How to be a father?

[zierf1]

I have a 4 year old son with my Thai wife.  I'm pretty embarassed because I don't know how to act like a father.    

[kurnell]

Same as acting with any other person.

[96tehtarp]

Play together with him. He'll show you how to do it.

 

Don't panic.

[kurtramsbottom]

It's not an act ...It should come naturally!

 

 

[draftvader]

Treat him as your equal as much as you can whilst ensuring you have authority when you need it.  If you speak to him like you would an adult maintaining a mutual respect and understanding you'll do very well.  Enjoy him and remember to stop and watch from time to time.  Jump on the roller-coaster and enjoy the ride of your life :)

[Pattszero]

Man - don't treat him like an equal - but don't bully him either.  

 

Lead by example - 

[draftvader]

...and so far the best advice comes from the nature of the thread. There is no right or wrong. Nobody knows. None of us got a handbook :)

[Deacon Bell]

Get a Rolf Harris DVD and do some painting with him.

[Showbags]

So what have you been doing for 4 years ?

[Cpkt8]

You don't have to act like a father. A father is usually bossy and intimidating. Just be natural Slowly a bond will be formed.

[kurtramsbottom]

Get a Rolf Harris DVD and do some painting with him.

 

 

Bad taste if meant as a joke .

 

Otherwise pretty eff-ing sick.

[4evermaat]

Practice being with him, talking with him, feeding him healthy foods, etc. 2 keys

1) Be consistent with your do's/donts.

2) you cannot please everyone. You are going to hear a lot of opinions for such an abstract question. Focus on being yourself and consistency. Trying to live a lifestyle like everyone else will only cause more confusion in the long run.

[Suradit69]

Treat him as your equal as much as you can whilst ensuring you have authority when you need it.  If you speak to him like you would an adult maintaining a mutual respect and understanding you'll do very well.  Enjoy him and remember to stop and watch from time to time.  Jump on the roller-coaster and enjoy the ride of your life

 

"Treat him as your equal ..."

 

He's not an equal. He doesn't have the education, the experience, the size, the stamina, the ability to reason, the emotional stability, the reasoning skills, any of the learning capacity that comes with the stages of physical and mental development that he's yet to pass through ... that you hopefully have.  He should look to you as a role model and someone who will help him grow into a man like you. He knows full well he's not your equal or he will when he's able to think clearly about such things.

 

Treat him with respect for the individual he is, but he is not an equal. He will rely on you to protect him and guide him until one day he develops into an independent, fully grown man. That doesn't mean you constantly make a point of proving how great or strong you are compared to him. If you behave as you should you'll be the model he wants to emulate and he'll strive to make you proud of him and to became as much like you as he can.

 

Of course, play with him, have fun together, love him, but you still have to be in charge and the one making decisions. 

[David48]

Gentlemen ... I think the OP is having a wee pull of our legs.

 

Other OP's by the same member ...

 

how-to-send-money-to-thai-wife-without-fees

 

how-much-is-enough-for-the-wifes-monthly-allowance  ... that one was very popular!

 

want-to-live-in-thailand-but-only-33

 

living-in-thailand-do-you-miss-your-relatives

 

help-trying-to-convince-my-wife-we-should-stay-in-thailand

 

lowest-priced-round-trip-from-us-to-thailand

 

how-to-be-a-father

 

 

All within 17 posts ... 

 

Currently, the OP lives Stateside (USA) according to his latest posts.

 

So, apart from sending the Mother of his Child money ... I don't know how else he has an influence.

 

 

zierf1 ... good luck my man.

 

Your choice of Topics shows you have a creative mind ... so just keep that attitude and your child will be fine ... 

.

[Falcon]

Be his parent, his protector and best friend, just like my son and myself and above all, be yourself. Worst thing you can do is to try to be someone your not, a child can see straight through that. Children don't care if their parents are rich or poor, young or old, their love is unconditional. Edited August 15, 2014 by Falcon

[tifino]

I've found, from experience, it's important for Mum to be seen as treating me as 'Dad', in front of the kid.

