Children’s Feelings Matter!
Dad, We’re Incarcerated Too!
The complete inspiration behind “Dad, We’re Incarcerated Too!” is based on a father’s tenure of incarceration. While my children visited me in 2008, my oldest daughter Raquel stated this everlasting truth: “DAD, WE’RE INCARCERATED TOO!” A very piercing statement of facts. It caused me to reexamine my actual state of incarceration and start a focus on rebuilding a relationship with my children.
As we all contribute to this healing journey, our words from father and daughters will be reflective and show differences. We are a father-and-daughter team who are dedicated to growth. We came together to discuss our points of view on what it is like to rebuild a relationship with a parent who has been incarcerated. We want to shed light on how our father being incarcerated affected our lives, talk about our experiences, and how the absence of a father shaped our lives. Being able to have this conversation opened the door for love, trust, and commitment to grow a renewed relationship.
There are many difficulties in rebuilding the relationship between a parent and a child. We understand the pain that comes from the incarceration of a parent, and we also know the good that. can come from letting go and forgiving. We believe the relationships between a parent and their children are sacred and should be approached with an understanding heart. We hope that our story will inspire others to see the power in forgiving, reconnecting, and establishing a new bond. Part of our goal is to create an opportunity for others in a group dynamic to come forward and share their experiences, talk about their issues, discover their pain of having an absentee parent, and begin a journey of healing in hopes that they can break the over-challenging load of generational incarceration.
We are preparing to take our message to the radio and begin a conversation around the effects of having, or have had parents who are or have been incarcerated in hopes that universally we as a nation can learn the path of forgiveness.
The title “Dad, We’re Incarcerated Too!” is not just about dads’ absenteeism but for those whose mothers’ and or significant family members’ incarceration has had a long-term effect on loved ones.
Daryl Rogers
Father
Maquela
Raquel
Jamila
Aliyah
Children
This program was developed by a formerly incarcerated father and his amazing daughters with two overall goals:
(1) To open a constructive dialogue with children no matter the age group to address their fears and concerns and to challenge them to examine their choices and patterns of behaviors that can be attributed to the absence of those who are and were signed to play an important role in their lives.
(2) To assist and help families prepare to address their issues with those above-mentioned role models and help to encourage a dialogue that will set a precedent to promote healing forgiveness and the possibility of Beginning a fresh start and wholesome relationship.
The dialogue will give fathers and significant others a greater awareness of how their children were affected and became infected through their time of incarceration and how absenteeism left scars and wounds that in most cases have not been healed.
The Intentions of “Dad We’re Incarcerated Too!” will be attributed to Two Intended Outcomes and significant advancements toward the reunion of the family,
“Communication and Respect”
First – Create Healthy Dialogue (Communication)
It is highly relevant to the needs and concerns of all parties involved. We created a program to help address the issues we as a father and daughter team have personally experienced and are still experiencing ourselves and witness others struggle in.
Secondly – Become Open to Growth (Respect)
As facilitators sharing our own struggles will help participants to be able to learn to trust, relate to, and feel more comfortable in expressing themselves. It is critical that those fathers and significant others be able to learn to adjust in listening to their children without interruption and conflict to the hard truths and facts and be able to acknowledge the importance of their Children’s Feelings Matter!!!