“Dad Bags”: How home-cooked meals helped kids build resiliency

Parenting is hard. Parenting during COVID-19 lockdowns was even harder.

Before the pandemic struck, Valuing Our Children, a Children’s Trust family center in Athol, had regularly welcomed dads and kids to their space for a home-cooked meal and time spent together. The structure of that environment allowed dads and kids to break bread together and for kids to build lasting, meaningful memories with their dads. 

When the pandemic uprooted all sense of normalcy and Valuing Our Children couldn’t welcome dads into the center anymore, the team wanted to find a way to help dads stay connected and create fun activities to engage with their kids. Their solution: “Dad Bags” with all the ingredients for a home-cooked meal and an activity for the family to do together. Whether taco soup and a craft, or shepherd’s pie and a book, these kits were designed to help families cope, achieve and thrive, even during times of stress.  

Dad Bags might have sounded like “just” ingredients and words on a page, but it was more than that. Research demonstrates that male role models play an important role in the development of children. According to the U.S. Department of Education, highly involved fathers have children who are 33 percent less likely than other children to repeat a grade and are 43 percent more likely than other children to earn mostly A’s in school. When these dads modeled for their children how to manage stressful moments and prioritized connection during COVID, they created the cornerstones for healthy environments for their kids and the foundations for long-term success. 

Children’s Trust Family Centers are community hubs where parents go to get support navigating the joys and challenges of parenting. They can tap into community resources, learn new parenting skills, get individualized family support during times of stress, meet other families, and participate in activities and programs that support them in their caregiving role. Established by the North Quabbin Community Coalition in 1993, Valuing Our Children exists to address the needs of area children and strengthen families. The organization accomplishes these goals by working to prevent child abuse, meet the needs of parents, address barriers to family involvement, and build on existing strengths in families and in the community.  

About the 30 for 30 Fatherhood Series  

This story is part of 30 Stories for 30 Years, marking 30 years of the Children’s Trust Fatherhood Initiative. The series highlights how professionals and organizations across Massachusetts support father involvement, healthy co-parenting, and stronger parenting partnerships as part of upstream prevention.