Dads are life’s real super heroes.
There is no denying that growing up with an involved, caring father or father figure has a very positive impact on children.
Especially, it seems, for girls.
According to clinical social worker and author of The Childproof Parent Melissa Benaroya, fathers are especially impactful on their daughters’ health and well-being.
To the Huffington Post, Benaroya explains that daughters who grow up having warm, positive, supportive, and connected relationships with their fathers actually benefit in a number of ways.
In fact, the author points out that research has found that the quality of the father/daughter relationship positively influences the daughter’s ability to manage stress, demonstrated by lower baseline cortisol levels. “Thus, the daughter will lower cortisol levels tended to have lower reactivity to developmentally appropriate stressors and increased coping mechanisms to deal with stressful situations,” Benaroya explains.
Not ending there, studies also show that a healthy dad-daughter relationship also helps to boost social cognition and lend to better interpersonal problem-solving skills.
Benaroya explains that dads who nurture a healthy and close relationship with their daughters will also lead to girls having increased success in school and eventually in the workforce. In fact, a recent US study found that girls who enjoyed close relationship with their fathers often ended up making more money as adults than girls who lacked that.
