These days I have started reading a book that may interest our readers. Is about “The role of the father”, by Kyle D. Pruett, a work that analyzes the paternal importance in the child's development in different family situations.
It is a book that delves into the characteristics of the father-son bond, the fundamental relationship to develop in children a greater emotional balance and greater self-confidence.
The doctor in Child Psychiatry Kyle Pruett presents in this work the conclusions of more than two decades of research at the Yale Child Study Center and Medical School on the importance of the paternal role in the physical, cognitive and emotional development of their children.
It is interesting because different situations are focused, some of which are increasingly frequent in our society: divorced parents, parents of adoptive children, parents deprived of liberty, homosexual parents, stepparents or parents of disabled children.
The sensitivity with which the author explains the wide variety of relationships and benefits that exist in the close contact of parents and children, often with real statements of the people who participated in the studies, is worth it.
The content of the book “The role of the father”
These are the chapters in which the book is developed:
- Fathers do not act like mothers
- The paternal difference in child development
- The father as principal in charge of caring for the child
- The need for a father throughout life
- Divorce: a challenge to the need of a father
- Expressions of father's need
- Mothers and father's need
- How fatherhood changes his men for his good
- Satisfy the need of father
- The children have the last word
With a close and entertaining style, the father's relationship with his children is deepened in the sense of mutual enrichment.
The author is analyzing interesting topics such as the importance of communicating with children using appropriate language at each age, the need to avoid the tendency to reinforce gender stereotypes or to maintain contact with the child at different stages, since They are babies until maturity, going through the difficult adolescence.
In addition, the idea is reinforced that with the involvement of the father, the relationship between the couple is strengthened and the different challenges posed by fatherhood and motherhood are better tackled.
The author
Dr. Kyle D. Pruett is Professor of Child Psychiatry at Yale University, author of several books and columns on parenting. With a close and accessible style, sometimes provocative, he is loved by the media also for his humor and is among the internationally renowned experts in children, family relationships and parents.
Although that fame has also earned him some controversy, because his work has sometimes been used by the detractors of gay marriage, something he has rejected. In my opinion, from what I have read of the work, I also do not believe that the conclusions of this author can be interpreted in this regard.
The role of the father is fundamental in the development of the child, although it is also true that if there is no "proper" or traditional father figure (single mothers, two mothers) I believe that role is completed to a greater or lesser extent by those or other family members
Biologically, emotionally and culturally prepared parents
These days we have been seeing that parents undergo biological, hormonal changes in their bodies when their children are born, so that nature prepares them for their function.
But the changes go further, and contact with the child determines his development and his training as a person. It depends on us (mothers and fathers) how that little being grows up that will become an adult according to our education and our relationship with them.
I am afraid that this book is discontinued, I found it on offer at El Corte Inglés, it is from the disappeared Vergara Editorial, although some copies can be found online.
I hope to bring you some more thoughts about this work that is finding me quite interesting. And, in short, this work opens our eyes to a situation that we sometimes take for granted or to which we do not attach too much importance.
We are very accustomed to hearing that the maternal factor is decisive in the growth of the child, but the same can be the paternal. In “The role of the father”, Kyle D. Pruett reviews the importance of the father-son bond, an unrepeatable and enriching union for both parties.
