{"id":2162,"date":"2012-08-31T06:37:15","date_gmt":"2012-08-30T20:37:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/inthenews\/?p=2162"},"modified":"2015-04-29T13:47:09","modified_gmt":"2015-04-29T03:47:09","slug":"a-thought-for-fathers-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/a-thought-for-fathers-day\/","title":{"rendered":"A thought for Father&#8217;s Day"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/2012\/08\/31\/a-thought-for-fathers-day\/dad-child-care-internet\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2164\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-2164\" title=\"Dad child care internet\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/files\/2012\/08\/Dad-child-care-internet.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"160\" \/><\/a>This Father\u2019s Day, The Royal Children\u2019s Hospital (RCH) is encouraging dads to become more involved in their children\u2019s early childhood services.<\/p>\n<p>Director of the RCH Centre for Community Child Health, Professor Frank Oberklaid, says while healthy father-child relationships are essential, Australian dads often return to work within two weeks of the birth of a new baby, reducing their opportunities to be an active parent during their child\u2019s first years of life.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost dads want to spend lots of time with their kids, but we also know that often they are the main breadwinners for their families.\u00a0 This can make finding enough time for everything really hard,\u201d Professor Oberklaid said.<\/p>\n<p>Most Australian mums, on the other hand, stay at home for an average of at least six months before returning to work.<\/p>\n<p>Whilst dads can enjoy the positive interactions of working bees and annual Father\u2019s Day events, they may find it more difficult to participate in the day-to-day experiences of their child\u2019s early childhood service.<\/p>\n<p>Dads should consider the many benefits that stem from strong relationships between them and their children, including fewer behavioural problems in children whose dads are supportive and sensitive to their independence, improved wellbeing later in life, and improved mental health.<\/p>\n<p>Professor Oberklaid says the relationship between father and child is just as important as the one between mother and child.<\/p>\n<p>He says there are plenty of ways for dads to be more active throughout their child\u2019s formative years.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOne way that dads can get involved is through their kids\u2019 childcare setting. Pick ups and drop offs can be a great opportunity to talk to the educators and share information about how things are going, both at childcare and at home.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIf you have a bit more time, then story time, sharing songs with the group, even taking 15 minutes to check out the play equipment and see the artworks \u2013 they\u2019re all great options to spend time with your kids and get involved in an important part of their world,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Royal Children\u2019s Hospital is encouraging dads to become more involved in their children\u2019s early childhood services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2162"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4940,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2162\/revisions\/4940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.rch.org.au\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}