The Lundberg Company

By Susan Whitney,
Deseret Morning News,
July 3, 2006

…..

Father’s Day may be over, but your importance in your daughter’s life continues. According to psychologist Terri Orbuch, a dad’s involvement is critical to a daughter’s well-being.

Orbuch has been a scientific researcher for several decades at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. She has a second career on radio and television in the Detroit area. Now she is trying to reach other parts of the nation with her message, which has to do with explaining relationship research to lay people.

“There are all these relationship studies that nobody knows about,” she told the Deseret Morning News in a recent telephone interview. Meanwhile, she says, the nonscientists among us rely on myths. Just last month Orbuch went to a bridal shower where people were asked to jot down some marital advice, and five of the 20 people at the shower advised, “Don’t go to bed mad.”

Actually, Orbuch knows of research that shows it takes at least 30 minutes for your brain to settle down enough to think clearly after an argument. Scientific studies prove it would be better to say, “Let’s talk about this tomorrow when we are calmer.”

As for myths surrounding father/daughter relationships, Orbuch cites the assumption that mothers are the ones who teach their daughters what to look for in a relationship.

The belief that mothers are the only ones who have an impact is wrong, Orbuch says. Fathers have a huge impact indirectly, she says. They can also choose to have a direct impact.

Indirectly, fathers shape their daughter’s values and expectations by how they behave. “Watching him talk and communicate to her mother or to other women, learning how he respects or doesn’t respect women, seeing how he handles conflict — even how he talks to a waitress or a flight attendant — all these things set up expectations.” The way the father acts determines how the daughter will be treated in relationships in her future.

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