Fathers Forum: TOPICAL HIGHLIGHTS

Question: I realize that a father’s presence in his daughter’s life is important--but the reality of having to honor many late nights at work has kept me from spending as much time with my teenage daughter as I would like. What role does a father play in his daughter’s development, and what can I do to make the most of my time with her?

Answer: It doesn’t appear that amount of time spent with your teenage daughter is necessarily the key ingredient to forming and maintaining a healthy and supportive relationship. The critical element is the father-- or father –figures-- emotional availability, not their physical presence (for more information, read “Reviving Ophelia” by Mary Pipher, PH.D). This fact is vital for dads to keep in mind. Understand that the influence you have over your daughter is not only great, but that even with limited time on your hands, you are capable of affecting and empowering her in ways that last a lifetime. In fact, plenty of research shows that available fathers-- who are attentive, talk to and praise their daughters-- boost both their daughters’ social responsiveness and self-esteem.

In other words, the path toward connecting with your daughter is not as complicated as it sometimes may seem. As a clinician, I often talk to fathers who want a closer relationship with their teenage daughter—but are stuck on the idea that they do no have “anything in common.” That—seems to me—to be a great starting point for mutual conversation. Teenage girls and boys like nothing more than to be treated as the experts on a subject that their parents know less, or little about. What is vital is a genuine effort at interaction: adolescent girls who reported feeling that their fathers expressed little interest in their lives reported having difficulties forming healthy relationships with men later in life. Remember that a father’s overt and covert responses to the questions that a daughter will unconsciously ask of her father-- “Am I worthy? Am I lovable? Am I competent? Am I capable?” --play a significant part in determining her receptivity to healthy or unhealthy romantic relationships later in life. As a teenage girl is in the process of creating a template of her own sense of self and self-worth, a father’s response to the above questions becomes critical as daughters begin to negotiate teen parties, sexual activity and drug/alcohol use.

Involved fathers who provide a loving and secure emotional base promote independence and safe risk-taking traits. These characteristics are exactly what a young women needs as she ventures into her future, keeping one eye on the challenges ahead and another on what her father had taught her about herself.