2nd Hand Advice

Before you can lead (influence) your children and be a good father, you need a relationship of trust and openness.  You may need to regain your position as a loving, caring father.  Here are my top ten things you can do to become a better father:

1. Take responsibility and apologize— for any damage you did to them or the relationship.
2. Show humility – open dialogue into the areas that caused the most damage and let them know you want to put that behind and start new.  This step will also model courage.
3. Spend time with them doing the things they want to do – get to know them as people, how they look at the world, what their interests are, what they enjoy doing.
4. Always look for ways to encourage and provide recognition. Parents need to give their kids positive reinforcement.  They need to feel good about themselves and their relationship with you.
5. Reward them for good behavior,  and when they make mistakes, admonish them by attacking the behavior and not them as persons.
6. Tell them you love them – let them know they are lovable and you’re their number # 1 fan.  Help them develop a healthy self-image.
7. Help them figure out and discover their passion.  If your child is a creative person expose them to art forms.  Invest in their passion.  If music, and you can afford it, get them music lessons.  If its poetry, find out where there are poetry readings in the community or at the local college campus.
8. Be patient – no matter how much you teach and instruct, they will make mistakes and poor choices.  When they make mistakes, be patient.   This is when we can do the most damage,  particularly if we are emotional types. Take a deep breath and use those moments to teach about consequences and spend less time criticizing.
9. Give them some room to grow.  We tend to smother and that’s what can drive them away. When you know they’ve made a poor decision, you may want to let it go.  Create a safety net,  but sometimes we need our children to experience the consequences of bad decisions.
10. Challenge them…..to do the right thing in handling their business.  Challenge them to step out of their comfort zone into experiences and relationships that will help them grow.   

This entry was posted on May 27, 2010 at 3:27 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.