Improving Father-Daughter Relationships

Family policy matters in engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina family policy Council hi this is John Ralston, presidency, family, and were grateful to have you with us for this week's program is our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged and inspired by what you hear on family policy matters and that she will flow better equipped to be a voice of persuasion, family values in your community, state and nation, and now here's our house to family policy matters Tracy to Yvette bricks.

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As we approach Father's Day. We wanted to take a closer look at the very special relationship that a father has with his daughter. Dr. Linda Nielsen is a professor of education at Wake Forest University and the author of an adolescent psychology textbook and buy books on father daughter relationships. Her next book. Improving father daughter relationships. A guide for women and their dads will be released this coming Father's Day. Dr. Linda Nielsen. Welcome to family policy matters. Very good to be here, so get brief summary of some of the reasons that fathers are so important in the lives of their daughters to sum it up with student by saying think about Eminem. The reason that fathers are important to their daughters are in regard to him money him mental health and another am actually man what the research shows that daughters who have good relationships with their dad make more money.

Once there, adult, why would that be because they have better grades in school are more likely to graduate from high school and college. They are also more likely to do jobs that are scam jobs which we science, technology, engineering and math second and mental health girls who grew up with good relationships with their dad are less likely to be clinically depressed Anxiety disorders, eating disorders, commit suicide, they are also less likely as teenagers course adult women to have stress related disorders, headaches, insomnia, stomach problems, the overall effect peer of having a strong father daughter relationship is prepares the girl to become a teenager and a woman who is better able to deal with stress and better able to deal with stress and failure appointment. Then of course you're less likely to become depressed and anxious and develop problems related to your mental health. In other words, the father is put caring daughter for the road he's toughening her up and making her resilient she's able to deal with these challenges. The research shows us that not there unfortunately compared to dad tend to prepare the road for the child, meaning mom wants to over protect you and take obstacles out of your way.

This is good for children you don't want to prepare the road for the child. The child for the road and fathers are better at doing that. The third him for daughters is man daughters relationship with man, and that means she chooses today is the nature how she relates to man how she lets men treat her the quality of marriage. Later in her life.

The daughter has a choice when she's choosing man and those choices depend very largely on what kind of relationship she has with her dad.

So imagine you're going into a grocery store and your hungry and you have no grocery list and you walk into that store what kind of food are you going to grab off-the-shelf man daughter has father hunger, meaning she does not have a good relationship with her dad. She's hungry for good father relationship that daughter is just like a hungry shopper. She is going to walk into that market and she is going to pick junk food by junk food for man. I mean she's going to choose men who are not good to her and not good for her and the problem here is that she is shopping for a father. She is shopping for for man that are not going to satisfy her need for father. Well father daughter walks into that store. She's got a shopping list. She knows what good and bad for her in terms relationships with men. She's not desperate to choose a man has a good relationship with her own dad hungry shopper is something that dads help their daughters all these aspects of her relationships with men are much more closely related to the kind of relationship she has with her dad into the kind relationship she has with her mom's response. Are you getting from your students. The male students are generally relieved and surprised to read this research. So the male students are quite relieved and reassured to find out that from the research.

They are just as important, they are going to be just as important to their daughters as mothers are the female students are equally surprised to find out how important fathers are compared to mothers, but most of the female students are exploring relationships with their fathers in a way that brings closer over the three months up there in the course.

There better able to communicate with their dads there better able to understand with their dads coming from and they're more willing to reach out to their dads and talk about issues that they have swept under the carpet. So Dr. Nielsen when you consider the most problematic misconceptions that people have about father daughter relationships. I think they are side as I call them 35 pants on fire misconceptions that people have the first misconception is that daughters don't need their fathers made their mothers. This assorted than that old mothers and daughters have this special bond with each other because they're both women and daughters need their mothers more than they need their fathers, and this is not true according to the research.

Both parents are equally important to have equal impact on their daughters. The second problem is that we have this terrible popular myth that says man or not is empathic. Men are not as communicative men are not is compassionate and so the daughter and the father live with that stereotype, which is not true.

We have decades of research showing that men and women do not communicate differently when it comes to being empathic, compassionate, cooperative, so when you start with that very very negative belief than the daughter is going to be less willing or less apt to go to her dad because she already believes that men don't communicate well.

Men are interested in curing personal things from there daughter. When you start with a negative stereotype like that.

Very damaging to the daughters relationship with her dad in the third aspect third thing that works against father daughter relationship. There many many loving well-meaning mothers truly believe some of the Smith when the mother believes them. Yes, and she's not as likely to be welcoming and appreciating the father being involved with the daughter I will give you an example of Mom sometimes feel insecure and jealous. If they feel that their daughter is getting justice close to the dad as she is to the mom and people say oh that's not true.

In my family that's not true.

In my family. Here's the test that I asked my students to take call your father up tonight and talk to him about something personal, not about money but about cars about sports, not about politics but about your grades without a problem that you're having with your boyfriend or problem you're having with your roommate if your mother is not on the phone and this is just a conversation you're having with your dad, how will your mother respond to that most of my students say their mothers would be very uncomfortable with that her feelings with the hurt she would feel very jealous she would want to be on the phone so part of what's happening in the father daughter relationship which doesn't happen in the father-son relationship.

Mom starts to feel a little insecure and jealous if she thinks the dad and daughter are getting too close. You talk about gender stereotypes.

He mentioned this a little bit already, but what can gender stereotypes be so counterproductive to this very important human relationship. The message we sent to fathers you can have this good relationship. This close relationship with her daughter until the time she gets to be a teenager and then you're supposed to back off. You're not supposed to approach her and ask a lot of questions. All because she's a teenage girl stereotype that hurt fathers because then they back away at the very time that they should be moving forward to stay involved and to be more involved. The other part is that her father is more likely to teach a daughter to try things that scare her try to do things that are challenging try to do things that are risky. Well, when you're going into a field that has traditionally been dominated by men. You have to have more of that confidence in you have to have more of that fearlessness and boldness like to try this I'm going to try this, even though women in the past have not confidence. Even if her father is not himself in one of those areas, he's giving her the confidence to move forward into areas that she would otherwise be too intimidated to enter.

We understand that this father daughter relationship is important when the daughter is an adult as it is when she's younger so what advice do you have for women and dads who may be need some help on their relationships, even now that the daughter has has grown wonderful point you're making daughters need their fathers when you're 40 years old when their 50 results when their 35 years old relationship doesn't have an expiration date. We need our fathers, we benefit from her father's even when were much older and what he is much older and approaching the last part of his life. So what I recommend the fathers and daughters spend more time alone with each other. Now I know people can always do that face-to-face we can do that through emails through Internet through zoom through space-time, but the key is alone time alone. No mothers, no siblings, just one-on-one time to get to know one another on that one on one level, the second step is to use that time to talk about things that are meaningful and personal. Try to give that relationship some real depth instead of staying on the surface where it's comfortable, but not really meaningful thank you device for just about out of time for this week before we go. Dr. Nielsen where listeners go to learn more about your research and get a copy of your new book.

Improving father daughter relationships.

A guide for women and their dads if you will just go to my Wake Forest University website and type in my name, Dr. Linda Nielsen, Wake Forest University and it will bring you to my website where they are countless resources there for fathers and for daughters and it also gives you a link to the Amazon pages for my books will Dr. Linda Nielsen, thank you so much for being with us today on family policy matters. I appreciate it. Thank you and happy Father's Day listening family housing. We hope you enjoyed the program employment unit again next week to listen to the show online insulin more about NC families want to encourage and inspire families across Carlotta website it NC family.award that's NC family.org. Thank you for listening and may God bless you and your family