Joe Kelly

Dads and Stepdads have enormous power and potential in their daughters' lives. One often overlooked area where we use this influence? When a daughter struggles to recover from a mental illness.

In this Recovery Warriors podcast, host Jessica Raymond explores this topic with me.

Sometimes we’re so busy trying to get though today’s crazed schedule—or preparing for tomorrow’s and the next day’s—that we forget to talk about the most important things. Especially at this time of year.

Here’s a quick and simple exercise, appropriate for Thanksgiving week, to better understand how important you and your daughter or stepdaughter are to each other.

Raising a daughter is unmapped territory for a father. But it’s territory where there’s no use for running away or stomping angrily around in circles. In daughter territory, we learn that we lose none of our true masculinity when our daughters draw out our “feminine side."

Nearly every time I ask a father of a daughter if he’s learned anything from having a daughter, the answer is “Yes!”

What’s striking about having a daughter is her very candid, heart-felt comments. With your spouse, there’s always a kind of sense of caution or carefulness. You have to avoid treading on the other person’s psychology too much; you’ve got to live with them. There’s kind of an implicit contract there.

This Fathers Day, remember that men today long to have good relationships with their children. But there have been generations of silence about what it means to be a father. We didn’t hear our own dads talk about it.

At my fathering workshops the most moving moment is when I ask, ‘How many of you feel like you’ve been changed as a man by having this daughter? Stand up if you can tell me one or two or three things that are different for you.’

Everyone in the room stands.

I have a friend who grew up on a Midwest farm; I'l call him Gene. As a young boy, Gene and his father were visiting their neighbor’s farm, and my friend wandered by himself into the barn. He accidentally knocked over an unlit kerosene lamp.

When the neighbor found the broken lamp, Gene said he didn’t know how it happened.

IMHO, New Moon Girls is a resource without parallel for girls ages 8 to 12. It’s very unusual to find such a perfect resource for girls in this crazy, often toxic world they inhabit. So, I can’t recommend it enough!

Fathers and stepfathers don’t always realize what a key role we play in the intellectual and academic development of our daughters. In a culture that repeatedly tells girls that guys care far more about their looks than their brains, Dad—as the “first man” in a girl’s life—can prove otherwise.

This is Children's Book Week--a perfect time to get and read a book with your daughter.

Established in 1919, Children's Book Week claims to be the longest-running literacy initiative in the country.