How To Be A Fantastic Father (For At Least 10 Minutes)

Welcome to another episode of Full Frontal Fatherhood. Today I want to talk to you about:

How to be a fantastic father in one easy step for ten minutes. 

Our kids need our attention. As you know well, they’re pulling on us constantly for it, and we’re pulled off into 19 other directions: work, and our phone, and cleaning up the house. How do we give them the attention they need in this modern day?

Fortunately, the folks at Hand in Hand Parenting have come up with a wonderful solution called “special time.” Set your timer for 10 minutes, get on your kid’s level, their height, get on your knees or on the floor depending on how old they are and follow them. Follow their play. Don’t lead it, don’t suggest ideas. Allow them to have the experience of having your attention.

This also gives them an opportunity to work out the little traumas that have happened to them throughout their day. If somebody pushed them at school or if you yelled at them, they’ll often take this opportunity to play that out with you. They’ll push you. Go ahead, just fall back. “Oh God, I got pushed over.” Sit back up; they’ll push you again maybe 15, 20 times. They’ll yell at you. “Go clean up your room!” Scurry off to clean up your room. Just play along. I highly recommend heading over to handinhandparenting.org and checking out the wealth of information they have.

Once a day, either you or your partner, or all of you together, set the timer for 10 minutes and give your kids that attention.

Thank you for joining me for another episode of Full Frontal Fatherhood. Please join the conversation below, but we’re all doing the best we can with the really hard things so let’s keep it friendly. If you liked the video, please share it with your friends. If you’re not already there, head over to full fullfrontalfatherhood.com for a lot more videos. Thank you. Talk to your next week.

Take care,
Julian