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Portland, OR
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It’s my joy and honor to equip dads with practical tools to better dial into their daughters’ hearts.

With 25 years of experience as a licensed professional counselor and over 35 years working directly with teens and young adult women. Dr. Michelle Watson brings practical wisdom to dads with daughters of all ages.

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It's Heart Commitment Month: The Dad-Daughter Edition

Michelle Watson

In celebration of Valentine’s month (which I’m renaming, “Heart Commitment Month”), I thought you dads would enjoy hearing the results of an informal survey I conducted that will support you in engaging your daughter’s heart with more clarity and specificity.

I sent out requests via email and on social media to girls and women with this question:

What do you really need from your dad?

Then I added a short addendum to my request:

“This is your opportunity to use your voice to help dads across America by answering this question and telling me the top five things you really need from your dad. Feel free to pass this on to any women you know who may want to help me gather information.”

Not only did the responses start pouring in, but surprisingly, women took me up on my suggestion and started sending the questionnaire to their friends and family. I honestly hadn’t expected that level of enthusiastic response! 

The youngest participant was nine years old while the oldest was 89, again reflecting the relevance of this topic to girls and women across the lifespan. This question seemed to spark something in the hearts of females that spurred them to want their voices to be heard. 

So here is a profound look inside the inner world of women. I trust that you’ll hear their hearts and not just see a list of entitled requests from demanding females.

The truth is that these aren’t just wants or complaints from whiny women. These are needs. Their honest, heartfelt feedback is here to let you know what girls and women are really thinking and what they are really longing for from their dads.

And your daughter really wants these same things from you. 

 
 

Here are the 25 most commonly mentioned things that a daughter really needs from her dad:

  1. Time (“To show interest and involvement in my life,” “To be available”)

  2. Affirmation (“Approval,” “Praise,” “Hear him say out loud ‘I love you’”)

  3. Affection (“Hugs,” “Physical touch”)

  4. Unconditional love (“For who I am regardless of my failures”)

  5. Apologize

  6. Be proud of me (“To know I’m not a disappointment to him,” “No judgment,” “Less criticism,” “Faith in me”)

  7. Tell me I’m beautiful (“Compliment me, especially about my looks”)

  8. Talk to me and open up about himself, his pain, his faults, his hopes (“Let me see that he is human, that he fails, that he makes mistakes, and then show me how to make it right,” “Time alone where I get to know him and his childhood stories”) 

  9. Pursue me (“Desire to get to know me,” “Interactive conversation where he is asking me questions about myself,” “To actively seek me out and find out what I am doing, what I am interested in, WHO I am”)

  10. Prayer (Either talking to God for her or talking to Him with her)

  11. To work on his temper so I can feel safe (“Not to crush my spirit”)

  12. Not to change me (“To let me be me,” “be accepted for myself—not for what I did or failed to do”)

  13. Honesty (“I need him to be honest with himself. When he's honest with himself, it frees him to be honest with me”)

  14. Just listen

  15. Guidance

  16. Protection

  17. Sense of humor

  18. Teach me about things

  19. Be an adventurer…with me

  20. Instead of not being there, please be there (“Instead of handing me money, ask to come with me and take me shopping or out to lunch”)

  21. Tell me you love being my dad

  22. Believe in me

  23. Never give up on our family

  24. Show me how a real man treats a woman

  25. Support my ideas and dreams

There it is. Raw. Vulnerable. Honest. And every single response comes from a daughter’s heart longing for connection and relationship with her dad coupled with a desire for love and affirmation from her dad. 

My deep and passionate desire is for dads across America and the world to step up and step in to their roles as fathers. We can’t go one more day without every dad being all in with a renewed commitment to be all that his daughter needs him to be in her life.

Truth: A daughter who knows she is loved and adored by her dad will pass along that same gift to those around her. 

Dad, I encourage you to take five things from this list, the ones that most strongly resonate with your core values, and put them into action…now.

Be the dad your daughter really needs you to be…today. 

P.S. If you’d like a chart listing these 25 things so you can challenge yourself to do all of them with or for your daughter, click here. 

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