Dads & Daughters Togetherness Guide 54 Fun Activities for Fathers and Daughters

Daddy's Little Girl Human beings accelerate through the greatest number of developmental changes in the shortest period of time before age eight. Take language acquisition as one example. Have you ever learned (or attempted to learn) a second language? For most people it takes years of dedicated effort just to reach basic proficiency. Your daughter masters her language in just two or three years while also learning other remarkably difficult thingslike how to feed herself, walk, understand cause and effect, and more. And that's just for starters. Infants, toddlers, and young children can learn this vast array of skills and information because their minds are flexible, open (yes, even twoyear-olds!), and hypercurious. This way of being also makes most children very receptive to and skilled at playing! Your fatherly key to successful play with the preschool crowd is to adopt and reflect your daughter's flexible, open, hypercurious attitude. Embrace how creatively she connects the dots between point A and point Q. Avoid using playtime to enforce rules, make a point, or impose gender stereotypes. During your daughter's early years, she doesn't think of herself as "a girl." Gender concepts come soon enough, often with attendant baggage. Now is the time to celebrate and reinforce her value as an individual person, not specifically as a girl. Encouraging intellectual curiosity and physical activity is especially important. Later on, when the gender straightjacket attempts to exert its influence on her, she'll need to feel comfortable in her body and confident in her brain and heart. 1. Our Time All Ages / Solo Psychologist and author Dr. Margo Maine wrote a fabulous book called Father Hunger. I think her metaphor is an ideal one for stepdads and dads to rememberour daughters hunger for our attention, no matter how young or old they are. And, let's be honest, we hunger for our daughters' attention, too! Spending time with your daughter or stepdaughter is the best way to let her know you are paying attention to her. Set aside some inviolate time for you and your daughter to be together without interruption. Having a daily "Our Time" is ideal, but it works on a weekly basis, too (or anywhere in between). One divorced dad I know has shared custody of his young daughter. Since she's not always with him, he knows the value of Our Time. To make the most of my time with my 6yearold daughter, I organized our evenings so that the half hour before bedtime is Our Time. During Our Time, I brush my daughter's showerwet hair and we might simply watch TV, or play a game. Our current favorites are Who Took the Cookie from the Cookie Jar, Candy Land, and Uno. We also talk about school or why some kids are bad or why people lie or something she saw that bothered her, or whatever. Mostly, we talk. A few weeks ago, I began to think that Our Time felt forced and decided to simply not say anything. Shower time came and went, and I said nothing about Our Time. Fifteen minutes hadn't passed before my daughter approached me with brush in hand to ask what was wrong. "Daddy, why aren't we having Our Time?" I almost teared up as I said to her that we will ALWAYS have Our Time. My hope is that Our Time will grow to become a time for her to share with me what's on her mindher fears, concerns, worries, passions, etc.a time for us to truly bond. Granted she's only six now, but I can hope that Our Time will last forever!! The point is that dad and daughter are together and that daughter knows that during Our Time, no phone calls, work, orKelly, Joe is the author of 'Dads & Daughters Togetherness Guide 54 Fun Activities for Fathers and Daughters', published 2007 under ISBN 9780767924696 and ISBN 076792469X.