging.

The definition and even the expectations of fatherhood have changed considerably over the past 10 years.

Unfortunately, a lot of those changes and expectations have not been for the better.

The primary force pushing and defining fatherhood is the media.

According to media portrayals of dads we are:

• Not important to the family
• Dumb (Doofus is the term I used)
• Emotionally Unstable (not to mention emotionally uninvolved)

I want to encourage you to ignore these poor media portrayals.

• You’re important to the family
• You’re a role model
• You’re a gift giver
• You’re unconditional in your love
• You’re a disciplinarian
• You’re a provider
• Last and most certainly not the least you love your kid’s mother well.

What if I Don’t Have Those Qualities of a Good Father?

Many dads out there are going to look at this list and probably start feeling like they’re being judged or worse they’re not good enough.

I don’t want you to look at these as the measure of a good father.

What I mean by that is don’t look at this as, if you don’t have ALL these traits, you’re not a good dad.

First of all, there’s absolutely no judgment here.

Secondly, do not beat yourself over the head for not having ALL these qualities.

It would be pretty much impossible for one dad to excel at all these traits.

Also, many of the traits we’re going to mention will come easier to some fathers than others.

Your Goals by Looking at these Qualities of a Father

Instead, what you should do is look at these qualities or traits of a dad as something to work towards as you go through your fatherhood journey.

You’ll never be perfect in all of this.

Which is fine.

Perfection is not the point.

It’s all about trying to be better.

You see just because you’re not going to be perfect at it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive for excellence.

What Are the Qualities of a Good Father?

1. a good dad loves and protects his kid’s mom.

This is first and foremost on the list because it’s the most important.

If you’re divorced or a single dad this is going to look a little different for you.

So many times, we want to put our kids first and foremost, and it’s not the best approach.

Your focus should be on your wife (their mom) and nurturing that relationship.

Let me clarify something.

I am not saying don’t take care of your kids.

I am not saying don’t love kids.

What I am saying is the best way to love your kids and take care of your kids is by making sure your marriage is nurtured and taken care of.

When your marriage is good and nurtured your kids, and your family is more likely to be taken care of as a result.

No matter how well you love your kids, it doesn’t matter if you’re not taking care of your marriage.

With divorce being as high as it is (some estimates say anywhere between a quarter to a third of all marriages ( source ).

We all know by now the havoc a divorce can have on a family and especially kids ( source ).

2. A Good Dad Provides for His Family

If you asked most guys what they felt their primary role as a father was, more likely than not they’re going to say it’s to provide.

This is the stereotypical role of a father.

While I should add being a provider is NOT the only role of a dad (as you’ll see by this article).

It’s an important role nonetheless and part of what we still use to define dads.

A good dad needs to help contribute to the household and make sure their family has the necessities.

(food, water, and shelter)

A good dad should be able to hold down a job.

By holding down a job, you’re demonstrating to your kids the value of a good work ethic.

For the dads that are stay-at-home fathers, you’re not off the hook for providing for your family.

The way you provide just looks a little different.

When a stay-at-home dad is providing it could be by making sure the kids are taken care of.

Or making sure the household is in order.

3. A Good Dad is a Disciplinarian

You never have to teach kids how to lie and be bad.

They just know how to do all of that. But you have to teach them how to be good.

That’s where discipline comes into play. Good dads know that they should discipline their kids.

They also know it’s important their discipline is coming from a place of love ( source ).

• You need to be consistent in your discipline.
• Firm in your teaching.
• Most importantly loving in your actions.

4. A Good Dad is Not Focused on Raising Good Kids but Good Adults

Your kid is going to spend more time as an adult than as a kid.

As a dad, your focus shouldn’t be on raising good kids but on raising good adults who are productive members of society.

This comes in many different forms.

One of the ways is by letting kids be kids.

Which are often not mentioned enough.

Let them enjoy the innocence of their youth, before having the weight of the world on top of them.

This is the challenge with parenting and raising kids.

You know the end game is to have a well-adjusted adult.

At the same time, you have to find a balance between letting them be a kid.

But also knowing when they do have to start bearing the weight of the world, you’ve trained them up well enough to handle it.

The other way is by disciplining and instilling morals and strong work ethics in your kids.

5. A Father Leads by Example

As a father, you’re called to be a leader in the home.

Nothing will diminish your leadership quicker than not leading by example.

Your child is watching you ( source ).

Even when it doesn’t seem like they are.

Let me tell you…they are!

Are you talking about the importance of being polite and respectful but disrespecting your waiter at a restaurant.

…or yelling at bad drivers in the car?

Are you trying to teach them the value of being honest, but they’ve seen you lie?

Your kids are a lot better at detecting B.S. and inconsistencies than many parents would like to believe.

Even when they cannot conceptually see it, instinctively they can feel something just doesn’t seem right.

Think about your childhood and what you noticed when you were a kid.

Do you see what I mean?

6. Dads are Servant Leader

The ability to serve is an important trait.

Leading is not just about telling the ones you’re leading what to do.

It’s also about serving them as well.

The same concept applies to fatherhood.

Some of the concepts that differentiate “servant leaders” from leaders is ( source ):

• ➫ Humility is an excellent characteristic of a dad who’s a servant leader. He’s not necessarily after the attention and is ok with others getting the praise.
• ➫ Hard work and the pursuit of excellence not just in your family but in yourself as well.
• ➫ Selflessness he’s always thinking about the family.

No matter how tired he is, he always seems to have the energy to play with his kids.

There are other characteristics of a father who is a servant leader.

I would like to dive into this a little bit later, but until then.

Dads need to be servant leaders.

Which means you’re leading with a servant’s heart.

7. Fathers are Supportive to their Kids

A dad should strive to be supportive of his kids even when it’s hard.

This is important both when your kids are young and as they get older.

When your children are young, you’re building the foundations they’re going to need down the road.

As they get older, your support can drive them to excel in their endeavors.

I should clarify.

Supporting your kids doesn’t mean you agree with them on everything they’re doing.

It also doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to change some of those behaviors.

What supporting your kids does mean is sometimes it’s just about loving them where they’re at.

8. Father’s are Slow to Anger

I’ve mentioned a couple times about the negative connotation men get when they display what has stereotypically been “feminine” emotions.

So, for example crying and to some lesser extent softer emotions like empathy.

Instead, the emotions dads get portrayed as having is anger.

When they get angry, they then act in a poor manner.

Unfortunately, we seem to be starting to normalize some of these poor behaviors.

Look at the media portrayals of dads for example.

The dads as portrayed by tv shows have the emotional equivalent of a toddler.

I’m not saying don’t get angry.

That would be silly.

You’re going to get angry.

It’s just going to happen.

What’s important is how you act.

The test of fatherhood is your ability to handle those emotions.

Your kids will be watching and learning how daddy handles situations when he gets angry.

In turn, they’ll be learning how they should handle situations when they get angry.

9. A Good Father Loves His Kids

Discipline without love breeds resentment.A good father loves his kids.Your kids should never wonder whether you love them.

Your children should be able to find peace, comfort, rest, and consistency in your love.

10. A Father Needs to be Patient

Patience is a virtue as the saying goes.As a father, your family is going to test your patience on a regular basis.

As challenging as it may be, each day you need to pass your test.

How you react in those circumstances could be what defines you in the eyes of your kids.

For example, the thought of teaching your child immediately comes to my mind. How do you handle it when you’re teaching your kids a skill?

What about when your tutoring them and they’re not learning it as fast as you would like?

Do you get angry?

Do you yell at them?

Or do you continue to be patient with them?

Do you continue to keep encouraging them?

11. Good dads are Dependable

Good dads should be a man of his words.

His family should be able to count on him.

But most importantly, when he says he’s going to do something his family and especially his kids know it’s going to happen.

If you tell your kids you’re going to be there for their soccer game or football game (or whatever it is) you need to be there.

If you get into a habit of breaking your word to your family, they’ll soon learn

“we can’t depend on dad.”

You don’t want that.

12. Kids Need a Dad that’s Compassionate

I think compassion doesn’t get brought up enough when it comes to dads. Compassion is sympathy or pity for someone else during their suffering.

With that being said can you not see how valuable that attribute is for a dad.

