Helping propel moms & dads of 3 to 13 year-olds to invest in their power-decade of parenting. Father of 3 teenagers and pastor of 20 years turned digital writer.
Family Friday: The 1 Question Every Boy or Girl Needs Answered
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A Single Sentence from a Season Ahead
When you routinely teach your kids how to initiate helping, they will be better friends, spouses, teammates, and partners.
You Have What It TakesWhen a profound insight affects the course of your parenting for almost two decades, you cannot keep it a secret. Exactly 20 years ago, author John Eldridge published a small 50-page book that changed me as a father forever. His short book You Have What It Takes sells for $3 on Amazon and takes maybe 20 minutes to read. He gets right to the point from the jump...
He spends the rest of his digestible 50 pages explaining why boys and girls are this way and how parents can answer their 1 question. Here's the assignment for you as a mom or dad ... The most basic of all our missions, the fundamental assignment of our [parenting] lives is this: to make sure our children know that we love them. To say to each son, "I'm so proud of you. You have what it takes." To let each daughter know, "How I delight in you. You are lovely." If we get that said, and said a thousand different ways throughout their childhood, we'll have done a pretty good job of being parents. Boys"Look at the stories boys love and the games they play. They are full of battle, adventure, and danger. They love to build things... and then blow 'em up. They love to jump off stuff. What does a boy wear if you let him wear what he wants to wear? Let him out of his school clothes and in a moment he'll be decked out in camo, army style, or dressed up as a cowboy, superhero, or a Jedi Knight with a bath towel or cape. Every boy wants to be a hero. Every boy wants to be powerful, he wants to be dangerous, and has 1 burning question inside of him. The question every boy is asking: "Do I have what it takes?" He wants to hit the home run in the bottom of the ninth. He wants to bury a three-pointer as the buzzer sounds. He wants to win the board game, ace the test, or come out on top. He wants to prove himself. And he's looking to you to affirm and answer his unique masculine question: Do I have what it takes?" Girls"Every little girl is asking one basic question too, but it's a very different one. You can observe it in nearly everything she does. Little girls typically don't invent games where bloodshed is a prerequisite for having fun or where large numbers of people 'die' as a regular part of the routine. Boys may have invented hockey, but little girls invented games like "wedding day" and "mommies & daddies" and "rescue the princess." You don't have to teach them how to do it - it comes naturally. It's part of their design. This is not to say girls dislike adventure or competition. But there is something profoundly different between little girls and little boys. Give a group of girls a closet of gowns and shoes and Mom's costume jewelry and they are captured for hours. They will play "princess" and "movie star" and "beauty queen." Her question is very different from her brothers. Every little girl wants to know: Am I lovely? All through those years when she is playing dress up and doing shows for you and playing princess and trying to look beautiful and shedding tears over the fact that she might not be, she is trying to capture your attention. She wants to know: Am I lovely? That's the unique feminine question every little girl is asking and she's looking to you to answer it." Once I understood these two basic questions that my son and daughters each had inside of them, it transformed my parenting approach. From my words to my hugs to challenging them to encouraging them, I tried to answer their inner question as often and intentionally as possible. I hope you'll try and do the same. Finley
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Power-Decade Parenting
Helping propel moms & dads of 3 to 13 year-olds to invest in their power-decade of parenting. Father of 3 teenagers and pastor of 20 years turned digital writer.
500 Fridays Newsletter - 2.5 min read Season: The Cold Days (3 of 12) The Proximity Problem On Christmas day this year, our family had a Clark Griswold moment. We enjoyed a bit of nostalgia when I grabbed the old video camera and watched some early-stage home movies. The big kids were 2 & 3 years old. Everyone in the living room smiled, ooed, and laughed as we re-watched the chaos of our young family. When kids are little, life is full of piles: toys, clothes, and bodies too. Wrestling on the...
500 Fridays Newsletter - 2 min read Season: The Cold Days (2 of 12) One Piece At A Time One of the biggest challenges of power-decade parenting is that your life is pulled in a thousand different directions. Being intentional to build connection and character with your kids can feel like a losing effort. The ability to focus on one child at a time seems as impossible as wrangling your squirming toddler to get their diaper on. In my early parenting days, I got overwhelmed and in my own head...
500 Fridays Newsletter - 3 min read Season: The Cold Days (1 of 12) Last Name Power Scott.Nolen.Martin.Graves.Hannon.Wiseman.Matthews. These surnames likely mean nothing to you, but they meant everything to me as a young father. Every power-decade parent needs a list like this. These names were pillars for us. They represent families that I looked up to and learned from. I'm now two decades into being a dad and still learning from them. More important than what I took from them is what they...