Hey Pops!!! Are Your Children Emotionally Attached To You?

Are your children emotionally attached to you?

Think about this question..."Are you children emotionally attached to you?"

Have you considered the powerful meaning of having your children emotionally attached to you in a healthy way.  Often times many fathers may read the question and think...

"What? No way! I already work and now have to deal with all that?"

"What do you mean? Have them hang all over me or what?"

Attachment in this case is really nothing like that.  Children from the moment that they are conceived have an innate need to attach to the parent.  In most cases, children attach to their mother because she is the one most available and usually provides food, time, attention and affection.  There is nothing wrong with that.  The point is that children need the same form their father.

As fathers we get so caught up on the multiple responsibilities in life that we often for get the most essential needs of our children.  Our children look up to us for leadership, protection and provisions for survival.  In addition, our children look to us for emotional bonding and attachment.  It is a different way to look at the role we play in our children's lives but is a very crucial one.

My motivation for getting into this topic is a very recent and personal experience.  You see in the last 13 months I have experienced a significant change in my life.  I have become a divorced parent.
I have just recently divorced and I have a beautiful 6 year old little girl.  When I left the home, it was extremely difficult for her not having me with her and also the shock of Daddy being gone.  As I expected her mother was going to use my daughter to get her agenda across and disregard my daughter's feelings.  I saw a huge drift beginning to form between my daughter and I.  It concerned me to the point of losing sleeps and becoming anxious about losing that love and devotion I have had for her first 6 years.

Once my scheduled visitations were established I noticed something very important, my daughter expressed her desire to be connected and continue to be close to me.  I treated her the same and allowed her to speak, vent and share her feelings and thoughts with me freely with out me asking her. After a few months had past and we established a routine, I began to take a closer look to see what her behavior and reaction to things were and I was amazed to see what I saw! My daughter in her own special way wanted to bring some normalcy or sustainability to the type of relationship she had with me before I had left.  Suddenly, I realized that all the drama was just somnolence's and not hers.   I decided to invest my time and effort to provide what she was asking me for and it worked.  It is evident that while she is with me she feels safe, secure, loved, valued and most of all that she has regained her Daddy!!  It is a work in progress and I will continue to work on this but for now I count the hours until I see her again!

This is what attachment is.  In the next couple of weeks I am going to explain the topic of attachment as the weeks progress.

I will explain the following:

History of the study on Attachment
The attachment theory
The stages of attachment
What we can do as father to establish, sustain and reinforce attachment with our children.

I hope that you will enjoy and find this informative.