There When He Needs You: How to Be an Available, Involved, and Emotionally Connected Father to Your Son

Men want to be better fathers, and today they're trying harder than ever. They jog behind strollers, leave work early for parent-teacher conferences, and roughhouse with their kids before they've had a chance to change out of their suits.

But many men aren't building the relationships with their sons that they'd hoped for. And sons are finding it hard to confide in fathers who must devote so much of their time to building careers that both keep them from their families and keep their families comfortable. Many fathers admit that they don't have a clue what's going on in their sons' lives, from ball game schedules to online communities to fears and anxieties about school, friends, and relationships. Fathers often walk around burdened with guilt, worried they're just not able to do the right thing, even though they're trying to be equal partners in parenting with their wives.

There When He Needs You is the first book to tell the truth about the challenges that fathers of sons face today -- including the intergenerational legacies of self-doubt that they anxiously carry from themselves having had distant, unavailable fathers. A self-treatment program as well as a psychological X-ray of today's father, There When He Needs You shows you how to create and strengthen a real, meaningful bond with your son. Through real-life stories of real-life dads who have lost and found their way, you as a father will learn to reorder your priorities, express yourself more openly, connect with your loved ones, and become the role model that your son needs.

Wives will learn how to gently help their husbands do this -- no nagging, threatening, or criticizing -- while becoming their husband's best friend, cheerleader, and coach. Turning the father-son dynamic inside out, There When He Needs You helps fathers, sons, and mothers to understand their roles in the family and create relationships that fuel closeness and trust.

There When He Needs You will open your eyes, tickle your funny bone, and touch your heart. Ultimately, you'll understand what it really means to be a father to your son and discover new ways to be there for him.

This straightforward look at the dos and don'ts of good fathering should be handed out to all men as they leave the hospital with a newborn son. Bernstein draws on years of experience as a clinical psychologist focused on family therapy to thoroughly explore what he calls the father trap—men who are drawn to fatherhood by their desire to out-father their own dads after they become parents, only to realize that they have no idea how to go about being different. Using many real examples of conflicts faced by his patients, Bernstein makes convincing arguments on a range of fatherhood issues, from explaining how new dads have to confront the legacy of their own often conflicted feeling about their own fathers to detailing specific ways to Take steps to get involved in your son's life. Bernstein's writing style is fairly simple but not simplistic, and he is consistently enlightening whether he's discussing the importance of baby talk or showing how dads can best deal with a teenager's interest in pornography. He concludes with a list of Top Ten Fathering Tips (10. Never tell your son to 'suck it up.' ) that all dads should memorize. (May)
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