Yesterday, i attended a seminar on The 7 Secrets of Effective Fathering, as led by Dr. Ken Canfield of the National Center for Fathering. The 7 Secrets are:
Effective fathers...
Are committed to their children
Know their children
Are consistent in their attitudes and behavior
Protect and provide for their children
Love their children's mother
Are active listeners to their children
Spiritually equip their children
I am truly blessed to have a dad who did all these things. Still does.
Because Dad is such a good Dad, we (his kids) tend to nitpick on the very few areas we see for improvement. Recently, Dad rightly lamented how people "ignore the 99 good things you do, and focus on the 1 thing you did wrong." I'm sure Dad knows as well as i that is how the world tends to work. But it's not how appreciative kids should work, so i set out to make a list of 99 things that my Dad did right.
A list of 99 is too big to fit into one of these journal entries, so i'll be breaking them up, and listing them over time. I'll start with a quick ten, noting that these are not in any ranked order.
1. Loves Mom
2. Shows affection to Mom
3. Does special things for Mom
4. A born-again believer and follow of Christ
5. Always made sure we went to church, and that he was there, too
6. Took active leadership in the church
7. Made sure that we kept our focus on Jesus, not toys, during Christmas
8. Coached our sports teams
9. Never saw a true fight or argument from our parents
10. Always provided income, without waver or complaint
Because of my dad's example, i know that i have a huge head start on being an quality father, and pray that i can be as effective with my kids as he was with me. And that my son will one day consider me his example -- his good example -- of what a father should be. And so on down the line it hopefully goes.
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