The Fatherhood
Program Celebrated Thanksgiving 2009
The Fatherhood Program
celebrated its Thanksgiving dinner with the attendance of over
120 participants with their families and children. The Family
Support and Education Services staff assisted in the planning
and preparation of all the details for the successful event,
from the menu to the decorations, crafts and all activities.
The participants learned
the origins and evolution of the Thanksgiving Celebration, which
encompass values such as gratitude, justice, fraternity and
love.
Everyone enjoyed the delicious turkey feast and fixings prepared
for the families, and the participants took a moment to share
their personal experiences and express their sentiments of
gratitude.
Dear Dads,
As you know, this Father's Day will
mark the 100th anniversary of the first observance of
Father's Day. In recognition, a National Responsible
Fatherhood Rally is being planned for June 20 on the
Mall in Washington DC, and its organizers are asking
dads to make a simple, 5 point commitment to their
children. Our goal is to get more than 1,000,000 dads
across the country to make this commitment prior to
Father's Day, and then begin living it. To accomplish
this goal, we need the help of every organization and
individual working with dads.
I'm requesting your assistance in
helping spread the word about the 2009 Father's Day
Commitment, and a simple web-based widget we've
developed to empower others to help encourage dads to
make their commitment. This email introduces the
Commitment and the widget and suggests next steps:
The Commitment
The first
three of the five points are focused on a dad's
relationship with his own children.
·Loving your
Child- affirming and
nurturing your child, loving and/or respecting the
child's mother.
·Coaching your
Child- being involved in
your child's life and knowing them well
·Modeling for
your Child- consistently
living the values you wish to pass on to your children
Recognizing that there are 25 million children living
without their dads who would still benefit from the
involvement of a father or father figure we added a
fourth point:
·Encouraging
another Child- reaching out to a
child in your sphere of influence and getting involved
as a father figure
And to
generate a sense of belonging and to ensure that we
involve enough dads to make a difference, we added the
final point:
·Enlisting
other fathers- to make a similar
commitment and to live the life of a responsible,
involved father
These are
the five elements of the 2009 Father's Day Commitment:
Loving, Coaching, Modeling, Encouraging and Enlisting.
Our experience is that dads respond to this as a
personal call to responsible fatherhood. They get it and
they remember it.
The Widget
The 2009
Father's Day Commitment Widget enables anyone to enlist
fathers to make this commitment via their website or
Facebook page. The Widget will track the number of dads
who have made the commitment from that website and the
total number of commitments made from all websites.
Organizations hosting the widget will also be able to
get the email addresses of everyone making the
commitment through their website. Links to simple
instructions for adding the widget to a web page or
Facebook page are provided below:
2009 Father's Day Commitment for web pages:
Visit
www.fathers.com/fdayand follow the instructions to
install the widget in a prominent place on your
website. Direct people to your website to make the 2009
Father's Day Commitment.
2009 Father's Day Commitment for Facebook:
Visit
this link
http://apps.facebook.com/fdaycommit/. You will probably have to
log in, but then you'll be taken to a page with the
widget and icon that says, "Add to Profile." Click on
that and then you'll be prompted to confirm that you
want to add it. Go to your profile page and see your
handiwork.
Start
inviting your friends by going back to the original page
(
http://apps.facebook.com/fdaycommit/) where all you have to do is
to click on their names to invite them.
Questions? Problems? If you have any
problems or have any questions about either widget,
please contact cfwidget@fathers.com. So that we can better
assist you, please provide the domain/URL of the page
where the widget is in use and a short description of
the issue.
Next Steps
With only
a few days until Father's Day, time is of the essence.
Please share this with other advocates of responsible
fathering and encourage them to upload the widget and
begin enlisting dads.
Thank
you!
The Fatherhood Program
OUR PURPOSE
The AVANCE
Fatherhood Program is committed to:
Enabling fathers to become involved and loving dads
Enhance family unity
Increasing father’s role in their children’s education
Improve interpersonal relationships
among couples
TOPICS
The Presentations focus on enhancing personal
development and life-coping skills
A father and a dad are not the same: One can be a dad and not a father, Or one can be a father and not bother To earn through love the more endearing name.
Some find fatherhood a bit too tame, Leaving all the details to the mother, Or dumping the sweet burden on another Man with just a passing twinge of shame.
You have been our dad so many years That you've become the landscape that is home, The mountain that we look to from afar.
No matter where we go we're not alone, For you remain within to still our fears And be the word that tells us who we are.
Being parents
is an event that transforms us and challenges our
personal development. That is why it is necessary to ask
ourselves:
What does it
mean to be an adult?
Our knowledge
of development can be useful in many areas of our family
life. It can make us feel more secure in ourselves; make
us more flexible and more understanding in certain
situations and will help us to better enjoy the
wonderful adventure that it is to be parents.
Being an
adult parent means closely examining the problem of
discipline: what is it, what does it mean and what it
should be. Our problems can’t be solved by forcing our
children to obey us, or leaving them to do what they
wish without clear controls and limits. Remember that
nowadays one can better educate by lowering our voices
and raising our points of arguments.
Research in
the field of pedagogy has moved in the same direction.
John Dewey and other researchers, who head a movement
called advanced education, state that if we want our
children to be capable of thinking for themselves, we
have to help them to develop their internal controls.
It is not
possible to make them act in a determined manner by
means of terrorizing them. If we do this, they will
always need a totalitarian voice of authority to be able
to control them. We have to show them how to live in a
constructive manner, to accept the responsibilities they
have, not by means of force, but rather with love and
understanding, given that learning self-control is a slow
process.
Another new
and important observation alludes to the fact that
behavior is also symbolic and significant. When a child
does something that to us seems incomprehensible, we need
to understand what he / she wishes to express; that is
why it is important to learn to reach out to their
personal world to understand and help him / her.
Being parents
is a unique learning experience both for the children
and their parents; it implies learning to live outside
ourselves with generosity to be able to share our
fragility, and the grand experience that it is to be
human beings.
THE
FATHERHOOD PROGRAM
ANNUAL FAMILY FISHING DAY2009
Was a Great Success!!!
On June 13th
AVANCE families gathered at the Boy Scouts of America’s
Camp Strake for the annual Fatherhood Fishing Trip. Over
300 participants lined the lake and tried their luck at
fishing, while snacking on watermelon and drinking
lemonade. The camp greenery and open spaces provided for
a picturesque background, and the large trees provided
some respite from Houston’s summer sun.
While families were plunking their lines into the still
waters of the lake, others decided to take advantage of
the camp grounds to play in the park or to enjoy a nice
game of cards. Others chose to stay under the covered
eating area to snack on delicious grilled burgers, and
get a break from the sun.
We thank all of the AVANCE participants that were able
to come and take part in our fun fishing trip, and that
are committed to spending quality time with their
children.
Place
: “Camp Strake”
“Boy Scouts
of America”
11322 Interstate 45 S,
Conroe TX
Date: June 13th, 2009
8:00 am – 5:00 pm.
If you
need information about the
Fatherhood Program
and the services
we provide, please contact
Héctor Rodríguez, Fatherood Coordinator
at (713)812-0033 Ext. 203”
