Fatherhood is no easy task and any father will assure of it. At the same time, it’s also easy to look around you on social media, the sports field, or even the grocery store and feel like you’re the only one not doing it right. With so much emphasis on sharing the highlight reels of life whether it’s the championships won or the expensive family vacations, comparing your everyday life to someone’s string of high points isolates you and distorts your perspective.
Being a father is indescribably rewarding but it also takes a toll. Looking outward to compare your family to others only makes things more difficult. Learning to incorporate self-care as part of your approach to parenting is a critical skill for any man who wants to strengthen himself as a father. However, self-care is a foreign concept and an undervalued skill among men. Men have a hard time sharing their struggles, much less make use of skills to help them regulate and work through their mental health and emotional difficulties.
If you are a father, don’t underestimate the importance of taking care of yourself. That doesn’t mean sitting on the couch watching football or having a beer with the boys, though. Self-care involves intentional actions that help you manage your mental health so you can show up as a better version of yourself for your spouse, children, friends, and colleagues.
Introduction to Fatherhood and Mental Health
Fathers hold an important and irreplaceable role in their families. They should be a source of support and strength for their spouses and they should be a gentle and guiding influence in their children’s lives. Fathers are often the primary earners and responsible for the financial income in their homes. Men typically handle many of the physical household chores. A push towards fathers taking a more active role in their children’s lives has settled in over the past few decades as well, adding more areas to be involved.
While fatherhood is a rewarding experience, it is also a stressful one. Going to work and then heading to practices or games, helping with homework, and making sure chores are completed is a lot to handle in a day. Some men are better equipped to handle these busy days without much challenge. Others feel the impact of the various stressors and it causes strain on their mental health.
Parenting is a stressful undertaking as it is. Add in the growing pressure throughout the last few years between social media influences, the pandemic, and increased stressors on our kids, and parenting is more difficult than ever before. Many fathers experience an understandable negative effect on their mental health, especially when they aren’t encouraged to seek help for their struggles.
Although they may not talk about it as openly, fathers experience mental health disorders, too. Hundreds of thousands of fathers struggle with depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance use disorder, and more. They aren’t as willing to talk about it, though, because they feel they need to hold things together on the outside so they can continue providing and showing up for their families. Unfortunately, this false idea only worsens mental health and increases the need for self-care and possible outside support.
Common Mental Health Challenges Faced by Fathers
Despite the increase in men’s mental health awareness in recent years, many people underestimate the impact of mental health disorders on men. They face many mental health challenges in their daily lives but often push through them without letting anyone know they are struggling. What are some of the common difficulties that fathers face?
Postpartum Depression
Most people think of mothers when talking about postpartum depression but a growing body of research also focuses on the impact of postpartum depression on men. Both mothers and fathers go through a notable transition when they bring a child into the world. About 5-10% of fathers report experiencing perinatal depression and 5-15% experience perinatal anxiety. Learning to navigate life with a newborn is difficult for both parents.
Work-Life Balance
Since many men are the primary earners in their homes, much of their days are spent outside the house at work. Work-life balance is a challenge for many fathers trying to pay the family’s bills while also showing up for their family and friends. Fathers often struggle with leaving work at work so they can be fully present whenever they leave the office or job site.
Societal Expectations
Society still places substantial expectations on men to behave a certain way. Although men are encouraged to talk openly about their mental health, they still face the residual stigma that remains. Society wants men to share their struggles but they must do so in a way that still conforms to societal expectations which only increases the pressure when they decide to talk.
Emotional Suppression
Men are encouraged to suppress their emotions from a young age. “Boys don’t cry” is a tired trope that boys continue to hear. Young boys who stuff their feelings grow up to become young men and fathers who do not know how to manage their emotions. This comes out in all sorts of troublesome ways, from workaholism to anger problems to substance use to detachment and isolation from family and friends.
The Importance of Self-Care for Fathers
Self-care is a foreign concept for many fathers but is a crucial skill for them to develop. Self-care is an important tool for improving mental health, developing emotional regulation, and strengthening relationships with family members and friends. It means taking time to do things that help you improve your mental, physical, and emotional health so you can live well.
It’s important to understand the difference between self-care activities and avoidance behaviors. Unplugging from your family for hours at a time to watch the game on TV is not necessarily self-care. Inviting your kids to watch some of the game with you and then going out to play it in real life together is a much better approach.
Proper self-care practices enable you to handle your stressors healthilyl way so you can show up more effectively for your family. You can’t be your best self if you’re stretched too thin all of the time. Taking some time to care for yourself may feel selfish at first but the benefits it provides make it clear how important it is.
Self-Care Strategies for Managing Stress and Responsibilities
What are some important strategies for using self-care to manage your stress and responsibilities?
Time Management
Time management is one of the most critical components of fathers learning self-care. There is a fine line between useful self-care practices and spending extended time prioritizing yourself over your family. Everyone needs quiet time to relax and recenter, but poor time management can quickly push you to the other side of the line. If you aren’t properly managing your time, you can easily create more problems.
Mindfulness and Relaxation Techniques
Mindfulness and relaxation techniques are two more vital parts of self-care. Mindfulness involves gentle awareness of and bringing yourself into the present moment. Relaxation helps you take a step back and remember to breathe when things become a little too stressful. Incorporating practices like meditation, deep breathing, and yoga are great ways to improve your mindfulness and relaxation capabilities.
Diet and Exercise
Diet and exercise are equally important for taking care of yourself. It’s easy to let your diet fall to the wayside when you’re a busy father, but you have a responsibility to your family to pay attention to the things you consume. Physical capability is also important and exercise is the best way to increase your physical wellbeing. Eat a balanced diet, drink plenty of water, and don’t forget to go out for ice cream with your spouse and kids. Find a form of exercise that you enjoy and commit to exercising at least 30 minutes a day of walking, biking, swimming, lifting weights, playing sports, or some other form of movement.
Communication Skills
Learning to communicate effectively with your spouse and children is also an important form of self-care. It doesn’t matter how well you take care of yourself if you still lose your temper or can’t have a calm, rational conversation with your family. Developing communication skills is an important element of self-care for fathers.
Mental Health Treatment
Sometimes incorporating self-care on your own can feel like an impossible task. Consider seeking mental health treatment from a program that understands the unique needs of fathers. Programs like Into the Light that offer mental health treatment for men recognize the mental health difficulties that fathers experience.
Many treatment programs know that fathers cannot commit to a full-time mental health treatment program. They have too many responsibilities to dedicate that much time to themselves. Into the Light offers an intensive outpatient program that combines the dedicated, intensive care provided in a full-time program but on a flexible, outpatient basis.
Outpatient mental health treatment for fathers can help you realize the importance of self-care and develop the skills to incorporate it. Once you recognize how vital self-care is to managing your mental health, you will wonder how you made it this far without it. If you want to learn more about the programs available at Into the Light, call us at (877) 446-8685 or submit an online contact form to speak with an admissions specialist today!