Your child for the next 10+ years is going to think the world is ending for every scrapes, bumps, and heartbreaks.

You don’t have to like it. You should coach them out of it. But remember the compassion. You might not think it’s a big deal. Honestly, most of it won’t be, but it doesn’t matter. You were a kid once.

To them it is, so try to meet them where they’re at and coach them out of it.

13. A Playful Dad is Important

Kids love having fun, and they’re good at it (sometimes at the expense of a furniture or wall).

Kids learn a lot through fun and play ( source ). Even when it’s not about learning, sometimes it’s just about the playing.Remember when I said above let kids be kids?

Along with that join them. Dads need to be able to play with his kids, have fun and just enjoy life with them.

14. A Good Dad is Present and Involved

The expectation for dads is to be present in the family.

We’ve already mentioned the consequences of an absent father .

Your fatherly role is not just about working and providing for the family.

Don’t get me wrong it’s one of your roles and an important one.

But it’s not the only role.

The interesting thing is to your kids being a provider will not be the most important role to them.

What will be, is your ability to be present in their life.

Both on a physical level but on an emotional and mental level.

It does no good if you’re physically there.

But your minds somewhere else.

15. A Good Father is Proactive

A good dad is proactive instead of being reactive.

What’s the difference you ask?

Being proactive means making changes when you see something that could go wrong.

Being reactive is making those changes only after things go wrong.

For a dad this can vary from time to time.

It could be your parenting style.

Maybe it’s your relationship with your children.

Or your wife.

Either way you want to resolve problems before they become problems.

Conclusions

There are many important attributes of a good father. Many of them we didn’t mention. What we did is hit on some of the qualities we believe to be very important.

A couple takeaways:

• This list is not a way to make you feel like you’re inferior
• It’s also not a way for you to feel like you’re being judged.
• Great dads will probably not excel in all these qualities and traits. But they are still trying.
• You’ll probably notice that many of these are both qualities of a good father and husband.

What qualities of a father did we miss?

Thank you for reading this article.

Please take a moment to share it so we can help other dads.

About the Author

ParentsPlusKids.com is the go-to resource for new moms and dads who are trying to survive motherhood and fatherhood.

I’d like to say this article is based purely on one’s opinion of a good father and is not written in stone like the 10 commandments. True it states you may not be good at all these things on the list, but this list fails to take into consideration everyone’s situation in a marriage or as a father varies a little. This is a self written list on what one person’s opinion of being a good father is. No one should take it to seriously.

there will always be someone who is negative and has to say negative to hints about everything and everyone

The Importance of Being A Good Father

As a father, here are things to consider and do to help raise an emotionally and psychologically healthy child.

According to recent research, we know that children whose fathers are highly involved with them in a positive way do better in school, demonstrate better  psychological well-being and lower levels of delinquency, and ultimately attain higher levels of education and economic self-sufficiency. Given the importance of fathers spending time with their kids, why is it that while teenagers watch an average of 21 hours of television per week, they spend only 35 minutes per week talking with their fathers?

Unfortunately, many dads either don't or are afraid to spend one-on-one time with their children. Besides missing out on the fun, these dads miss out on bonding time and a chance to establish emotional intimacy with their children.

What Does Being A Good Father Really Mean?

You need to be able to put your child before yourself, be a positive role model, and protect your child from harm, but at the same time allow them to make their own mistakes, and learn from them. The key word here is 'nurture'. Children learn through a variety of ways, however, observing the behavior of others is probably the most influential.

As a role model, children learn from their fathers and mothers, and their actions. They emulate the desired behavior and then discard the undesirable. Therefore knowing yourself, and how others perceive you, is essential when your children are learning from you both directly and indirectly. Your children need to be taught right from wrong and see it demonstrated on a daily basis by their father.

When considering the responsibilities of fathers, it's important to remember that no one is perfect. We are all human and, at times, we do make mistakes. But the important thing to teach is: we can learn by our mistakes and try to avoid making the same mistakes over-and-over again.

Other Characteristics of A Good Father

The environment you grew up in definitely influences how you perceive your role as a father. Some parents try and "fix" problems from their own childhood or present-day lives. What can happen is they place unreasonable expectations on their child.

A child's life can be filled with pressures, from kids at school, teachers or coaches, and just day-to-day life. Help your child understand their desires and assess their capabilities and set achievable goals. Encourage them to meet their full potential but avoid living vicariously through them by expecting them to achieve what you had achieved or hoped to have achieved.

Some common perceptions of a father's role are:

• The father provides, financially and emotionally, for his children, and should care for them too.
• The father's role is to discipline along with the mother. Make parenting a partnership, be on the same page about how to discipline your child and be consistent.
• A father should give his children affection and warmth - Don't be afraid to tell your child "I love you, I'm proud of you."
• A father shows support and love through actions as well as words.

Consider your roles and responsibilities as a father. Ask yourself which are most meaningful and pursue them to the best of your ability.

Being a good father is one of the most important and challenging things you can do! Spend time listening and talking with your kids each day.

article references

APA Reference Staff, H. (2022, January 11). The Importance of Being A Good Father, HealthyPlace. Retrieved on 2024, May 26 from https://www.healthyplace.com/parenting/dads/importance-of-being-a-good-father

Medically reviewed by Harry Croft, MD

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2024 HealthyPlace Inc. All Rights Reserved. Site last updated May 26, 2024

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Redefining fatherhood: What it means to 'be a man’ today

What does it mean to be a good dad?

Once it might have meant providing for and protecting your family. For a new generation of American fathers, however, the definition of what it means to be a good dad increasingly also includes washing the dishes, making dinner or taking the kids to school.

“Now, the expectation for good or bad, is both parents are breadwinners and caregivers,” said Matt Schneider, co-founder of City Dads , a Meetup group for fathers. 

An exclusive TODAY survey of 2,000 moms and dads shows that fathers are more involved than ever before with their children, both emotionally and practically. While moms increasingly share the responsibility for the family’s income, dads are assisting with more of the childcare and household chores. 

About 75 percent of fathers say being a dad is their most important job, according to the survey, and 61 percent of dads say they are more involved with their children than their father was with them.

When Schneider was growing up, he said his dad was active in his life but didn't feel responsible for attending PTA meetings or field trips. He now sees more parents involved in the every day life of their kids. 

“What is great, to me, about the role of dads now is we have a new definition of what it means to be a good dad,” said Schneider, 39, a former teacher and primary caregiver for his two boys, ages 5 and 8.

Recent research supports the idea that dads are more "hands on." The amount of time fathers spend on childcare and housework has increased significantly over the last half century, from 6.5 hours a week in 1965 to 17 hours 2011 , according to Pew Research Center. 

Economic reasons, especially in the aftermath of the Great Recession, might be partly responsible for the shift. The share of married couples who both work and have children at home is now 59.1 percent, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics . About  40 percent of mothers are now primary breadwinners , while the number of dads staying at home full time, although still somewhat of a rarity, has nearly doubled compared to a quarter century ago, to about 2 million dads as of 2012.

“We’re ripe for a national conversation,” said Jennifer Siebel Newsom, who explores American masculinity in her forthcoming film, "The Mask You Live In."

"The three most destructive words that every man receives when he's a boy is when he's told to 'be a man," said Joe Ehrmann, a coach and former NFL pro football player, in the film's trailer , which has been viewed more than 3.7 million times on YouTube since December.

Boys are three times more likely to commit suicide than girls, said Newsom, or commit violence against others. “Even if there’s a mental health issue, you’re not seeing women commit the same crimes and mass murders in the same way that you are seeing boys and men do."

“With boys, there’s such shame in not conforming to the dominant norm,” said 39-year-old Newsom, a mother of three, including one young son. She argues that a culture of hypermasculinity — power, dominance, control, aggression, suppressing feelings — can be damaging to society.

“So many more boys end up feeling alone and isolated and feeling like they have no one to go to,” she said.

The current generation of fathers may play a huge role in dismantling those gender norms that leave some boys and men feeling trapped. 

"The 'traditional' definition of masculinity can be incredibly restrictive for young men who are growing up in a world that has moved on from when those definitions were first established," said Tom Burns, dads and families editor for The Good Men Project . "So, if you have generations of older male mentor figures who promote those outdated roles to boys — 'Be a man like we were back in the 50s, 60s, 70s' — it can be incredibly confusing and painful for those young men." 

