The Awesome Dad Playbook: The Father's Guide to Raising Resilient, Healthy and Happy Children

By Dr. Kwame Foucher

If you are looking for a fresh perspective in taking on the role of father, The Awesome Dad Playbook: The Father's Guide to Raising Resilient, Healthy and Happy Children is the book for you. Since there is no manual on how to be a great father, this book provides tools to help fathers guide their children in overcoming adversity and liv

• Language: English
• Publisher: Purposely Created Publishing Group
• Release date: Jun 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781644841693

Book preview

Introduction

Dr. Kwame is a board-certified, family physician working in community medicine for over a decade. He has also been the medical director of three major market health insurance plans and has overseen the quality and prevention initiatives for Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial health plans in the state of Illinois. As a result, he is well-versed and aware of the unsustainably high costs of healthcare and chronic illnesses.

Current data indicates that a key contributing factor to an increased incidence of chronic illness and shortened life expectancy is exposure to a high number of childhood adverse events. A clustering of difficult growth experiences a child might have as a result of a divorce, trauma exposure, neglect, poverty, abuse, parental mental illness, or parental substance abuse, etc. are related to these poor health outcomes.

Focusing on the role of fathers in the lives of children, Dr. Kwame is hoping to see a growing community of fathers who come into a nonjudgmental environment and discover tools to help their children overcome adversity and live more fruitful and healthy lives. The ideal result of working together with fathers is outstanding father and child relationships. The result of that will be improved quality of life for future generations and ultimately greater sustainability in our healthcare system and our society.

Dr. Kwame has focused his career as a medical doctor on having greater influence on health than just what can be done in the exam room. He has been a guest in the media and has been a live speaker at events sponsored by Cigna HealthSpring, United HealthCare, and the American Diabetes Association among other organizations. Dr. Kwame is committed to helping fathers become more resourceful in order to improve the health and longevity of their children by supporting and encouraging deeper relationships between them. Through this book, speaking engagements, and coaching, he is working to help make family life healthier. We are excited to welcome you into the Awesome Dad with Dr. Kwame community! If you are a mom, please read and share a copy of this book with your spouse or the father of your children. It will prove beneficial for your children and their future health and well-being. Thank you for your support, and I hope you find tips and tools that are motivational as you work to father your children!

My Story

I know that the greatest joy of my life right now, despite prior accomplishments as a student and a medical professional, is the excitement I feel every day as a father. I wish all fathers knew the true satisfaction that comes when your children behave and are complimented on their grades. I love when they perform at recitals and on the athletic fields and wish I could bottle it up and share it with others! If you have been so blessed to be a father, it only takes a commitment to be your best to enjoy it! Every time my kids tell me they know I am the best dad in the world, I am grateful that I have such amazing kids who make parenting such a great experience! Although my kids frequently tell me that I’m the best dad in the world and I believe that, I also believe your children will tell you the same thing, and I’m happy to share what I know about being a dad.

This amazing job, best described as being a father, can sometimes feel overwhelming, like a challenge that has no solution, like a project with no instruction manual. When your kid throws a tantrum in public or frustrates you to no end, you remind yourself just like I have many times, this must be handled effectively but without screaming, hitting, threats, or any other severe punishments you yourself might remember from your childhood or from watching how other parents handled their kids. You want to be positive in correcting them, but the correction doesn’t always come out that way. You might be like me and have watched a grocery store aisle tantrum and felt badly for both the child and the parent who is looking helpless as they know that judging eyes are watching, but the child is also exercising its free spirit and testing your parenting mettle. You might also be like me and know you need new kinds of answers for today’s problem kids.

Because I’m a father, I have been subject to these challenges—because we all have them in common. Because I am a family physician, I have also heard the concerns of parents looking for a little (or a lot of) professional guidance.

My supportive answer usually starts with this reminder: To have a great relationship with your child and establish leadership, direction, and influence in your children’s lives is not only a dream, but it is also achievable and 100 percent necessary. A dream is amazing to have, and with work that is guided and directed, we all absolutely can see them come true. If you have always imagined yourself growing up and being a father, I want to use this book to support you in your efforts.

I get so excited whenever I talk about fatherhood and the joys and audacious ambition of raising children that I just get passionate about the subject. This may be derived from the way I grew up. You see, I have no memories and no pictures of my complete family with my mother, father, and myself in the same picture frame. My parents were separated before I was even born, and I have no memories of both parents even being in the same memory. And that was my normal.

As I grew up and looked around and saw that wasn’t everyone else’s normal, I wanted a new normal, but as a child, I was powerless to change things around me in my family dynamic. That was cemented as true when my mom got married