Dad's 2.0

Research has shown that involved dads have a direct impact on their child’s future. They are closely related to better outcomes in cognitive development to self-esteem to educational achievement to prosocial behaviors. Families are strengthened when there is a supporting father in the home. There is a reduced risk of maltreatment and the children will greatly benefit from a positive involvement from fathers. When children have a supporting father in the home, the research definitely shows the impacts. Children are 39% more likely to earn mostly A’s, they are 45% less likely to repeat a grade, 60% less likely to be suspended or expelled, 2x as likely to go to college, and a huge percentage of 75% less likely to have a teen birth and a whopping number of 80% less likely to spend time in jail. A lot of these numbers come from the way father’s play with their children.

A very important point I would like to make when it comes to fathers in the home, is the correlation between fathers in the home and school shooters. Research shows that the biggest commonality among most of the school shooters has been fatherless homes. I think we should be placing a bigger blame on the absence of fathers in the home instead of guns. Almost every shooting over the past year has involved a young man whose parents have divorced or who never married in the first place. Maybe we should be working harder to fix our relationships or quit cohabitating. There is also a direct correlation between children without fathers and teen violence. As more homes are without fathers, more teens will engage in violent acts. Some very important statistics regarding fathers in the homes include the fact that without fathers, children are more than twice as likely to commit suicide. That is not a number we want to continue to increase. 71% of all high school dropouts come from a background without a father. Those children who grow up without a father are at a much greater risk of drug and alcohol abuse and two of the strongest correlations that have to do with gun homicides are dropping out of school and growing up fatherless. Without fathers as role models, boys experience a sense of purposelessness. They have a lack of boundary enforcement and many boys will have withdrawls into video games and pornography without a father.