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iQuestions Faculty, Dr. Tim Kimmel 
 
 
Question: 
 
My husband doesn't show our children much affection. I'm worried this 
is affecting our children's attitude toward him. How much affection do 
our children need from their father? 
 
Answer: 
 
Unfortunately, it’s not the exception in a lot of families that fathers 
have a difficult time showing affection to their kids, too often it’s the 
rule. But let me tell you why you really need to work overtime to 
change this. 
 
First of all, affection is the thing that touches the heart more than 
anything else that we as parents, and every child needs it. 
 
Now, your husband might have been raised in an environment where 
his father didn’t show him affection, so he feels awkward about it. 
Maybe he came from a home that had a lot of scare tissue on it.  
 
He can still learn. It’s not too late for him. You need to show him why 
he needs to— the upside. 
 
When it comes affection, I said it touches the soul. You know, this skin 
that covers our body, it’s interesting— I can’t prove this physiologically, 
but it’s still true— that when you touch it, it goes straight down to 
something deep down inside. It isn’t quantifiable on a medical chart, 
but it’s still there. It’s that core of the person.  
 
 
 
It’s amazing how, you know, you’re trying to scratch your back, you 
can’t do it, someone comes along and does it for you, it just changes 
everything.  
 
Well, children need meaningful touch, from both their mothers and 
fathers, and both our sons and daughters need it. 
 
A reason why Dad needs to give this to these children is because—
well, here’s reality, here are the facts— most kids define how they view 
themselves by how their father treated them. When their father is 
there giving them a meaningful touch, and he believes in them, and he 
encourages and he hugs them, and he shows them affection, lets them 
know how much he loves them, it does something inside that will just 
last for a lifetime. 
 
Now, there is no doubt that there are some kids that have a harder 
time responding to affection than others, but you still want to give it to 
them. And there are times when kids don’t want to have you show 
public affection. That’s OK. But you need to give it to them.  
 
Fathers can give it to their sons even through rough-housing, and 
playing with them, wrestling around with them on the floor, throwing 
them around in the pool. It’s all meaningful touch.  
 
Fathers, if you don’t want your daughters climbing into the backseat of 
a car, looking for all the wrong kinds of love in all the wrong kinds of 
places, make sure that she doesn’t go into her teenage years and her 
dating years starving for affection.  
 
Even if it doesn’t come easy to you, your kids desperately want it. It’s 
amazing how much this changes everything. You can do it. Mom or 
Dad, you can give that kind of meaningful touch to your kids, that kind 
of affection that will make them feel so secure for every second of 
 
 
their life. They will know, to the day they die, that they were 
thoroughly loved by their mother and father.  
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