  SHE MOPED. She sighed. She
  wandered around the house
  with the look of an injured
puppy, sometimes bursting into
tears. When her worried parents
questioned her, she would answer,
"It's nothing." How could she ex-
plain she was desperately in love for
the first time, and the object of her
adoration didn't even know she
existed? Finally her father sat
down, took her hand and tenderly
questioned her until he learned the


cause of her sadness. Gently, sim-
ply, he talked with her of life and
love. He comforted her. She was six
years old.
  "I've never forgotten that mo-
ment," says Kathleen Kilpatrick, a
special assistant in the office of the
U.S. Secretary of the Interior.
"How often I've thought back and
wondered that he didn't just laugh
at me. Instead, he treated me with
dignity and concern for how deeply
I felt."
  Robert Kilpatrick, now retired
board chairman of CIGNA Corp.,
never took a course in parenting.
He was simply showing love for
his daughter, giving her his time
and trying to see the world
through her eyes. It would be hard
to come up with a better formula
for fatherhood.
  "Fathers bring a unique pres-
ence, a special strength to raising


children," says Ray Guarendi, a
clinical psychologist whose book
Back to the Family examines the
 long-term experience of 100
~~ successful American families.


Guarendi's book shows that tradi-
tional values, rooted in the bedrock
of mutual trust, truth and uncondi-
tional love, are still the keys to
successful child-rearing. And in
this setting, fathers bring special
gifts to parenting.
  Sometimes fatherly instincts
come easily; sometimes they have to
be cultivated. But their payoff in
lasting, positive effects on growing
children is enormous. Here, culled
from real-life experience, is what
kids need most from a dad:
  Someone who shows his love for
them. Kenneth Meade, pastor of the
Church of Christ at Manor Woods,
in Rockville, Md., says one of the
most frequently expressed desires
in his family counseling comes
from children saying, "I wish Dad
would tell me or show he really
loves me." Time after time, clergy-
men, counselors and psychologists
encounter variations of this theme-~
children, often grown men, longing
for more expressed affection from
their fathers. "I never doubted my
father's love," writes author Walt
Harrington, "but even today I can't
recall a time he hugged or kissed
me or said he loved me."
  Such overt expressions give
needed assurance and encourage-
ment. Motivational expert Zig Zig-
lar had this confirmed in reverse


one day when he was trying to
assemble a tricycle he had just
bought for his then-four-year-old
son, Tom. Ziglar became more ex-
asperated by the minute because
the proverbial bolt A was not fit-
ting into nut B. He was about to
give up when Tom, who was look-
ing on, suddenly blurted, "I sure do
love you, Dad!" Needless to say,
Ziglar finished putting together
that tricycle.
  Guarendi found that "in strong
families, fathers who had problems
expressing affection made special
efforts to show it." Some who
couldn't say it wrote it in a letter,
card or note on the back of one of
their children's drawings. One fa-
ther, adept at composing music,
writes songs to his kids to tell them
he loves them.
  Fathers might also consider a
technique used by a mother in
Utah. Knowing her children were
uncomfortable with public displays
of affection, she worked out a secret
code, known only to her kids.
When one of them was about to
participate in a sport or other school
activity, she would squeeze the
child's shoulder, meaning "I love
you."
  An important "surrogate" way
for a father to convey affection to a
child is through the affection he


Listen to the voices
of real experience


What Kids Need Most in a Dad

BY RALPH KINNEY BENNETT


PHOTO: ~ PAUL BARTON/THE STOCK MARKET


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