8 Powerful Tips to Help Dads to Stay Connected To Their Kids

Whether you’re divorced, deployed, have to travel a lot for work, or all three, you want to stay connected to your children.

Eight years ago, Dr. Keith Jowers, Ph.D., started the organization Dads 4 Life (www.dads4life.org) to focus on the needs of dads and to help support dads who want to stay connected to their kids, no matter what the circumstances may be.

Jowers’ own father passed away when he was 11, and he himself became a young divorced dad in 1983 to his preschool-aged daughter, Kristina. He knew for his own experience how much he missed having a father in his life and he knew he would do anything it took to stay in his own daughter’s life.

Jowers also knows how important male role models are for children from his 25 years as a School Resource Officer and Officer Friendly. (Congratulations on his retirement this week!).

He tells Family First how much it has pained him over the years to see the kids he guarded growing up without their father around. He says many times he attended sporting events to cheer on the kids and they would tell him how much they wished their dad could have seen them play.

Jowers says the key is to ask yourself, “How can I connect today?” and here are his powerful tips for helping dads do that:

• Utilize postcards, letters, emails, texts and phone calls. He says he spoke to his daughter at least 3 to 4 times a week when she was young (before the internet). He even knows of a dad who bought a phone, the “Daddy Phone,” just for him and his son to use to stay connected. With the new technology of today including texting, email, Skype and Facebook, Jowers says there’s no excuse for a dad to not find a way to even just text simply “I love you.” Jowers reminds us of the Oreo cookie commercial with the dad who is in Japan and the little boy is back home – they enjoy the simple act of eating cookies and milk together even though they are thousands of miles apart.
• Never miss your kid’s birthday. This is such an important day for all kids. Always remember to make sure they know you remembered and that you care.
• Remember landmark events. If they have a play, recital or a big sporting event coming up, remember to connect and ask them about it. Jowers says the tradition he had with his daughter was always to connect on the first day of school. He would always call and see how it went and how she felt about how the year was going to go. He says they continued this tradition even when she attended college.
• Be flexible. Consider changing your work schedule if you want to be a part of a special occasion. Jowers says he would try to work on a Saturday if he knew his daughter had a field trip during the week that he could attend.
• Remember they remember.  Jowers says he is amazed when his now 29-year-old daughter tells him things she remembers about them from her childhood. He says many times he has no recollection, but she definitely remembers.
• Stay plugged in. Even if you live with your kids, if you are always gone, angry, drunk or otherwise disengaged, it’s like you are out of their lives anyway. Remember to stay engaged in their lives and live every day to the fullest with them. You never know what’s going to happen.
• Ask “What can I do TODAY?” Jowers says even when you are in the mess of the “Dad Soup” of divorce with all the legal proceedings and paperwork and ugliness of separation and dismantling a life, look at what you can do today. Don’t worry about the big picture; just concentrate on the now.
• Build a strong foundation. By staying engaged throughout their lives, you build a relationship that stands over time. He says if you build a house without a concrete slab, it sinks. The same goes for your relationship with your kids. Make sure they come to you when they need help in their lives (and they will.)

What began for Jowers as a small group has evolved into over 10,000 followers on twitter including many single moms and youths, a book he has written with his daughter called “Part-Time Dad, Full-Time Heart” and even an international chapter called Dads International to help dads all over the world.

“A thermostat sets the temperature, a thermometer reflects the temperature. Too many dads are thermometers. Effective part time dads are thermostats… setting the climate by how they react, or do not react, and with communication,” write Jowers on his website. Please read more about Jowers’ great organization and the incredible work they are doing at www.dads4life.org.