When Dads Fall in Love with Training their Kids
Weekly Newsletter
Quote of the Week
“If you want to change the world, go home and love your family.”
-Mother Teresa
FAMILY INSIGHT
Dads who Train
If we were to write a job description for the job of a father using only the Bible one of the first bullets on the list would be training.
Every father is built to be a trainer.
Every child is built to be trained.
And the peace and thriving of every family largely depend on the father and the children fulfilling this duty.
We are told explicitly in one of the only verses of instruction given to fathers in the New Testament, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4)
Solomon told his son in the book of Proverbs, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22:6)
And in one of the only verses where we get a glimpse of what Abram (Abram means “Exalted Father”) was doing day to day as the leader of his family we read, “When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan.” (Genesis 14:4)
318 trained men! That’s a lot of training.
But today I rarely meet a father who even knows this is a basic part of the job description.
We expect coaches, teachers, and managers to train but not fathers.
Even in the Christian world, there seems to be a larger expectation on youth pastors and mothers to train children than fathers.
There’s even a growing movement that emphasizes play between fathers and children but not training.
And I can’t say I’m too surprised.
Our culture has decided to outsource all essential elements of parenting to the State and other institutions and too many fathers have been eager to take the free pass and get on doing other things.
It’s time to reverse this terrible trend.
We need to spark a movement of fathers training children.
Few elements of fatherhood are more rewarding than the peace and closeness that naturally develop between a father and a well-trained child.
And the process should be fun.
But even when a father wants to begin training many don’t know how.
Most of us have experienced good training in some context in our lives and when it’s effective it always involves three steps:
Demonstrate
Drill
Defend
Demonstrate: You show them exactly what success looks like
Drill: You practice repeatedly getting the action just right.
Defend: You provide rewards, correction, and consequences to reinforce what has been mastered by the child.
Need examples? We discussed what this looks like between real dads and kids on the podcast below.
Jeremy
Checkout out this conversation I had with three dads who have embraced training their kids:
And if you want to do a deep dive on the how check out our masterclass for dads: The Skill of Fatherhood.
ONE IMPROVEMENT
Anger is a great motivator for action but simply unleashing your anger is almost always counterproductive.
It takes a great deal of self-control to take your anger and point it in a positive and productive direction.
As your kids get older our goal must increasingly be to persuade them and not to control them.
This requires a lot of time and a lot of patience.
Anger can help us get the motivation to have the heart-to-heart conversations our teens need but it won’t help you to use the most persuasive tone.
The bridge between these sparks of anger and a laid-back conversation that wins their heart is a good night's sleep and lots of love.
CONTENT CORNER
Jonathan Haidt is making the rounds promoting his new book “The Anxious Generation” and this interview has some golden nuggets for raising sons and daughters in this age of the internet.
I love getting to discuss deep topics with my kids and on this episode of my podcast Sydney and I talk about the surprising history of female suffrage, the impact of copyright on creativity, and whether Gaston was the true hero in Beauty and the Beast.
PERSONAL REFLECTION
Most men, after graduating from high school, were not choosing the career path that would maximize family time in their 50s.
Please think about the kind of family you want to build and choose a means of family provision in line with your family goals.
I began to consider this in my early 30s which led to making some dramatic changes to my work life and it has paid off beyond my wildest dreams.
Jeremy