While some may struggle with the changing definitions of marriage and family, Burns sees it as a sign the world is becoming more inclusive. “I see just as many men who are seeing so many doors opened and they are thriving.”

According to the TODAY survey, 73 percent of parents say “a real man knows how to express emotional support to his children.”

And that’s exactly what children need the most, said Dr. William Pollack, an associate clinical professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School and senior clinical consultant on the mental health of men, adolescent males and boys at Cambridge Health Alliance.

“Fathers are capable of being nurturant, they want to be nurturant, and when they nurture, not only are boys and girls and partners better off... (men) become better people, less depressed people and more of a whole person.”

Although many children grow up without a father at home — the number of families led by a single mother has more than tripled, from 7 percent in 1960 to 25 percent in 2011 — men are biologically hard-wired to be nurturing, Pollack suggests, although they may show it in a different way than women do. 

And divorce doesn’t mean father has to stop being a parent.

“Positive and caring fathering is important,” Pollack said. “It is equally as important as going out and earning a living.”

While   some may feel threatened by a shift in gender roles, Burns said it doesn’t mean that what used to be masculine is no longer masculine. “All it means is the definition is expanding to include things that it didn’t used to."

Those things could include taking paternity leave, attending a child's school play or reading to your 7-year-old daughter. 

“Reading to my daughter is something I take as a very masculine act,” said Burns, 37. “I am her Sherpa. I am guiding her through her adolescence and into her adulthood. Part of what makes me a man is being able to impart knowledge.”

Follow Joy Jernigan on Twitter  @JoyJernigan or on  Google+ .

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How To Be A Good Father: 9 Qualities You Should Have

Being present and involved in your child's life are traits that most fathers should possess.

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Many new parents often wonder how to be a good father. Studies state that a father’s involvement in the child’s upbringing can influence their overall development. Indeed, a father who is more involved in their children’s day-to-day activities helps bring positive changes that shape the child’s life in a way that no one else can (1) . When you share responsibilities with your spouse and contribute to the child’s growth, education, and well-being, it shows your level of concern and commitment towards your children and family. So, how to be a nurturing dad to your children? We have compiled a few important characteristics and parameters to help you become a good, responsible father. So, read on to learn how to be more involved in the various stages of your child’s life.

9 Qualities Of A Good Father

1. he is protective:.

A good dad protects his kids by drawing clear boundaries, considers their best interests, talks to them about things they should be aware of and puts things in place. He teaches his kids about the consequences of making the wrong choices. A father instills character development in kids.

2. Affection is his middle name:

A good father is affectionate to his children. Though he may not hug and kiss the child like a mother does, his affection is no less than a mother’s. He lets the children know they can count on him.

3. A wall of trust and security:

The children believe that their father is always right. He will never lie to them, he will never betray them, he will never leave them in the lurch. That is the trust a good father builds in a child. The kids know that their father is always there whenever they want some help or whenever they are in trouble.

Walter Bond, a son, father, and former NBA player, shares the bond of love and trust he shared with his father while growing up. He also speaks about how he emulated his father while dealing with his own. He says, “When I was a little boy, my daddy would always pick me up. When he came home from work, he would pick me up. When he saw me in the nursery church, he picked me up. No matter how long he worked, no matter how tired he was, my daddy would always pick me up.

“So when I had my kids, I would always pick up my kids. When I got home, sometimes I was tired. They had a bottle in one hand, and they just lifted up the other hand, and they knew what Daddy was supposed to do. My job was to pick them up. My saddest day was when my daddy told me, ‘Boy, you’re too big; I can’t pick you up anymore.’ But when he couldn’t pick me up physically, he would pick me up emotionally ( i ).”

4. The source of encouragement:

You are the source of encouragement to your kid. Be it a football match or a debate competition, your presence at the venue gives a boost to your child’s confidence. You are the happiest when they succeed and you are the one who will make them strive better if they fail. Your words will make a world of difference to your child. Your words have the power to make or break them.

5. Has the patience to listen:

Listening is an important part of being a good father. Responsible fathers give their kids undivided attention and try to understand things from their perspective.

6. Provides the necessities of life:

As the head of the family, the father is responsible for giving a decent living for his children, be it a home, food, education or love, security, and attention.

7. Respects the mother of his children:

Children do well when they see their parents working together. A good father teaches his children how to respect their mother, and this he does by respecting his partner . He honors her views and does not argue with her in front of the kids. This sends the right message to the children that their parents work together, and they need to respect them both equally.

8. Spending time with him is fun for kids:

If the dad is at home, it is a fun time for kids. He plays with them, shares some tricks and shortcuts, makes their artwork easy, and their homework enjoyable. He involves them in things he likes to do. Television, laptops, and phones are put aside.

9. He is the best teacher:

A father teaches lessons not just for academics but about life. He shows how children can channelize their emotions when met with failure or disappointment, how they can use their energy for their good, how they can plan their careers or study hours.

If we sum up all the above characteristics of a father, we can understand that all of them arise from the man’s involvement and interest in his child’s life. The father’s involvement varies with the stage of his fatherhood .

How To Be Involved With Your Child At Various Stages Of Their Life?

As offspring get older, a father’s role continues to be significant, but it changes.

1. Before pregnancy – prepare mentally and physically:

Fathers need time to adjust to their new role just as mothers do. Involve in the preparations for your baby’s birth. Time spent in emotional and physical preparation to become a father can make all the difference to how the fathers feel when the baby arrives. There are certain things that you can do:

• Take care of your health. Make healthy choices. Eat healthily, quit or cut down on smoking and alcohol.
• Discuss how you will raise your children, talk about any concerns you have regarding starting a family.
• Be prepared for the changes a baby may bring to your lifestyle or home.

2. During pregnancy – be a caring husband:

Image: IStock

Your wife is going through a big change in her life. Her body, mind, and priorities are set to change, and you are the one she seeks support from:

• Go with your wife to medical appointments and ask questions or doubts if you have any.
• Take care of your partner , prepare her a healthy meal, help her get rest, and create a happy atmosphere at home.
• Read and learn about pregnancy and birth. Attend prenatal classes, help her through her trimesters.
• Talk, read or sing to your unborn baby, feel his kicks or movements on your wife’s belly. Shop for your baby, along with her.
• Make your house baby friendly. Do not paint or repaint the house as the toxins could be harmful to the mother and the baby.
• Discuss with your wife and agree upon sharing the responsibilities once the baby comes into your lives.

3. During early days of your baby – time to learn new things:

New fathers generally underestimate the change a newborn will bring to their family. But after they have a baby, they realize that they are having less sleep, less money, and less sex than before! It may take some time for you to have strong feelings for your baby.

• Spend time with your young family and make the most of your paternity leave. Take an interest in your baby, enjoy being with them and follow your instinct.
• Learn how to hold, bathe, and change nappies of your baby. Learn to respond to your baby’s cues.
• Be a part of breastfeeding by bringing your baby to your wife and being close by talking to her. Bring water to your partner while she is nursing as the release of oxytocin hormone while breastfeeding makes new mothers thirsty. Offer to burp the baby after every feed.
• Take turns during sleepless nights.
• Help your partner come out of postpartum depression or other medical issues. Assist her in getting the help she needs. Understanding the significance of postpartum depression and need of medical care for the same are very important.

4. Toddler and preschool – you are a bodyguard and a teacher too:

Toddlerhood gives wings to your child to go around and explore the places. They may not know what is safe and what is not, and this means you are busy protecting them 24X7. Also, this is the time the kids are enthusiastic about learning new things.

• Keep your toddler safe by childproofing the house.
• Go outside to explore nature, take your child to a park, play active games like kicking the ball, prepare them for school by teaching numbers and letters.
• Remember not to be over protective parent preventing your child from exploring the nature. It is not good physically or mentally.
• Do crafts, drawing, and coloring with the child, read books and stories to them.
• Teach discipline.

5. School age – the responsibilities are only increasing:

The child has grown big enough to go to school. But they may not like the new development; they might refuse to accept their new routine. You need to convince them about the goodness of formal education. Also, you need to be there for them while they struggle with the first books of their academics.

