How does a good father-son relationship work?

The most important facts in brief:

• Fathers are much more present in family life today and therefore have a major influence on their children's development.

• The so-called kamikaze game is typical for fathers with their children and encourages boys in particular to deal with aggressive feelings and stress appropriately.

• Fathers are very important for boys' school performance because they challenge them more and they lose less weight than mothers.

• During puberty, boys are particularly rebellious towards their fathers, which is important for the formation of Sterben's identity.

• Fathers often have envious feelings towards their teenage sons. If they express this by devaluing them, it is difficult for the boys to develop a healthy sense of self-worth.

• Sons are more likely to discuss their career aspirations with their fathers. They then increasingly become important counsellors.

Luca watches his father intently as he has just scored his third basket. Daniel is a keen basketball player. Things are looking really good for his team today: They are winning. Daniel takes his son to the basketball game every Saturday. The nine-year-old sits on the bench and joins in the excitement. After the game, father and son dribble together and shoot baskets. Luca really enjoys it. He thinks to himself that he wants to be like his dad one day and play just as well.

«Sons see themselves in their father and how they want to be in the future - or not,» is how Allan Guggenbühl, psychotherapist and youth expert from Zurich, describes the central feature of a father-son relationship. «It has a strong influence on the formation of boys' identities.»

Fathers challenge their sons more than mothers, don't do everything for them, let them do more themselves, according to the motto: «You can do it on your own.»

In the father, the son sees what qualities and abilities he has - this is where the relationship differs from that with the mother. «The mother is the feminine, the foreign, the one to be experienced, the fascinating,» says Guggenbühl. «The father stands for the same thing, he represents how you want to be - or quite the opposite: what you might reject.»

Whether sons emulate their fathers or do the opposite depends on the type of relationship a father builds with his son. Whether it is characterised by distance and competition or by closeness and mutual respect. Most people probably want the latter. But how can a good father-son relationship be achieved?

From breadwinner to caregiver

Just a few decades ago, hardly anyone would have asked this question. Back then, the role of the father was completely different. Fathers were seen as the head of the family, the breadwinner and provider. They spent little time with their children and therefore did not have the opportunity to build a close relationship with them. Often there was also no interest in doing so, as paternal closeness and empathy were not exactly seen as an expression of appropriate parenting.

A father was supposed to be authoritarian, the mother was responsible for feelings. She was the main point of contact for the child and looked after it around the clock. Accordingly, for a long time, research focussed on the mother. Today, fathers are much more present in family life and want to fulfil their role as the child's primary caregiver.

Due to the increased involvement of fathers in childcare and parenting, fatherhood research has become increasingly important over the years. Today, researchers know from numerous studies how important fathers are for the healthy development of children, how the relationship changes in the individual phases of life and what is crucial for a good relationship.

Changing nappies, rocking him to sleep, playing: Daniel also wanted to be there for his son right from the start. He remembers his son's early years well. The two of them would often lie on the floor surrounded by building blocks and toy cars, tussling with each other and rolling across the carpet. Luca loved to take a running jump into his dad's arms, only to be thrown into the air and caught again.

A certain anti-attitude towards the father is very important for the formation of identity.

«This type of play, known as kamikaze play, is typical of fathers with young children, especially with their sons,» says developmental psychologist Inge Seiffge-Krenke, who has been researching fathers for more than 20 years and taught at the University of Mainz until 2013. The expert knows that fathers are play partners for their sons, but also challengers.

They like to tussle with them, romp with them, challenge them to dare to do something. It's often wild, rough and physical. «Of course, there are also mothers who play with their children in this way,» says Seiffge-Krenke.

How roughhousing with the father strengthens boys for life

When playing kamikaze, children go through emotions such as joy, euphoria, fear, stress or anger. «Sons in particular learn to deal with aggressive impulses appropriately,» says Wiesbaden-based psychotherapist Alexander Cherdron. «The desire to explore, try things out and discover is stimulated, which plays an important role later on when it comes to breaking away from the parental home.»

In addition, roughhousing teaches children how to deal with stress. This was confirmed by a study conducted by California State University. Psychologist Melanie Mallers and her team interviewed 912 men and women about how they experienced their relationship with their parents as children, as well as about stressful events and emotional reactions they experienced as adults.

It became clear that men who had a good relationship with their father in childhood were better able to cope with everyday stress as adults than those who had a poor father-son relationship. One of the factors responsible for this is paternal play, as researcher Mallers discovered.

This involves fathers interacting with their sons in a special way, which stimulates and challenges boys in a positive way and even improves the son's problem-solving skills. Kamikaze play involves a lot of physical contact, which in turn strengthens the bond between father and child, the basic building block for a good relationship.

«Our son is also challenged more by his father than by me when it comes to schoolwork,» says Luca's mum. «When he gets stuck with his homework and almost despairs over a task, Daniel sits next to him and reads the newspaper.»

She herself would then prefer to intervene and help her son. Her husband doesn't think he should be offered support straight away. An approach from which children benefit, as experts emphasise. «Research shows that fathers have a major influence on their sons' school performance,» says developmental psychologist Seiffge-Krenke.

However, previous studies have mostly focussed on separated fathers, i.e. on the question: Why is the school performance of boys growing up without a father worse than that of boys from intact families?

