10 Great Ways To Build Father-Son Relationships

Fathers and sons share a very complex relationship, with some finding it very difficult to relate to one another. Sometimes their male tendencies and competitiveness makes it difficult to communicate feelings. Having observed both fathers and sons here are some ways that both can create wonderful relationships.

10 great ways to build father-son relationships:

 
1) Most sons learn about being men by watching fathers; a growing son watches his father interact with his mother and learns all about respect and how men and women deal with conflicts and differences. Similarly the son learns how to relate to other men and masculine issues by observing the father.

2) Next a father- son relationship could grow when you develop some common interests; my uncle and my cousin loved camping and as they maximized time together outdoor with setting up a tent and cooking over the fire their relationship grew.

3) Most young boys love active and rough play like wrestling; fathers need to understand that it is a sort of a bonding experience. Some small calculated risks would give them some physical experience that would later translate into activities like rock climbing, skateboarding and ice hockey.

4) Get involved in father-son activities; one such activity is to enroll your son as a boy scout, with your enrolling as an adult scout volunteer. Such activities would give you quality time together on a regular basis, with these structured experiences creating opportunities to grow closer.

5) Take up a bigger than life project that would help you both bond for a life time and give you memories that you could talk about together for a long time; it could be anything from Eagle Scout projects to building  planter boxes, landscaping a back yard, building a vacation cabin or head off on a big summer biking vacation.  

6) Men have a problem of listening; it is best for fathers to start off listening to their sons from an early stage without making a judgment or trying to fix things. Fathers need to look for opportunities like fishing together, going to a sporting event, or taking a road trip to create an effective listening environment. They need to spend 4 times listening than talking.

7) Fathers can build great relationships with their sons if they cultivate a healthy attitude towards sex and relationships by talking to their sons about it; cultivating healthy attitudes is all the more important today with wide publicity in the media, computers and peer group. 

8) Most children today are bombarded with negative messages from the media and environment; fathers could nurture the father-son relationship by communicating their approval on the positives, celebrate the accomplishments of their sons and constantly reinforce them for building relationships of trust. 

9) Each of the sons may have separate interests; building a relationship with each one meant the father spending one on one time with each one nurturing their interest. You could spend time shooting a few loops with a son who loves basketball as you could spend time going for speech and debate competitions with a son that loves debates.

10) Fathers can help their sons by having conversations naturally about life, manhood and spiritual things; this would help the son when he grows up to reach for his inner self and have a deep perspective of things. Also talking about man, God and himself would help the son develop a pattern in life where he can endure hardship and thrive personally.

All these great ways would not only nurture the father-son relationship, but would also help sons to form the most positive attitudes in life.  

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