WHAT CHILDREN NEED FROM A DAD
Let's review the basic things that children need from their father. Understanding
what you needed as a child sets the stage for you to appreciate the blessings
you received and to forgive the wrongs or wounds you received.
1. Provision. God has meant for fathers to provide a home that is a safe
place. This includes material and emotional provision, protection, and caring.
This speaks to our most basic developmental need: to trust in someone's care
and to become bonded to him/her. Typically, the mother is the most important
nurturer, but it's important to have some of this from dad too. He should support,
back up, and fill in for Mom. Getting this need met from dad helps children
to trust him for their other needs.
2. Play. Children, especially smaller children, live on the floor. They
like to be in a world of play - games, imagination, whatever is fun. How special
it is when dad takes time with his children to play a game, laugh and joke around,
or cheer them on their activity. For instance, from before my kids could walk
and still today at ages 7, 10, and 12 they have enjoyed wrestling on the on
the floor with me and playing "rough and tough," which includes lots of hugs,
kisses, and giggles.
3. Purpose. Children need to be taught and disciplined. They need to learn
good values and morals. They need to be encouraged to use their gifts. They
have so much to learn about life. Children need this guidance from their fathers.
I like to look for "teachable moments" with my kids.
4. Power. The goal of parenting is to raise responsible and loving adults.
To get from childhood to adulthood kids need to be "empowered" by an adult they
love and respect. A child who is bonded to his/her dad, admires him, and receives
encouragement and praise from his enters adulthood with confidence!
THE CRIES OF THE FATHER WOUNDED
I hear them all the time in my counseling office. You hear them on the phones.
and maybe in your own heart as I have.
A woman was sexually violated by her father as a girl and sought help with
the depression and shame that she felt. Would it be safe? Could a man support
her and not get sexual? She'd been promiscuous in the past and now was married
and wanted to be faithful to her husband. But her last therapist was sexually
inappropriate. She was confused and vulnerable. The little girl in her needed
to heal.
A man with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder lost his father to divorce as a
young boy. His mother worked all the time and he spent most of his childhood
alone and hungry or being led into sexual acts with an older boy. He learned
to enjoy sex, though it confused him and he knew it was wrong. It was better
than being alone and hungry, and besides, the other boy's mother fed him.
His father wasn't there to provide for him and to protect him and he still needed
fathering even now as an adult.
A man needed help recovering from his second divorce. He was a people-pleaser
and an egg-shell-walker. He didn't know how to stand up to people and to be
assertive and he tolerated an angry and abusive wife far too long. He'd always
been afraid of conflict. It started as a boy with his football coach father,
who was a responsible Christian, but lived by the motto, "Don't complain. Suck
it up and try harder." He finally learned that sometimes you need to complain,
get angry, and set a boundary - like when your kids are getting yelled at and
hit in the head by their stepmother.
A man was abandoned by his father as a small boy. Only saw him two more times
in his life. His mother never talked to him about the incident or how he felt.
For years he repeated the same pattern with other people, divorcing many times
and abandoning stepchildren. Like his dad he'd just walk away. He was doing
to others what had been done to him by his dad and what he continued to do to
himself all those years: Cut off feelings. He needed help to learn to relate
to and care for the little boy inside of him.
A woman grew up in a Christian home. Her parents were good people, but they
didn't know how to deal with their sensitive daughter. She cried when she was
hurt or because other kids laughed at the birthmark on her face. Now, single
and in her 40's she still hadn't learned to bring her heart to a man. She thought
she was too sensitive and wouldn't be accepted. She too needed to heal and
to forgive.
I REJECTED MY FATHER AND THEN RETURNED
As a boy I was close to my father. We wrestled on the floor and played sports
together countless times. I went to the hardware store with him just to be
with him. I watched him work in his basement wood shop. He teased me, hugged
me, and praised me. I knew he loved me. I admired him and wanted to be jut
like him when I grew up.
But as I got older I felt more and more pain in my relationship with him.
