How To Be A Good Dad

In this blog, I will be starting a conversation on how to be a good dad. I’m only going to cover a few things in this post. There are a lot of key factors to being a good dad, and we all have what it takes if we can just act on what we know is best for our children. I will go over a few of the points that I’m talking about.

The first key point of being a good dad is unconditional love for your child or children and showing your unconditional love to children. The first moment I knew being close to your children and cherishing every moment with them is the most important thing in a father’s life was when I started working at a local funeral home in Houston Texas.During my time as an embalmer/funeral director I encountered some of the most challenging times of my life. I was embalming three to nine babies and children under the age of 12 a week. This is when I experience the grief of a mourning father. I saw fathers go through the hardest times of their lives. One thing that they all said and had in common was they thought they had their whole life to spend time with their children. I thought the same thing before I was shown how fast it can all end. Life is too short not to cherish every moment you can with your family. I heard one father tell his 12-year-old boy that he loved him for the first time – his son was laying in a casket the night before his funeral. You don’t want to wait to express to your kids that you love them.

How can you be a good dad?  Is it time with your children, advice, guidance, love, faith, teaching right from wrong, how to fish, looking both ways before crossing the road or warning “Don’t touch it’s hot?” The list goes on and on. Every one of these is part of being a good father. The first one that stands out is love. If your kids know that you love them and there is no question about it in their minds, then you’re off to a good start. There are a lot of dads out there that never tell their children that they love them. I know that some people weren’t raised to say I love you or to express their emotions. I myself, was raised to say I love you, give hugs and ask for kisses.  Growing up I heard my dad tell me that he loves me and it never got old. I knew that when I had my own children I would express myself as often as I could. I know that my dad loves me, and it was nice to hear it once in a while. 

The second thing is time. Time is so important. During a work week, it’s hard to spend a lot of time with your children. For the longest time I worked every weekend and nights as well.  It was a responsibility of myself to contribute to my family, as is for most Fathers. You still have to make time. When you come home from work, you want to relax and sit down, enjoy dinner, maybe watch some shows on the TV. Everyone wants to be able to relax after working all day.However, if you veg out too long, your kids won’t ever really get to know you. You will be the boring dad. You will be that dad that comes home and no one talks to because he’ll get mad if you bother him during his show. I know that there are going to be days when you need your rest and that’s perfectly fine. However, it’s important to be involved with your kids as often as you can and not just on the weekends. There are times when you could pick out a show and watch it with your kids. I actually loved watching movies with my dad because he would always explain or discuss the plot of the movie. I wouldn’t have understood the plot by watching it myself. The same thing goes for music. Music is the perfect opportunity to sit down with your kids and help them to understand what’s behind the music. I can’t stress enough how important it is to know what your kids are listening to and what their opinions are about the artist and their music. Which brings me to my next point.Do you know what influences your kids and do you actually know your kids? How many times have you heard “My kid wouldn’t do that and then come to find out they did?” You just didn’t know that they were capable of doing it because you really didn’t know your kid.