INFO for Families

Fathers, Be Good to Your Daughters

I have spent much of the past month working on the annual Father/Daughter Dance at Johnson Ferry. While this is always a nice evening for dads and their girls, I know that the power of the father/daughter relationship is so much more significant than one special night. As they enter the "ballroom" we set up each year, I want to get in each dad's face and say: "Yeah, you showed up with your daughter tonight, but what are you doing to love and lead and protect them the other 364 days of the year?"

    

Dads, our daughters desperately need us to stay connected with them as they navigate a world that, without our help and guidance, will certainly chew them up and spit them out.

    

Read what Hännah Schellhase of the National Fatherhood Initiative wrote a few months back on their website... 

The secret heartache caused by broken families and father failure is frequently laid bare by the tabloids covering the lives of pop stars. Emptiness caused by divorce and absent or abusive fathers has been the catalyst for the ruin of many of Hollywood’s darlings.

John Mayer’s song “Daughters” won the 2005 Grammy for Song of the Year. The lyrics carry a rebuke to fathers for how they treat their daughters because of the profound influence a father’s actions have on the psyche of a daughter. A portion of the lyrics reads:

I know a girl

She puts the color inside of my world

But she's just like a maze

Where all of the walls all continually change

And I've done all I can

To stand on her steps with my heart in my hands

Now I'm starting to see

Maybe it's got nothing to do with me

Fathers, be good to your daughters

Daughters will love like you do

Girls become lovers who turn into mothers

So mothers, be good to your daughters too

Oh, you see that skin?

It's the same she's been standing in

Since the day she saw him walking away

Now she's left

Cleaning up the mess he made

So fathers, be good to your daughters

Daughters will love like you do

Girls become lovers who turn into mothers

So mothers, be good to your daughters too

Mayer has captured the cyclical nightmare that is created when a girl is mistreated or abandoned by her father. “Daughters” describes the emotional confusion daughters feel when their fathers are absent or uninvolved, either physically or emotionally.

Knock Knock. Who's There? A Father Wound.

I ran across a powerful video from poet Daniel Beaty. I don't usually get excited about performance art like this, but it's well worth the two and half minutes you'll spend on it. In the reciting of his poem "Knock Knock," he articulates the father wound he experienced and his response to it in adulthood.

While the disappointment you might have with your father might not be as significant as his, you can certainly relate to the regret that in some ways, your parents let you down. More importantly, it will cause you to reflect on your own parenting. 

The challenge for us is to do all we can to let God lead us to be the parents that our kids desperately need. Only He can be the perfect Father, but we must strive to emulate Him. For the parents that we are will, in many ways, be the picture that our kids develop of God.

Knock knock....Who's there?

 

 

"I just wish I would have known..."

Yesterday at Johnson Ferry, I "helped" preach the sermon in all three sanctuary services. (Just writing that makes me think of that annoying little girl in that 70's Shake and Bake commercial: "It's a sermon, and I helped!") Most of you people have no idea what I'm talking about. For the few of you do...that was free.

The sermon topic was "Missing Dads" and it was one message in our pastor's ongoing series on Contemporary American Values. Thomas Nelson, one of our Teaching Pastors, was slated to give the message. He invited me, a father of five and, according to him, Johnson Ferry's "resident expert on marriage and family" to give some practical application in the middle of his message.

Here's the truth that he didn't know: having five kids (aged 4-19) doesn't make a you a expert on anything related to parenting. What it does is point out more and more your inadequacies in all things related to raising children. The sermon Thomas and I ended up communicating together was for me more than anybody else...I just got to be a part of articulating it.

If you're interested in watching/hearing the message, you can find it at the Right from the Heart website at this link: Missing Dads.

So here it is on Monday afternoon and I'm sitting in my office at the church, minding my own business, when an older couple walks in. I say "hello" and the man introduces himself to me. He then tells me that he heard the sermon on Sunday and that he wanted to say "thanks for sharing."

Then he got quiet. His eyes began to mist up. He was obviously struggling to talk.

