The Father Factor - Dick S. Forbes, MA

The Father Factor – Dick S. Forbes, MA

If you are one of those Dads that answers the bell everyday and does your best to instill in your children honesty, faith, courage, integrity, humility, perseverance, then I say to you: “God Bless you. “

We have a crisis on our hands that I believe is our nation’s worst social crisis. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 24 million children in America -- one out of every three -- live in biological father-absent homes. Nine in ten American parents agree this is a “crisis.” But the hope lies in the fact that children with involved fathers do better across every measure of child well-being than their peers in father-absent homes. 

I have listed some research below that is very alarming. Read what the research has found:

In a study examining father involvement with 134 children of adolescent mothers over the first 10 years of life, researchers found that father-child contact was associated with better socio-emotional and academic functioning. The results indicated that children with more involved fathers experienced fewer behavioral problems and scored higher on reading achievement. This study showed the significance of the role of fathers in the lives of at-risk children, even in case of nonresident fathers.
Journal of Family Psychology, 20, 468- 476.
Children in father-absent homes are almost four times more likely to be poor. In 2011, 12 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared to 44 percent of children in mother-only families.
 U.S. Census Bureau, Children’s Living Arrangements and Characteristics: March 2011, Table C8. Washington D.C.: 2011.
Data from three waves of the Fragile Families Study (N= 2,111) was used to examine the prevalence and effects of mothers’ relationship changes between birth and age 3 on their children’s well being. Children born to single mothers show higher levels of aggressive behavior than children born to married mothers. Living in a single-mother household is equivalent to experiencing 5.25 partnership transitions.
Journal of Marriage and Family, 69, 1065-1083.
Infant mortality rates are 1.8 times higher for infants of unmarried mothers than for married mothers.
National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 48, No. 12. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics, 2000.
Even after controlling for income, youths in father-absent households still had significantly higher odds of incarceration than those in mother-father families. Youths who never had a father in the household experienced the highest odds.
Journal of Research on Adolescence 14 (September 2004): 369-397.
A study of 109 juvenile offenders indicated that family structure significantly predicts delinquency.
Journal of Youth and Adolescence 29 (August 2000): 467-478.
Being raised by a single mother raises the risk of teen pregnancy, marrying with less than a high school degree, and forming a marriage where both partners have less than a high school degree.
Journal of Family Issues 25 (January 2004): 86-111.
A study using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study revealed that in many cases the absence of a biological father contributes to increased risk of child maltreatment. The results suggest that Child Protective Services (CPS) agencies have some justification in viewing the presence of a social father as increasing children’s risk of abuse and neglect. It is believed that in families with a non-biological (social) father figure, there is a higher risk of abuse and neglect to children, despite the social father living in the household or only dating the mother.
 “CPS Involvement in Families with Social Fathers.” Fragile Families Research Brief No.46. Princeton, NJ and New York, NY: Bendheim-Thomas Center for Research on Child Wellbeing and Social Indicators Survey Center, 2010.
Even after controlling for community context, there is significantly more drug use among children who do not live with their mother and father.
Journal of Marriage and Family 64 (May 2002): 314-330.
The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth found that obese children are more likely to live in father-absent homes than are non-obese children.
National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.
Father involvement in schools is associated with the higher likelihood of a student getting mostly A's. This was true for fathers in biological parent families, for stepfathers, and for fathers heading single-parent families.
U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, 2001.
I am encouraged to know there are some good men out there doing the right thing as a father. To you fathers who need to do the right thing, step up, break the cycle and be a Dad!
HAPPY FATHERS DAY!

Dick Forbes can be reached at 770.386.0608 or Email: dsforbes@bellsouth.net www.forbescounseling.com

A Father’s Prayer

    For Jessica and Rebecca

A daddy thinks about his girls,

            And who they’ll someday be;

And where they’ll go, and who they’ll meet

            Before Eternity.

What they’ll do, and who they’ll wed,

            Are questions now, you see.

