The Adventurer Father - Striving to be Spontaneous

The Adventurer Father - Striving to be Spontaneous

The Adventurer Dad is filled with joy for living. He knows how to have fun and laugh with his children. This action-oriented father gets actively involved in what his children are doing. He doesn't just sign them up for sports; he goes out and tosses the football with them or coaches their football team. Easy going and straightforward, he is content to go with the flow and rarely loses his cool. In fact, he thrives on "chaos" and lives a no-strings-attached lifestyle. He is a whiz at creating fun, turning "boring" aspects of day-to-day living into interesting things to do with his children.

At His Best: The Adventurer Dad is filled with joy for living. He knows how to have fun and laugh with his children. This action-oriented father gets actively involved in what his children are doing. He doesn’t just sign them up for sports; he goes out and tosses the football with them or coaches their football team. Easy going and straightforward, he is content to go with the flow and rarely loses his cool. In fact, he thrives on “chaos” and lives a no-strings-attached lifestyle. He is a whiz at creating fun, turning “boring” aspects of day-to-day living into interesting things to do with his children. While he may detest attending to routine or emotional aspects of child care, he will enjoy attending to the physical needs of his home and property as they arise, and is likely to have a lot of projects on the go in which he lets his kids participate.

Potential Pitfalls: Extroverted and impulsive, this dad will ignore routines and upset his children’s stability with his need for spontaneity. He has difficulty tolerating the quiet and slow times of family life and will look for distractions to get him out of the tedium. He is far from being a disciplinarian, and sticking to rules is often harder for him than for his children. He can be impatient doing homework with children because of his own dislike of learning by rote and memorization. His competitive nature may affect the self-esteem of his children, particularly when sports or other physical activities are involved. He is unaware of the emotional needs of his children and may get frustrated or ridicule them should they cry. He may even compete with his children to be the child, and demand to be taken care of.

Tips for Adventurer Fathers: This Dad needs to take the time to understand his children’s needs so that he better understands the impact of his behavior on them. This will help him to give his children space and time to develop their own interests and independence. Most of all, he must stop competing with his children. It may be fun for him but it isn’t always for his kids. He can learn to put his children’s needs ahead of his own by spending time listening to his children’s thoughts, feelings and ideas without judging them. He will also benefit from building tolerance to planning and develop a number of activities that balance his need for action and spontaneity with a child’s need for downtime. The practice of mindfulness and self-reflection can help him develop the habit of observing his impulses rather than giving in to them.

Father’s Day with the Adventurer Dad: This action oriented Dad appreciates a day of activity with or without his children, to celebrate Father’s Day. Because he tends to enjoy most sports you can’t go wrong with a gift with a sports theme or tickets to see a game of his choice. Personalized travel mugs or T-shirts with dad’s favourite team logo on it, NFL game day cookbook, hunting decoys or NASCAR DVD’s will be winners. A backyard barbeque with the family and with neighbours is usually a best case-scenario for celebrating. Stay away from the touchy-feeling sentimental type when buying him cards as he much prefers humour!