His wife then explained to me that they just came from visiting their son in jail. He had gotten into some significant legal trouble due to a number of DUI's. His most recent judge was gracious but gave some pretty rigid warnings about what might happen if he drinks again. They were both obviously overwhelmed.

Holding back his tears, the man went on to say this: "I just wish I would have known when he was younger just how big an impact my shortcomings as a dad would have on his life."

Let that percolate for a few seconds, fellas.

Here was a man who could look at his adult son and have some very significant regrets regarding how he parented him. He went on to describe how failures that seemed like small things when his son was a teenager have evolved into to very big things in his adulthood. I don't know how else to describe him, besides to say that his face was covered with deep sorrow.

As Thomas and I preached on Sunday, I must confess that there were a lot of grey heads in the sanctuary. In many ways, I felt we were preaching to the wrong crowd. If anything, I hope that the grandfathers in the room felt moved to come alongside their sons and sons-in-law as THEY parent. And to share their regrets as this man did to me.

While Dads cannot control how our kids turn out, we do have some clear directives given to us by God. If we fail to be obedient to those things, then we have failed our kids.

My prayer for me today (and my prayer for every Imperfect and Normal Dad out there) is that we depend upon God's presence to empower us, God's Word to direct us, and God's grace to catch us when we fail.

And there are times when we will fail. May God help us all. 

Challenging Men to "Courageous" Living

I think I'm like most Christian men in that I feel the responsibility of being the "spiritual leader of my home."  The bad news is that I don't have a clear picture of what that means. I usually end up feeling inadequate in many ways. I know that this is what God has for me, but I often live with a deep sense of failure because I simply don't know how to do it.

The new movie "Courageous" opens this weekend. Produced by the same people who made Fireproof and Facing the Giants, this message movie hopes to inspire men to begin to take the first steps toward being the men God has called them to be.

 

Find where it might be showing in a theater near you by going to the official movie website.

Or you can check out some of the great resources that Focus on the Family has put together on their Courageous Website.

Make plans to see this movie with your spouse. Pray that it would stir in all of us the desire to lead and shepherd our families more effectively.

Stephen King's Brilliant Take on the "Twilight" Movies

I know this is pretty random, but I heard a quote the other day that captures the beef that I have with the Twilight movies. It was said a few years ago by author Stephen King (you may have heard of him...I think he has sold a few books). His quote was comparing the themes of the Twilight books with the Harry Potter books.

Here's what he said:

"Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend."

In no way do I want to start a debate about the rightness or wrongness of Harry Potter, so please don't email me about that. I haven't read the books or seen the movies. The point has nothing to do with Harry Potter.

What is valuable about King's observation is that he succinctly captures the message that our girls are getting from the Twilight saga: their life has no meaning unless they have a boyfriend. I blogged about this a couple of years ago, when the second movie came out. Click here if you are interested.

Our girls' emotions are being constantly bombarded with messages that suggest that they need a boy to love them. Friends, movies, and even parents hold this ideal before them. The sad thing is that I don't think there are very many teenage guys out there who are even remotely capable of truly loving a girl selflessly. Certainly not to Edwardian standards. While vampire-boy may protect and care for his girl effectively, most of the teenage boys I know don't have a clue what "guarding a girl" looks like. They aren't mean-spirited...they are just clueless.

(Hey, fathers of sons, who do you think is supposed to teach young men to honor and protect women? Check your mirror for the answer.)

So our teen girls' favorite movie fuels an unhealthy yearning in them that cannot be satisfied. They are left seeking the affection of boys who end up using them and then breaking their hearts. They are likely to carry the long-term effects of any sexual intimacy they experienced long into adulthood...even if this intimacy is relatively benign.

And parents don't think this is a big deal. I assure you, it is.

 

Billy Ray's Achy Beaky Heart is Finally Broken for His Daughter

I feel sorry for Billy Ray. He is finally realizing that the trajectory his daughter's life got on several years ago has taken her to a place that he never wanted her to go. And he regrets it.

I have been highly critical of Billy Ray in the past. When her first music video for her first big song was released, I said that I wanted to punch him in the face.  Maybe I was harsh, but the dad in me couldn't stand that the dad in him allowed his teenage daughter to be marketed as a sex object. 