• Help you kid with homework and studies. Get them ready for school in the morning.
• Participate in school activities, attend parent-teacher meetings.
• Make your children help their mother in making the dinner, setting the table or cleaning up the stuff.
• Get to know your kid’s friends.

6. Teenage and beyond – time to step back and give them freedom:

You cannot be too involved with your children at this stage as they crave for freedom. They do not like if you are snooping on them. But this does not mean that you withdraw from your responsibility of taking care of them.

• Understand their puberty.
• Give them space and respect.
• Listen to their problems and guide them.

The father’s role differs not only with the age of the child but also with their gender. Most parenting requirements are the same for a girl and a boy, but a father needs to understand the subtle changes that he needs to make. For boys, their dad is a role model while for a girl he is a superhero who will influence her self-esteem and sense of identity.

How To Be A Good Dad To A Son

Your family is unique and so are the circumstances in which you nurture your children. However, there are certain positive traits which can’t be missed in fathers:

1. Show both sides of the coin:

You are the person who sets rules at home, and you are the one who enforces them. Children need both support and discipline. It is easy for the parents to split the jobs, with the mother being soft and father being tough. But don’t do that.

If you’re a disciplinarian and rarely show empathy and love to kids, your sons may see you as a dictator in the house. Only you know that you love them, and you are enforcing the rules for their good. Make them know your softer side so that they understand why you are tough sometimes.

2. Talk to your father:

As a child, you must have seen your father just the way your sons see you now. Now that you are a father, you can understand your dad better. You will realize the rationale between the way he behaved with you on certain occasions. This understanding will help you correct your way of parenting your sons. You will know what will hurt him and what will make him see your point.

Talk to your father, ask him about his struggles and sacrifices when you were a kid, and take his advice, as he has been there and seen that. Good communication can foster a deeper understanding and connection between fathers and their children.

3. Help your son do things:

When your son comes to you for a solution, help him do it by himself. Support and guide him, tell him what you did when you were in such a situation, but let him deal with it. Do not jump to do the work for him.

4. Spend time with him:

It is the only thing that you can truly give. Dedicate a certain slot every day for one-on-one time with your son and let him decide what you will both do together. You may play football together, watch TV, read a book or bake a cake. It doesn’t matter. He gets your undivided attention, he gets, for a change, to be in control, and you get to discover the inner life of your son. Do this every day; don’t ever cancel it as a punishment. It’s for him, unconditionally. You’ll be surprised to see the difference it can make for him and you.

5. Talk to him about his puberty and related topics:

Do not avoid the topic. If you do, your son will get information from elsewhere, and that could be harmful to him. Make him understand the changes in his body, talk about the sexual urges he might have, explain the relationship that he should have with women and how he should behave with them.

6. Apologize, and he will learn to apologize:

Do not hesitate to apologize to your wife, your kids or anybody else. Remember, your son is watching you, and he will emulate you. When you apologize for your mistakes, he will understand that there is nothing wrong with saying sorry, it doesn’t hurt your ego. Let him learn that it is OK to be wrong sometimes and it is not a taboo.

7. Love your partner:

Love and respect your partner. Your son will know that he needs to respect women. Above all, he will respect his mother and understands that he needs to listen to his mother as much as he listens to you.

Being a man, you can understand your son well, and empathize with him. You know what he is going through as a child or a teenager or a grown up man.

However, with daughters it is different. You need to make an effort to put yourself in her shoes, and that is not easy.

How To Be A Good Father To A Daughter

Fathers have an ability to influence the lives of their daughters – either positively or negatively. How a dad behaves with his daughter will decide how she thinks of herself and how she expects to be treated by other men in her life. Girls need the following intangibles from their fathers:

1. Give unconditional love:

Daughters need their fathers ’ unconditional love more than anything else. Give her what she deserves.

2. Say nice things to her:

A dad plays a big role in how a girl feels about herself. Her father’s encouragement and approval help her develop confidence and a feeling of adequacy. She is less likely to look out for approval of others to develop her self-esteem and self-image.

3. Gain your daughter’s respect:

An important attribute a girl needs to have is respect for her father as it is healthy for her in all areas of life. Your daughter will abide by your boundaries if she respects you. If you try to force her through fear or pressure, she will rebel and you will lose influence on her.

4. If you wouldn’t say it to a son, don’t say it to your daughter:

When she comes to you with her problem do not brush it off or tell her to go to her mother. Listen to her, if she wants advice from you, give it to her. Talk about strong women so that she will aspire to be one of them someday. Do not assume or influence what her interests will be because she’s a girl. Don’t just give her pink dolls, show her cars too and let her choose what she wants.

5. Share physical activities:

Boys tend to be more physically active than girls. However, make your daughter take up some physical activities . This will make her physically and mentally strong. One of the effective ways to treat or prevent eating disorders in girls is to have them spend time exercising or playing outdoors. Give her company and let her be physically active.

6. Have a regular and deep conversation with her:

Meaningful and affectionate dialogue with your daughter is evidence that she is worthy, secure and loved. Talk to her just like you talk to your son. However, the topics of conversation might change. You might want to have a better insight into her mind, understand her feelings and her thoughts.

7. Love and honor her mom:

When you love and respect your wife , your daughter will develop respect for you. She will appreciate the fact that you know how to treat women. It gives her an idea of what kind of men she needs to be with when she is mingling with boys in her school and college.

Focus on discovering ways to fulfill your daughter’s needs by developing a rapport with her.

Different Situations Different Approaches

The stepfather:.

The role of a stepfather is tricky as you may worry about not having fatherly feelings for the kid. What is important, though, is to think about how to create a caring, friendly and loving environment. Of course, a lot depends on the individual’s circumstances. Respect the child’s feelings about their birth father and understand how complicated this situation must be for them.

Children may blame their stepfather for having pushed out their birth father from their lives. They do not always understand rational explanations. The mother needs to make the kids understand that their stepfather does have a role in the family as the new father figure. You need to support your partner in helping her children to accept this.

It’s not always necessary for these difficulties to arise. Stepfather can bring freshness to family situations, diluting the tensions and creating the opportunity to find solutions to family difficulties.

Adoptive fathers 

The adoptive fathers undergo a certain process of self-examination and confrontation of personal issues that other fathers may never have to deal with.

As kids grow older, they may ask about their birth parents. They may become curious about their birth families and want to find out more about them. Children sometimes lash out at their adoptive fathers when they are hurt or angry. As an adoptive father, you need to be open with them. Explain things and try to be rational. You don’t have to feel insecure because after living with you for years, they definitely love you like their father.

Foster fathers

Fosters fathers too face complicated challenges. The circumstances that have brought a child in to foster care range from temporary difficulty in the family to serious problems in parenting, including physical or sexual abuse.

It is essential and helpful to talk to the child’s social worker to get a full picture of what they have been through. If you have some idea of what their experience has been, it will be easier not to take their hostility, rejection too personally. This can help in tolerating the very difficult behavior you are likely to face.

Find tactful ways to talk to your foster child about how they are feeling.

Separated fathers

Being separated from your kids is painful, and there is no way of making it simple, although it is possible to make it work for you and your child.

It always helps if you can remain on good terms with the kids’ mother. Children are usually loyal to both parents. You and your ex-wife still need to work together as parents, if not as a couple. Taking advice from friends, colleagues or agencies may help you to focus on your kid’s needs.

Keep in touch with your child, whether it’s through emails, calls or any other way. Your child will really benefit if you take an interest in them. Explain to your kid that they are still in your mind and heart. Remember the special occasions, such as birthdays, graduation days, etc.

Single parent

Bringing up kids is demanding. And if you are a single dad the job is doubly tough. You have to strive to bring out maternal feelings.

In addition to dealing with your children, you need to deal with your loneliness too. Talk about it to your friends or relatives. If you are ready, start dating again. You can find a woman who will understand you and your situation.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a father’s responsibility in the Bible?

According to the Bible, the father is a child’s first teacher and must lead by example. He is the provider in the family who spends time with the children and disciplines them when needed. A father never gives up on his children and will always pray for them.

2. What age is perfect to be a father?

When to become a father is a personal choice you have to make after considering various factors. Therefore, there may be no perfect age to be a father. At the same time, experts say that the older you get, the lower your chances of conception. On the other side, young fathers may lack the resources to care for their young ones. Regardless of age, if you feel you are ready and can provide for children, you can become a father.

