Last week, in The Purposeful Father-Part One, we covered the first four things dads can do to build and strengthen the bonds of trust with his children based upon The Father’s Mandate teaching that has wonderfully impacted our family and marriage.

  1. A father must cultivate a sense of Family Identity
  2. A father must regularly demonstrate love to his wife
  3. A father must respect his child’s private world
  4. A father must give his children the freedom to fail

This week, we’ll wrap up the remaining four practical applications and suggest a ninth mandate that we implemented as well.

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5) A father must be the encourager of the family – An encourager is more than just saying encouraging words.  Encouragement needs to be tangible in a way that children, hear, see and experience it.  Writing a note to Trevor and Alex was one of the most effective ways that Rich encouraged our boys.  When they were very young and couldn’t read yet, Rich would draw pictures and leave them on the kitchen table for them to see at breakfast before he left for work or a business trip.  As they got older, he would put notes in their backpacks with encouraging and meaningful thoughts.  When they turned thirteen, Rich wrote each boy a unique letter that we described in our Year of Discovery letter that “kicked off” the teen years.

6) A father must guard his tongue and tone – Dad can be a “buzzkill” when it comes to measuring his response against the excitement and joy on his child’s face.  For Rich and many dads, guarding his tongue and tone is a challenging task.  Especially after a long day at work or returning from a business trip!  This is where Shelly, again, was a big help.  She would provide Rich with a “heads up” with what he might expect when he walked into the house.  This prepared him to be mindful and aware of his potential reaction to anything exciting that Trevor or Alex might be anxious to share with him.  Rich reacting with the same measure of excitement to the boys’ excitement was vital to building those long term bonds of trust.

7) A father must routinely embrace his children – As your children get older, communicating love and relational intimacy through a hug, kiss on the head, or quick back rub affirms to your child, “I’m secure with dad.”  Rich learned that public displays of affection were “embarrassing” for our boys, but that did not mean they didn’t want physical touch from dad.  It just meant that Rich needed to be mindful of the boys’ “public persona” and get creative.  High fives, fist pumps and a quick “bro hug” was acceptable for the boys in public.  However, at home, Rich made sure to offer an extended embrace, a kiss goodnight, or back rub.  And while we don’t have girls, we did want to mention that it can be especially awkward for dads to continue with appropriate physical touch with their blossoming teen daughters.  On the outside she’s physically becoming a young woman, but on the inside she is still girl that needs the routine secure embrace of her dad.

8) A father must build trust in God’s Word – Dad needs to be a spiritual leader and set an example for his family.  Does that mean Rich has to be the next Billy Graham in the Howard family?  No, but it does call him to incorporate God’s Word as a critical part of Howard family life.  We recently heard a statistic that states that if Dad is engaged in church/spiritual development, 72% of those children stay engaged and grow in church/spiritual development.  Routinely praying, memorizing bible verses, attending church and having meaningful spiritual discussions about the Bible are just some of the things that Rich made a part of our family identity.

In the course of being purposeful with these eight ideas, we incorporated a 9th mandate that shares a common thread with all the other mandates and was particularly helpful to Shelly:

9) A father must be aware that if it is important to dad, it is important to the children – This does not mean what is important to mom is insignificant with the kids, rather it’s about dad reinforcing what’s important to mom and leading his family.  Embarrassingly, this idea dawned on us when we struggled with the boys picking up after themselves.  Shelly, lovingly pointed out to Rich that he had the habit of leaving his “stuff” out when he got home from work and never properly picked up after himself.  We soon discovered, that once Rich made a point to pick up after himself and explained the importance of it, our boys quickly complied with this behavior.   And while this example serves as a lighthearted example of this idea, there are many more significant examples you might consider as well:

  • Do the children speak disrespectfully to mom?  Does dad speak disrespectfully to mom and has he declared the importance of his relationship with his wife?
  • Is mom the only one engaged with school work?  Does dad demonstrate how important school work is by helping out with homework and going to teacher conferences?

The successful outcome of being a purposeful father is the strong trusting relationship he has with his children.  Trying to implement all these ideas and concepts may seem overwhelming and impossible to do, but, with Shelly’s help and encouragement (remember Couchtime!), Rich was able to begin the process of applying one or two things at a time.  Today, Rich has all of these mandates spread out and scheduled on his work calendar so he is always mindful to be intentional in becoming the dad he desires to be for our family.

Blessings to your family,

Shelly and Rich