There are many benefits of paternity leave for new dads and their families. However, data after data shows that some men aren’t taking their entitled paternity leave.

Data from the UK show that only a third (32 per cent) of eligible fathers took paternity leave in 2022.

Considering the many benefits of paternity leave, fathers opting to skip it could be missing out on meaningful opportunities for bonding with their children, fostering greater marriages and improving family dynamics.

This article explores the various benefits of paternity leave and why new fathers should consider taking it.

How Much Paternity Leave Are Fathers Entitled to Around the World?

Paternity leave policies vary significantly across countries. For instance, in Japan, fathers are entitled to up to 120 days of paid leave, and in Jamaica, paid paternity leave is 20 days for all public sector workers. However, in the United States, paternity leave is often unpaid and depends on the employer’s policy.

Understanding your rights and the cultural context of paternity leave can help you make informed decisions about taking time off.

The Top Benefits of Paternity Leave

1. Long-term Positive Impact on Children

Children benefit immensely when their fathers are actively involved from an early age. Research shows that children with engaged fathers perform better in cognitive and social development. Paternity leave provides the perfect opportunity for dads to lay a strong foundation for their child’s future.

2. Time to Bond with Your Child

Paternity leave is a critical period for dads to bond with their newborns. This time allows first-time fathers to get comfortable caring for their babies, giving both parents the chance to adjust to the new family dynamic. During this period, moms can rest and recover from childbirth, while dads learn more about their baby’s needs and personalities.

3. Demonstrate Support for Your Partner

Taking paternity leave strongly conveys that you are committed to sharing parenting responsibilities. It’s a chance for men to show their partners that they are equally invested in the welfare of their children. This support helps to balance the workload and fosters a more cooperative relationship between partners.

4. Foster a Happier Marriage

Couples who share parenting duties tend to have stronger, happier marriages. When both parents feel equally responsible and involved, it builds trust and reduces stress. Paternity leave helps create a balanced dynamic, which is essential for long-term marital satisfaction.

5. Strengthen Family Bonds

Spending quality time with your baby and partner can enhance your relationship with the entire family. This period allows for deeper connections and better understanding among family members. Failing to take advantage of paternity leave can lead to missed opportunities for these precious bonding moments. 

6. Health Benefits for Fathers

Paternity leave can also have significant health benefits for fathers. It offers a break from work stress, promotes mental well-being, and encourages a healthier lifestyle. Fathers who take paternity leave are often more active and can focus on maintaining a balanced diet. These factors contribute to a lower risk of heart disease and improved overall health.

7. Create a Happier Family Life

Paid paternity leave can contribute to a healthier and happier family life. It allows fathers to be present during the crucial early stages of a child’s development, strengthening the father-child bond and supporting the partner. This time together fosters a secure and nurturing environment for the entire family.

Conclusion

Paternity leave offers a multitude of benefits, from bonding with your newborn to enhancing family dynamics and improving personal health. As societal attitudes continue to evolve, more fathers are recognizing the importance of taking time off to support their families. If you’re considering fatherhood or are already a dad, make sure to understand the paternity leave benefits available in your country and take full advantage of them.

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It is no secret that COVID-19 has had a big impact on our lives and this is equally true for our children. Research on the impact of COVID-19 on children has so far found impacts on children’s education, nutrition and physical health but what is the emotional impact of COVID-19 on children? This article highlights research on the topic and some tips to support children’s emotions.

Due to COVID-19, face-to-face schooling in Jamaica was halted in March 2020. Online learning has since continued as many attempts to resume face-to-face schooling were disrupted by sporadic COVID-19 outbreaks and clusters all over the island.

Additionally, lockdown measures meant that people had to stay home with gatherings of any kind prohibited. These changes have had a significant emotional impact on both adults and children.

A recent study has shown that the emotional impact of COVID-19 on children was linked to their parent’s emotional regulation and level of playfulness. Children’s emotion was impacted by their exposure to stressors brought on by the pandemic.

It was found that children were more likely to be stressed if they had been exposed to disturbing information about the virus by the media, have had a close friend or family member lose their job because of the pandemic, or were in lockdown.

Children’s emotional reactions were manifested in several ways, including separation fears and clinging; anxiety and fears; excessive crying; nervous, agitated and aggressive behaviours and fear or difficulty sleeping.

The research highlights the emotional impact of COVID-19 on children with potential worrying effects on children’s mental health. This is of particular interest as research shows that children’s mental health affects their learning and overall development. 

