The Power of The Father
Posted: Tuesday, February 26, 2008
by Abigail Richards
The amount of kids growing up in a single parent home without a father continues to rise. I have all the respect in the world for single moms, but the influence of a father figure can mean the difference between a successful child and a struggling child. My husband recently started mentoring at our local elementary school. If you are a man and have time, it will be worth your time to even spend 30 minutes a week in the school. What my husband has found is astounding. The kid he mentors alone suffers every day from a father who is abusive when he is around. The kid has been deteriorating right before everyone's eyes. His parents divorced this year. The father for some reason is rough with him-maybe it is his culture or upbringing, but it is tearing this kid apart. Through this volunteer work, my husband has found that the majority of the kids in the principal's office everyday are the ones who do not have a father figure in the household.
According to the National Fatherhood Initiative, 24.7 million children live absent their biological father. The odds for these children are not good either. Statistically speaking these kids have to overcome a lot of adversity to make it in life. Here are just a few of the statistics:
- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states, "Fatherless children are at a dramatically greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse."
- Children who live apart from their fathers are 4.3 times more likely to smoke cigarettes as teenagers than children growing up with their fathers in the home.
- Three out of four teenage suicides occur in households where a parent has been absent.
- School children from divorced families are absent more, and more anxious, hostile, and withdrawn, and are less popular with their peers than those from intact families.
- Adolescent females between the ages of 15 and 19 years reared in homes without fathers are significantly more likely to engage in premarital sex than adolescent females reared in homes with both a mother and a father.
Volunteer at the local school
Our school has several programs specifically designed to tackle this program head on. Most schools do. If your local school does not, think about starting these programs. Our school has a mentoring program in which dads volunteer to spend time with a student each week-usually 30 minutes. That could be a lunch break. You may think you are not qualified to do something like mentoring. It is easy-u play games, go outside, play sports or sometimes just read. The point isn't to become the child's father. The point is to be a good role model in the child's life.
The other program our school has is a national program created by the National Institute of Fathering called Watch D.O.G.S. (dads of great students). Any men can serve as a Watch D.O.G.S. Basically you volunteer one day to spend the entire day on campus. WatchDOG volunteers perform a variety of tasks during their volunteer day including monitoring the school entrance, assisting with unloading and loading of buses and cars, monitoring the lunch room, or helping in the classroom with a teacher's guidance by working with small groups of students on homework, flashcards, or spelling. For more information, visit online at www.father.com
Volunteer To Coach
I can not tell you how many sport leagues my child has been in that has had a shortage of coaches. Those who are fathers feel they do not have time or that they are not qualified. This simply is not true. A lot of the kids, who sign up for sports, are from single parent homes. The moms are looking for a way to get a male influence in their child's lives.
Volunteer to Teach
Volunteer to teach a class or a civic group. It can be a Sunday school group or a boyscout troop. Just be available to the single moms around you. You know how to fish, offer a day of fishing for kids in your area. Be active and be visible. Let the kids see your male presence around the community.
I am not meaning this article to sound sexist. I just think the role or power of the father continues to be overlooked in our society today. I have a single mom friend whose son has been in trouble at school lately. She said, "I know what he needs. I just can't give him that. He needs a father."
Men, it is hard to raise kids. I realize that work is a huge time commitment and being a provider is important. I just want you to realize that investing time now in a child's life could have more of a profitable return. Be more involved in your families and in your community. We need to put an end to the lack of male presence these days.
This Article has been viewed 563 times. (Not updated in real-time.)
No comments yet.We want your comments! If you can read this, you don't have javascript enabled, so you can't use this comment system. Please enable javascript.