I later wanted to punch him in the kidneys. That was after a video circulated of young Miley giving her  40 year old movie director a lap dance at a wrap party. Her dad's response: "that's just what teenagers do."

But, in a recent GQ article, it is apparent that now Billy Ray lives with regret. Regret that she did Hannah Montana. Regret that he didn't protect her better. Regret for all of it. His marriage has failed and his daughter appears to be moving further away from anything resembling the Christian faith she claims to embrace.

But Billy Ray is not alone. He is just like most of the parents I know.Their kids leave the nest and they have regrets.

Most of the parents I encounter don't worry about the poor choices their kids are making. They think it's no big deal. They are just going through the "teen years." These parents are not intentional as they lead and guide their children. They just go along with what everyone else is doing. And they don't realize what has happened until it's too late.

It's like what we read in James 1:14-15: "But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death." Sometimes you don't see the effects of the temptation until it is birthed much later. Sadly, this can happen to many of us as parents as we watch our kids' lives.

The only difference between us and Billy Ray is that his life and pain are very public. So we would do very well to learn from him.

What is the trajectory that your kids' lives are on? What will happen when the little tendencies you see give birth to full-grown habits and behaviors? Do you need to make any adjustments as you parent?

I encourage you to read Focus on the Family's Jim Daly's thoughts on Billy Ray's regret in the following article. His insights are spot-on...

Billy Ray Cyrus' Regret

This Sunday at Johnson Ferry: "Let's Talk About Sex..."

Yes, I want all you 30 and 40 something adults out there to have that awesome "Salt and Peppa" song stuck in you heads. Let it simmer there...

The Family Ministry at Johnson Ferry will be offering a special series over the next three Sunday mornings designed to help parents guide their kids through the ever-changing minefield of our sexually-charged culture.

It will run for three Sundays in a row: January 16, 23 & 30. We are describing this thing as "a three-session, Sunday morning workshop for parents of teens and tweens on handling the issues of dating, sex and other unmentionables.” There are so many dimensions to this that I couldn't get the description  any more concise than that.

The presentation for High School Parents will happen in the Launch SBS class that meets at 9:50 a.m. in the Fellowship Hall.

A slightly different version for Middle School (and younger) Parents will happen at 11:15 a.m. in Student Center North.

This Sunday, August 16, we will be laying the foundation for why these issues are critical in the lives of teenagers. (While STD's and pregnancy are significant, there is much more at stake than just those high-profile consequences.) We will also be connecting these truths to the larger Johnson Ferry emphasis of Spiritual Brokenness and Repentance.

Gentlemen, Start Your Engines...

...because registration is officially open!

The Father/Daughter Dance is held at Johnson Ferry over two nights in February. It has a 15-plus year tradition of building great memories for dads and daughters. Every year, you can consistently count onbeautiful daughters, well-dressed dads, live music, "prettacky" decorations (it takes a lot of work to be both pretty and tacky at the same time), candy for appetizers and a great dinner that the girls never eat. It's amazing!

Dads with older girls (grades 3 and up) get to come on Thursday, February 11.  Dads with younger girls (age 4 through 2nd grade) get to come on Friday, February 12.

Get thyself over to the registration page at JohnsonFerry.org and get you and your daughter some tickets. And then tell her about it. Be excited. Tell her that you are looking forward to it with great anticipation. Daughters need their dads, even if they don't say it out loud very often.

And remember, this is a great event to invite a neighborhood friend! Pray that God would burden you with a dad/daughter combination that would be blessed by a night like this.

Dads Need to Repent

Dads, we need to talk.

If you are anything at all like me, you are awesome at pointing out the shortcomings (sins) in your kids but terrible at noticing them in yourself. Could it be that our pious attitude of "I'm right and you are wrong" is creating a severe rift between us and our kids.

Because, let's face it. They know we sin. We know we sin. In fact, Jesus (in Matthew 7:11) comes right out and calls earthly fathers "evil." So what good does it do if we pretend that we don't sin?

