Daly Focus Blog
I saw a video that illustrates the important role fathers play in the lives of their daughters. It captured a dad in his living room watching a basketball game, jumping and yelling in support of his favorite team. Right by his side, his three-year-old daughter copied his behavior. She mimicked every jump, every hand clap, and every expression of excitement.
Then the mood changed. The dad started shouting at the television. He complained about a blown call.
Like a lot of first time moms, Jerusha Clark kept a copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting on her bedside table. She referenced it frequently. Mostly she stuck to topics on eating well and her labor and delivery.
Looking back, she remembers skipping the section on postpartum depression. Why bother? She was generally a happy woman. She enjoyed her pregnancy, and she loved being a mom when her child was born.
A few months later, everything changed.
Mom, you play a pivotal role in your son’s life.
It’s you who will help your son learn how to communicate verbally, to express his emotion, and to share his feelings – things he’s not as likely to learn from his dad.
You’re also the primary woman who will demonstrate how your son ought to treat other women – with love, strength, kindness, and character.
Then, along about junior high, your relationship with your son will begin to shift.
I know of a couple whose daughter disappeared from home in a fit of rebellion on her 18thbirthday. Her parents were devastated. For years, they didn’t know if she was alive or dead.
Early on, her mother made a simple decision. Every night – all night – she would turn on the porch light. It was an unspoken message to her daughter: “You’re always welcome home.”
Many nights, tears streamed down that mother’s face as she locked the front door, switched on the light, and prayed for her daughter.
Author Joe Pellegrino discovered it’s never too late to let your children know you love ‘em. When his son Joey was little, Joe taught him to play baseball. As a challenge, he told Joey, “If you hit the ball over my head, I’ll buy you the Lego pirate ship you’ve been wanting.”
As Joe remembers the story, Joey never hit the ball over his head. Joey remembers the day differently. Over the years, those differences in memory occasionally came up.
Imagine your boss asking you to train someone so well that you’d no longer be needed. What would you do? That’s an important question to answer because that’s precisely your role in the life of your child.
As your children grow older, they’ll naturally and progressively seek their own identity apart from you. That path toward independence prepares them for adulthood, but it can be painful for you. It’ll feel like they no longer need you.
The statistics are heartbreaking: One in 4 girls will be sexually abused before her eighteenth birthday. For boys, the number is 1 in 6.
Sexual abuse isn’t an easy conversation, but the information we have to share with parents on our broadcast “Protecting Your Child from Sexual Abuse” can help your children avoid becoming part of the disturbing statistics.
An overwhelming percentage of abuse – close to 90 percent – comes from someone the child knows and trusts, like a family friend or someone from within the family itself.
A few years ago, Newsweek Magazine made a heartbreaking observation in the form of a paradoxical question. Speaking of El Paso County, Colorado, home of Focus on the Family and over a hundred other Christian ministries, they asked:
How is it possible that one of the top five places to live in the country also suffers from one of the worst teen suicide rates?
According to the most recent information, 49 youth under the age of 18 died by suicide between 2014 – 2017 in El Paso County.
Is your child a rosebush?
A palm tree?
A pine?
How about a boxwood?
God wires our children with unique personality types. The nuances can be quite diverse, but they’re also finite to the point where a model of four personality types can explain them.
There’s power in personality. It’s a window into a child’s soul that parents can look through to see their hearts and to know how to lead them forward through life.
Hettie Britz is an author, a speaker, and one of the foremost voices in parenting advice from a biblical perspective in South Africa.
Dr. Kevin Leman humorously says of children, “We have seen the enemy, and they are small. They’re unionized. The ‘ankle-biter battalion’ is on the move, so you better have a game plan.”
I’m sure many parents would heartily agree with that assessment. To that end, Dr. Leman is with us on our program “Game Plan for Raising Well-Behaved Children” to share a wealth of practical tips that can bring order to the chaos in your home more quickly than you might think possible.
Jim Daly is a husband, father and President of Focus on the Family and host of its National Radio Hall of Fame broadcast. His blog, Daly Focus, is full of timely commentary and wisdom designed to help you navigate and understand today’s culture. His latest book is Marriage Done Right.
