Being a Good Father-Role Model For Children

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– Being a good father isn’t about being controlling, fake or strict. It is about taking care of the environment your child grows into, starting with yourself and your own life.

How to properly raise kids is something that’s hard to figure out. Sometimes it seems like debates about it are more issues of pride (parents stating their own method as the best) than actual discussions about what’s REALLY good for our children. Did you ever notice that most parents simply change their views on appropriate child education depending on what they are doing in their own home, only to justify themselves? Unstable parents will certainly be quick to consider their child as “independent” and “responsible” for their growth, that way, they quickly let go of the blame if problems ever arise (and they do). However, isn’t it the child that decides when to let go of the influence of his parents? As a father or future father, you are definitely responsible for the example your whole household is giving to your child for his future life. Here’s how to do that and what to believe when it comes to raising kids.

Do We Copy What We See?

First, let’s clear out this advice we hear a lot of in these modern times: Children become what they see.

While this is a great improvement from a mindset where parents thought that their child wasn’t affected at all by their behavior, the “We Copy What We See” advice is still very misunderstood and badly applied. It is not enough to do some acting in front of children for them to only see “good ” things.

It’s time to go to the next level: parents need to actually fix their own lives up, so that the example that they give to their kids is completely congruent. Showing a good facade to children isn’t enough anymore. We need to go pass the habit of trying to display a great role model in front of children, but acting otherwise as soon as they’re gone and not able to see and listen.

Children have an ability to feel subtle things just like adults, maybe an even more powerful one along with an instinct to pick up on the incongruities of their parents. They know you just as well as you know them.

The little games you play in your life, whether it be cheating, gambling, seeking approval, being an hypocrite or else, your children are very, very inclined to play them in their future life as teenagers and adults despite your best attempts at hiding these flaws. In fact, even if they’ve never seen proof of you cheating on your wife or being an hypocrite, they will learn the behavior AND the ways to cover it up just by living with you. You will just show them the ropes if you play games.

It is time for you to step up as a father and start acting better than what your guy friends suggest or what most guys set as a standard. Get above that. A good father has NOTHING to hide to their children and entourage.

Just to end this lesson with the brighter side of things. Great qualities transmit in a just as magnificent manner as the bad habits. What I advise you doing besides improving yourself in as many areas as possible, is to be constant in what you display. Be constantly happy, motivated and positive at home, at work, everywhere. Your child will get that vibe from you, copy it and what a great father and role model you will be!

Going Further and Deeper with Role Models

Your job as a father is not only to be a great role model, but just as importantly to find better role models for him to hang around. As you can guess, this needs to be done VERY subtly. Kids and teenagers will never want you to control them and you shouldn’t.

However, you are still responsible for the environment they live in and they can’t take that away from you either. Being responsible for the environment means to show and offer him several other options for him to choose from that will lead him to better behavior to look at and copy. We all eventually copy behaviors through our subconscious. Be careful with this: no attempts at convincing or forcing the child is allowed when giving him more options. For example, if you notice that the football team your child ended playing for has a lot of other children that could have a negative influence on him, you can simply ask him if he would like to switch teams. Tell him ” Just wanted to make sure you like your team and we can go all year with this!” and it must be said without any underlying message or tone that implies you want something to happen. Perhaps your child will indeed decide to switch teams, but for other reasons.

Maybe he wants to win that championship to impress his friends or he just thinks the other team’s uniforms look better! What’s important here is that you acted as some sort of guardian angel for him, just putting more chances and opportunities in his path so he ends up living a fulfilling and healthy life, which he will indeed have to do on his own at some point. The people he meets at any point of his life will have an impact on him, including his football team, and you’ve just put the odds in his favor.

This brings us to my last point: you shouldn’t constantly need to approval of your child and him to say that you’re the greatest father in the world. Referring to the example we’ve just made about football, your kid doesn’t ever need to know what you did for him in those instances, he will feel it anyway. A father that would have told his kid about his intentions about the football team would have just scared the child away who might have taken such moves as manipulation. Even if it’s hard, you must accept that in a lot of cases your child will never understand all the bright moves, efforts and passion you’ve put into raising him. Still though, you can very likely reap these rewards by keeping a great relationship with him when he grows up, becomes a father himself, and comes up to you thanking you a hundred times for what you did. This will totally make up for all the instant gratification you resisted when he was only a child.

Conclustion

In conclusion, being a good father isn’t about being controlling, fake or strict. It is about taking care of the environment your child grows into, starting with yourself and your own life. The greatest mistake any parents can do is not the school pick or the discipline they put the child through, it is to put a new child on earth and expect him to live a healthier life than yours because you’re too lazy to repair your own.

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Ahsan Mustafa – The Natural Man – [http://www.ahsanmustafa.com]
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