June 30, 2020

5 Ways Coronavirus Changed The Way Dads Get Involved With Their Kids

Dad spending time with his daughter

So, if you have been reading our articles over the last few months, you’ll know that we have talked about the virus and the different ways it is affecting not just our own personal families, but the whole world.

Never before in our history have we ever lived through anything like this, with whole nations on lockdown and fearing for their lives. Hopefully, we won’t have to go through it again either.

With that said, there have been a few good things to come out of this tragedy. We have been able to spend more time with our family.

Now, for some, this wasn’t a very pleasant experience. Other than holidays, we’re just not used to spending so much time together for weeks on end. Especially if we have to keep children occupied and entertained.

But, for others, this was a great opportunity to reconnect and click refresh on our lives. This was highlighted by how much time father’s now had to spend with their kids.

It must have felt pretty uncomfortable at first, but they started to see all of the positive reasons why they should spend more time with them.

So, for that reason, I decided to write this article and break down 5 ways coronavirus changed the way Dads get involved with play.

Have The Time To Get To Know Them

Most fathers think they know their kids, but it's not until they really take the time to really understand them and their personalities do they really know them. What you may see on the surface is completely different the more time you spend together.

You get to find out their major likes, dislikes, interests, abilities, and overall, their personalities. Much of this isn’t discovered unless you spend the time to play with them on their level.

What you don’t realise is the amount of growth that happens with your kids when you’re there answering questions and providing perspective.

The closer you feel to them, the more likely they will want you around to play with. This isn’t because you’ve never done this before, it's just you’ve never had as much time to do this before. This makes a difference.

No Longer Had To Supervise, Now They Make Time

Some might think this a bit sexist, but it’s still true. Since mothers are still the main parent in the home when it comes to bringing up our children, there is a bond that develops naturally which isn’t quite the same for fathers.

Some may argue this happened before birth, but, I’m of the opinion that this can also be formed later on based on the interaction with that parent.

Find It Much Easier To Communicate

Following on from our last point which mentioned bonding. Whenever a bond is strong, we find it much easier to communicate.

If we don’t spend that much time with someone, it’s so much harder to build that bond. However, with the lockdown in place, this meant that fathers were able to spend much more time with kids and were able to either establish or build new bonds.

When these bonds were strengthened, it meant that communicating with our kids became a great deal easier.

Had The Time To Listen Fully

Listening is such an underrated skill, but such an important one. In our normal everyday lives, there never really seems to be enough time for anything, and listening to our kids “fully” was one of the things we rarely made time for.

Since the lockdown, most father’s now had the time to sit down and really listen to what their kids were saying.

There was no meeting to rush to, lack of time in the evening once they got home from work, or feeling too tired to engage and interact at the weekend. With all this newly acquired time on their hands. They could now take the time to listen.

Had Time To Teach Them Manners and Etiquette

This may sound like an old fashioned and outdated concept. But, kids still need to be taught right from wrong and also manners and etiquette.

Since fathers weren’t able to spend that much time with the kids previously, this would normally fall to the mother or worse, teachers at school. I think we can all agree that it isn't the teacher’s job to teach our kids these manners, it’s our job.

Conclusion

The lockdown has been bad for so many reasons. People have died, fallen ill, lost their jobs and overall heightened everyone's anxiety. However, some good has certainly come from it.

We found our love for the community, enjoying the nature around us, and more importantly, we found our families again. With any luck, when things go back to “normal”, we won’t forget the fun we had and the reintroduction of family life.