A positive takeaway from the study is that children were less likely to be stressed from the effects of the pandemic if their parents were able to regulate their own emotions toward the virus.

The study also found that fathers were more likely to be playful with children, so their playfulness mitigated the negative emotional impact of COVID-19.

Tips to reduce the emotional impact of COVID-19 on children

Limit Disturbing Information on COVID-19

When possible, parents should limit children’s exposure to disturbing information about COVID-19 in the media.

Practice Self-Care

Parents should practice self-care and emotional regulation so that they are better able to support their children’s emotional needs. Some self-care tips for parents include meditating, doing things that you enjoy, keeping a journal or taking time to pamper yourself.

Play More

Play is important to children’s development. Taking time to play with children is not only fun but it supports their learning and promotes positive feelings about self, others and the environment. Play is a child’s work.

Monitor Children’s Emotions

Parents should monitor their children’s emotions and check for signs of abnormal moods and/or behaviours, such as those mentioned above, and seek help without hesitation.

Support Children’s Emotions

Support children to recognize their emotions and learn appropriate ways to express them. Parents can support children by talking to them about their feelings and teaching them how to label and identify those feelings.

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Margo: Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Delroy: I am a father of three children, and husband of one wife. I am in my late fifties and have been married for twenty-nine (29) years.

Margo: What do you like most about being a father?

Delroy: I like when we are all together, whether we are on the road or at home. I also like being at their games as their number one supporter, and I like when we go on vacation.

Margo: What has been the most challenging thing about being a father?

Delroy: One of the most challenging things about being a father is to exercise tough love. I just don’t have it in me to be tough on them.

Margo: What has been the biggest lesson(s) you’ve learnt about being a father?

Delroy: One of the biggest lessons I have learnt about being a father is loving my children equally without having or showing favouritism. I also learnt patience and tolerance, and how to slow down and listen.

Margo: How has your own childhood influenced your fathering?

Delroy: My childhood influenced me to be present in my children’s life as I didn’t have much of my father in mine. I also try to give my children some of the things I would have liked to get when I was growing up; that is, things that my mother could not afford.

Margo: What do you think is/are the biggest misconception(s) about Jamaican fathers and what about Jamaican fathers do you want people to know?

Delroy: Most Jamaican fathers are thought of as missing in action and lazy. This is not generally the case as they are sometimes not given a fair chance to contribute to the life of their child/children. I would like people to know that Jamaican fathers can be very supportive in the home as a mother would be.

 Margo: As a new father, have you felt like you needed support? If so, where do you turn to for that support?

Delroy: As a new father, I needed and got support from family, particularly, from my mother-in-law who moved in with us for a few weeks. This was very invaluable.

Margo: Do you think fathers are getting the support they need or do we need to do more as a society to support fathers? If fathers need support, how can we do better as a society to support them?

Delroy: It is difficult to know if fathers get meaningful support. However, I think they will accept any support given; most fathers desire to be good fathers. I believe fathers, or men on a whole, believe financial support is their biggest contribution and if they are not able to financially support the home they sometimes wilt under pressure and disappear.

If you have enjoyed this interview or any of the other two in this series, please leave a comment and let us know your thoughts. Thank you for visiting!

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Today’s interview is with Kristofferson Nunes. Kristofferson is a UWI graduate and a 27-year-old entrepreneur and a father of one. He lives in Kingston with his partner.

Margo: Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

Kristofferson: I’m adaptable, patient and understanding. That’s it, in a nutshell. We all have complexities in ourselves, and I think we have a lot of different passions. For example, growing up, I wanted to be a pilot, then a doctor, then an architect; it was all over the place, but then I realized that’s me.

Margo: What do you like most about being a father?

Kristofferson: I like just seeing the world from his eye level, his perspective, and seeing things that he might fear that I overlook. His growth is very fascinating to me and that’s what I enjoy the most, you know, looking at how time really passes from a child’s perspective.

Margo: What has been the most challenging thing about being a father?

Kristofferson: I think the most challenging thing would be relaxing my ego because now I’m trying to help somebody. Your ego will try to protect you, your pride, and stuff. As males, we tend to have a huge ego but growing a young man or girl, a child; takes humility.

It takes selflessness, and that means putting my ego aside. And if you’re not self-aware, it will be challenging. I think most men’s challenge is not being self-aware. For me, it’s challenging in the sense that the world is fast-paced, but fatherhood shows me one side, how I’m supposed to take the world.

It’s really about slowing down in those moments where time is spent, not trying to get to the next and the next because those moments pass by so quickly. If you sit down and appreciate those moments, you realise that for a young child, their world is very slow.

