Category Archives: Parenting
The Father Effect
Nowadays there are so many different configurations of families, living arrangements and cultural influences on family roles. However, regardless of your family makeup, we all either have a father, know one, will be one or will marry one someday.
Fathers are often left out; out of books, magazines, school & medical decisions, family therapy, research studies and the field of psychology in general. Fathers and father figures serve as a template just as much as mothers do, and we know children follow more by example than advice. So, what kind of example is being set in your family?
Template for Daughters:
- Ideas on what men are like
- How men view and treat women (intellectually, emotionally, sexually, etc)
- Safety, intimacy and affection with men
- Model physical activities
- Model values
- Model gender roles
Template for Sons:
- Model how to act, problem solve, relate to others
- Model for how to view and treat women
- Model how to be a man and a father
- Model physical activities
- Model for values
- Model gender roles
Actively Involved Fathers
The research often describes “good fathers” as actively involved- (1) engagement (directly interacting); (2) accessibility (being available); and (3) responsibility (providing resources).
Even among socioeconomically at-risk families, children whose fathers were actively involved in early and middle childhood compared to those with absentee fathers typically had: Read the rest of this entry
Stressed Parents: The Trickle Down Effect
I recently attended the annual conference by the American Family Therapy Academy (AFTA), which had an emphasis on family resilience. I have decided to share some information from one of the most poignant and powerful presentations I attended, by Gabor Maté , M.D. Dr. Maté ‘s expertise includes addiction, ADHD, mind-body wellness, adolescent mental health and parenting. While Dr. Mate’s talk focused on the source of addiction from his book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, he addressed the issue of stressed parents from his other bestselling book called, “When the Body Says No, The Hidden Costs of Stress.”
Most parents will say stress comes with the territory and usually fluctuates depending on various circumstances. Nowadays, parents are facing more stressors than ever with the current economic crisis, rampant unemployment, lack of resources and so on. So what happens to families when parents are in a constant state of stress?
The Brain & the Environment
Dr. Maté talks about how the human brain is not fully developed at birth, and so the environment that children are exposed to in the first 3-5 years of life has a huge impact on brain development. As a result, the social and psychological environment that children are in has the capacity to influence a child’s genes. Therefore, it is extremely important for the child to be in an environment where the parent is not highly stressed and is very emotionally present. Otherwise, Maté says children are likely to develop unhealthy behavior patterns (such as ADD, repressed emotions, chronic illness etc.) to cope with this early childhood experience.
While a stressful environment can include extremes, such as abuse, neglect, war or any type of violence, it can also include having financial stress, marital conflict, mental illness etc. Read the rest of this entry
