Raising children is not an easy job, and it’s even tougher for single parents who don’t have the support of a partner. Nowadays, being a single parent has become more common, but we still normally associate it with mothers. Granted, in the United States, single fathers make up only 16% of single-parent families, which is why they’re often underestimated and underappreciated.

It has long been assumed that men have less developed child-rearing skills and women are better equipped to handle the intricacies of parenting.

Raising a daughter as a single dad can be especially baffling. You will have to deal with things that you didn’t go through as a child, so you’ll need to adapt and learn about issues that specifically affect girls. And yes, some of them will make you feel uneasy.

Despite these difficulties, developing a good relationship with your daughter will be one of your most rewarding achievements. As your daughter grows, you’ll learn to handle complex feelings and developmental changes with patience, understanding, and dedication.

Be Approachable

Parenting is difficult, but so is growing up. You have to deal with constant and rapid physical changes, academic pressure, complex social hierarchies and let’s not forget bullying. Your daughter will need you for guidance and support, which is why it’s so important to make sure she sees you as approachable.

It starts with little things. For instance, maybe fashion, satin ribbon, nail polish and Disney movies are not your favourite topics for dinner conversation, but these are things that might interest her, and you want her to feel like she can talk to you about anything. Dismissing these conversations will not only hurt her feelings but will also make her less likely to come to you when she’s dealing with serious problems.  

Good communication is key to building a strong and healthy relationship with your daughter. Sometimes you’ll be tempted to analyze something she says, identify the problem and come up with a solution. Although this might be an efficient approach, it’s efficient precisely because you are skipping two steps: listening and trying to understand what she’s saying from her point of view.

Often, she won’t want you to fix anything, and that’s a good thing because it shows a willingness to learn how to solve her own problems. What she wants is a shoulder to lean on – someone who can help her gain some clarity, so she knows what to do next.

Help Her Become a Problem-Solver

As we mentioned in the previous tip, your daughter will often just want to talk to you about problems she’s facing without expecting you to fix them. You’ll feel like you want to fix them, but doing so would mean denying her the opportunity to develop her own problem-solving skills.

What you want to do instead is help her think through the problem. First express her feeling towards the problem and then think of possible solutions. 

Learning how to identify her feelings and how to handle them will also help her choose the solution that gives her the best results. She’ll know how she’ll feel about each result, and this skill will, in turn, help her later on when she needs to make important decisions about her future.

This approach might be difficult at first if you’re a take-charge kind of person, but you probably want your daughter to develop the same kind of autonomy and take-charge attitude that has served you in life.

She will also appreciate the time you spend guiding her through various problems in a sensible and productive manner. Remember that by helping your daughter develop problem-solving skills, you are empowering her.

Don’t be Overprotective

The whole point of helping your daughter develop good problem-solving skills is so she can use them to solve problems. Pretty obvious, right? But as a parent, you’ll also have a natural tendency to want to protect your kids from harm and in order to do that, you’ll sometimes try to keep her from situations that you think might lead to problems. This could mean that you don’t want her to be friends with certain kids or pursue certain hobbies.

There should, of course, be reasonable limits, but if you become overprotective in your attempt to shield her from pain, you are not allowing her to take advantage of valuable learning opportunities. She will eventually grow up to be an adult and will have to handle her life with all the good and bad that comes with it.

By letting her take a few calculated risks, she will, first of all, learn how to calculate risk. It will build her self-confidence and help you build a relationship with her based on mutual trust because you’ve shown her that you believe in her and your goal is to help, not to control.

If she feels you are trying to control her, she will either rebel or become too dependent because she doesn’t think she can handle difficulties on her own – neither outcome is positive.

Establish a Support System

You may be a single dad that’s perfectly capable of raising his daughter on his own, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have a support system. All parents can benefit from having a group of people they can talk to and lean on for advice or help when needed.

Plus, it’s important for your daughter to also have female mentors in her life. Talking to adult women and girls her age alike will help her choose how she wants to shape her identity. Both women and men are still presented in the media in a somewhat stereotypical manner, so having mentors from both genders will give her a more realistic and nuanced perspective. And every child can benefit from being surrounded by people who care about them and believe in them.

You’ll also want to talk to her about successful women from different industries that are creating change. Understanding how other women manage to achieve their goals despite obstacles will build her confidence.