Don't be too stern

Another area of fatherhood that I would warn young fathers to be careful about , which comes from reflecting on my own weaknesses as a father, is anger. Two aspects come to mind: displays of anger and addressing disrespect.

I think that displays of anger by the father can lead to an unhealthy fear in a small child. The father is after all huge and powerful in the eyes of the child. If this powerful figure proves to be dangerous, the relationship between the child and his father will be warped. This is likely also to affect the child's image of God.

Also, displays of extreme anger, which some of us are prone to at times, can have longer term unexpected consequences. First of all, displays of rage are almost never effective. At least, the results we get aren't commensurate with damage done. If a child, especially a son, observes this over time, it will result in lowering his respect for his father because he will see that he is ineffectual. Fear will turn to disdain. IMHO.

Regarding respect, when the child is small, real respect, which is a healthy fear, should develop easily if the father is in fact respectable. If the father is a good man, is fair with his children, and has good communications with them, respect should naturally follow. (This gets back to the importance of the father's holiness.)

If an incident occurs, as it is likely to from time to time, in which you feel like your son (or daughter) is being disrespectful, don't respond with harshness ("don't embitter your children," Col 3:21), but rather quietly take the child aside and take the approach of asking "What were you thinking?"

Talk to your son

A father's communication with his son is an area that I think is extremely important. It is also an area that I regret not doing a better job with in raising my own sons. It is an area that I think is more important today than ever before, because the challenges that our young men face become increasingly more difficult to meet successfully as American society becomes less supportive of the Christian life, or even a healthy human life.

The real focus of my concern is the teenage years, but the foundations have to be laid much earlier. I would urge fathers to work diligently to establish good regular communication with their sons starting in the earliest years. I would say that as soon as the a boy starts school, or is away from the family for significant lengths of time, even if it is just for preschool, his father should take time to talk with him about what he is experiencing. Given the demands of modern life, a set time for this should be established. The harder it is to get time to talk, the more important it is to make it a clear priority.

Boys tend not to be very communicative. Usually the father will feel like he is dragging all the communication out of the boy, but it must be done. When the boy reaches the teenage years, the father will want to know about his friends, what they do, what they talk about, what they think about such topics as girls, music, movies, school. If you talk about these things regularly, from an early age, it should be easier later when the young man may be more reticent to talk about them.

A buddy-buddy relationship won't work. Proper respect is is crucial. But the respect has to be mutual. The father is always the father, but, as the boy becomes a young man, I think that the father can also be a friend.

This could really be a separate topic, but I would warn fathers against being too stern with their sons (or with anyone).

Future Adults, Current Saints

Two guiding pinciples:

• we are forming future adults;
• but we also have to help our children connect to the Lord, at whatever age they are.
  

As parents we are charged with forming future adult memebers of God's kingdom, read to do whatever it is God has for them. But we can't just look to their futures. We have to look also at their present connection to the Lord. It isn't something we like to consider, but God may take them to himself at any time.

But it is also true that the best way to prepare them to be supple in his hands as adults is help them be supple in his hands now. At almost any age, they can have a personal relationship with him, and we must do what we can to help them. On the other hand, it isn't in our power ultimately to do it. The mystery of free will comes into play, or as someone put it, I think David du Plessis (or maybe Billy Graham), "God has no grandchildren." But as parents we can encourage them to pray daily and teach them, by our words as well as our example, that they have a loving Father who cares for them and has a plan for their lives, and that they can hear the Lord speaking to them, that they are part of his kingdom now.

Again, for this to work, fathers must be holy!

A father's holiness, continued

As fathers we are always teaching our children, even when they are very young. I think that it is when they are very young that the father's personal holiness, his connection with the Lord, is especially important. (The mother's too, but my interest is in fathers.) Infants are learning very basic, very important lessons. They are learning that they are loved, that they are loveable, that they are valuable, that the world is a good place, that they are safe.

I can't list all the very basic foundations that are laid in the child's life in the first few years, primarily by the loving relationships between husband and wife and other members of the household. The loving relationship of the father with the eternal Father, and the Son and Holy Spirit makes this possible.

As the child gets older, he or she gets more observant more affected by specific behaviors in addition to the general atmosphere of the home. Somewhere I read an anecdote that stuck in my mind. Someone asks a little boy what his father does. The boy answered, "My dad watches." "What do you mean?" the questioner asked. "He watches TV. He watches mom work around the house. I think he watches girls, too."

We want not to be sending out mixed messages. We have to be what we want our children to think we are. We have to be what we want them to grow to be.

I think we should have two guiding principles in mind as we raise our children. James Stenson, author of several books on parenthood, expresses one of them this way: " Successful parents see themselves as raising adults. They view their children as adults in the making." I would add that raising children to be Christian adults means that we teach them godliness.

The second principle I think is important, and perhaps easy to loose sight of, is that we must help our children be what God wants them to be right where they are at a given moment, at whatever age.

More to follow.

Most Important - Holiness

As I was thinking about what I would say to a young father, two things came immediately to mind, and I prayerfully pondered them for a while. The first is personal holiness.

Let me make a disclaimer up front. I don't mean to advocate a "me and Jesus" kind of spirituality. We need brothers and sisters around us to support us. We need the local body and the whole wider church as well. No question.

But the most important thing for a father in raising his children is personal holiness. I don't mean just righteous living, but a deep abiding perservering connection with the Lord, like a branch to the vine. I say not just righteousness, though righteousness in the point, because it can happen only through the connection with the Lord. Without this life-giving connection, our attempts at righteousness can easily degenerate into self-righteousness. But when we are connected to the Lord his life will flow through us to our children.

Our personal holiness is essential because we are our children's teachers, all the time, willy-nilly. We are teaching our children whether or not we are aware of it at a given moment. How do our children learn English (or whatever our native language)? It happens without any conscious effort, although the process can be enhanced by conscious effort. (So watch your language!) But even deeper, more basic life lessions are learned by our children all through their lives with us, from the very beginning.

More to follow.

First thoughts and intentions

I have created this new blog as a place to record my thoughts about being a father in these days. My children are all grown and moved out of the house, but I still think a lot about being a father. Three of my sons are fathers already, so I suppose being involved in their lives and their children's lives keeps the topic alive for me.

There are things about my raising of my children that I regret, as well as things that I am happy about. Similarly, the future that fathers of young children face will be in some ways like what I faced and in some ways different. I don't think it will be easier for fathers who want to raise children to be successful in life as Christians, or even as human beings. What I publish in this blog is intended to be helpful in this project. I pray constantly for my children and their families. That is my first bit of advice for fathers, echoing St. Paul: Pray constantly!