My family doesn't have the best relationship. Not bad; nobody gets shouty or angry when we get together for the mandatory family Thanksgiving and Christmas. But beyond those things, we don't really do much together. My parents will drive three hours to my city to spend three hours at a football game and then drive three hours home. They might find twenty minutes to meet me for coffee as long as it isn't out of their way. But two things stand out about my dad recently. One, a year or two ago he admitted he wished he'd done more with us as kids. He worked a lot and then tried to cram stuff in on weekends haphazardly, and nothing ever went well. I thought the admission really said a lot about his introspection and how he thought of us kids (i.e. he thought well of us). The second was when I ran my first half marathon a few weeks ago. He called me the day before it, and after I finished he sent an email to his siblings about how cool it was that I'd done it. So, even while things haven't been perfect, I'm glad he still tries. Now approaching his 70s, he's admitting his flaws, still trying and doing better.
It's nice to see your father becoming more self aware, isn't it. I think parents are sometimes unaware of how they parented. I had a conversation recently with my dad, in which he mentioned that his father was cruel to him as a kid, nothing was ever good enough and that he would even ridicule them. I said, "did he tell you you always did a half assed job," my dad looked confused, like how did you know that? and said, "yes he did." -Then it dawned on him that he did the same thing to me. Every job I did was "half assed," according to my dad. Funny how the apple doesn't fall far from the printing tree. You had better believe that I will NEVER use that phrase or sentiment with my kids.
My theory is that just being aware of your parent's negative qualities -- and that they're negative -- is all it takes to stop yourself from inheriting them. My younger brother seems to have a pokémon mentality when it comes to our parent's negative qualities, despite all but my most recent attempts to make him a more suitable housemate. Pointing out how much he sounds like one of our parents at the right times actually seems to be having a decent affect.