What this attitude creates in our home is a legalistic set of rules to follow...typically ones that our kids can never measure up to. It communicates that we have arrived and that our kids are still a (unsatisfactory) work in progress.

Instead, we must create an environment where we can all acknowledge our shortcomings and agree that we all need a savior to rescue us from ourselves and our sin.

Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church in Seattle sums it up perfectly in this brief clip...

Dads Need to Repent

How often do my wife and kids hear me say these words?

"It's my fault."

"I'm sorry."

"I was wrong."

"Please forgive me."

Not near enough. Not near enough...

Jon Gosselin to Write a Parenting Book?

Let the late night monologue jokes begin.

A report has surfaced that Jon Gosselin, of "Jon and Kate Plus Eight" fame, is in the beginning stages of writing a book about parenting. I desperately want to be gracious here, but I'm trying to guess how much of this is driven by "strike while the iron is hot" economic motives and how much is driven by a sincere desire to help other parents.

While he's still not sure of what his "hook" will be, a source close to Gosselin says this: “Jon is still deciding what exactly the book will be about, but knows he wants to focus on his parenting skills.” I honestly cannot wait to read what he has to say. Perhaps he has learned some unique lessons about parenting through his unique circumstances. Perhaps.

But in my experience, there is one element of parenthood I have learned is critical: consistency.

When they were young, my kids needed consistency in rules and discipline. This helped them feel safe and secure.

As they have grown into teenagers, my kids have needed consistency between what I say and what I do. Nothing has illustrated this more than teaching a few kids to drive. I cannot roll through stop signs and yet expect them to stop completely when they are behind the wheel. When my children are watching my life, the need to "practice what I preach" becomes paramount.

Any message about character development or the need to be committed to Christ will fail to penetrate the hearts of our kids if our lives do not have the integrity to back it up. That is, perhaps, the lesson that our friend Jon may need to learn before he writes his book. He may be an attentive dad when he's around them, but the older his kids get, the more they will pick up on the apparent inconsistencies in his personal life.

So how are you doing in the consistency department? Are you making behavioral or moral demands of your kids that you are not modeling in your life? What needs to change to keep the integrity of your parental leadership intact?

Rapping Dads from the Suburbs...Absolute Genius

We interrupt this string of posts on the Science of Marriage to insert an outstanding video created by Church on the Move. It's real Dads rapping about the authentic day-to-day life of fatherhood. I can relate to these guys. Perhaps you can, too.

Dads, We Sometimes Need A Push

Father's Day is quickly approaching and I must say that I usually feel like the holiday is unmerited by most of us. Before you start throwing things at me, let me develop that thought for a moment.

Mother's Day is celebrated in May and it's well-deserved. We focus on our Moms for one day in response to 364 days of selfless love, sacrifice, and non-stop focus on their families. They certainly deserve a day in their honor, even if their kids and husbands usually fall short in their job of recognizing all mom does for them. Then Monday rolls around and it's back to the regular "Mom, what's for dinner?" language. I think Moms deserve at least a month of focused honor. A day just doesn't cut it.

On the other hand, Dads get the same focus on their "special day" in June. And while I believe (in theory) that Dads are just as critical as moms in the development and discipleship of their kids, for many of us, it's just that...a theory. While we know that Dads are essential and bring critical elements to our families, we often fail in the execution department.

10 Ideas: Esteeming Dad on Father's Day

With Father’s Day just a little more than a week away, we wanted to give you moms and kids some more great ideas to bless the man in your life. Here’s a great article by Mary May Larmoyeux posted on familylife.com. She suggests some fun and unique ways you can get your kids involved in honoring Dad.

 

10 Ideas: Esteeming Dad on Father's Day

Father's Day Gift-Giving Ideas

Do you (or your kids) need some good Father's Day gift giving ideas? One option is to simply give to him at the same level that he organized the kids to give to you on Mother's Day. That might free you up from doing much of anything at all.

But if you want to do something nice for Dad, here are a few suggestions...

