Fathers Can Set An Example For Their Daughters By Showing Love To Their Wives

Feb 09, 2020 by apost team

Fathers and daughters have a special bond. Many researchers have shown that having a loving father that sets a great example in how he treats his wife and children can play a profound role in a girl's life as a grown woman.

According to Psychology Today, an actively involved, loving father can increase a girl's self-esteem, confidence, and emotional security. All fathers need to think about this and put as much effort as necessary into their daughter's upbringing.

A major theme that researchers have noted in the Journal of Genetic Psychology is that how the father and mother interact on a daily basis shapes young girls' expectations of how their future boyfriends and husbands will treat them. Girls who observe abusive or disrespectful behavior by their father towards their mother are more likely to end up in abusive relationships as an adult.

Girls with distant fathers who are rarely home tend to expect similar behavior from men. Girls whose parents engage in strict, archaic gender roles tend to expect their future boyfriends and husbands to act the same. Fathers should treat their wives with respect and always remember: "I should love my wife the same way I want my daughter to be loved."

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Fathers should make sure they don't just praise their daughter's appearance. While it is important to tell your daughter she is beautiful, it is even more important to nurture and praise her achievements and tell her she is smart, skilled, and competent. Make sure she knows she is beautiful on both the inside and the outside. Girls often face impossible body expectations and serious obstacles from the media, peers, and social media as they try to develop self-confidence, life skills, and navigate a society that is still very sexist and misogynistic.

Even after they move into full adulthood, women still need to know their father loves them and will do anything to help them out, even if that just means listening carefully to what they have to say. And dads? Girls and women know full well when you are "listening" but not paying attention.

Showering your daughter with gifts may seem like an easy way to be a father, but those toys and trinkets will quickly be forgotten. According to She Knows, if you want your daughter to build good memories, fathers need to share experiences with them. Go skateboarding together, play a game, or go out for ice cream. Show up to those soccer games and school plays. Make her breakfast every morning.

It's also important to teach your daughter useful life skills, like how to change a tire, how to use power tools, how to unclog the toilet, and how to fix the lawnmower when it dies. Plus, of course, cooking, personal finance, and anything else you can think of that might come in handy throughout her life.

Many loving fathers make the huge mistake of being over-protective of their daughters. This trait is often highlighted when a teenage girl starts dating. Over-protective fathers have trouble letting their daughters go on dates and might do inappropriate things like threatening her boyfriends.

Fathers need to take a deep breath and ask themselves if they would act this way about their sons? If the answer is no, the behavior is inappropriate. If you love your daughter, you equip her with the required skills and tools to navigate life and then let her make her own way. She's going to have to learn how to date sometime, isn't it best to let her do it while she is still under her father's watchful gaze?

In addition, over-protective fathers often end up driving their daughters away. The girls become afraid of introducing their dates to their father and do potentially dangerous things like sneak out of the house without telling anyone where they are going. Don't be that dad. As girls turn into women, they still need their father's unconditional love. Teenage girls need to be told that if they call, their father will come to pick them up, anywhere, anytime, no questions or judgment.

A father is the most important man in a young girl's life. He has to be a good role model so she can learn how real men act: supportive, loving, and involved. Someone to talk to, confide in, play games with, and learn from. The father is the "gold standard" against which she will judge all other men. It is important to try to be a "gold standard" rather than a "coal standard" or a "trash standard."

Fathers need to stop and think about what kind of man they want their daughter to end up marrying, and try to model that behavior by treating their wife the way they want their grown daughter to be treated by her future husband. Remember, children don't really listen to what you say; they copy what you do.

Do you agree that a father is the most important man in a girl's life? Do your friends agree? Why not find out by forwarding this story to them and then discussing it with them?