A thermostat is a component which senses the temperature of a system and regulates temperature of a room or device. This is unlike the thermometer which just measures the room temperature.

On the third Sunday of the June we shall commemorate the role and impact of fathers and father figures in our lives and those of children in general. I allude the impact of a father to that of a thermostat. The following real life story will illustrate more:

In one of my counseling sessions with a client, I had this rare and touching encounter of a boy who was yearning for father’s words of appreciation in his life. The boy had been referred to me by the school administration to counsel him because his academic performance had nosedived. The boy’s sincerity was a key ingredient for this particular counseling session; he made it productive and effective. He stated that he comes from an affluent family with a father who was a principal in a city school and a mother who was a prominent business lady in the well-to-do neighborhoods of Nairobi. The boy narrated that from the time he was young his father had never come home from work and appreciated him for anything good he did however much he tried. This almost made me to cry in the session but since I was a helper I tried to restrain myself though the boy may have picked from my body language that his story had touched the soft spot of my heart; Love for children.

This young man did not want to be taken to an expensive restaurant or to be bought a new pair of Italian shoes but appreciative words from his father, a person whose DNA matched his own; Words of affirmation.

This story illustrates an indispensable role of a father in the lives of children and more importantly words of affirmation from the FATHER. This is because all human being have an inherent need for appreciation. Rev Dr. Timothy Njoya once said, “All marriages save for those arranged by fathers and uncles were born out of the art of appreciation”. Appreciation is a need that cannot be satisfied by anything else except the words of mouth.

The first years of life of a child’s life is like THE first chapters of a book, the interest and motivation of the reader to read entire book depends on how chapter one was written. As parent and fathers in this context lets write the first chapter of our children lives because we will not have an opportunity when they grow up for they will be writing other chapters which depend largely on how we shape their formative years.

As father of two children for now, I have made it a habit of telling each of my children “I LOVE YOU” before I hang up a phone call when I am far and when I am interacting with them.

Moving the Goalposts courtesy of a program christened Young Men as Equal partners (YMEP) have been having sensitization meetings with fathers in all MTG communities with aim of identifying allies who will champion the rights of young women and girls and who will socialize their children with gender equitable attitudes. The choice by MTG to engage this unique contingency of men is because fathers are primary agents of socialization; they are the main decision makers in the family and by extension in the community and because research indicates that father’s absence in the life of a child has far-reaching remifications. As a father are you a thermostat or thermometer?