This Men's Health Awareness Month (that starts today, Mental Health Expert Noel McDermott looks at the importance of father-son relationships and how to strengthen these familial bonds. By investing in the mental and emotional health of men and boys, he believes we can build healthier families and communities.

If there is a freight train loaded with research and books on the mother/daughter relationship there might just be enough to fill the boot of a family sized car for boys and fathers! It is obvious to all of us that child mental health and wellbeing is linked to caregiving. Not in a blame way, but in a way that we all understand, kids are dependent on us, they need us for support and crucially for being well. When a child has a mental health problem it would be unusual not to include the parents in the solution. Research in Australia, which can be used as a useful guide to us, shows that only about 20% of parents who attend mental health sessions with kids are fathers.

The importance of parental engagement

Father-son engagement plays a crucial role in the growth and development of children. Many in the men’s health space argue that a lot of issues for boys could be improved if fathers were more present in their lives. This can be a challenge with many men being the primary earners for families and in the UK where dual income households are the norm. It is also a two way thing, much is known about the negative impacts of unwanted childlessness on women, greater rate of illness, depression, substance misuses etc and increasingly we are seeing evidence of similar in men. Kids need dads and dads need kids, but specifically dads need sons and vice versa.

How a father's relationship with his son profoundly impacts a man's health - what do boys get from their dads?

Dads can more effectively model pro social behaviour for their sons. Mums might be dismissed when challenging anti-social issues, sexism or misogyny themes, but dads can and do play a huge part in keeping their boys on the straight and narrow and it’s mostly just by role modelling. Interventions that work best to correct poor behaviour by dad are those that stress love of the son but sadness they have fallen below expected standards of behaviour. Boys are constantly looking for how to behave like a man. Dad can and does play that role.

Safer sex and more engagement in relational aspects of sex when guided by dad. Dads can provide lived experience of the challenges and how they have practically solved them and play a central role in understanding consent.

Even in situations where dad and mum don’t live together and dad doesn’t live in the child's home, dad’s parenting can and does improve outcomes for their boys.

Time with parents is a protective factor for kids, reducing illness and anti-social behaviours, but for boys in particular time with dad has more positive impacts than for girls.

Being a kind dad, rather than a disciplinarian dad is the seam of gold for boys. Guys know just how much fear we have often around each other. Kind dads take that away and allow kind boys to have loads of friends and be successful in the world.

In these days of real concern about manosphere toxicity, this type of input from dads is central to tackling online extremism.

Noel comments: “To all dads out there I’d say it’s obviously a challenge with all your other commitments, but hopefully you can see how crucial you are for your boy. Use the age-old psychology principle of developing habits and piggybacking on other commitments with new ones.”

How to use habit stacking for father-son bonding

Piggybacking - what are you already doing that can be adapted to include your son? Think of it like this, when encouraging more active lifestyles we often ask, how do you get to work for example, can you add walking into the journey? When you are at work, can you add using the stairs rather than the lift? What current activities can your boy join you in? Remember most of all, your boy just wants your time

Make it habitual - activities we do without much thought or decision making happen. Think of brushing your teeth, it’s just a habit. Remember when developing a habit two things a) it takes time and effort to make a new habit and b) it takes much less time and effort to break that habit and getting the habit back will be just as long and full of effort as the initial effort. So, put in the effort and maintain. Chase consistency not commitment. Make time for your son.

Noel McDermott

Mental health expert Noel McDermott is a psychotherapist and dramatherapist with over 30 years’ work within the health, social care, education, and criminal justice fields. Noel runs Men’s Mental Health Works (MMHW), a specialised service from Mental Health Works aimed at supporting men and boys navigate the world; their health, wellbeing and masculinity.