The National Fatherhood Initiative has posted a few good ideas for gift-giving for dad. You can check out their post right here.

Some very frugal gift ideas come from the folks at Mommy Savers.

If you're not currently boycotting Disney (and since the Southern Baptist Convention is hosting their annual meeting in Orlando next week, I guess it's okay), then the Disney Family Fun people have some good ideas for Dad.

I buy most of my Christian books and stuff at ChristianBook.com and they have posted some great gift-giving ideas on their site. Point Manby Steve Farrar is one book that every man needs to read.

If all else fails, buy him an ugly tie, a "soap on a rope" or a t-shirt that says something like "World's Greatest Dad." We love that stuff.   

Cyrus Part 2 - Now I Want to Punch Billy Ray in the Kidneys

A few weeks ago, I posted about young Miley Cyrus and her new music video. It is shocking in it's own merit, but given that the poor girl is only seventeen, my reaction was to want to Punch Billy Ray in the Face.

But it seems that Billy Ray has lowered the bar for fathers even lower.

A website recently posted a racy video from the wrap party of Miley's newest movie. In it, Miley is seen giving a "lap dance" to her 44 year-old movie producer. Her behavior was apparently so inappropriate that parents were taking their kids and leaving. 

Billy Ray's response: "It's what people her age do."

Some other Dads should care enough to confront Mr. Cyrus on his lackluster performance as a father. And do it in firm love. But if that doesn't work, I'm for advocating the kidney-punch strategy.

You can read a New York times article on the whole story here.  

And while it may be easy to write this off to typical Hollywood indecency, I think that Dads are dropping the ball in this way all around us. In recent days, I have heard of high school girls whose parents are encouraging them to be intimate with their boyfriends so that they can "gain some experience." And these are church families.

I'm for erring on the side of encouraging radical purity in my kids. And not just because I don't want them to get pregnant or get some nasty disease. It's because I want them to experience God's very best, not the junk that the world holds out to them. And that's critical for them to have success in their marriages down the road. When did we forget that God invented sex? When He gives us some simple parameters, can we trust that He knows what He is talking about?

As a Dad, I want my kids to enter marriage without the baggage of their past sexual partners and experiences. Recent research is affirming that critical bonds are formed when you are sexually intimate with someone. It's hard to break away from. (It's the main reason that young people tend to stay in relationships that EVERYONE around them knows are dysfunctional: they are being intimate and can't bring themselves to end it.) This is illustrated beautifully (and graphically) in a music video by Gnarls Barkley. It's great food for thought.

We must consider the effects of our kids' sexual experience on their ability to succeed in marriage. One study (that I have seen before but couldn't find as I wrote this...sorry) compared the divorce rate of couples who married each other as virgins with couples who had previous sexual partners. While the divorce rate for two virgins was extraordinarily low (like 20 %), the divorce rate was much higher for those who had one previous partner (more than 50%). It went up again for those who had additional partners (something like 65%) While my data isn't exact, the findings are clear...purity before marriage is worth it.

So, back to my original observation: Billy Ray Cyrus and his cop-out that lap dances are just what "people her age do." Maybe that's true. But people her age who make that sort of behavior the acceptable norm run a high risk of being people our age who can't make marriage work. The odds will be stacked against them for experiencing the joy and satisfaction that God intended married life to be. I refuse to be a dad who stands by and lets that happen.

There is just too much at stake. So as a Dad, it's not going to happen on my watch. I'm going to stay connected to my daughters' hearts, model righteous manliness to my sons, hover closely over ANYBODY who shows a romantic interest in my kids, and clearly lay out an expectation for what purity looks like. It doesn't guarantee any behavior or outcome from them, but I'm not going to sit idly by and let the world define what normal sexuality is. That scares the crap out of me.  

So, is anybody interested in driving to Nashville to do an intervention for Billy Ray? We'll go in peace, but have the kidney-punch option as a fall back plan.

"Swagger Wagon" - Hip Hop for the Mini-Van Crowd

A friend passed this on to me today. It's absolute genius. I think the folks at Toyota may have surpassed the ad wizards at Apple in the viral marketing department.

