6 qualities that make men a good father

1. fathers are good partners

Traditionally, psychologists have tended to attribute a secondary role to fathers. The story goes like this: In the first years of life, the child needs above all a secure, trusting, safe bond with an adult. This allows the child's brain to develop optimally, so everything will be fine.

This «first relationship» seems to be the relationship with the mother in a natural way. It is clear: the child grows in her womb. It is born from her. It is breastfed by her. She gives the child the security it needs. According to traditional attachment theory, the father should support his partner wherever he can and make her life easier.

Children learn a lot for life when they regularly romp around with their fathers.

Researchers from Israel have investigated what happens when the father, rather than the mother, becomes a young child's primary carer. The results were a sensation: the fathers showed the same sensitive and attentive behaviour that can normally be observed in mothers. Activation patterns occur in the brain that are otherwise more typical of mothers, especially in those areas where emotions are processed.

In other words: If a father wants to and is given the opportunity, he can actually be something like a great mum.

2. fathers scuffle

Human children learn a lot for life when they regularly romp around with their fathers. They become more self-confident and are better able to deal with setbacks, concentrate better at school and regulate their emotions better. An Australian study from 2016 describes that children who frequently roughhouse with their dads take better care of their bodies and are less likely to come home with injuries. They have apparently learnt to assess their own limits when roughhousing, for example in the so-called «sock game». This involves trying to take off the other person's sock without losing your own.

Should you let your child win? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Most researchers are convinced that children long to feel how strong daddy is. On the other hand, it can be observed in the fighting games of all mammals that the stronger one sometimes lets the weaker one win - signalling that it's all just great fun.

So good fathers sometimes lose and encourage their children to make an effort. But most of the time they win. In fact, the good consequences of roughhousing disappear as soon as the children are always given the victory. The best formula for good roughhousing comes from Australian father researcher Richard Fletcher. It reads: «I am much stronger than you. And I love you very much.»

3. fathers read aloud and ask questions

It's no surprise that fathers like to romp around. But what about their influence on children's language development? We know that, on average, women have better communication skills. Words, books, reading aloud - all this therefore seems to be more of a mother's business. But here too, researchers have long underestimated the influence of fathers. Children benefit enormously when their parents read to them regularly.

Children who are securely attached to both parents develop greater social skills.

As soon as fathers read aloud regularly and enjoy doing so, their contribution to children's development is even greater than that achieved by mothers reading aloud. Even when they discuss things with their children, fathers do it differently; they ask more often if they have not understood the child exactly. As a result, the children's vocabulary grows to an astonishing extent.

Researchers believe that fathers act as a bridge out into the world by asking questions. It may be that mum reads every wish from the children's lips. But you have to explain to the rest of the world what you want - and talking to dad is the best training camp for this.

4. comfort fathers as best you can

In most societies, mothers are better at some things. For example, comforting. Research has investigated how parents behave when their child wakes up from an anaesthetic in hospital. Both fathers and mothers try to give their child a feeling of security and calm - primarily through touch and physical contact. However, mothers do this more intensively and over a longer period of time than fathers. However, fathers have clearly caught up in this respect.

When children need help, they are more likely to go to their mother than their father.

Educational scientist Margrit Stamm has shown that today more than 84 per cent of fathers cuddle with their children and establish physical closeness. Nevertheless, a higher percentage of children and adolescents still build up a closer relationship of trust with their mother. When they need help, they are more likely to go to her than to him.

Schoolchildren who are securely attached to both parents develop greater social skills and report fewer problems in everyday life. The simultaneous bond with father and mother acts as a «protective factor» against loneliness, feelings of anxiety and depression.

5. fathers also stay at home

Fathers today spend four times more time with their children than was the case in the 1960s. «Back then, Dad came home from work and waited for his wife to serve him a martini. His job was to earn money for the family. Parenting was entirely the wife's job,» says psychologist Brenda Volling. «This type of father hardly exists today. Fathers take it for granted that they are involved in bringing up the children.»

6. fathers are real men

In interviews and self-written blogs, full-time fathers like to use a kind of «DIY language» to talk about their everyday lives. In fact, they perform some of their activities in a particularly masculine way - for example, by stirring cake batter with a drill or assembling their children's Halloween masks in the hobby room instead of buying them in the shop.

In other words: good fathers look after their children like a mother - but they want to remain real blokes. It may be that one dad is a great partner, that the other one tugs, reads, comforts, stays at home and retains his masculinity. But as long as he does all this from the heart, in his own way, he will be «good enough» - and the best father you could wish for your child.