I knew a guy in high school who loved to play pick up basketball games. He didn’t like basketball, but liked to get fouled as this was his pretext to start a fist fight. He liked to fight. I was thinking to myself as he was telling me these fight stories, what is wrong with guy and I would never play basketball against him.
There are certain males out there who need a strong male figure around as they are growing up to make sure these types of guys make it to adulthood without dying young or going to prison.
Sports does give a lot of males their opportunity to be physical in a safe context. Here is the story of a pro football player who is a math prodigy. BS in math in 3 years. A Masters in one year.
“I play because I love the game. I love hitting people,” he writes. “There’s a rush you get when you go out on the field, lay everything on the line and physically dominate the player across from you.”
“This is a feeling I’m (for lack of a better word) addicted to, and I’m hard-pressed to find anywhere else,” he explains.
I really like this question, and a lot of excellent points have been made. I agree with many about how similar it should be to good mothering, and how parenting should be a co-operative effort with each taking the lead in areas that make sense for them. While I’m not sure of ones that specifically apply to fathers, I think being a role model is really as simple as I can put it. Respect your spouse, respect your elders, respect others in general, work hard, be fair and kind, don’t give up, etc.
One thing that might be traditionally imparted on dads that I would change would be communication; I think a dad showing feelings and vulnerability is really important. When I moved into college, my dad left a full-page note in my desk drawer to give me advice and stress how proud he is of me. I always smile/laugh when I think about it, because it was the cutest thing ever, but the fact that he had to write it down and leave it for me to find to avoid showing emotion in person is SO my dad. I know a lot of people with dads like this and none with moms like this, so I think showing children that YES, boys can have emotions, would be beneficial.
@novafan1255, your point about showing feelngs and vulnerabilty is something I struggled with as my kids grew up.
My kids have different personalities so expressing to one kid my feelings might work while another kid doesn’t want to see too many feelings coming from me.
Slammed doors and I-hate-yous are not in the same league with threatening violence, hitting people, or destroying property. At least some of us here have had the latter group of problems with boys’ behavior. Has anyone here had this sort of difficulty with girls?
Well to me this is not really a situation that demonstrates how fathers can do some things that mothers can’t, or can’t do as well.
These are volatile situations. It doesn’t matter if the kid is being raised by a traditional family, single parent, gay couple or what. These are problems with a capital P.
So if my child were acting out in these ways, I would not think that it was my husbands role to model some appropriate behavior or give him a talking to. We’d have some work to do as a couple/family.
And I am positive there are girls who exhibit this sort of behavior too
“Slammed doors and I-hate-yous are not in the same league with threatening violence, hitting people, or destroying property. At least some of us here have had the latter group of problems with boys’ behavior. Has anyone here had this sort of difficulty with girls?”
I agree with @surfcity . This is not typical of ANY child, is alarming, and needs some level of professional assistance. And although I did not have such problems with my girls, I certainly have seen them in other girls. My D was in 2nd and 3rd grade with twin girls who were being raised by their grandmother after a really rough start in life. Both exhibited all of the above, but the whole family was in counseling and school intervention. We ran into the grandmother last year and the girls are doing well. I have to believe it was the intensive therapy the family did to reach that outcome.
I was at a friend’s 60th birthday a while back. He was divorced 10 years ago, now with 3 adult children. His son may have autism, very bright, but had difficulty with relationships, especially at work. After divorce, my friend continued to go back to family home few times a week to help with his kids’ homework and went to their ECs. Both parents put their kids first, even though they were no longer together. My friend took on a bigger role of mentoring the son. Even with his busy schedule, he talked to his son several times a day, especially when his son were having problems in school then later at work. His son is a programmer at one of those high tech companies. I kiddingly asked the son at the party, “Hey John (made up name), what do you want to do when you grow up?” (referring to his career). He didn’t miss a beat, he said, “I want to be just like my dad.” It really blew me away the way he said it. Just a simple statement, but it said it all for the kind of father my friend is.
