email: laura@daddydontgo.net
Don't Divorce Your Kids
Our Mission
To positively impact society by increasing a father’s involvement in their children’s lives after divorce and separation.
Our Vision
- To encourage fathers to stay connected to their children after divorce through a worldwide awareness movement called Daddy Don’t Go: Don’t Divorce Your Kids!
- To bring awareness to the powerful negative impact fatherlessness has on children of divorce and into adulthood.
- To promote community resources to those impacted by fatherlessness, empowering them to become their best selves for their families and their world.
Fatherlessness has a profound impact on children and society as a whole.
One in three women identifies herself as fatherless because of her dad's death, his emotional neglect, or his physical absence. Many fatherless daughters blame themselves for their dad's abandonment. These women are more likely to have low self-esteem, struggle with eating disorders, and suffer from depression.
My Story
Laura at six, 1969
I was born in Georgia and my dad left when I was 5, resulting in my parents' divorce. My mother and father each remarried, and my brother and I moved to St. Louis with my mother my first grade year. Visitation to my dad's was summers wherever my dad, stepmother, and two half-sisters lived in Georgia and Florida (they moved a LOT!), and I lived the rest of the year in St. Louis. My dad was in the room but rarely truly present for me during visits. My stepfather was an alcoholic, also not present for me. I began to connect some of my poor choices and anxieties to fatherlessness through counseling, and hope to bring awareness of the impact of fatherlessness on children, and promote healing, forgiveness, and community. God put a desire on my heart to help women navigate their fatherless issues. I am not by any means an expert. I want to expose the negative impact fatherlessness has made on our society as a whole.
Divorcing your wife might be unavoidable, but divorcing your children should not be an option!
Daddy Don't Go:
Don't Divorce Your Kids
Your relationship with your wife has ended.
But your children still need you in their lives.
Fatherlessness has a powerful impact on children.
According to Psychology Today, fatherlessness can result in low self-esteem, abandonment issues, behavioral problems, social anxiety, truancy, poor academic performance, delinquency, youth crime, promiscuity, drug and alcohol abuse, exploitation and abuse by others, physical health problems, mental health disorders, risk taking behaviors, unhealthy relationships, and even early death.
Keep your Daddy connection strong!
- Speak kindly and positively about their mother. Don't ask the children to choose sides. Do not put them in the middle of your arguments with their mother, or quiz them about what goes on at their mother's home. They need both parent's homes to feel safe.
- Think about how your children will describe you twenty years from now. What do you want their childhood memories and stories of you to be as they become adults?
- Explore your relationship with your own father. What do you want to keep? What do you want to change? Be aware of how you might be repeating those learned behaviors.
- Know your children. What are their interests, fears, desires, and struggles? Give them space to talk to you. Limit distractions like phones and television. Look them in the eyes and be present when they share their hearts with you. Just listen. Resist the desire to lecture.
- Let your children know YOU. Share memories you have when you were their age. What mistakes did you make? What lessons did you learn that might help them today?
- Your children want your TIME and your ATTENTION most of all, more than theme parks or toys.
- Don't forget to reinforce GOOD behaviors! Children will always seek your attention, and they will pursue it by any means possible. If they cannot get a good reaction from you, they will seek to get a bad reaction.
Daddy Don't Go Facebook Page
https://www.facebook.com/daddydontgofatherlessdaughtersofdivorce
Dads Make a Difference!
Your thoughts and perspective are your responsibility. You are in charge of your thoughts and your life. Do not let the story you've written about your past keep you from living your best future!
Resource Links
2 Corinthians 10:5 tells us to “Take every thought captive”. Do you believe you are in control of your thoughts? What kind of stories do you replay in your mind about your fatherlessness? Do those stories hold you back from living your best life? YOU can observe those thoughts and make changes TODAY, just by deciding to do it! Replace the reels that play in your head with new thoughts about yourself and your future! Need help? Find a trusted friend to hold you accountable when you make self-defeating statements. Surround yourself with people who lift you up and encourage you. Listen to podcasts and read books that fill your mind with positive thoughts. Your thoughts create your feelings, your feelings, your actions, and your actions are what build your life! Determine today to pay more attention to what goes on between your ears and take every thought captive!
