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June 30, 2010

A message about “father absence” – let’s be intentional in our language

Filed under: Fatherhood, Messaging, Language and Discourse — admin @ 3:01 pm

“Father absence” is a term you hear often. Usually it refers to the father being absent from the same household where the child lives. For example, “Children in father-absent homes are five times more likely to be poor. In 2002, 7.8 percent of children in married-couple families were living in poverty, compared with 38.4 percent of children in female-householder families.”

But a father not living in the same household as the child does not mean the father is absent from the child’s life. In fact, much of our work at MFFN and in the fatherhood field is to say loud and clear, that a father not living in the home does not make him an “absent father”, invisible, or unimportant, even though our society often treats him that way.

Drawing attention to the importance of fathers by using “father-absent” terms can do a disservice to both fathers AND mothers. It fails to recognize the important role that fathers can play when they aren’t living in the home, and it often leads to blaming or shaming of single-female headed households. And we know that is not what many intend.

What most of us intend is to support fathers, no matter where they live or their family form. We want fathers to be supported in being healthy, active and involved fathers because they raise healthy children, build healthy families and contribute to healthy communities. We can recognize that it is usually easier to be a healthy, active presence in a child’s life when you are able to live in the same home every day as your child while simultaneously trying to make it easier to support fathers who don’t live with their children every day. Finally, we can–and should– support better systems, services and public policies for both types of fathers.

So, next time you hear the term “father absence” think: absent from what? A physical structure? Or a child’s life? Let’s not perpetuate the idea that the only way a father matters is by living in the same home as his child.

April 6, 2010

Simple, direct messages help to improve parenting behaviors

Filed under: Fatherhood, Health, Messaging, Language and Discourse, Violence Prevention — admin @ 9:35 am

Last month I attended a conference where one of the authors of the book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard, spoke about the challenges of changing everyday behaviors related to public health. Dan Heath spoke about big issues like changing the way we eat and exercise. His underlying message was that we (health and human service professionals) often make our jobs too hard for ourselves.

When we’re trying to impact community-wide social changes we often forget, or ignore, a few key lessons about human nature.

One of these lessons about human nature is the idea that we are more likely to change our behaviors if we have specific instructions about how to change our behaviors. Dan Heath explained, for example, that a food drive can be more successful if we tell people what kind of food to donate or if we give people a map to show them the location of the food drive. These specific instructions make it easier for people to make the change that we seek.

In a similar way, the authors of Switch talk about the challenges of parenting. In particular, in one chapter of the book, they talk about parents who engage in acts of child abuse. The authors cite a fascinating intervention that works one-on-one with parents to change their abusive behaviors. The key to the intervention is to script the parents’ responses to their children – to essentially teach parents how to interact with their own kids.

The program achieves amazing results amongst many of these abusive parents. The message, according to the authors, is that for many parents “child abuse…may be partly the result of a lack of understanding, a lack of clear instruction or guidance on what to do. This is not to excuse the parents’ behavior, of course. It is simply to point out that simple scripting has power beyond what any of us could have predicted.”

In many ways, the simplicity of the intervention makes perfect sense. We know that most parents have too few role models of positive parenting behaviors. We know that too many media images of parenting involve extreme behaviors of permissiveness vs harsh discipline. We know that blurred gender roles leave many parents grasping to figure out how fathering and mothering can be complementary parenting styles.

During this April – Child Abuse Prevention Month – scripting for parents is an achievable goal. As professionals across Minnesota, we have a duty to craft messages that are simple, direct, and specific. We can achieve change if we, first, are willing to change the way we approach the massive challenges of public health.

-Paul Masiarchin

March 22, 2010

A Spiritual Perspective on Family Courts

Filed under: Co-parenting, Family Law, Fatherhood, Messaging, Language and Discourse, Public Policy — admin @ 9:58 pm

Many of our colleagues across Minnesota are familiar with the compassionate and thoughtful voice of Hennepin County’s Judge Bruce Peterson. In a March 2010 article in Tikkun Magazine he describes a cooperative approach to family court – an approach that would attempt to remove the conflict, anger, and winner-loser and replace those elements with cooperation, compassion, and mutual decision making.

As Peterson states, “Given the raw emotional power generated in family court and the sheer number of Americans experiencing this public institution firsthand, I have become convinced that it is a logical place to start building a workable spiritual agenda for families.” Peterson explains a spiritual agenda as one that offers opportunities for growth and healing. He continues, “What’s needed is to do away with the adversary nature of family proceedings and instead offer opportunities for deeper communication.”

Peterson describes family court as anathema to the needs to co-parents who need to find ways to cooperate in raising their child. He states, “The problem, of course, is that if the litigants are parents, for the next fifty years they will still be interacting and making decisions about their children. Courtroom combat may be fine for people who never have to see each other again, but for families, destroying whatever remains of a parenting relationship is the worst possible outcome. After seeing what some people do to each other in court, I am amazed they can bear to lay eyes on each other again, much less cooperate in parenting.” Thus, family court’s adversarial approach needs to be replaced. He concludes, “By replacing adversary proceedings with processes that encourage mutual concern, healing can become an increasingly important function of the courts.”

The full article offers a deeper exploration into the ways that family courts could change to encourage cooperation, healing, and growth for families that are divorcing or for never-married parents who are deciding the outcome of child custody and other issues. His premise is one of hope. It would require massive shifts in expectations, policies, and funding in the nation’s court systems. The benefits for families and children could be equally massive.

