Therapy and Coaching for Dads
That indescribable feeling…
One morning, my then one-year-old son and I were walking together. As parents typically do, I held his hand to make sure he didn’t trip or fall. I remember clear as day the visceral experience I had when I looked down at him and recognized how his little hand felt.
This emotion and feeling in my body was totally unique. I couldn’t find the words to identify what I felt, which was strange because, as a clinical therapist, I lived in a professional world where feelings were the words of everyday language.
What I could decipher was that this “feeling” wasn’t fear, angst, irritation, or despair. Rather, I was calm.
In that moment, I possessed an inner peace and was at ease with the rest of the world. Nothing was wrong with the world; it was just me and my boy. I wasn’t distracted or bothered by the demands of work, or the day, or of being a husband. It was just me, my son, and the sidewalk… walking together.
Being a quality dad…
What I also experienced was a sense of hope and optimism… for both my son’s future and my potential for being a quality dad. It was the expression of a father’s love and his bond to his son.
These days, I still get that feeling when I play with my now two sons… taking them to the park or singing some corny children’s song on our way home from grandma’s house.
It’s a source of genuine pride when I can teach my sons how to be responsible, likable, and confident that their dad is present and available to them.
That “dad feeling” …
I then wondered whether other dads were captivated in the same way by this fatherhood thing.
I spoke to some friends with young children and thought back to my clinical experience working with children and families…
And I recognized that many dads had not or, perhaps, “could not” feel what I had.
Sharing it with other fathers…
For those dads, I felt compelled to use my own positive experiences with my children and my years of being a therapist to help other dads feel fully immersed in fatherhood.
I figured if dads could experience for even a single minute what I felt when holding my son’s hand that one morning, they would be forever changed.
Yes, I know this sounds corny as shit and, believe me, before becoming a father, I may have thought that what I wrote above was some “soft, West Side of Los Angeles spiritual, trendy, new-aged, jargon bullshit.”
A new perspective for dads…
But I genuinely believe that if other fathers felt with their sons what I had felt with my own, they would experience a new, beneficial way of seeing themselves… as men, as fathers, and as partners.
Further, and maybe more importantly, these “present” fathers and their children would ultimately benefit from experiencing “DAD” as the loving, strong, compassionate, intelligent person he genuinely is.
During our work together…
I will work with you and your young child (0-5) (or the child that you are soon expecting).
We’ll work together to understand what is keeping you from “the transformative experience of being an available and dedicated Dad”: work demands, stress from marriage, just don’t know how, anxiety, depression, traumatic childhood, poor role modeling.
We’ll discuss the developmental milestones expected of your young and growing child and how you can maximize their potential during these stages.
We will also discuss how to recognize your child’s emotional states and how to be attentive to your own emotions during times of emotional expressiveness.
Learn how to take care of yourself so that you can be there for others.
Finding balance in your life/healing the boy within the Dad.
We’ll create an action-oriented plan for you to test your developing Dad skills and implement the plan for you to realize what being a Dad is really about.
We’ll also develop a strategy for you to realize when you are being an effective and good father – because you will be!
I’ll also check-in with you during sessions to discuss how being a Dad is impacting you emotionally and how your other relationships also benefit.
Your child deserves the best start in life.
If you are an expecting father or a father of a child 0-5 years of age who is nervous and anxious about your “father skills,” call me for a free consultation.
Your child deserves the father you can be. And you deserve to feel effective as a Father! It is life changing!
Change your life with a call today: (657) 345-4681