 

otherwise farang will always be a step behind in reaching the top spot

[Kayahammer]

Get a Rolf Harris DVD and do some painting with him.

 

 

You mean Rolf Harris the convicted pedophile?

[mok199]

im 59 retired and have my first he is 3 mnths,i love this boy so much and fathering is comong naturallly to me,but let me warn you about rasing a boy in thailand,keep on top of it,get him speaking your native langauage,communicate and love him,beacuse if you let the thai familly brain wash him,you will have trouble getting him back''mentally''...thier idea of raising a child is sticking a bottle in his mouth and cauddling him until he is smothered,and them teaching how to wai and say ''krap'',is the thai idea of ''becoming a man.....guide him ,teach him respect,and politeness is more than saying ''krap'' it is earned,and not every one deserves respect''esp in thailand''....get him thinking outside the thai box,and watch his freinds closey...they are a huge influence...ther rest comes natural...good luck

[thhMan]

Sorry mate, but did you have a dad growing up?

Take your nappies off and use some common sense...

 

Seriously, the stupidity of some people is amazing!

[ggt]

Children equate a good father...to how much time he spends with them...find out your son's  interests...or create some interest that a 4 year old can relate to and enjoy...time is the most precious gift you can give a child...after unconditional love...good luck...

[monkey4u]

Take him to a low life bar and share the fun with him 

[kennypowers]

im 59 retired and have my first he is 3 mnths,i love this boy so much and fathering is comong naturallly to me,but let me warn you about rasing a boy in thailand,keep on top of it,get him speaking your native langauage,communicate and love him,beacuse if you let the thai familly brain wash him,you will have trouble getting him back''mentally''...thier idea of raising a child is sticking a bottle in his mouth and cauddling him until he is smothered,and them teaching how to wai and say ''krap'',is the thai idea of ''becoming a man.....guide him ,teach him respect,and politeness is more than saying ''krap'' it is earned,and not every one deserves respect''esp in thailand''....get him thinking outside the thai box,and watch his freinds closey...they are a huge influence...ther rest comes natural...good luck

What Thai people are you talking about? All 60 odd million?

 

There are millions of fantastic Thai fathers and mothers out there; my wife is one of them. Perhaps you are referring to some family living in a rice field in the middle of nowhere that has never been to school and can barely speak or write Thai themselves, but I assure you this is not the case in normal Thai families. 

[Jasun]

Before having kids, I had several theories on how to raise them. Now I have several kids and no theories. There's no rule book, just be there.

[ttthailand]

Be there and be fair .....

[draftvader]

 

Treat him as your equal as much as you can whilst ensuring you have authority when you need it.  If you speak to him like you would an adult maintaining a mutual respect and understanding you'll do very well.  Enjoy him and remember to stop and watch from time to time.  Jump on the roller-coaster and enjoy the ride of your life

 

"Treat him as your equal ..."

 

He's not an equal. He doesn't have the education, the experience, the size, the stamina, the ability to reason, the emotional stability, the reasoning skills, any of the learning capacity that comes with the stages of physical and mental development that he's yet to pass through ... that you hopefully have.  He should look to you as a role model and someone who will help him grow into a man like you. He knows full well he's not your equal or he will when he's able to think clearly about such things.

 

Treat him with respect for the individual he is, but he is not an equal. He will rely on you to protect him and guide him until one day he develops into an independent, fully grown man. That doesn't mean you constantly make a point of proving how great or strong you are compared to him. If you behave as you should you'll be the model he wants to emulate and he'll strive to make you proud of him and to became as much like you as he can.

 

Of course, play with him, have fun together, love him, but you still have to be in charge and the one making decisions. 

 

 

Are we talking about a human being or a pet?  This just sounds like an ego trip for an adult.  At what point do you stop believing that about your child?  10, 11, 12, 18, 25?  If you treat your child the way that you would like the world to treat him then he will head out there and demonstrate the behaviours that will ensure the world treats him that way.  Treat your child as anything other than an equal and you are only teaching him that he is 2nd best and you'll raise another generation with a chip on their shoulder.

