Any man can be a father, but let's celebrate the importance of Dads!

I recently wrote a book with the wonderful Alice Sharpe to celebrate the importance of Dads. With so much negativity about men at the moment its worth bringing some balance to the debate.

Getting Dads involved from the start has many benefits. Pleasingly, I am noticing more Dads delivering and collecting their children at nursery and staff definitely have more casual conversations with Dads.

Why? Dads involvement in the life of a family has many advantages from birth onwards. Here are some of the benefits:

Alice and I wrote our book to encourage Dads to get involved in nursery and at home through activities. The book provides a range of activities which can be used both in the nursery and at home. We recognise that many Dads may have limited time and energy so this book is designed to support staff to show Dads how simple actions whether the routine bed time story, learning together in the garden, dads in the nursery day or making games and toys together can make a big difference to their children's potential.

The activities are written on a step to step basis to help Dads complete the activities. In addition, these activities can be shared on a parent notice board, be part of regular Dad's Activities information, sent home on home learning sheets or just discussed in casual pedagogical conversations.

Good staff know their parents well and can suggest ideas that are both relevant and possible. These ideas can be done in the nursery as a practice so that when sharing the ideas, staff have tested and refined them. You may even have a pack for some of the activities as part of the home learning approach.

So, do a bit more to support Dads. They matter especially to their children.

June O'Sullivan is chief executive of London Early Years Foundation. This blog first appeared on the LEYF website