3. What are the five duties of a father?

A father has many duties to fulfill, but the five most important ones are protecting, providing, disciplining, motivating, and guiding their children.

4. What do daddy issues look like?

When a child lacks a strong father figure, they may develop problems connecting with people on a deep level. Such people might find it difficult to trust people, have a fear of abandonment, fear of intimacy, or run away from intense emotions. These are often termed ‘daddy issues.’

As a father, your role might change as the child ages. There will be a new set of challenges you might have to deal with each time. Amidst these changes, you might have pondered over the question of how to be a good father? No matter the kind of fears you hold about fatherhood, the above tips could be helpful. Tending to your child’s needs and being affectionate and emotionally invested in their lives could be a start. There may be times when you may not give your best. But as long as you keep trying to reconnect and give your best to your child, you will be a good father.

Infographic: Movies On Father-Child Relationships

Illustration: Momjunction Design Team

Key Pointers

• Fathers provide love, guidance, and learning to their children, and are looked up to by them.
• A good father is protective, affectionate, encouraging, and a strong support system for his children.
• He listens attentively, respects the mother of his children, spends quality time with his children, and is their best teacher.
• A good father is deeply involved in all stages of his children’s lives, from conception through their teenage years and beyond.

Image: Stable Diffusion/MomJunction Design Team

Personal Experience: Source

MomJunction articles include first-hand experiences to provide you with better insights through real-life narratives. Here are the sources of personal accounts referenced in this article.

• Fact-checker

Dr. Sadhvi Mythili MBBS, Psychiatrist

Sanjana lagudu bpharm, mba, shikha thakur mba, n pravenchandra singh ma, latest articles, 121 cute, romantic, funny and love memes for her.

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How to be a good father: tips & advice for dads.

What does it mean to be a dad? The art of fatherhood is evolving as society and the traditional family changes. With these positive parenting tips, dads can help their children build confidence and self-esteem, and in turn, learn how to be an engaged, supportive, and loving father to their children.

Today's families are increasingly more diverse , including single parent families, blended families, same gender parents, unmarried parents, and multi-generational families. Over the past three decades, societal changes including the rise in numbers of women working outside the home, escalating divorce rates, remarriages, and blended families are causing shifts in both maternal and paternal roles.

Ask a dad today and he will probably tell you that his father-daughter or father-son relationships differ widely from those he experienced with his own father. Changes in parenting styles have given men more options for responding to obligations as fathers, husbands or partners. Today's dad is less likely to automatically rely on his own childhood experiences for fatherhood guidance. With the constantly changing roles of dads , what worked well for his father 30 years ago, may not work at all with the complex and varied challenges modern fathers face.

Current research reveals that warm accepting fathers tend to have children with higher self-esteem. An affectionate and nurturing father-child relationship furthers the development of children's achievements, peer popularity and personal adjustment. Loving fathers, who provide reasonable, firm guidance, without arbitrarily imposing their will, help to promote competence in children.

Parenting Tips for Dads: Being an Engaged, Supportive & Loving Father

• Spend time with your child . How a father spends his time reveals to his child what is important to him. Kids grow up quickly and the time to bond is now. There are plenty of fun ways to spend family time with children .
• Discipline with love and positive parenting . All children need positive guidance and discipline , not as punishment, but to set reasonable limits. Dads should remind children of the consequences of their actions and positively acknowledge desirable behavior. Fathers who discipline in a calm and fair manner show love for their children.
• Be your child's role model . Whether they realize it or not, fathers are role models to their kids. A girl who spends time with a loving father grows up knowing she deserves to be treated with respect by boys and she learns what to look for in a partner. Fathers teach boys and girls what is important in life by demonstrating honesty, humility and responsibility.
• Earn the right to be heard . Fathers should begin conversations with their children about important topics when they are very young so that difficult subjects will be easier to handle as they get older. Take time for listening to your child's ideas and problems.
• Be your child's teacher . To be a good father, teach your children about right and wrong and encourage them to do their best. See that your children make good choices. Involved fathers use everyday examples to help children learn the basic lessons of life.
• Eat together as a family . An important part of healthy family life is bonding through family meals . It gives kids the chance to talk about what they are doing and want to do. It is also a good time for fathers to listen and be involved. It provides a structure for families to be together each day.
• Read to your child . In a modern world dominated by television and internet, it is important that fathers make the effort to read to their children in order to grow lifelong readers. Begin reading when they are very young and as they get older, encourage them to read on their own. Instilling a love of reading is one of the best ways to ensure children will have a lifetime of literacy and personal and career growth.
• Respect the other parent of your child . Parents who respect each other and demonstrate mutual respect to their children, provide a secure environment for them. When children see parents respecting each other, they are more likely to feel that they are also accepted and respected within the father-child relationship.
• Seek involvement early . Show interest early by understanding a father's role during pregnancy or the adoption or surrogacy process and gently touch, play, hold and talk to your infant child. When fathers are involved, they send the clear and emphatic message: "I want to be your father. I am interested in you and we have a relationship that is important to me."

Few events change a man's life as much as becoming a father. Being entrusted with the responsibility and care of another person is a monumental task but none is more rewarding than becoming a father and seeing your child grow gradually into adulthood, with your affection returned in good measure and your child's self-worth confirmed. Hopefully, these parenting tips can provide some guidance to dads trying to learn how to become engaged, supportive, and loving fathers.

The Work-Life Equation Podcast: Talking Fatherhood with Millennial Dads

On this episode of the Work-Life Equation: millennial dads. What does fatherhood look like in 2018? Our very candid panel of modern working dads told us about stepping up as parents, dance classes on football Sunday, sharing the load with mom, redefining self-care, and “embracing the poop” in a job that’s harder – and more fun – than they ever imagined.

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Five Characteristics Of A Good Father

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There are a number of things that children expect from their parents, fathers in particular. We look to them to be a role model, we look to them for help and advice, a hand to pull you up, or just to hold if that’s what you need. These characteristics of a good father are the most important qualities that every dad should embody.

A good father protects his children

One of the most important characteristics of a good father is that he protects his children from anything that might stand in the way of their happiness or hurt them. He puts his children’s needs first.

A good father will provide for his family

Providing for your family does not mean just  financially.

One of the characteristics of a good father is his ability to make sure he gives his children the emotional support they need with no strings attached, as well as a safety net to fall back on.

This doesn’t mean coddling them or allowing them to get away with mischief.

A good father knows what his family needs from him: love, unconditional and irrevocable; support; protection; trust; and a shoulder.

A good father is firm, but just

The hardest thing for a father to do is discipline his children . Every parent likes to believe that their child is a veritable angel and might gloss over issues that need to be addressed and dealt with.

The strongest characteristic of a good father is his ability to be an effective parent by being firm and consistent with his children.

It’s so important to teach kids the difference between right and wrong by being an effective disciplinarian and a moral compass. 

Children should be able to go to their parents when they’re in trouble, need help, or have done something wrong and don’t know what to do, without having to worry that parents will yell or punish them unfairly.

Children should know that their father will be just and fair, but at the same time help them to overcome their hurdles.

Disciplining children effectively and staying consistent is a hard trait to master, but if you’re struggling in this area, I HIGHLY recommend Parenting Manual 101 . It’s an eCourse designed to help you improve in all areas of parenting.

A good dad raises good adults

A father’s job doesn’t end when his kids turn 18. He, as their parent, is responsible for instilling in them a set of fundamental rules and moral codes by embodying those principles and following those same rules himself in life.

A good father leads by example. 

He isn’t just raising children, he’s raising a child to be a good adult.

“If you spoil your child, you will have to raise your grandchild.” Unknown

A good father raises his kids so he can spoil his grandchildren. 

A good father is kind

Parents often forget to be kind in their quest to raise their children and giving them all they need and deserve. A child with a good father knows that even when he is being disciplined, there is kindness and love behind his father’s words and actions. 

A good father never lets his child believe that he is anything but loved. How? By being kind and consistent in his actions and behavior, even when he is being firm and strict. 

Gift Ideas for Fathers

Looking for unique gift ideas for men ? Celebrate the amazing father in your life with these awesome gift ideas.