I am not saying that your word should not be final, it should.  That "final" word should be the last word you say and should be the same words you would use if your best friend climbed up on the sofa and started jumping up and down.  You do not need to show a child how to be a child.  You need to show them the path to becoming a strong adult with a sense of their worth.  I have not met a single person yet that gave me ANY more respect than I demonstrated that I deserved.  I have suffered a lot in my life from being treated as a child when I was a child.  It is my turn to make a change in our world.

 

You really don't have to take my word for this.  It is the foundation of the most cutting edge educational techniques being used in the world's best and most progressive schools today.  Of course you can just do it all the same way that our parents did and watch another generation repeat our mistakes.  Turning on the news today I fear that version of events.  We hold the key to our children's future and we can make that better by demonstrating how they can be respected so they know when to turn away from those that would drive them down.  This is how to change the world for the better.

 

It is your decision for your children....I know I'll continue to offer my child the respect she deserves and treat her as an equal.  I offer her clear boundaries as I would a friend if they behaved like her (i.e drawing on the walls, etc).  If I see her as "lower" then I am not showing her how to grow up and respect herself.  Who will be able to respect her if she can't respect herself?

[Thakkar]

An interesting piece on parenting styles from around the world. Something to be learned from some of them:

Global Parenting Habits That Haven't Caught On In The U.S. : Parallels : NPR: http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2014/08/12/339825261/global-parenting-habits-that-havent-caught-on-in-the-u-s

[Thakkar]

Parenting
Sometimes parents tend to get caught up in the minutia of parenthood: the logistics of getting from one place to another without losing your sh!t, the weary deflection of the 34th why? question of the afternoon, and all the rest. At least, I know I do. You forget to lift your head up to appreciate what you have. Author Elizabeth Stone once wrote that having kids was deciding to have your heart go walking around outside your body. Steve Jobs put it similarly: your children are your heart running around outside your body. Thats the truest sentiment Ive ever read about parenting; it feels exactly like that to me.

-----

On average, having kids makes you less happy than not having kids. But it is parents who make *themselves* unhappy by stressing out about anything and everything.


Parental makeover step one:
Get rid of the stuff nobody likes and is stressing everyone out. If the kids don't want music lessons, get rid of music lessons.

Be after a different kind of parenting prize. It's not achievement you should be after. It's warmth. Be kind to your kids.

Obsessive parenting is over rated. It makes the parent less happy and it turns out that the best parent is a happy parent. So stop obsessing. The thing that matters most is love. If they feel unloved, they won't turn out well.

Bruce Sacerdote, who's done research on adoptions, talks about some of the areas where nurture beats out nature:
You see that children are picking up their parents smoking and drinking habits with a very high degree of correlation, and its the same with the adoptees and the non-adoptees, they really pick up their parents habits, those type of habits explicitly. Another thing thats undoubtedly contagious is that behavior of how you interact, how you treat other people, how you treat employees at a restaurant, or a retail store or something. I think those things are probably highly contagious as well.

Bryan Caplan on the startlingly slim effect that parents seem to have on their childrens lifetime income:
the very best studies of the nature and nurture of income find that parents do have a moderate effect on your early income when youre in your twenties, but basically zero for the rest of your life.

Read Bryan Caplan (the blogger and author of Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids: Why Parenting is More Fun and Less Work Than You Think.
If you are like me, you will: learn a lot; gnash your teeth a lot; and laugh a lot.

[belg]

where were you the last 4 years ?

 

i think this is a windup

[arjunadawn]

Take a few moments undetected and observe mom with baby. Just... feel. You'll know what to do. Just... do what follows. Congratulations.
PS- no one knows what to do for first time and no advice can ultimately help you. Just love your baby and this will fish the knowledge from within you.

[DrTuner]

Like the commercial: Just do it.