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The men who do this best are the men who consciously choose happiness for themselves, for their wives, and for their kids.
dads experience things differently than moms do. Mothers bear the brunt of some of their children’s ills; fathers bear others, and their suffering can sometimes be much more hidden, much more interior.
kids can have conveniently forgetful memories.
“I just picked him to be mad at.” The fifteen-year-old Lori wasn’t mad at her father; he took the fall because he was the safe guy, the steady one, the one who would never leave her, even if she left him. Daughters crave the support and loyalty of their fathers—and often test them to prove it.
dads are different, and sometimes that quiet strength is just what a daughter needs.
“Dr. Meeker, do you think that I’ll ever be able to find a husband who will love my kids that well?” You could say that those four days spent camping with her dad changed her life—and they did. But it was also the culmination of everything her father had done for her all through her life, things she never fully appreciated until then. From his patience, forgiveness, love, and commitment she gained emotional stability when she needed it most.
far more important is the interior life of the child, which entails character, emotion, and spirit. And here’s a secret: your kids want you to be part of that interior world. They know that it’s more important than all the external things, and they want you to recognize it and help them with it.
When children hit pre-puberty, their attention often turns from their mother to their father, with boys needing to learn what it is to be a man and girls needing to know what they should expect from a man. Boys need a father’s affirmation of their masculinity; girls need their fathers to confirm that they are loved and valued.
The trick for dads is to never assume that your children know that they are loved and valued. Communicating your love for your child is so extremely important.
She needed her father to reaffirm that those external things were far less important than the fact that he cared about her.
Many fathers worry about communicating their feelings to their daughters. Don’t worry. Daughters—and sons—are forgiving of your awkwardness, even of past disagreements, and they want your love.
Teach him that he is loved and he will grow into a man with self-confidence, who can make his way in the world and love others.
Show up. Not just at key events, but every day; and be fully present.
2. Say something.
“I love you”—
Do it. The impact will be enormous.
3. Never shy away.
Never, ever, take it personally.
One of the most powerful ways to prove your love is to stay put and stay engaged. Keep paddling the canoe. The calmer you stay, the quicker your child will calm down too.
Dad, What Do You Believe about Me?
The important thing was that Quinn was sustained by his belief that his father was proud of him, and believed him to be strong and smart.
“You are done with prison. Finished. It is behind you. You need to believe that and live that and communicate it to your son. The best thing that you can do is to commit to living an honorable life before his very eyes. To keep him from a wrong turn, show him a better way. He wants to be like you, so be the man you want him to be.” That advice is true for every dad.
Sons often choose their careers paths in order to impress their fathers. Daughters often marry men who in some way resemble their fathers (so be careful how you behave). For the rest of their lives you will be an inescapable part of them. That’s a heavy responsibility—and it is rightly yours. It is what being a father means.
Your children look up to you, and you can change their lives in the profoundest of ways. They trust you; they need you to be there for them; they crave your approval.
They need someone strong to lean on. They need someone with determination and perseverance when times are hard. They need someone who is a practical problem solver. Your wife needs you as a husband; your kids need you as a dad.
women want to talk about the game, dads want to run the play.
playing with dad can give kids the self-confidence to challenge themselves and take healthy risks—and that’s important for character development.
If you want to raise self-assured, confident kids, play with them.
Play will get you closer to your child, no matter what his age.
Praying with your child satisfies her need to connect with God. Kids like prayer. When you pray with them, it gives them security. It reminds them that even when you’re not there, God is watching over them. And prayer will draw you closer to your children. Prayer is an intimate act. It is something you do together that seems profoundly important. And it underlines for your children that even their big, strong, hero dad gets down on his knees to acknowledge and seek guidance from the God who gives us our moral law to live by.
Your kids look at it completely differently—they see a hero who shares their instinctive faith. They are less focused on the words you say, than on the very fact that you are kneeling and acknowledging the power of God, which your children feel intuitively.
Children need you to be calm when they are agitated, strong when they are weak, confident when they are fearful. That, in many ways, is what being a dad is all about.
So be steady. Strive always to be the voice of reason, courage, and faith. It’s what kids expect of their heroes. It’s what they, and your wife, expect of you.
is the man, the dad, who approaches every issue in a straightforward, dependable way, who cuts through emotional fog with calm, steady, trustworthy reason.
Men have an ability to execute their roles coolly under pressure; quarterbacks, or most successful leaders for that matter, have the ability to lead with a steady, calm demeanor. That’s what people respond to, and that’s a role model for a dad: be steady, be dependable, be focused.
Albert Einstein did, that “Anyone who doesn’t take truth seriously in small matters cannot be trusted in large ones either.”
when they hear lies, they intuit that you don’t believe that they have what it takes to handle the truth, and they, as a consequence, become more fearful and insecure.
Trust, integrity, and truth are all part of being a hero, and all part of being a dad. Be the man of integrity, be the man they can trust, be the man who tells the truth.
If you want to remain a hero, tell the truth; and even better than that, live the truth.
Dad, but you need to be a good disciplinarian. Many parents today want to be their children’s “friends.” Get this loud and clear, you are not their friend. You are their dad.
Dad, you need to step up to be the enforcer of the family rules.
When you need to be a disciplinarian, give yourself time (it can be minutes or hours)—and time away from the child in question—to decide what discipline is necessary and appropriate. The goal is tough love—for your child’s benefit—not retaliation.
What united every prisoner was a lack of discipline in his early life, because no one cared enough to say no. You need to care enough to be the disciplinarian.
His job was to set good rules and make them stick, be patient, keep talking (and listening) to his daughters, and not to worry about what his wife did or what other parents did with their kids.
rules mean you care about them.”
One of the great tests of a man’s character is his ability to stay committed to a cause, a person, his work, or his beliefs.
Dads can be great teachers of what it means to stay the course, hang in there, and gut it out, because that’s part of what it means to be a man; heroes don’t quit.
If you want your son to have commitment like that, if you want your daughter to marry a man with commitment like that, show them how it’s done.
These are your plays. Play. Pray. Be an honest man. Stay steady. Be firm and resolute. And above all, never, never, never give up on your kids or on being a great dad. Winning your kids is all about strategy. Make a simple strategy for each play and focus on those plays. I guarantee that if you do, you’ll win at being your child’s hero.
Words: Power to Heal or to Hurt
