Posted with permission from I'll Eat You Up!

Enough time has passed in my life where I can look back and (mostly) understand the things my parents had taught me, or at least tried to teach me, or maybe forgot to teach me as I was growing up. I wish now that I had paid attention and listened to the importance of knowing these things and how they will ultimately shape the person that I have become, or have yet to become. I plan and hope that I will be able to teach these things to my son, so he truly understands the importance of each lesson as he begins his life.

Your children need to play. They need to play for many reasons. Many fathers today remember spending countless hours playing with siblings or friends during their childhood. Parents would drop you off somewhere and your imaginations would take over as you became soldiers, famous ballplayers, dinosaur hunters, etc.

There are many factors that make it more difficult for children to play in today’s world. There is an emphasis on early academics. There is more TV watching today by children than ever before. There is the seductive attraction of video games. There is also the need for constant supervision of our kids in urban environments.

These factors and others have helped to create children who sometimes have forgotten how to have imaginative play. They’ll have a house full of toys but say “I’m bored” or that they have nothing to do. They may look to their parents to entertain them, rather than creating their own play.

Having a high level of emotional intelligence in your children is the best way to ensure that they live a happy, successful, and responsible life as an adult. Here are ten ways to help your kids attain a high degree of emotional intelligence:

1. Model emotional intelligence yourself
Yes, your kids are watching very closely. They see how you respond to frustration, they see how resilient you are, and they see whether you’re aware of your own feelings and the feelings of others.

2. Be willing to say “no” to your kids
There’s a lot of stuff out there for kids. And your kids will ask for a lot of it. Saying no will give your kids an opportunity to deal with disappointment and to learn impulse control. To a certain degree, your job as a parent is to allow your kids to be frustrated and to work through it. Kids who always get what they want typically aren’t very happy.

3. Be aware of your parental “hotspots”

Leisure time is something we treasure and before our children came along, we managed to occupy ourselves in many ways. Being a Dad means priorities need to change and while it is important for our own personal well being, we now have to manage that time better in order to enjoy it with our little people as they need it as much as us! The great thing to understand is that children are simply pleased. Buying toys and computer games to play with them is not what is about. These pleasures exist at our doorsteps and…they don’t cost anything!

In our attempts to prepare our children for life’s challenges, advance their experiences and begin the journey of education, life has become more complex and stressful for our little people.

Because fathers are busy working and have less down time, it is often thought the best way to spend time with young children is through organized events such as gym classes, music, swimming, dance, sport etc. However, what children want and need the most is time spent playing and interacting with their parents and fathers are no exception. We are creating stressed children who really want to do simple things and do them over and over again!

WHO HAS HIDDEN THE EMOTIONAL REMOTE CONTROL?

There is absolutely no question that James has my attention. We do, after all, spend all day every day together and I am never far away if not right there with him. He is not unwell; its true what they say, you can tell when they are crying for real and this is most definitely not real crying. He is certainly not bored; we lead a pretty active life, go to playgroup, music group, play outside, go to parks, play with toys, take train rides. Nor is he tired; sleeps in the afternoon, goes to bed at 7pm with no dramas and sleeps like a champion. James is in every sense a well adjusted, happy, loved, two and half year old boy.

So why does this happen?

Time: 5.40am. James has woken up with the first light and trundles sleepily down the corridor to mummy and daddy's bedroom where, like every morning, he groggily thuds on the door.

JAMES: Daddy... open the door.

The following content has been contributed by Maurice Mok and is published on this blog with his permission.



A study of 27 pre-schoolers found that popular children are more likely to have fathers who are physically playful, affectionate and socially engaging and mothers who are highly verbal.
[Bridging the Gap: Parent-Child Play Interaction and Peer Interactive Competence, MacDonald and Parke]

"Your child's recognition of the differences between mother and father care actually enhances his development."
—Kyle Pruett, MD

When it comes to connecting with an infant, does a mother have an advantage over a father because the baby has heard her voice for nine months?

I want to share a letter with you that Focus on the Family recently received …

Hi my name is Emily,

The other night I awoke at 2 in the morning after hearing a noise downstairs. Nervously, I slipped quietly toward the mysterious sound. Anxiety turned into anger as I approached the faint but distinct music of my sons’ favourite video game—the same game that I’d told him to stop playing hours earlier in order to go to bed.

At that moment, I couldn’t decide whether to scream or cry. Anyway, I unplugged the video-game system, walked onto my second-story deck and threw hundreds of dollars worth of equipment over the railing. With a great sense of relief, I listened for the sweet sound of crashing electronics below.

Whist numbers and colours where initially great this little lady is growing very fast and learns lots of different things all the time. Her mind is a sponge and we are the water.

So I asked a friend who is an Early Childcare Educator as I was thinking maybe I should be doing something more – I read the articles from SPARC on our website also, but like I said felt that there could be more done. She gave me an interesting photocopied read from R Hargreaves (2000) called “Growing Up” , I have copied a few of the things that I think fathers might want to gauge where there child is at but remember every child is different.

- Scott

By 3 Months

Fathers parent differently from mothers and that difference matters greatly for children.
Fatherhood is just as essential to healthy child development as motherhood. In some measures, father-love is more important. The professional journal, Review of General Psychology, finds “evidence suggests that the influence of father love on offspring’s development is as great as and occasionally greater than the influence of mother love.” Fathering expert Dr. Kyle Pruett explains in Fatherneed: Why Father Care is as essential as Mother Care for Your Child, "fathers do not mother." Psychology Today explains, "fatherhood turns out to be a complex and unique phenomenon with huge consequences for the emotional and intellectual growth of children." Erik Erikson, a pioneer in the world of child psychology, explained that father love and mother love are qualitatively different kinds of love. Fathers "love more dangerously" because their love is more "expectant, more instrumental" than a mother’s love.4 A father, as a male biological parent, brings unique contributions to the job of parenting a child that no one else can replicate.

Following are some of the most compelling ways father involvement makes a positive difference in a child’s life. The first benefit is the difference itself.