January 5, 2010

Breaking old stereotypes

Filed under: Fatherhood, Male Socialization, Messaging, Language and Discourse — admin @ 11:42 am

For years, we’ve known that notions about healthy fatherhood are evolving. Men who are actively involved fathers tend to cite their role as a nurturer and caregiver as the most important aspect of fatherhood. This is in sharp contrast to notions of fatherhood in the middle of the last century, when fathers tended to cite their role as a breadwinner as the most important aspect of fatherhood.

Yet, stereotypes are slow to change. The character of the uninvolved father (who is either a strict disciplinarian or an uninformed and out-of-touch adult) persists.

That’s why we’re so pleased to share these public service announcements that show wonderful images of healthy fatherhood. Available in both Spanish and English, these videos present one small step in the move to make fatherhood fashionable and realistic to the lives of American men.

Happy New Year.

November 24, 2009

The “Praying Robber” - understanding our work through one story

Filed under: Co-parenting, Early Childhood, Economy, Fatherhood, Male Socialization, Messaging, Language and Discourse, Public Policy — admin @ 5:50 pm

Sometimes it is a challenge to explain and illustrate the interconnectedness of the issues we work on at MFFN, especially around public policy.

This article by Joy Moses at the Center for American Progress, posted today, articulates the connections between fathers and families very poignantly, with the case of the “praying robber.” If you only have time to read one story this week, read this: http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/11/praying_robber.html

August 13, 2009

Reframing “the client”; engaging the whole family

Filed under: Co-parenting, Fatherhood, Messaging, Language and Discourse — admin @ 10:22 am

The field of fatherhood is a relatively new camp within the broader field of social services and human services. For many community based nonprofits and government agencies, working with fathers is still an entirely new endeavor, rife with the struggles of learning new ways of recruiting and retaining men. These agencies must meet two, often divergent, goals: adequately addressing the diverse needs of men while, at the same time, maintaining the valuable services traditionally offered for women and children. Adding fathers as clients requires staff to examine their own attitudes, beliefs, and stereotypes about men and fathers. Whether he is married to the mother or lives in a separate home, a father is still a part of the family.

While more and more local agencies add fathers to the mix of clients, there is, simultaneously, a national movement to re-think our messages about families. Indeed, we are on the cusp of a paradigm shift which requires the fields of social services and human services to think in terms of “whole families” rather than individual children, men and women.

For example, the Strengthening Families framework demonstrates that programs that work with mothers and fathers can help families to avoid child abuse and maltreatment. The research behind the Strengthening Families work shows that families, as a unit, can be supported to build assets and thrive. It’s a model which recognizes that prevention requires us to work with the whole family.

Similarly, the National Human Services Assembly recently released a report which defines the current economic crisis as an opportunity for reframing services. The NHSA states, “The client is not the child. The client is not the adult. The client is the family.” The report goes on to say that human service programs must re-think their way of doing business by engaging both kids and parents. Working with one member of the family, in isolation, produces fewer positive results than working with whole families.

For professionals working with fathers, we too must re-frame our clients. We must broaden our work to better address the needs of whole families. For example, fatherhood programs must continue to find ways to offer on-site child care and co-parenting classes as ways to sustain healthy family relationships. A recent study demonstrates that couples groups produced better results for families than father-only groups. Additionally, father-only groups were more successful when mothers were engaged at various points during the program.

The steady march has begun. Fatherhood programs have a real opportunity to be at the forefront of the transformation that breaks down silos of services and begins to see whole families as the client. (See MFFN’s logic model for more about systems change.)

As stated by the NHSA, “now we have the chance to come together across traditional divisions within human services and to rethink artificial and misrepresentative conceptions about those who we serve.”

June 16, 2009

The social norm of good fathering

Filed under: Fatherhood, Messaging, Language and Discourse — admin @ 5:38 pm

As Father’s Day approaches, I’ve been thinking about messages of healthy fatherhood. And I’ve been thinking about MFFN’s strategy of framing fatherhood based on the benefits that fathers bring to children, women, communities, and to fathers themselves.

Meanwhile, I’ve also been hearing more and more about the concept of social norms. As I understand it, social norming states a positive reality based on the majority of the population — rather than stating a negative reality based on a small minority.

Here’s how it’s explained by the National Social Norms Institute, “Until recently, the predominant approach in the field of health promotion sought to motivate behavior change by highlighting risk. Sometimes called ‘the scare tactic approach’ or ‘health terrorism,’ this method essentially hopes to frighten individuals into positive change by insisting on the negative consequences of certain behaviors. Think of the image of a crumpled automobile, flashing red lights, and the tag line ‘Speed kills!’ and you will have a sense of this kind of public health campaign. As sociologist H. Wesley Perkins has pointed out, however, this kind of traditional strategy ‘has not changed behavior one percent.’”

As I continue to think about fatherhood, I realize that talking about fatherlessness and father absence may be the equivalent of the scare tactic approach. Meanwhile, talking about father presence, healthy fatherhood, and positive father-child relationships is the social norms approach.

Afterall, we know that most men (married and unmarried) are present at the birth of their children. Most men protect their children and raise them in healthy ways. Most men provide monetarily and emotionally, as best they can, to meet the needs of the next generation. Most men aim to be good fathers.

And most men (and most women) could probably do just a little bit more to be an even better parent.

This Father’s Day, I’m happy to celebrate the social norm of good fathering.

Happy Father’s Day,
Paul Masiarchin

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