Fatherhood911

This week I attended my Uncle’s funeral. I was able to speak with him a couple of hours before his death. I was amazed at his courage, his joy, and his faith. Of course, he was sad and grieving but as he held onto the pain he also held onto hope. His last words that he spoke to me were, “Father Well.” My Uncle had three daughters and on occasion, we would talk about the challenge of raising…

I’m Not the King

My daughters love anything and everything related to princesses. The problem is princesses have gotten a bad rap in the last several years. The princess locked in a tower, that’s guarded by a dragon and waiting for her knight to come to rescue her is no longer a celebrated narrative. To be fair, I get it. I don’t want my daughter’s role model to be a weak girl waiting for a man to come to rescue…

I recently read an article in the Harvard Buisness Review called, “The Making of a Corporate Athlete” by Jim Loehr and Tony Swartz. One the key concepts was that in order for athletes and CEO’s to perfrom at optimum performance they needed to have a good balance between stress and recovery. They compared the concepts of oscillation and linear response to stress. Stress, they argued is not bad. In…

My daughter reached for a strawberry. It was 830, which was an hour and a half later than she normally ate breakfast. She was understandably hungry but her mother and I were in the midst of making a huge breakfast for everyone. As she reached her hand toward the strawberry, her mom said no. Twice. My daughter ignored her mother, twice, grabbed the strawberry, and put it in her mouth. I was…

My kids fight all the time and it’s super frustrating. There is constant drama and conflict in my family. To be fair I don’t think it’s abnormal. I mean my kids are fairly typical, but it becomes super annoying. I often wish that we could just have one day without conflict. I am reading through Donald Miller’s book, “Business Made Simple” and on day 5 he talks about how a leader should approach…

The other night at dinner I tried to explain to my children the difference between a zero-sum game and an infinite game. A zero-sum game is played so that for me to win you have to lose. In an infinite game, there is no winning or losing. The point of an infinite game is to keep playing the game. These concepts flew well over my children’s heads. Later that same night my oldest came up to me and…

Lessons in Bike Riding

Teaching your kids to ride bikes is difficult. It requires a lot of patience and a lot of running. My daughters were terrified and begged me not to let go. Like any good Dad I let go without telling them and they would wobble and then I would catch them. I spent about an hour with my oldest daughter and she wasn’t able to pick it up. She was extremely frustrated and ready to quit several times.…

Fatherhood, the Gospel, and a piece of Cake

I was at a party with my family a couple days ago and my oldest daughter started to open the door of my cousin’s car. I told her no and she paused. I knew what she wanted to do. She wanted to hit the horn because her younger sister had done that very thing. But I had told her no and I even repeated my command, “No.” She heard me and then decided to do it anyway. I then told her to “Come here.”…

Lessons in Bike Riding

Teaching your kids to ride bikes is difficult. It requires a lot of patience and a lot of running. My daughters were terrified and begged me not to let go. Like any good Dad I let go without telling them and they would wobble and then I would catch them. I spent about an hour with my oldest daughter and she wasn’t able to pick it up. She was extremely frustrated and ready to quit several times.…

A Year’s Worth of Boogers

A while back we moved my daughters into their brand new room. It has been two years in the making to renovate our basement. Their room was finally ready and my daughters couldn’t be more excited. While disassembling their bunk bed I noticed that the wall next to my oldest daughter’s bed was covered in boogers. My wife was not amused and immediately began to lecture my daughter. I just smiled…

There are two different mirrors in which I regularly see my reflection. The first is at work. It’s early in the morning I haven’t eaten and I usually have just worked out. When you are working out consistently you want to see results and so you are looking for changes in your body to tell yourself you are on the right track. The other mirror that I regularly look at is in my room at my home.…

The other day daughter number 2 was having a bad day. She was expressing her frustration by trying to get other people to join her in her bad mood. She was tired and overwhelmed and so I held her for a moment and asked her how she felt and why she had been mean to her sisters. She of course said she felt bad and so I told her that the only way she would feel better is if she did something kind…

The Qualifications of Fatherhood

Sometimes it seems weird that there are very few qualifications to be a Dad. We are in charge of raising other human beings and you don’t even have to read a book about it. You can even write a blog about fatherhood without any qualifications. There are no professional dads out there. Everyone starts as an amateur. And just as you get a little better your kids get older and have different…

As Christians, we like the verse that tells children to obey their parents. Having the full authority of the Bible on our side, while giving orders to our kids is very reassuring. What every parent quickly learns is that we can make our kids obey, but we can’t make them like it. The other day my wife told our 6-year-old to pick up her shoes. My daughter huffed and puffed and stomped her way over…

I’m currently trying to learn how to meditate and cultivate awareness. I’m really bad at it. I’m trying not to try and striving to get to a place where I’m not striving. But while I’m figuring this out I was struck with how important and profound awareness is. Being able to just be aware of how I am feeling, taking just a moment to recognize my state of mind and my emotions is incredibly…

My wife took our oldest out with another mom and a girl my daughter’s age. They went to lunch and a movie which was really special for my daughter and much needed. She can easily feel frustrated being the oldest and always surrounded by younger kids. But if my physics class taught me anything it’s that for every action there is a disproportionate objection and backlash by my other kids. My…

You Get what you Give

Here is a scenario that is played over and over again in my house. One of my daughters wants something, her sister or sisters have competing interests and a fight ensues. Frustration builds and now all of my daughters vent their frustration in an attempt to get their sister to comply. This is usually when I get involved. I don’t want to get involved but quite often the yelling has begun to…