But bigger question this than those,

            Can this depend on me?

I’m thinking now of years gone by

            Of fun and games and toys.

Of grade school days, birthdays, and trips

            With other girls and boys.

But now we’re in a different time,

            Of which I’m not so sure….

We’re daily shaping lives and dreams

            And dad feels… insecure.

For, lo, these girls are ladies now,

            These tots have turned to teens!

How do we guide to paths of life,

            And direct past dangers unseen?

Dear, Lord, this Father’s prayer is plain,

            Fumbled, poor, almost sad.

How can You do this task SO BIG

            With such a TINY dad?

I know You are the “Red Sea God”

            The Water-Walking One.

I’ve read the stories in Your Word

            Of all the things You’ve done.

But can You fix a daddy’s heart

            To not mess up his girls’??

Can You make him (who fails so much)

            Able for the biggest job in the world?

 I mean no disrespect, dear Lord,

            Nor doubt of You, Divine.

It’s just so much that I goof up!!

            Perhaps I need a sign…

That He who guided Peter’s feet

            Across a water-way,

And made a donkey speak out loud

            To one who’d gone astray,

Can give me wisdom, love, and sight,

            To shepherd these great “seed”;

To change from being what I’ve been,

            Into the dad they need!

So daily now, I pledge to You,

            And them, to seek Your face

To follow hard upon Your steps,

            And find strength in Your grace.

My prayer is that they’ll see me change;

            From day to day, improve.

That they can know I’m trying hard

            And they can sense my love.

But I will trust that You will work,

            And finish this great task,.

And daily will I thank You, Lord!

            This humble prayer, I ask.

© 5/31/02     770-548-3020

Tom B. Bandy   tbandy523@comcast.net

           

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The Value of Knowing Yourself ~~ Dick S. Forbes, MA

When Thales of Miletus, one of the sages of ancient Greece, was asked, “What is difficult?” he is said to have replied, “To know yourself.”

Many of us live in denial, but we keep asking the same old questions, “Why does this keep happening to me?” “Why do I end up frustrated and stuck in the same situation?”   Until you know yourself, your strengths and weaknesses, it will be difficult to move forward and get unstuck. Success will only happen at a superficial level until you decide to change.

The first step to knowing my self is get out of denial. As Thales suggested, knowing me is no easy task because we resist it. “I really don’t want to know what’s wrong with me.” We tend to think everything is fine no matter what. The Grateful Dead said it best: "When life looks like easy street, there is danger at your door." When you get too comfortable at the top, look out below.

The problem continues to be that we fool ourselves. Denial is blissful. About 150 years after Thales, Socrates came along and reminded his audience that “self-deception is the worst thing of all.” Before him, the prophet Jeremiah had said, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9), and he offered a lament: “I know, O LORD, that the way of man is not in himself, that it is not in man who walks to direct his steps” (Jeremiah 10:23). In other words, we can’t even trust our own minds, because the human mind is incapable of seeing things in a completely honest, straightforward manner. We hide things from ourselves.
Humility is what works for overcoming the denial of what we want to see. It allows me to face the reality of who I am. A humble heart and mind set lets me make changes about how life is working for me. I can admit to myself and others that I am not perfect. I am able to come to terms with my weakness.  When this happens we get better, and we become real and authentic people. We make a difference in this world that is looking for authentic people. Education professor Howard Gardner concluded that “extraordinary individuals stand out in the extent to which they reflect—often explicitly—on the events of their lives, large as well as small.”
The more I know myself the more I can understand how I relate to the world and how the world relates to me. I do believe that understanding myself gives me a greater appreciation for the challenges that other face. The result is a world view that allows us to treat others as we want to be treated and to love others as we love ourselves.

Dick Forbes can be reached at 770.386.0608 or Email: dsforbes@bellsouth.net

www.forbescounseling.com

Sovereignty Sufficiency

There is a 100% chance that His Sovereignty will be Suitable, Satisfactory, and Sufficient for my day.