I think for us as men, the challenge is finding balance. It’s a balance between what I know is good for his world like putting food on the table and having my own hobbies but not neglecting my responsibilities at home, the responsibilities that I have bestowed on myself.

Margo: What has been the biggest lesson(s) you’ve learnt about being a father?

Kristofferson: I think the biggest lesson is listening more, trying to listen more to what’s going on around me because I may not have all the answers. Listening brings so many insights because fatherhood is a journey.

For example, when you go to a new school, you listen to what the teacher says, try to get a feel of the land, feel the school, and listen to the conversations to find out where to go.

In the same breath, as a father, I listen to conversations from maybe families, friends, associates, or my immediate support groups.

I also know that at the end of the day, after I have listened, I make my choices based on whatever insights I want to choose. This is so that I’m not coming from a place of ignorance. I’m making a more informed decision on how I can move forward, make things better, and add to a different foundation than I had before.

Margo:  How has your own childhood influenced your fathering?

Kristofferson: I had a family that sacrificed and worked hard to put food on the table. I appreciate and support it, and I’m grateful for something like that because it shows that self-sacrifice is monumental in relationships, whether it’s with your parents or in intimate relationships. So when I got older and went through the process, I was pulling from these various resources.

I pull resources from my uncle as a father figure or from a friend’s father or other guys I play a ball game with because you can get insights from anybody.

Especially as s father, it’s kind of unfair for anybody to put all the expectations on one person to teach everything because that person doesn’t know everything. Likewise, for mothers, too, it’s good to have a community to pull from different insights and get information.

For me, during childhood, it was just being myself and going into different circles with my friends and their fathers, or their uncles, or their male-dominant figures. I felt comfortable in those households, we shared stories, and I asked questions and it became a habit of being around them.

When I was in high school, my neighbour’s father took me to school every day from First Form to Fifth Form. Can you imagine from First Form to Fifth Form, every morning? I got to have conversations, picked up things, became familiar, and added to these conversations.

On the surface, it may seem like I was just getting a ride to school, but I learned a lot of things on a subconscious level. I learned about discipline, hard work and the sacrifices fathers made for their families.

Now that I am a father, I have to be aware of what I’m doing daily because my child will be emulating or modelling those things not because I’m telling him what to do but because I’m showing him how to be by my actions. You might think that you’re having random conversations, but they pick up what you’re saying, so when they pick up on bad habits and see them with them, it’s like you’re looking in the mirror.

Margo:  What do you think is/are the biggest misconception(s) about Jamaican fathers and what about Jamaican fathers do you want people to know?

Kristofferson: I think that question itself is a troublemaker question, and I will tell you why. In Jamaica, there are pockets of people; that’s why we have the motto, “Out of Many, One People”. We have different cultures within different communities that operate in so many different ways.

On one end of the spectrum, there are pockets of absentee fathers who don’t do anything at all and on the other end, there are fathers who stay at home to take care of the baby and the family while the mother goes to work.

To paint the image that every Jamaican father is bad is unfair and a misrepresentation of what is happening because we have never done a census. We may know what the media carry based on buzzworthy news and their ability to pull drama and anguish from people. They can pull comments and engagement from the public because they want to sell papers, right?  

The narrative should not be “You’re doing your job badly” but should instead be “These are some suggestions.” If you’re trying to chop down an old tree, why not grow a new tree that you know has better roots? It’s like restarting society in a sense; it does not make sense to train an old dog new tricks.

So, if the narrative is true that all Jamaican fathers are trash, the question is, why don’t we start a philosophy to make better fathers? What values are we transmitting to our kids? When they become parents, what results will we see in their kids?

For example, I see my neighbour playing with his son after work every day, looking at the stars with a telescope. I can imagine him using that interest for them to bond together.

Males have their egos and they do things that they don’t want credit for; fatherhood is one of those things. They wouldn’t seek out the chance to so say, “Hey, I want to do that interview,” someone might have to encourage them to share their story, similar to how you have approached me.

I think it boils down to connecting with different communities to find where those fathers are or finding the kids who are progressing and linking back to if they have fathers or not.

Margo: As a new father, have you felt like you needed support? If so, where do you turn to for that support?

Kristofferson: I think support found me initially. In the sense that other fathers extended the invitation to say, “We are fathers here; we know it’s going to be an interesting journey for you; we’ve done this.” So they reached out and extended their hand of advice, support, or thoughts.