Every man has the potential to be a great dad, but it’s essential to hone these five characteristics of a good father first!

Essay on My Ideal Person My Father

Students are often asked to write an essay on My Ideal Person My Father in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on My Ideal Person My Father

Introduction.

My ideal person is my father. He is the pillar of strength and support in my life.

My father is my role model. His hard work and dedication inspire me to be the best.

He has taught me important values like honesty, kindness, and respect for others.

Patience and Understanding

My father’s patience and understanding help me grow and learn from my mistakes.

In conclusion, my father is my ideal person. His qualities make me admire and love him more.

250 Words Essay on My Ideal Person My Father

My ideal person is none other than my father, a figure of strength, compassion, and wisdom. His life and actions have always been a beacon of inspiration, guiding me towards a path of righteousness and integrity.

Symbol of Strength

My father is the embodiment of resilience. Throughout his life, he faced numerous challenges, yet he never allowed these to deter him. Instead, he used them as stepping stones to build a life of dignity and respect. His unwavering determination and perseverance have taught me the true meaning of strength, inspiring me to face my own hurdles with courage and conviction.

Epitome of Compassion

Despite his struggles, my father always prioritized the welfare of others. His compassion is not limited to his family alone; it extends to every individual who crosses his path. He has instilled in me the importance of empathy and kindness, making me understand that true success lies not in personal achievements but in the difference we make in others’ lives.

Wisdom Personified

My father’s wisdom is something I deeply admire. His perspectives on life, drawn from his experiences, have often provided me with invaluable insights. His ability to make sound decisions, even under pressure, has always amazed me. It’s this wisdom that I aspire to acquire, to navigate the complexities of life with grace and understanding.

In essence, my father, with his strength, compassion, and wisdom, personifies my ideal. His life serves as a testament to the fact that moral values and principles hold the key to true success. As I carve my path, I aim to emulate his virtues, hoping to become a reflection of my ideal person, my father.

500 Words Essay on My Ideal Person My Father

In the vast tapestry of human relationships, the bond between a father and child holds a uniquely profound significance. My father, a beacon of inspiration, is the personification of my ideal individual. His life, an epitome of hard work, sacrifice, and unwavering dedication, has been my guiding light, shaping my values and principles.

My Father: The Embodiment of Strength

My father’s strength, both physical and mental, is a trait that I deeply admire. He is not a superhero from a comic book, but his resilience in the face of adversity is nothing short of heroic. He has weathered numerous storms in his life, from financial troubles to health issues, but he has never let these challenges dampen his spirit. His strength is not a mere show of bravado; it is a testament to his unwavering resolve and determination, teaching me that strength is not about never falling, but about getting up each time we fall.

My Father: A Paragon of Perseverance

Perseverance is another quality that my father embodies. His life story is a testament to the power of perseverance. From a humble background, he worked his way up, overcoming numerous obstacles with sheer determination and hard work. His journey taught me that success is not a destination but a journey, and it is not about the absence of failures but the refusal to give up in the face of them. His perseverance inspires me to push my boundaries, to strive for excellence, and to never give up, no matter how daunting the challenges may seem.

My Father: The Epitome of Empathy

Empathy, a trait often overlooked in our fast-paced, competitive world, is another quality that my father possesses in abundance. He has always been a pillar of support for those around him, extending his help and understanding without any expectation of reciprocation. His compassion towards others, even in the face of his own struggles, taught me the importance of empathy and kindness. It made me realize that true success is not just about personal accomplishments, but also about the positive impact we can have on others’ lives.

My Father: The Model of Integrity

Integrity is the cornerstone of my father’s character. He always emphasizes the importance of honesty and ethical conduct, and his actions have always been a reflection of his words. His uncompromising adherence to his principles, even in the most challenging situations, has instilled in me a deep respect for the value of integrity. It taught me that true character is about sticking to one’s principles, even when no one is watching.

In conclusion, my father, with his strength, perseverance, empathy, and integrity, embodies my ideal person. His life serves as a constant reminder of the values that I strive to uphold. He is not just my father; he is my mentor, my inspiration, and my ideal. His life is a testament to the fact that our actions, not our words, define who we are. It is his influence that shapes my worldview, guiding me in my journey towards becoming a person of character, resilience, and empathy.

That’s it! I hope the essay helped you.

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The Importance of a Father in a Child’s Life

Anyone can father a child, but being a dad takes a lifetime. Fathers play a role in every child’s life that cannot be filled by others. This role can have a large impact on a child and help shape him or her into the person they become.

Fathers and Emotional Development

Fathers, like mothers, are pillars in the development of a child’s emotional well-being. Children look to their fathers to lay down the rules and enforce them. They also look to their fathers to provide a feeling of security, both physical and emotional. Children want to make their fathers proud, and an involved father promotes inner growth and strength. Studies have shown that when fathers are affectionate and supportive, it greatly affects a child’s cognitive and social development. It also instills an overall sense of well-being and self confidence.

Fathers Set the Bar for Relationships with Others

Fathers not only influence who we are inside, but how we have relationships with people as we grow. The way a father treats his child will influence what he or she looks for in other people. Friends, lovers, and spouses will all be chosen based on how the child perceived the meaning of the relationship with his or her father. The patterns a father sets in the relationships with his children will dictate how his children relate with other people.

Fathers and Their Daughters

Young girls depend on their fathers for security and emotional support. A father shows his daughter what a good relationship with a man is like. If a father is loving and gentle, his daughter will look for those qualities in men when she’s old enough to begin dating. If a father is strong and valiant, she will relate closely to men of the same character.

Fathers and Their Sons

Unlike girls, who model their relationships with others based on their father’s character, boys model themselves after their father’s character. Boys will seek approval from their fathers from a very young age. As human beings, we grow up by imitating the behavior of those around us; that’s how we learn to function in the world. If a father is caring and treats people with respect, the young boy will grow up much the same. When a father is absent, young boys look to other male figures to set the “rules” for how to behave and survive in the world.

So today, don’t forget to tell your dad you love him, and thanks for being there!

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God as Father

Other essays.

God is our Father not only in that he is our Creator but that he is also our Redeemer; this is what distinguishes the Christian’s relationship to God and what allows us to relate to him as Father.

In the Old Testament, God is the Father of Israel (and Israel is his son) in the context of God forgiving and redeeming Israel. While the Jews of Jesus’s day were hesitant to call God their Father (and angry at Jesus for doing so), Jesus claimed God as his Father and taught his followers to do the same. God is the Father and is also the Son, whom the Father sent to carry out his plan of redemption. What distinguishes the Son from the Father is not the quality of his being, which is just as divine as the Father’s is, but the functioning of their relationship, according to which the Son had come into the world to do the Father’s will. We relate to God as Father, therefore, through Jesus the Son, sharing in his sonship through the adoption we receive through Christ’s redeeming work for us.

Christians today take it for granted that God is our Father, but few people stop to think what this name really means. We know that Jesus taught his disciples to pray “Our Father” and that the Aramaic word Abba (“Father”) is one of the few that Jesus used and that it has remained untranslated in our New Testament. Nowadays, hardly anybody finds this strange and many people are surprised to discover that the Jews of Jesus’s day, and even his own disciples, were puzzled by his teaching. This is because the deeper meaning and the wider implications of the term “Father” are largely unknown today. So widespread and generally accepted has the name become that we no longer question it, and so we often fail to realize how important it is for our understanding of God.

Pre-Christian Understandings of God as Father

Jesus caused a reaction when he talked about God as his Father, but did he invent that idea? Were there no precedents in Judaism (or perhaps even among pagans) for his teaching? Jesus’s assertion that God was his Father first occurred in a debate about the Sabbath day of rest. Jesus claimed that it was proper for him to perform healings on the Sabbath because, in his words: “My Father is working until now, and I am working” (John 5:17). In other words, although God rested on the seventh day from his work of creation, his work of preservation and ultimately of redemption was still ongoing. Moreover, Jesus associated his own ministry with that continuing work of the Father, raising the question of their relationship in a way that antagonized his fellow Jews. As the Gospel records:

That was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God (John 5:18).

