Do you ever wonder why you are a dad? I think we too often lose sight of the reason we are a dad – that there is a higher purpose to raising children. It is so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day activities of caring for children that we forget we are raising our children. What does it mean to raise a child? When a farmer raises cattle, he feeds them, shelters them, gives them a field to wander in because he is preparing them for something – either to be butchered and become a beautiful steak on my plate, or to gather the milk, or to raise more cattle to keep his farm going. When we raise children, we are preparing them for something, too.
We are preparing them for living a productive life in a big world. This means we must consider the reason for why we play, why we discipline, we why communicate, etc. “Why” is an important question. It lets us ask about the reasons for something. This goes beyond the “how”. It gives purpose to the how; it motivates us to relate to our kids when they are frustrating us, when they have just poked a hole in the basement wall and are proud of it, when they come home late again without calling, when they continually ask us “why Dad?”. So I ask you, “Why are you a father of your children?”
I would like to suggest an answer to why you are a dad. You are the one who is to prepare them for the big world. As they grow, they are learning how to accept themselves by the way you accept them. They are learning how to make good decisions by the way you make decisions and guide them in making decisions. They are learning how to interact with other people by the way you teach them to interact with other. Teaching is both verbal direction and modeling behaviour. In fact, our kids probably learn more from the way you act than the things you tell them.
How do we prepare them for the world? We make every moment with them intentional. We need to stay alert to the “teachable moments” that come when we least expect it.
· We stay consistent with our words, expectations, discipline, and actions.
· We spend time talking with them and practice good communication skills.
· We express ourselves openly and respectfully.
· We have clear rules in the home (and we follow them, too!)
· We give meaningful consequences to misbehaviour.
· We teach obedience with an open-mind.
I believe the results of all this is that we earn the trust and respect of our children. When we have this trust and respect, we can more easily teach them about how to make good choices as they grow up. This is helping our children grow to be wise. Wisdom is the balance of being determined, sensitive, creative, committed, and self-controlled. It positions a person to make good choices in their relationships, their work, and their interactions with society. And the choices our children make will determine the course of their life. If we, as fathers, choose to intentionally make a difference by living purposefully with our children, they will more likely grow to make wise choices for themselves and the ones they love.
Our view on fatherhood can so easily become narrowed to the caring that we lose the perspective on the preparing. Preparing reminds us of the higher calling of being a dad. It gives us a purpose and reminds us that there is more to life than working, spending bit of time with the kids, watching TV, going to bed, waking up the next morning and doing it all over again. In our interactions with our children we need to remember that all we say and do is preparing them for something - living a productive life in a big world.
