Its Father's Day: UNICEF Urges Fathers to Spend Quality Time with Children

About 80 countries around the world are celebrating father's day today and UNICEF used this opportunity to urge fathers to spend quality time with their children. Citing the importance of the father's involvement in early childhood learning. UNICEF Director for Data, Research and Policy Mr Laurence Chandy noted about 40 million children in 74 countries between the ages of 3 to 4 years old have fathers who do not actively engage in their learning activities. According to him, these numbers show that fathers are not playing adequate role in their children's early childhood education. He further stressed that we must break down barriers that prohibit fathers from providing a conducive learning environment for children , which includes play, protection, love and provision of nutritious food. The statistics above was provided while analyzing the father's role in early childhood learning, which included counting, drawing, naming, telling them stories or reading out to them.

UNICEF further urged the government and private sectors to provide appropriate information and resources to parents to be able to support their children in their phases of learning. Policies should be such that both parents would have sufficient time to pursue their child's happiness and early learning development. Additionally, when children interact more with their fathers they form bonds that can last a lifetime with better psychological health and self esteem. UNICEF is inviting families to post videos and pictures on their social media handles of what is takes to be a super dad using the #EarlyMomentsMatter