Our Mission Statement

By

The Fathering Forum Creates and Supports Communities of Fathers Committed to Helping Children Live Happy, Well-Adjusted and Successful Lives.

We currently offer weekend events, seminars, face to face and virtual circles of fathers. This is supported by an online resource library, curriculum materials and logistical support.


Next Fathering Forum Full Day Event

By

“Fathering is a Team Sport” Being a father is exciting, exhilarating, fulfilling, and extremely challenging. The Fathering Forum Weekend promises to provide dads with the awareness, the tools and the fellowship to become the best fathers they can be for their children. INVEST IN A MORNING OF FELLOWSHIP WITH COMMITTED FATHERS LIKE YOURSELF TO LEARN [...]

Read More »

Fathering Forum Teams

By

Fathering Forum Teams are regular ongoing groups of dads who meet locally to share with each other the everyday joys and challenges of being fathers. The basic premises are that every dad wants to be the best dad he can be, and that by tapping into the collective wisdom and experience of other dads and by having his own contribution welcomed and valued, tools and insights emerge that help him, his family and most important, his children live healthy, safe and successful and creative lives.

Read More »

“How a Dad Helps His Kid Grow up to Be Great” by Robert T. Bohen

By

1. Be real. Be vulnerable. You are a human being making life up as you go. You have no manual on living profoundly or raising great kids. Let them know you are capable of bad decisions just like anyone else. If you are reasonable, they are reasonable. Apologize when you mess up and clean up your mess. You will teach them competence and to accept their own humanity. Interview them. Ask them how you can be a better dad, you will be surprised, and grow from it.

2. Make time. There is no such thing as quality time; there is only time. Money is replaceable, time is not. There will be more work…

Read More »
“This Dad Says”

“This Dad Says”

By

Dad: Michael Isaacs, 65
Home: Atlanta, GA
Daughter: Ashley, 30

Being a father has been the most challenging, rewarding, difficult, sad, joyous, life enriching part of my life, for which I will forever be grateful. I would not trade it for anything. Many times during Ashley’s, my only child, typical teenage years I looked forward to her leaving home for college. When it finally happened the opposite occurred. I found myself wishing I had more children still at home as I wasn’t ready to give up the day-to-day joys of fathering and I missed and worried about her terribly.

Read More »

Poetry

  • A Boy and His Dad by Edgar Guest

    A boy and his dad on a fishing-trip—
    There is a glorious fellowship!
    Father and son and the open sky
    And the white clouds lazily drifting by,
    And the laughing stream as it runs along
    With the clicking reel like a martial song,
    And the father teaching the youngster gay
    How to land a fish in the sportsman’s way.

    I fancy I hear them talking there
    In an open boat, and the speech is fair.
    And the boy is learning the ways of men
    From the finest man in his youthful ken.
    Kings, to the youngster, cannot compare
    With the gentle father who’s with him there.
    And the greatest mind of the human race
    Not for one minute could take his place.

  • Father’s Song by Gregory Orr

    Yesterday, against admonishment,
    my daughter balanced on the couch back,
    fell and cut her mouth.

    Because I saw it happen I knew
    she was not hurt, and yet
    a child’s blood so red
    it stops a father’s heart.

    My daughter
    cried her tears;
    I held some ice
    against her lip.
    That was the end of it.

    Round and round: bow and kiss.
    I try to teach her caution;
    she tries to teach me risk.