With me being a new father, they felt that it was important to recruit me as they figured their support could help me be a better father for the boy or girl that I would be raising.

I think the support is there whether you know it or not. It could be in friends or family, or friends of the family. Sometimes we just need to put away our egos and not be afraid to ask for help.

Margo: Do you think fathers are getting the support they need or do we need to do more as a society to support fathers? If fathers need support, how can we do better as a society to support them?

Kristofferson: I think about the father’s support in my head as building a society. It’s not somebody building it for us. We build it as we go along. We have to navigate as is needed. Whatever you share, it can be used to build a man. For fathers, they need assistance to nurture.  

We can create the environment to do what we want and any environment can have the infrastructure or framework that can be plugged into automatically. It’s similar to the “mommy and me” classes for women and the other resources that are available to a new mother like workshops, apps, websites, and blogs.

The question is, why hasn’t any father pushed that agenda as much? It could be so many factors at play; maybe fathers aren’t interested in that because we have learned certain values that pushed fathers to the household’s financial decisions.

Building up that support infrastructure can be done, for example, when a woman is pregnant and she goes for a doctor’s visit, medical professionals can approach an expectant father to offer resources and support. There are so many opportunities we just have to start it.

If you enjoyed this interview, stay tuned for the next two in this series. Thank you for stopping by and please share and let us think about how we can build up that father support infrastructure.

The post Perspectives on Fatherhood: The Impact of Positive Fatherhood. appeared first on Childhood Central.

March 11, 2021, marked one year post-COVID-19 was declared a pandemic and it has disrupted all aspects of our lives. One year on, we have seen and experienced the changes that came with the pandemic.

We also know that things will remain changed for some time. We have adjusted the way we live our lives, our routines and our habits. We now know that we shouldn’t leave the house without a mask, because it is one of the best ways to reduce the spread of the virus.

We now know that we have to maintain our distance from friends, family and people we meet in the streets, and that hand sanitisers are the next best thing to soap and water for keeping our hands clean.

We have also developed ways for coping with the barrage of information on COVID-19 and relaying what is important to our children.

Some of us are still working from home and many of us are struggling to juggle both work and home-schooling responsibilities since our children have not resumed full-time face-to-face classes.

The first case of COVID-19 in Jamaica was confirmed on 10^th March 2020, since then, the government has taken measures to stop the spread of the virus. One year post-COVID-19, where are we with COVID-19 and our children?

One Year Post COVID-19, Where Are We Now?

As of March 12, 2020, the data from the JAMCOVID website of the Ministry of Health and Wellness, show that 22,265 people have been infected with COVID-19. Of that number, 1,144 are children between the ages 0 to 9 years old and 1,691 are between the ages of 10 to 19.

Whilst the number of confirmed cases passed the 10,000 mark in November 2020, the number of deaths has remained low. Unfortunately, 409 people have lost their lives as a result of the virus, of that number, 1 child died in the 0 to 9 age group and 3 in the 10-19 age group.

Based on these numbers, the COVID-19 infection rate in children is 12.7% while the rate of infection in the general child population is 0.35%.

These numbers in Jamaica are consistent with global data on the infection and transmission of the virus in children which show a lower rate of transmission and spreading of the virus.

According to the Centre for Disease Control in the USA, less than 10% of COVID-19 cases were in children 5-17 years old.

A study in Iceland showed that children were half as likely as adults to spread and transmit the virus and in the United Kingdom, a report shows that younger children were less susceptible to being infected with the virus and less likely to spread it to other children and adults; additionally, if infected, children between ages 1-18 had lower rates of hospitalisation and death than other groups.

One year post-COVID-19, the increased number of positive cases has caused schools to remain closed. After spikes in the population in some schools that were approved for face-to-face reopening, the government decided that the risk was too great and ordered that all schools discontinue face-to-face schooling except for those that cater to children who are sitting exit exams.

This order will be in effect until the 22^nd March, 2021. While parents hope for the best, there is no telling if and when children will be able to return to the classroom for this year.

Are Vaccines the Answer?

Whilst the launch of the vaccination programme provides some optimism that schools could return to face-to-face, it is yet to be seen if this will be the case for this year.

Although teachers are on the list of priority groups to receive the vaccine, there is still a worrying rate of vaccine hesitancy among the population.

A PAHO study showed that only 35% of Jamaicans were willing to take the vaccine. If the government does not succeed in convincing the population of the efficacy and safety of the vaccine, then all the efforts to bring the pandemic under control will be in vain and our children will possibly miss another full year of school.

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