Daddy's Little Girl : Part 1

The Dads & Daughters Togetherness Guide: 54 Fun Activities to Help Build a Great Relationship
by Joe Kelly

Fathers know that doing things with their daughters is important. Shared activities build trust and self-esteem, show how much dads care, and allow everyone to cut loose and have fun. But even fathers who can beat the generation and gender gaps that make them feel awkward can't always dream up cool places to go or mutually enjoyable things to do. Like the coach of their favorite team, dads need a game plan, and that's exactly what Joe Kelly provides in Dads & Daughters Togetherness Guide.

Appropriate for girls of any age, the guide enables dads to grab their daughters by the hand and say "Let's go ..."

See how things are made: Take a made-in-America tour and see how everything from jumbo jets (Boeing) to chocolate kisses (Hershey's) is produced.

Bake a funny cake: She'll laugh herself silly in the kitchen making Kitty Litter Cake, a German chocolate sheet cake covered with "cat litter" (dyed, crumbled cookies) and topped with miniature Tootsie Rolls.

Take a drive to nowhere: Let the copilot navigate, and leave time for fun stops to poke around in flea markets or join a game of pickup softball for a few innings.

With dozens of other engaging activities - such as creating a daddy-daughter journal, devising secret codes, and exchanging poems - this is the ultimate rain-or-shine resource for developing wonderful parent-child rapport.

Chapter 1

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 things - like 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 two-year-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 remember - our 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 6-year-old daughter, I organized our evenings so that the half hour before bedtime is Our Time. During Our Time, I brush my daughter's shower-wet 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 mind - her 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, or other distractions will interrupt. She has Dad totally to herself. Even thirty minutes can feed the hunger a dad and a daughter have for each other. So make it a habit!

Remember that Our Time can happen even if dad and daughter are not in the same place. If you live or work away from your daughter, set aside regular Our Time during which you:

• Talk to each other on the phone or over a free Internet telephony system like Skype or Google Talk.
• IM or e-mail each other.
• Play an interactive online game together.
• Communicate with each other over Ham radio (you can even use Morse code).

Get creative and come up with your own ideas, too.

In other words, don't let distance interfere with Our Time. Fortunately, there are constantly expanding ways to communicate and connect over distances. Make them work for you!

2. Fast Fun for Daughters through Three Months

Birth to Three Months

Fast Fun is a list of activity ideas that a pop, father, dad, padre, pappa, or daddy-o can pull out any time. They don't require a lot of preparation or explanation. But if you're stumped for ideas of what to do today, this list can get you started.

When you bring your daughter home from the hospital, you are hypersensitive and may be afraid she will break if you handle her wrong. Well, that's a good thing - a father's natural instinct is to meet the needs of this completely dependent little creature. You may feel like you're on an emotional roller coaster (because you are), but you can still play and have fun with your baby.

Copyright © 2007 by Joe Kelly.

About the Author

Former journalist Joe Kelly is the executive director of Dads and Daughters and father of twin adult daughters. His work has been extensively featured in the media, including NPR, CBS, ABC, People, USA Today, and the New York Times. He was awarded the 1995 Parenting Achievement Award from Parenting magazine and helped his wife, Nancy Gruver, launch New Moon, the award-winning international magazine edited by girls. He lives in Duluth, Minnesota.