Purpose

The positive presence of a father in his child’s life is beneficial in many ways. This presence can positively impact the father, the children and the school.

Be There Dad® initiatives will assist dads enhance their presence in the face of their other obligations and challenges including jobs, chores and cultural issues.

Goals
  • Dad’s Groups: Establish Dads’ groups in schools to get dads more involved in the lives of their children and their schools.
  • Create Leadership Teams: Identify and place leadership team of dads in each school
  • Participation: Encourage all dads [and those assuming that role] to participate.
  • Create Structure: Institutionalize groups within each school structure in order to continue the presence year on year.
Impact of Dad's Presence

dads-presence

Objectives

Dads’ groups will pursue three core objectives

PRESENCE: 
Enhance the presence of dads in their children’s lives

POTENTIAL:
Influence the potential of each child because of the presence of fathers

PARTNERSHIP:
Impact the school positively through presence and service

Objectives for Dad's Groups

dads-objectives-2

Be There Dad's Questions

There is a list of characteristics common to those dads who are present, engaged and involved.

Each of those characteristics is accompanied by a Be There Dad question.

The answer to that question will help each dad address that characteristic in his own unique way.   The answer to each question may be different for each dad and for each child.

CharacteristicQuestion
Having a VisionWhy have you come to do battle?
Making a CommitmentWho is going to coach us?
Passing It On What did your dad teach you?
Success for Each of Us How do you define winning?
Setting PrioritiesHow much time can you spare?
Being PresentHow do you look?
Intentional Dialogue What do you say?
Struggle to SignificanceWhat does it all mean?
What did your father teach you?

If we are the products of our fathers’ presence, then our children will be the products of ours. Be There Dads must identify the lessons they will teach their children. Because we have been there before, because someone showed us, we know the steps that our children must take. We must help them find each one. We must ask ourselves, “What do I need to pass on to my children?”

Then, using our own interests, gifts and talents, we must develop our own curriculum to teach the same lessons. The good news is that, like our fathers, most of the lessons will simply come from the parables of our lives. If we dedicate ourselves to living the way we should, if we can see that role modeling is the most effective way to teach, then the task will become easier. We can use the activities of our lives the same way our fathers used theirs. If we can show up and live our lives in the presence of our children, we will overcome one challenge of the battle.