Fathers don’t exasperate your children

Col 3:21 - Fathers, do not exasperate your children, that they may not lose heart.

Given the amount of teasing that all of us as a family participate in, this might be a surprise comment. Your mom and I intentionally did not tease with you all until you were old enough to understand teasing. We also were careful to not tease each other too much in your presence when you were younger.

Establishing and ensuring a comforting, secure, safe, and loving home for your family is key and since younger kids can’t differentiate between reality and teasing not only can teasing convey the wrong message to their understanding of themselves and relationship with your family, it distorts what are acceptable and unacceptable interactions with others outside the family.

Your grandparents have a case in point where your uncle (aka Jack) referred to one of his elementary school teachers by a teasing name your Mee-mee and Paw-paw used with him, which resulted in him getting in trouble in school (perhaps one of them can add some clarity to this story).

The challenge? When is it good and when is it bad to tease? Refer to the prior post – each situation, child, etc. needs its own answer. Besides, your kids will be adults much longer than they’re children, and as such will have lots of time for fun teasing and kidding around. As you can attest to.

Altitude and attitude and cookies and kids

The advice you take and apply as a parent, the methods by which you raise your kids, discipline your kids, reward your kids; it all needs to be addressed similar to following a recipe (as you know how much I cook, take this analogy with a grain of salt).

Take for instance if you're going to bake a batch of cookies in Miami, FL in a convection oven and use the same recipe, but use a box oven in Denver, CO.  If you follow the recipe to the letter, you will not have the same degree of success at each location.  You have to consider the altitude and cooking environment (and perhaps other things that exceed by culinary intelligence) and make adjustments as necessary to the recipe.

So it is with raising kids.  You can get great advice (hopefully some from here) and if you apply it without considering your family, your kids, their attitude, characteristics, emotions, age, gender, personality, particular situation, circumstances of the moment, etc., you'll have mixed results.

Oh, and when you have more than one child be ready to hear "that's not fair!" when you tweak your child raising recipe.

God enjoys you in the same way, or more so, that you enjoy your kids

Years ago your mom and I were at a big church meeting, conference, revival or something like that held by the charismatic church we attended at the time.  The worship time at these meetings would go on for an hour or more each night (which was great).  In addition to the informally organized dancers, during the worship time there were people running around the arena waving very large banners.  This was not scripted, just something people did spontaneously.

We were sitting in the balcony most of the nights and watching the people running got me to thinking - what does this have to do with worshiping God?  God answered (even though I don't recall directing that question to Him).  God enjoys us experiencing his joy and having fun in Him. Those people running around were glad to be worshiping God, to be in his presence, that's how they were expressing it, and you can bet God was enjoying that expression of joy.

This happened when you all were very young (before Peter was born I believe) and has served as a reminder of God as a father when I would watch you guys play at the park, or wait for you all as you repeated "wait, wait, wait, just a minute, just a minute" while you and your brother prepared to show us your interpretation of "The Nutcracker" (which never happened as I recall).  I enjoyed watching you guys have fun and know that God enjoys us enjoying living in Him through different contexts of our lives.


So....enjoy all the different things your kids do as infants, babies, toddlers, teenagers (?), and young adults.  We grow, God enjoys.

Zippers can hurt

Short and sweet, practical advice today.

You know those footed pajamas that are all one piece with a zipper in front?  Nice and warm and great for little kids.  If you catch skin in the zipper it hurts really bad?  I know I did that at least once when you and Joel were wearing those PJ's.  Peter got lucky with this one as I'd learned the following trick -

Put your finger in between the skin and the zipper with your thumb grasping the outside of the zipper.  Then zip.  No skin.  No Pain.  Happy child.

Never babysit your kids

This helpful hint came from your mom.  Never babysit your kids.  That doesn't mean you're not responsible for taking care of the kids, it just means that you as a father are not a babysitter.  I suppose that could be correlated to the difference between a shepherd and a hired hand.  The shepherd has a vested interested in the flock, the hired hand is just interested in the buck.

So....babysit other kids, but never your own.

A closely related item to this (again from Mom) is to help with everything.  There is no job that is "the mom's" job.  You can do diapers, bath, feeding, etc.  That comes from experience since your mom and I fed you every two to three hours for the first six months of your life.  Very little sleep for either one of us.

 Oddly enough, there is a 'husband's" only job, at least during the pregnancy - emptying the cat box.  But I believe there is a health reason for that one.

As well, I've been told from a reliable source (your mom) that wives find husbands very sexy when they're doing the dishes, ironing, etc.  And that's always a good thing.

Be a dad all the time

I just flew to LA and was reminded how important it is for a dad to be a dad all the time.  Be "on" all the time.  You get to rest when the kids are sleeping (although perhaps not completely at rest).  What am I saying?

On one of the legs to LA a young boy, three or younger or something like that that sat right behind me.  His dad was beside him in the middle seat and Mom beside Dad.  Most of the flight the kid kicked my seat, stood in his seat leaning and grabbing the back of mine, etc.  Pretty much being a little kid.  To some degree that's okay, but I can think of very few reasons why a kid needs to kick the seat in front of him.  He did it because it was part of being a kid and part of entertaining himself.

How does that tie in to the title?  Dad was right beside the boy during the whole flight, reading a book, and letting the boy do what he wanted regardless of the impact on those around him.  What would I suggest Dad do instead?  Put the book down and spend the time with his kid providing the entertainment the boy needs.  Kids that age are not naturally intended to fly cross-country in an airplane (could be said for anybody at any age) so that needs to be considered and Dad should have stepped in to help make the flight enjoyable for the boy and for those around (and definitely in front of) him.  Read to him, color with him, eat with him, distract him, etc.  That's what kids of that age need for entertainment - especially in an atmosphere like that.

This is a tough balance between letting kids be kids, but it's also what helps differentiate between a dad and a great dad.

By the way, all these little tips are like a mosaic, they work best when applied together rather than as discrete actions.