Was the reaction of the Jews justified? The Old Testament seldom uses the word Father as a description of God, but there are at least two important texts in which it does so. Both of them are found towards the end of Isaiah and occur in the context of sin and repentance. The first one reads like this:

You are our Father, though Abraham does not know us and Israel does not acknowledge us; you, O Lord, are our Father, our Redeemer from old is your name (Isa. 63:16–17).

The second reads:

O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay and you are our potter; we are all the work of your hand. Be not so terribly angry, O Lord, and remember not iniquity forever (Isa. 64:8–9).

At first sight it might appear that Isaiah was calling God Father because he was Israel’s Creator, but matters are not as simple as that. God was the Creator of every human being, not just of Israel, but he had not established a covenant relationship with everyone. It is clear from the way that Isaiah addressed him that he regarded Israel’s connection to God as something special, and different from what could be said about the entire human race. For him to call God Father was to acknowledge a particular relationship with him. In these verses, God is addressed as Father, not because he is Israel’s Creator, but because he is its Redeemer, which reveals the nature of the special relationship that God has with his chosen people.

The covenant context of God’s fatherhood is also expressed in other Old Testament texts, although the word “Father” is not specifically mentioned. Consider, for example, the words of Moses:

You are the sons of the Lord your God … For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth (Deut. 14:1–2).

Something analogous appears in Psalm 103:

As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him (Ps. 103:13).

Similarly, in Jeremiah we find the following:

Is Ephraim my dear son? Is he my darling child? For as often as I speak against him, I do remember him still. Therefore my heart yearns for him; I will surely have mercy on him, declares the Lord (Jer. 31:20).

In each of these cases, the underlying theme is that God is the Father of Israel. He has chosen the Israelites as his children, and because he has done so, he will redeem them in spite of their sinfulness. His fatherhood is expressed in that covenant context and would make no sense apart from it. Jesus brought this dimension out when he challenged the Jewish assumption that they were the children of Abraham, just as he was. He acknowledged their claim in a way but went on to say that in fact, both he and they were doing the work of their spiritual fathers, who were not the same. Jesus was doing the work of God his Father, but his Jewish opponents were doing the work of the devil, whom Jesus said was their true father—not Abraham. This so angered the Jews that they were moved to cry out that “God is our Father,” a recognition of the very thing that they were criticizing Jesus for saying but a claim to which the Old Testament bears witness (John 8:37–59). So, although it did not come naturally to the Jews, when provoked in this way, they were prepared to admit that God was their Father in the covenantal sense.

Non-Jewish peoples were quite different from this. Often they were prepared to recognize the existence of a divine Father figure, as we see from the name Jupiter (“Father Jove”), but it was not always clear what that meant. For some, their father god was a creator, but for others, and especially for Platonists in New Testament times, the Father was a hidden deity who dwelt above the heavens and had no direct contact with material things. Instead, he had a mind that produced thoughts and ideas, one of which was the Creator (Demiurge), who made the world. The reason for this distinction was that the Platonists knew that the world is imperfect, and so it could not have been made by the Father directly. In the early church, there were people whom we call Gnostics, who took over this way of thinking. They believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of the hidden Father, whom he had sent in order to redeem the world from the work of the (inferior) Creator. No Christian could accept that idea, however, because the Biblical revelation makes it clear that the Creator and the Redeemer are the same God. The God of the Bible is the Creator of all human beings, but the Father only of those whom he intends to redeem, and it was in his Son Jesus Christ that he revealed this purpose to those whom he had chosen for salvation.

Jesus and His Father

Christians call God their Father because that is what Jesus taught his disciples to do. He did this not in order to emphasize that God was their Creator (though of course he was) but because he was their Redeemer. Jesus had a unique relationship with God the Father that he wanted to share with his followers. During his time on earth, he was quite clear about this. “He who has seen me has seen the Father,” he said (John 14:9). “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30). There were some in the early Church who interpreted verses like these to mean that Jesus was himself the Father, merely appearing on earth in disguise. That view cannot be accepted, however, because on many other occasions Jesus either spoke to his Father or referred to him in ways that make it clear that the Father is a different person. This is particularly obvious in his words on the cross. When he said: “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34) and “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46) there is no doubt that he was not talking to himself.

At the same time, it is also clear from the New Testament that Jesus had the authority of the Father to say and do the things recorded of him in the Gospels, and that what he did was the work of God. A good example of this occurs in Mark’s Gospel, when Jesus demonstrated to a skeptical audience that he had the power to forgive sins, a prerogative that belongs to God alone (Mark 2:6–12). His critics were therefore right to say that in calling himself the Son, Jesus was making himself equal to God, because Father and Son share the same nature. What distinguishes the Son from the Father is not the quality of his being, which is just as divine as the Father’s is, but the functioning of their relationship, according to which the Son had come into the world to do the Father’s will.

Jesus revealed that the Father had decided to redeem the world, not by himself but through his Son. The New Testament never explains why the Father and the Son are related to each other in this way. All that we can say is that both of them are eternally present in the Trinity, but why one of them is the Father and the other is his Son is a mystery hidden from our eyes (John 1:1–3) What we do know is that it was the Father’s plan to save his chosen people and that the Son voluntarily agreed to become a man in order to carry out the Father’s intentions (Phil. 2:5–8). The sins of human beings had to be paid for, not because the Father is vindictive but because his human children matter to him. What we do is important, and if our acts are wrong he cannot simply ignore them. The price of rebellion against God is death because God is the source of life, and so to be cut off from him is to be cut off from life itself. Spiritually dead people have no power to pay the price for their sins—only a sinless person can do that. That is why the Son of God became a man. He suffered and died, not just for our sake but also for the Father’s, because the Father’s justice was satisfied by his atoning death. The Father acknowledged this by raising him from the dead and taking him back into heaven, where he has placed him at his right hand as the ruler and judge of the world (Acts 2:32–33; Phil. 2:9–11; 1 Cor. 15:20–28).

The Father and Us

Father and Son remain distinct persons, but they work together for the salvation of those who have been chosen. The Father is revealed to us as the principle of the Godhead, the one who plans the work of salvation and who sends the Son in order to carry it out. The Son pleads for us in the presence of the Father and the Father forgives us because of the Son’s intercession on our behalf. We are encouraged to pray to the Father and enabled to do so because the Son has united us to him in his death and resurrection (Gal. 2:20). By this act, Jesus has associated us with himself as his siblings. The difference is that he is the divine and sinless Son of the Father by nature, whereas we are sinners who have been adopted by him. Jesus himself said as much when he told Mary Magdalene, after his resurrection, to go to his disciples, whom he now called his brothers, and tell them what was about to happen:

Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father; but go to my brothers and say to them, “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17).

By nature we are not children of God. As his creatures, we have nothing in common with his divine being, but by the indwelling presence of his Holy Spirit, we have been integrated into the life of the Trinity. It is because of this presence of the Spirit in us that we are able to approach the Father and have a relationship with him. As Paul wrote to the Galatians:

Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying “Abba, Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God (Gal. 4:6–7).

In practical terms, the relationship that the Son has given us with God the Father is analogous to his own. In the Son, we have become heirs of the Father’s kingdom, co-rulers with him and even judges of the angels (1 Cor. 6:3). This high calling comes with a price tag, for just as the Son glorified his Father while on earth, so we too are called to glorify him (John 17:1–26). We cannot do this in our own strength, but only in and through the relationship that the Father has entered into with us, through the Son and the Holy Spirit. Just as everything they do is done in relation to the Father, so everything that we are called to do must also be done in the context of obedience to his will. It is to the Father that we pray, through the Son and in the Spirit, because that is the pattern of our relationship to God that he has revealed to us. We pray to the Father because our Creator is also our Redeemer, and it is in that redeeming love that we know him.

Further Reading

• A. T. Robertson, The Teaching of Jesus concerning God the Father
• Christopher J. H. Wright, Knowing God the Father through the Old Testament
• Gerald Bray, God has Spoken
• Lehman Strauss, The First Person. Devotional Studies on God the Father
• Millard Erickson, God the Father Almighty. A Contemporary Exploration of the Divine Attributes
• Thomas Smail, The Forgotten Father

This essay is part of the Concise Theology series. All views expressed in this essay are those of the author. This essay is freely available under Creative Commons License with Attribution-ShareAlike, allowing users to share it in other mediums/formats and adapt/translate the content as long as an attribution link, indication of changes, and the same Creative Commons License applies to that material. If you are interested in translating our content or are interested in joining our community of translators,  please reach out to us .