There are about 10 more videos filmed in sort of a "mockumentary" style on their youtube channel. You can find it at this link.  Watch the "Meet the Parents" clip. Then, I am particularly fond of "Daddy Like Protecting," "Mommy Like Help," and "Mommy Like Deals."

They all capture how obnoxious we can be as parents. So please, laugh at them. Do not emulate them.

I Want to Punch Billy Ray in the Face

I'm not usually prone to fits of rage. I don't typically advocate violence. But I might be willing to make an exception.

I saw a link on my MSN home page yesterday that referenced the "racy new Miley Cyrus video." I have kids who have grown up watching the drivel on the Disney Channel and I've been watching the trajectory of young Miley's career for years, so I couldn't NOT look.

There will be many debates on line about the appropriateness of the video and the intentions of this young artist. There may even be discussions about the creative merit of the clip. But I don't care much about any of that. She's a young talent that is simply riding the wave of her stardom. She will most likely do whatever her handlers (managers, agents, publicists, etc.) encourage her to do. After all, they have a significant financial interest in the success of her future endeavors.

And this is a critical time. Everyone around her is certainly asking: Will she be able to make the transition from "teen idol" to "serious adult artist?" They are probably losing sleep over it. I'm sure her new video is a strategic component of their overall job security plan. But who is watching out for Miley?

That's why I want to punch Billy Ray in the face. He's the dad. That's his job. It's his responsibility to step in and say "No. It's not worth it. I would love for my daughter to have success, but not if she has to do this."

I'm sure he will release a statement in the coming days in response to all the criticism he is likely to get. I can't wait to hear what he says. But I'm betting that it's going to make me even more mad at him. I want to extend him grace and love...and I'm going to try. But our daughters need dads who will love them enough to protect them...even from themselves.

Anybody want to hold him down for me?

Here's the video. And just because I'm posting it here, it doesn't necessarily mean that I think you should watch it. Use your own judgment there.

http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/watch-miley-cyrus-racy-new-music-video/20xlg6p9
 

 

You're A Minute and Thirty-Eight Seconds Behind

Now that the Winter Olympics are over, we can get back to the busy task of praying for spring to get here. With snow on the ground in 49 states just a few weeks ago, most of us are looking forward to a little warm weather. A little global warming would be nice right now.

But before we disengage completely from our Olympic memories, I wanted to let Todd Wilson of the FamilyMan Weekly tell a great story from the Nordic Combined event. Read on...

Hey Dad,

 

Although the Olympic torch has been extinguished, I want to share a marriage tip I picked up during the Winter Games. To be honest, it’s been a tough couple of weeks in the Familyman marriage department. I’d like to say it was all ‘her’ fault...but I know the blame falls squarely on my shoulders.

 

I slumped around the house hardly able to motivate myself to do anything, let alone try to woo my wife. Even the Olympics were tarnished because of my mood. Then the light dawned as I watched a nameless Olympic cross country skier pumping hard and drooling like a hound dog on the trail.

 

The event was Nordic Combined. It ‘combined’ the odd events of cross country skiing and ski jumping. The Olympians jumped first and the lengths of their jumps decided the start times of the cross country race. So the guy who jumped the farthest got to start first. The second place jump was five meters behind the first so #2 started a few seconds AFTER the first place skier.

 

Most pathetic was that some of the best skiers started as much as TWO minutes behind the first place guy. One of the favorites botched the ski jump and had his start delayed by about a minute and a half. Amazingly...he caught up and won.

 

It wasn’t a quick sprint to win...he just plugged away and eventually passed the leader. That night as I lay in bed next to my hurting wife, I figured I was about a minute and a half behind...but I was going to catch up.

 

The next day I woke up determined. I smiled more, snapped less, and let my wife talk. I didn’t make up all the time immediately, but I made up a few seconds, and the next day I gained a few more. Over all, it took about five days to pull up by my wife’s side...and yesterday...we both won.

 

Some would say, just don’t let yourself get set so far back...but that’s unrealistic. Truth is sometimes even Olympic champion husbands find themselves WAAYYYY BAACCK. Maybe that’s where you are today.

