Real Life Daddy - part two

This is a continuation of Simms thoughts regarding Fatherhood. You can read the first part here.

Part II – Teach your son how to do things but allow your son the freedom to be his own person and do things in his own way.

It is important for us to teach our sons all that we have learned over the many years that we have lived on this earth. It can build a bond between you and your son that is strong and that will last a lifetime. If done correctly, your son will cherish your opinions for years to come. As a little boy he will turn to you for guidance and direction. As the years go by your father/son relationship will become one of mutual respect and admiration. Your son will come back to you and bounce certain ideas off of you and to discuss his personal life lessons learned.

However, we Dads must be careful during the early years. We must remember that the “right way” or the “best way” to do things is not always the way in which we would do them. This is also not an easy thing to do. We all want our children to learn from our mistakes so that they don’t have to walk through them. We want to spare our children the “pain” of having to start from scratch and therefore we want them to be able to start a few rungs higher on the life ladder than we did. However, the reality is we also want our young sons to do it right the first time. We have many things that we need to get accomplished and might simply lose our patience as the day drags on and we are getting less and less done (See Part I). However, if we only teach our children how “we” as Dads do things and we stress the importance of doing it the “right way” all the time, we run the risk of losing the big picture.

The big picture is that we train our children so that they can make their own smart decisions later in life when they are out in the world as grown young men. In order to do that then, they need to be able to make mistakes and learn from them now. If our children are so concerned that they are going to make a mistake or do something the “wrong way”, we then have hindered our children. Our sons will grow up trying to duplicate their Dad’s experience rather than admire their Dads efforts and applying it to their own experience. Our sons will grow up trying to constantly gain their father’s approval rather than knowing they already have it and that we are proud of them no matter what the outcome is.

Please don’t hear what I am not saying. There are times during the early years that there is a right way and a wrong way to do things. For example, pee goes in the toilet and should not be used to write your name on the floor or the wall. That is definitely a right way / wrong way situation! However, take hitting a baseball as an example. Just because I hold the bat a certain way and it gave me great success when I was young doesn’t mean that a certain grip on the bat is the only way that my son will have success. I can offer suggestions based upon my experience but I have to allow him the opportunity to figure certain things out on his own for him to have success.

This brings me back to Part I. Not only do you have to take time with your son but you have to learn to laugh and enjoy every moment. We can get so caught up with the lessons of life and making sure that our children are succeeding that we forget that life should also be fun.

It is hard to laugh sometimes. For example, you might have family or friends coming over and the house is cleaned up nice and you realize that your son has just come running in the house because he is so excited to show you the rainbow that is outside. You realize that it is has been raining and that his feet are completely soaked and muddy. Everything inside of you wants to explode because your schedule has been seriously altered. Or you might want to simply sit your son down right away and explain why running into the house with muddy feet is probably not the right thing to do. Although that lesson certainly should be taught, you have to ask yourself when the best time to teach that lesson is. If your son looks at you with all the innocence and excitement in the world and says, “Daddy, you have to come see the rainbow that God has put in the sky.” You have to decide in that fraction of a second if that moment is a moment to share in the excitement and the joy and the smiles with your son or not. Do you instantly scold your son for his youthful exuberance and lack of discernment and clean up the mess and miss out on the joy that could have been? I can tell you that is not always an easy decision. I have messed it up more times than I care to admit. I have reacted out of practicality and logic on numerous occasions only later think to myself that I missed out on a golden fun activity. Fortunately, there is usually another moment just around the corner that I can redeem myself.

Well, I think I have rambled on for long enough. My piece of knowledge that I share with you is to take time to laugh and enjoy every minute you have with your son while teaching your son how to do things and allowing your son the freedom to be his own person and do things in his own way. I know that with God’s help we all can be great Dads. With God’s voice giving you direction as you venture on this new journey in life, you too will be a great Dad.

I don't know about you but this makes me want to give my Daddy an extra big hug this weekend!