Checked Out Dad Syndrome: How and Why I’m Trying Hard to Avoid It

It’s Sunday, 6:00 AM, post-Hamilton midnight bedtime.  I’m tired.  I haven’t been spending much time with kids.  And they’re showing it.

Lot’s of mouthy, disrespectful, anxious-type behavior.

If I can manage to engage – connect in a way that’s meaningful for them, they’ll settle down, today at least.

I don’t want to.  Hanging out with kids is boring, and when I’m tired, boring is depressing.

But alas, I can at least cognitively assent to the fact that my kids’ mental and emotional health rests on whether or not they’re getting enough time with me.  And if I’m not at least functional in the way I engage them, they’ll unravel.  They get anxious, struggle at school, struggle with self control.

In short, they become “bad” kids.

So we punish them, which works until they become teenagers.  Then they pay us back with interest.

Men struggle with disengaging from their kids.  We’re there geographically, but not emotionally, not very often.  Do an internet search for “checked out dads” and you’ll get tons of stories.  Do the same with “moms” and you’ll get random articles about grocery shopping and things that moms should “check out.”

I have a friend who’s dad emotionally disappeared in her early teens.  Nobody’s sure what happened – maybe he felt like she didn’t want to spend time with him.  But it destroyed her, and has taken years for her to process and heal as an adult.

So many of my friends have the same story.

I worry that I’ll do the same.  Dadding isn’t going to get easier as they grow up.  I feel this constant urge to excuse myself, and I can imagine that it will get stronger.

At the least, when we struggle to engage our children, we send a very strong, very consistent message about their value as a person.  That would explain the anger, anxiety, and lack of self control that they exhibit when they don’t get enough of us, and the difficulties they bring into adulthood if we’re consistently AWOL.

I can articulate all of this on a cognitive level, but living it out is another story.  Again, kid time is usually boring.  I’ve tried to get them interested in interesting things, but they’re all <11 – our only mutual interest is TV and ice cream.  Engaging them is challenging.

I’m also typically running on limited emotional energy.  Turns out that in your early 50’s, you get tired easily.  If I’m not careful to get my rest, it’s super tricky to pay attention to my kids.  Parenting’s hard – how the hell am I supposed to get through my day without coffee in the morning and booze at night, which wrecks my sleep, which requires more chemicals during the day, etc., etc.

And kids don’t walk up to you and say things like, “daddy, your inattention is causing some negative feelings about myself, that’s why I’ve been so hard to deal with lately.”  Or, “daddy, I miss you, can we please spend some time (that’s meaningful to me) today?”

If they could do that, I think we’d realize how needed we are, and check in more.

While this is an area where I’d give myself a C+, I have learned a bit more about how to tell when my kids are struggling, and they each struggle differently.

My oldest will walk up and hit me, or pester me, especially when I’m working on something.  Our middle kid will get super defiant and hard to deal with.  Our youngest is still a mystery.

I’ve also learned to connect on their schedule, not mine.  For awhile I’d get really frustrated if I went out of my way to spend time with them, only to get rejected.  “OK, then, F-you too” my soul would whisper.

But I’ve learned that my oldest, for example, comes alive at night.  If I go into her room after the other two terrorists are in bed, lay next to her, snuggle and talk, she’ll do most of the work.  It’s WAY easier than planning a date, or trying to come up with something to do that doesn’t bore me out of my mind.

If any of my kids randomly walk up to me and start talking, I do my best to drop what I’m doing and engage.

But I can’t say that I always succeed.

We’ve had some bad behavior lately, and some signs of anxiety, so this AM, MY Sunday off, I’m going to spend an hour with each one of them and let the other two watch TV until it’s their turn.  That’s maybe too much TV, but it’ll be a great morning for them.

We’ll do a cat video or two, maybe a game on the iPhone, but for the rest of our time together we’ll talk, relate, connect.  I’ll do the hard work of asking them questions, maybe tell them some stories, we’ll see how it goes.  I’ll be ramped up on coffee the entire time, and completely blown up when we’re done.

Later in the day I’ll do some yard work, or take a bit of time to myself.  I’ll have earned it, and, honestly, feel a little less guilty about how I’m doing as a dad.

But the biggest payoff for me is, the more time I spend with my kids, the more I like them, the more I like spending time with them.

As I sit in the early Sunday AM hours – the calm before the wake-up-break-up-1,000-fights storm – I can’t say that I’m looking forward to spending 3 hours straight with kids.  When I’m done however, I won’t only be thinking “that wasn’t so bad,”

I’ll be thinking about how much I enjoy connecting with my kids.

13 thoughts on “Checked Out Dad Syndrome: How and Why I’m Trying Hard to Avoid It”

    1. Yeah, I hesitated to limit it to Dads, but it’s the one I relate to the most 🙂 I also feel like a Dad’s unhealthy response is “typically” to check out emotionally…

  1. I’ve raised three kids. Here’s what I learned:
    Quality time is bs. If you spend enough time eventually some of it could be called “quality time” I guess. But you just have to put in the time.
    The key is to just enjoy your kids. Don’t try to teach them anything. They learn from you when your not paying any attention. They never learn through attempts to impart wisdom. The more you enjoy your kids the more they will listen and respect you. That’s what i’ve Found anyway.

  2. Ours had more than the usual kid issues due to early childhood trauma, which meant they had zero focus and fought us at every turn even when something was supposed to be fun. Brain-numbing (to us) games like Memory and Guess-Who gave us our first tentative connections, and eventually they could make it through a game of Sorry or Trouble. Doing puzzles also interested them, although we had to buy puzzles several levels below what you’d expect for their age. As confidence built, the number on the puzzle box rose. Try family game night. It likely won’t be fun at first but keep trying. Ours recently shocked us by asking for game night instead of movie night. I’m not bragging. Just… if we can find connection with ours, I think anyone can. Be encouraged. 🙂

    1. Game night instead of movie night? Wow. I was actually thinking about game nights the other day. A friend of mine does it and it works well.
      Thanx for your comment – might be what I needed to hear

      1. No problem! Remember, start with something super easy; it’s less likely to cause stress. We tried “Sorry” before they were ready, and barely made it through the game alive. 🙂

        Also, feel free to adjust the rules. We took away the “knocking back to home” and any cards that delayed the game, plus limited the number of player pieces (I think it’s usually four and we cut it down to two). It’s not really “Sorry” at that point but when you get a hyena or two successfully around the board, you’ll want to change the name of the game to “THANK GOD.” 🙂

          1. Ha, actually, as I was writing the comment, I thought, “this would make a great post!” Getting on it now! 🙂

          2. I’m referencing your blog in my post…just want to make sure I have it correct: The blog is Peace Hacks and your handle is @realmarklandry, yes?

Leave a Reply to Casey Cancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.