 

Can I give you a little advice? Be patient. Don’t be surprised by setbacks. Set your sites on the finish line...and start making up time.

 

There’s an Olympian with a gold medal and a husband who is enjoying life with his wife who both know that it works.

 

I am that husband!

 

 

These are great thoughts from a regular dad, just like you. Take a minute and click on the link to Todd's site in the left-hand column of this blog. There you can subscribe and get his weekly dose of practical encouragement.

Dads and Daughters

I am a man raised in a family of men. My mom kept a measure of femininity as she raised two boys, but I think we had more of an influence on her than she did on us.

Now I'm the father of three girls and I find that the other gender can be a challenge to parent. Staying connected in a meaningful way to my precious daughters doesn't come naturally to me. Perhaps I'm not alone.

Todd WIlson over at FamilyMan Ministries has an encouraging word in his weekly e-newsletter.  Here's what he has to say...

What Fathers Should Teach Their Sons

Dads, what are you teaching your sons? Most dads take very little time to invest in any form of training for their boys. Many of those that do teach tend to focus on athletic skills or purely academic pursuits.

 

The following was written by Glenn Brooke on his blog at www.boldandgentle.blogspot.com.  I think it is an excellent starting place to set goals for teaching some life skills that truly matter for your sons.

Enjoy!

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Boys can learn from almost anyone, but there are some things which fathers teach best to sons.  There is a generational call of fathers to help boys become men. I've compiled here a list of the things which sons learn best from their fathers. If their biological father is not available, then our faithful Lord will raise up other men to instruct them.

From the FamilyMan Weekly: "A Big Glob of Poop"

If you are a Dad, then let me encourage you to subscribe to Todd Wilson's "FamilyMan Weekly" e-mail. He sends a brief, funny, and encouraging note to your inbox every week. (There's a link on the left-hand column of this INFO blog.) Here's one of his notes from a few weeks ago. Read it and then go subscribe so you can get your daily dose!

-Barrett

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Hey Dad, I just got back from cleaning up a big glob of kid poop off the bathroom floor. (Didn’t your speech teacher tell you to start with an attention grabber?) My wife conveniently left for a meeting, leaving me with our two youngest. One slept; the other played, while I worked in my basement office. That’s when I got the call.

“I went poopy. I went poopy…” Isaac shouted. He was still new at the bathroom thing and occasionally had…uh…problems.

I raced upstairs muttering angrily to myself, “Oh, Isaac!” I didn’t like the tone of my voice, and I knew I had used it a lot lately. It was the tone that said, “Why’d you go and do that? You should know better…I’m disappointed in you.”

It’s during those times, when they’ve accidentally broken something, made a mess, or caused a big inconvenience, that they need my help and encouragement, but instead I offer disgust and disapproval.

Ideas to Help a Dad Capture and Keep His Daughter’s Heart

“These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.” -Deuteronomy 6:6-7

"It is admirable for a man to take his son fishing, but there is a special place in heaven for the father who takes his daughter shopping."
- John Sinor

The following is a long list of ideas designed to help dads to connect with their daughters. We originally provided it to all the dads who came to our Father/Daughter Dance in 2009. We hope it gives you some great stuff to think about!

Dads, Don't Be Like Lot

Perhaps no story in the Bible troubles me more than what we read in Genesis 19. Some of the details of what happened before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah absolutely floor me. As a father, I am most appalled by the way Lot sold out his daughters, offering them to meet the sexual desires of an angry mob. His tremendous failure in his role as protector of his daughters was obvious. And if you’re like me, you got angry when you heard what he did.

While it’s easy to stand in judgment of Lot and agree that he is perhaps the worst father of all time, I am burdened by the fact that many Dads today sell their daughters out in essentially the same way that Lot did. It's just not as obvious. Lot's sin was that he acted in a way that made his daughters sexually vulnerable. While his was a sin of commission, ours is usually a sin of omission. While Lot took a repulsive action, fathers today are typically guilty of blatant inaction when it comes to protecting our daughters.