Good parents or good parents: what is the difference?

"Good parents there are many, good parents there are few, I do not think there is anything more difficult than being a good father, on the other hand it is not difficult to be a good father, a soft heart is enough to be a good father; Strong and clearer head are still little to be a good father, "says Aaron Hass, professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Los Angeles, dedicated to family therapy for more than two decades, and father of two daughters.

Your professional and family experience is condensed in The gift of being a father, a very simple book, which shows with many examples, how the father can establish an open and cordial relationship with the children.

Differences between good parents and good parents

These are the differences that the author makes between the good father and the good father:

- The good father wants without thinking, the good father thinks to love.

- The good father can only say yes. The good father says yes when it is yes, and not when it is not.

- The good father makes the child a little god who ends up in a small demon. The good father does not make idols; tempers the character of the son, taking him on the path of duty and work.

- The good father loves the will of your child saving you efforts and responsibilities. The good father blows the fantasy of his son letting you create an airplane with two old woods.

- The good father comes to old age disappointed and belatedly repentant while the good father grows in years respected, loved, and in the long run, understood.

Demand and respect children

Tomás Malmierca, educator of Promotion of Teaching Centers, exposes some main characteristics of paternity.

- The father fills a home with his presence, equal or different than the mother, but she fills it. The father provides physical sustenance to the children, security, trust; affective sustenance, affection, understanding, forgiveness; intellectual sustenance, teaching their children and spiritual sustenance.

- Authority is expected from the father, which means reference, guidance, knowing the way of life, setting limits for the good of the child, knowing how to correct without humiliating. The father is expected to know the why of things. Can demand, like the mother, so that their children are strong, hardworking, respectful of human beings and the environment. He is diligent when he punishes. The father trusts the children, encourages the use of freedom. The father is both authority and welcome.

The sons and daughters also expect from their father love, affection, affection, hugs. Affective distancing is not characteristic of paternity. Therefore, he is affable, knows how to comfort, has a sense of humor, knows how to receive, promotes and takes care of family life and knows how to celebrate. A hug from the mother is different from the father's. You could say that there is a masculine and a feminine affection.

- The father gives protection. If a child feels a physical danger, he will tell his mother, but he will feel more protected if he tells his father. Sometimes he will feel more secure, although he may feel more understood with the mother. Children are happy when the father joins the action of the mother, when he extols and cares for her. They feel miserable when humiliated, belittled or underestimated. So the son seeks support from his father. He means support and security.

What are the father's children looking for?

According to Tomás Malmierca, the son seeks in the father, coherence, justice, giving unequally to the unequal, knowing how to forgive. The father gives security in the use of freedom, at the time of decisions, knows how to encourage and praise the positive things of their children. Although it is perhaps the mother who knows more about the intimacy of the children, the father also has to know the feelings of his children. The father is an image of strength and wisdom.

The French pediatrician, Aldo Naouri, claims in his most recent work that fathers and mothers exercise their respective male and female roles in the family to ensure the normal development of the child. The overwhelming dominance of many mothers in the education of their children, as well as the attempt of the father to adopt a "mothering" style, and has as consequence a prolongation of childhood in an environment of overprotection.

According to the pediatrician, in the human development it is the father who transmits the consciousness of time to the child. On the contrary, the mother spontaneously resists the fact that the child "definitely gets out of it". In a provocative way, he assures that having an "almighty" mother is the most serious "disease" that can affect a human being (especially male). To this type of mothers, she affirms decisively, "we must stop them" and the parents must do it, "behaving like men". Naouri, who has been practicing as a pediatrician for 40 years, continues to advance in that the son needs to see that behind his mother "there is a man for whom his mother is enthusiastic".

Guiding word

Sociologists are analyzing the dominant female culture and affirm that women-centered families produce a violent and ostensive virility. Other times, it is another trigger of homosexuality, since young people look for another boy, the affection they did not receive from their father.

The psychoanalyst Eric H. Erikson affirms that, according to what the child perceives in its development, the parents are, at first, non-mothers, the other way of the human being. The father impresses the child as the counterpart full of power with respect to the mother. The parents perceive of the father someone "deeply desired and at the same time, that causes some fear".

Erikson also points out some characteristics of the father: "together with his benevolent face, the guiding word of the father, constitutes a fundamental element of the human identity.The issue is not that the father is exemplary, according to the judgment of others, but that he is available for your child, to guide you, to approve it, "good" but inaccessible parents are the worst. "

The father figure in the education of the children

- The absence of parental love has very negative consequences for daughters, and these consequences are shown with particular clarity in the relationship with other members of the male gender. Other consequences are eating disorders.

- Paternal deficiency in the lives of daughters has a profound social influence, cultural, practical and spiritual. The daughters do not interpret the bad relationship with the father only in a personal way, but they see it as a lowering of their femininity.

- The father is also a reference of masculinity towards the sons, of firmness and strength but also of understanding and affection.

- The father must untie ties that can "strangle" the mother and son relationship and, without being explicitly noted, you have the ability to make the relationship between your wife and your children more independent, since otherwise, your children will not reach the autonomy that corresponds to them.

Fill the lives of your children with good memories, teachings: teach them to play soccer, draw them a picture, tell them how you fell in love with their mother, tell them about the story of your life and above all, take the time to listen to them. Remember that you are your children's guide, that they seek your approval or your opinion about their initiatives. And do not forget to listen to your daughters too, even if it is on questions that ask for your opinion, about the new pants that they have bought.

Jaime Márquez