«Among other things, it became clear that fathers demand more from their sons. They don't do the maths for them, take less off their hands and let them do more themselves, following the motto: "You can do it on your own,» says Seiffge-Krenke. In the long term, this can have a major effect on their son's performance and therefore on his school-leaving qualifications.

Letting your son go and still being there for him

While the focus during the childhood years is on building a stable and sustainable bond between parents and child, this bond must be slowly loosened during puberty. For boys, this means that they distance themselves more and more from their father and no longer idealise him.

«The confrontation with their father may initially lead sons to seek out what is different, to rebel against their father,» says psychologist Guggenbühl. This is normal and of great importance for finding an identity, developing autonomy and ultimately cutting the cord from the parental home.

Fathers are also demonstrably more likely to promote this autonomy: compared to mothers, they trust their children to be independent and autonomous four years earlier on average, as a comparative study of young people from Germany and Israel shows. On average, the mothers surveyed considered 16-year-old adolescents to be as dependent on their parents as fathers did 12-year-old children.

Paternal envy towards the son often occurs. It usually starts when the son reaches puberty, his testosterone shoots up and he is bursting with energy.

«Sons don't always want to be close to their father during adolescence, but he is still indispensable to them,» says Guggenbühl. The task of fathers is to let their sons go and give them the feeling that they are there for them, even if they take a completely different path.

The desire to explore, which fathers have already taught their sons in the Kamikaze game, can now be brought to bear on crucial questions: Who am I? Where do I want to go? What is important to me in life? It is inevitable that sons will approach things differently than their father expects.

«A certain anti-attitude towards the father is very important for identity formation,» says psychoanalyst Cherdron. «This means that you sometimes really drive your old man to white heat.»

As a father, you have to put up with this and try to stay in contact. This is the only way to maintain a good relationship. It would be wrong to smile at your son's behaviour or simply ignore it.

So is the father no longer in demand in adolescence? Not at all, as the study «The role of the father in the family» by renowned father researcher Wassilios Fthenakis suggests. According to the study, at around the age of 15, boys think a lot about how they can realise their plans for the future and how they would like to live later. And according to Fthenakis, they discuss their career plans primarily with their father and less with their mother. Fathers are therefore becoming counsellors.

Fathers are also increasingly concerned with the question of how their sons will earn their money one day, says psychotherapist Guggenbühl: «They worry about their sons' livelihoods or their skills. They ask themselves: Can he make a living? Can he assert himself?» In fathers, the expectation to push their son, to put him on the right career path, is still deeply rooted.

The sons first do the opposite of their father's expectations

But even in this area, sons often did exactly the opposite of what their fathers expected - at least at first. After a period of turning away, they often orientated themselves back towards their father. "I know a father who set up a bicycle repair shop.

The son also worked there at the beginning, but then separated himself for a while before rejoining during the bicycle boom. Now they both run the business together," explains Guggenbühl.

«Another example is a son who set himself apart and wanted to be an artist, but then studied geology and took over the office of his father, who was also a geologist. The two of them had a common theme.»

It usually starts when the boys are in puberty, the testosterone shoots up and they are bursting with energy.

This is also helpful in maintaining a good relationship between father and son: finding common tasks and hobbies, spending time together in this way and creating positive experiences.

What can complicate or even destroy the relationship between father and son, however, is if the father does not accept the time of rebellion. If he cannot accept that his son has a different plan for his life and constantly makes him feel that what he is doing is «wrong».

«This can lead to a rift between father and son,» says Guggenbühl. Another difficulty that characterises this parent-child constellation is envy and rivalry, says psychoanalyst Cherdron: «Paternal envy towards one's own son occurs frequently. It usually starts when the boys are in puberty, their testosterone levels are high and they are bursting with energy.»

The fathers are then usually between their late 40s and late 50s and realise that their sons are outgrowing them. «They realise: I'm probably not going to be CEO or climb Mount Everest, but my son still has everything ahead of him,» says Cherdron. Realising this is often hard and triggers feelings of envy and rivalry in many fathers.

Destructive envy: «You can't do it!»

Some fathers who feel envious devalue their sons, Cherdron knows. Sentences such as «You can't do that anyway» or «You could have done better» are then uttered. Others express their envy in a bad mood, spread an unpleasant atmosphere or appear disinterested.

In the long term, says Cherdron, such behaviour destroys the self-esteem of the adolescent and sows great self-doubt. Conversely, fathers deprive themselves of the opportunity to build a good relationship with their child.

Psychoanalyst Cherdron often explains to parents how they can strengthen their child's self-esteem: "Self-esteem is like the high jump mats in gym class: there are the thin ones and the thick ones that can withstand a lot better.

The child should receive sufficient appreciation from their parents for who they are as a person on the one hand, and praise for their own achievements on the other. In the best case scenario, their mat will become thicker and more stable and will be able to absorb criticism and setbacks well in later life."

In addition to praise and appreciation, confidence is very important. «We know from biographical research: When fathers have fundamental trust in their sons, this strengthens their self-esteem immensely,» says Guggenbühl.

Many men still refer to their father's statements later on and have internalised them strongly, the psychologist knows. This creates an inner image of their own abilities and weaknesses. It shapes you for the rest of your life.

The Zurich youth expert summarises how a good relationship between father and son can succeed in the long term: «As a father, you stand by your son, accept him as a person and in his differences. Giving him the feeling: I like you, you'll find your way and I'll stand by you. That's actually the most important thing.»