This essay has been translated into French .

Essay on My Father for Students and Children

500+ words essay on my father.

Essay on My Father: Usually, people talk about a mother’s love and affection, in which a father’s love often gets ignored. A mother’s love is talked about repeatedly everywhere, in movies, in shows and more. Yet, what we fail to acknowledge is the strength of a father which often goes unnoticed. Father’s a blessing which not many people have in their lives. It would also be wrong to say that every father is the ideal hero for their kids because that is not the case. However, I can vouch for my father without any second thoughts when it comes to being an ideal person.

My Father is Different!

As everyone likes to believe that their father is different, so do I. Nonetheless, this conviction is not merely based on the love I have for him, but also because of his personality. My father owns a business and is quite disciplined in all aspects of life. He is the one who taught me to always practice discipline no matter what work I do.

Most importantly, he has a jovial nature and always makes my mother laugh with his silly antics even after 27 years of marriage. I completely adore this silly side of him when he is with his loved ones. He tries his best to fulfill all our wishes but also maintains the strictness when the need arises.

One of the best things I love about my father is that he has always kept a very safe and open home environment. For instance, my siblings and I can talk about anything with him without the fear of being scolded or judged. This has helped us not to lie, which I have often noticed with my friends.

In addition, my father has an undying love for animals which makes him very sympathetic towards them. He practices his religion devotedly and is very charitable too. I have never seen my father misbehave with his elders in my entire life which makes me want to be like him even more.

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My Father is My Source of Inspiration

I can proudly say that it is my father who has been my source of inspiration from day one. In other words, his perspective and personality together have shaped me as a person. Similarly, he has a great impact on the world as well in his own little ways. He devotes his free time in taking care of stray animals which inspires me to do the same.

My father has taught me the meaning of love in the form of a rose he gifts to my mother daily without fail. This consistency and affection encourage all of us to treat them the same way. All my knowledge of sports and cars, I have derived from my father. It is one of the sole reasons why I aspire to be a cricket player in the future.

To sum it up, I believe that my father has it all what it takes to be called a real-life superhero. The way he manages things professionally and personally leaves me mesmerized every time. No matter how tough the times got, I watched my father become tougher. I certainly aspire to become like my father. If I could just inherit ten percent of what he is, I believe my life will be sorted.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Parents — How to Be a Good Parent

How to Be a Good Parent

• Categories: Parenting Parents

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Words: 672 |

Published: Sep 16, 2023

Words: 672 | Page: 1 | 4 min read

Table of contents

1. unconditional love and support, 2. active listening, 3. setting clear boundaries, 4. leading by example, 5. encouraging independence, 6. quality time and engagement, 7. encourage learning and curiosity, 8. discipline with compassion, 9. adapt to your child's needs, 10. seek support and guidance.

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14 Characteristics of a Good Father According to the Bible

Are you excited to be a father? Do you hope you can be a godly dad to your kids and succeed in molding them into upright individuals?

If you want to be the kind of dad that pleases God, find out the characteristics of a good father according to the Bible. Here are some of them:

Leads as the Family’s Spiritual Head

1. he is a good husband to his wife..

You cannot be a good father to your kids without being a good husband to their mother first. That is why you must also strive to be a loving, considerate, and respectful husband to your wife. If you have a harmonious relationship with her, your home will be peaceful and full of love, which will secure your children.

“Husbands, in the same way be considerate as you live with your wives, and treat them with respect as the weaker partner and as heirs with you of the gracious gift of life, so that nothing will hinder your prayers.” (1 Peter 3:7)

2. He Protects His Marriage.

A lot of marriages fail today, leaving numerous kids broken and hurting. For this reason, you should guard your marriage against unfaithfulness, pride, violence, and anything that can cause separation or divorce.

“So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.” (Matthew 19:6)

3. He Promotes God’s Word at Home.

If you want your kids to grow up loving God and living according to His will, you should introduce them to the Bible. Aside from going to church as a family and letting them attend Sunday school, make sure you have your own Bible sharing at home.

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.” (Deuteronomy 6:5-9)

4. He Leads the Family to Serve the Lord.

Make it a goal to serve God as a family. Being active in the ministry and participating in church fellowships altogether will help instill Christlike values in them. These will also help them discover the purpose of their existence, which is living for God.

“But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.” (Joshua 24:15)

5. He Fears the Lord.

A good father is God-fearing. Since he has reverence for the Lord, He will be careful to obey His commands in everything. This godly wisdom will help him come up with the right decisions for his family. Moreover, this attitude will lead to blessings from God, with his children benefiting the most from them.

“Whoever fears the Lord has a secure fortress, and for their children it will be a refuge.” (Proverbs 14:26)

6. He Encourages His Children to Live for God

A Christlike dad will not just encourage his kids to go to church and be part of a ministry. His main goal is to instill in their hearts that their purpose in life is to glorify God.

“For you know that we dealt with each of you as a father deals with his own children, encouraging, comforting and urging you to live lives worthy of God, who calls you into his kingdom and glory.” (1 Thessalonians 2: 11-12)

7. He is Prayerful.

Every parent who has faith in God will entrust their family to Him through prayers. Therefore, you should regularly pray for your kids and the entire family. Instead of letting problems cloud your judgments in decision-making, you get peace through Christ Jesus in your heart.

“Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6)

8. He is Compassionate to His Children and Treats Them with Grace.

A good father is like God—he is merciful to his children. Even if they commit mistakes, he treats them with grace, forgiving them for what they have done, and still loving them unconditionally.

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” (Luke 15:20)

Guides His Children

9. he is a role model to them..

As a father, it is your greatest job to teach your children to be righteous individuals. The best way to do this is by being a role model to them in integrity, faith, love, and Christlikeness. Be a good example to them by living these godly principles.

“In everything set them an example by doing what is good. In your teaching show integrity, seriousness” (Titus 2:7)

10. He Disciplines Them.

Do not be afraid to discipline your children when they do something wrong. To become good citizens in the future, you have to train them while they are young. Rebuke and correct them when they commit mistakes. Punish them if necessary so they will understand the weight of their wrongdoings.

“My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline, and do not resent his rebuke, because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.” (Proverbs 3:11-12)

Desires Good Things for the Family

11. he gives his kids what is good for them..

Any parent would want to provide the best for their kids, so it is natural that you will give them what they need—not the wants that will lead them to destruction. Of course, it will be a delight to give them what can make them happy or benefit them the most. How you provide for your children reflects the desire of the Father in heaven to give good gifts to His children.

“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” (Luke 11:11-13)

12. He Works with Excellence.

A good father works diligently to be able to provide for his family’s needs. Moreover, he treats his job as a blessing from God, thus giving his best to honor Him. Anyone who works with dedication and excellence will surely reap what they sow—which is abundance for the family.

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters,” (Colossians 3:23)

13. He Trains Them in a Righteous Way.

Overall, you are a good father if you are able to train your kids in a godly way. To do this, make sure to teach them what is right and wrong according to God’s standards. Also, introduce them to the Bible as a source of wisdom and principles. When they grow up, they will always go back to this foundation.

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)

14. He Secures Them with Love.

If you want your children to feel secure, you have to instill love in their hearts. Assure them that they are loved—by God, their parents, friends, and others close to their hearts. Then, teach them to love others as well. With this, they will grow up with more courage and positivity to face life’s challenges.

“Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Corinthians 13:7)

You Can Do It with God’s Wisdom

It may seem scary, but if you rely on God all way, you can succeed in being a good father. Therefore, pray earnestly, seek wisdom through His Word, and ask guidance from godly dads you know.

Online courses recommended for you：

• Prophetic School And Hearing The Voice of God This course is for any believer who is hungry for God’s power to flow through them, bless, and minister to people.
• 15 Essential Biblical Texts 15 key Biblical texts you can use to bring deeper meaning to your life for anyone interested in creating a more meaningful life through Biblical wisdom.
• The Resurrection of the Son of God Study of the afterlife and the idea of resurrection.

Books recommended for you:

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How to Have Wisdom from God According to the Bible