He was critical of others and I applied his criticisms to myself and pressured
myself to measure up so as never to disappoint him. He was often anxious or
irritable and at those times it didn't feel good to be with him or to listen
to his agitated complaining. And he hurt my mother a lot and she'd cry to me
about it, relying on my listening, affection, and prayers to comfort her. I
noticed whenever he lost his temper at her and I felt her pain.
One day as a young teenager I made a vow: "I won't be like my dad! I won't
lose my temper. When I grow up I won't be mean to my wife
and I won't work late hours. I won't let making money and
worrying about money distract me from loving God and my family."
I've since discovered that many men made similar vows as boys.
And as girls many women had vowed, "I'll marry someone different.
I don't want to be connected to him or to any man like him."
The day of my vow I remember my feelings and thoughts so clearly, but not
the exact day. Was it the day he yelled at my mom because he didn't like his
dinner and then knocked his chair back abruptly as he stormed out, not to return
until after I was in bed feeling depressed and scared because of what he did
and that no one in the family talked about what happened except the kitchen
cupboards that my mom slammed shut? Was it the day that he was upset about
some things at work and dumped his frustrations and pressures on me as I sat
staring out the passenger window in the car? Or maybe it was the day that he
walked me out into the cold snowy yard and showed me all the little bits of
snow on the sidewalk and driveway that I missed?
Whichever day it was when I made that vow one thing I know: Something in me
died that day. I had made one of the biggest mistakes of my life! A little
boy lost his daddy and his hero. I didn't know how much I'd need my father's
love and respect out in the world. And many years later I had to admit that
my vow hadn't worked. I lost my temper at my wife. I worked too much when
my family needed me. Anxiety twisted my stomach in knots at times of stress
and I dumped it on people. I resented authority. And I struggled to connect
with my young son.
So, after many hours (actually years) of prayer, therapy, and support from
friends, I took back my vow and returned to my father to forgive him and to
appreciate him. With sadness I told him how he hurt me. With gratitude I told
him how he blessed me. We cried and we embraced.
A MAN NEGLECTED BY HIS FATHER SINGS A NEW SONG
In his album, "Scribbling in the Sand," Christian singer and writer Michael
Card shares a touching song, "Underneath the Door." It's about his relationship
with his father. Recently, on Focus on the Family I heard Michael talk about
his relationship with his dad and then sing this song.
Michael's dad was a busy doctor, giving his all to dispense kindness in an
unkind world and then retreating to his study at home to recuperate. Michael
as a little boy would sit on the other side of the closed door and color pictures
and then pass them under the door to his father. Stubby fingers reaching under
the door, sending messages, longing to be listened to, but being shut out by
the one he adored and needed so desperately.
He could've become bitter. He could've become cold and calloused. He could've
rejected his own children and anyone with needs. Instead he came to realize
that his dad was locked out of his own heart and that's why he locked out his
son. He understood that his dad needed him as much as he needed his dad.
He could've blamed God for his father's neglect and rejected His Heavenly
Father. Yet, by faith he came to realize, "It was meant to make me who I am."
And so the pain became the pen that sings a message of healing to the wounded.
A MAN ABUSED BY HIS FATHER LEARNS TO FORGIVE
On that same Focus on the Family broadcast I heard another Christian singer,
David Meece, share a song, "My Father's Chair" (in the album "Once in a Lifetime")
which was birthed out of pain in his relationship with his father.
David's dad was an alcoholic who beat him, his brother and sister, and his
mom. On a few occasions his dad came after his mom with a gun or a knife to
kill her and she fled with her kids in the car and hid out all night in the
car. David would go to school the next morning without much sleep, a change
of clothes, his books, his homework, or breakfast. He got in trouble from his
teacher, but he kept quiet.
One night his dad drove his car through the window to David's room, put a
gun to David's little face and screamed, "You're worthless!" His dad was arrested
and David didn't see him many more times before he died. Everyone but David
cried at his dad's funeral. David hated his dad. When he thought about him
he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Whenever painful feelings
came up he stuffed them and went on.
Through psychotherapy, group therapy, pastoral counseling, reading the Bible
and books on forgiveness, and prayer he learned to lean into his pain and give
it to God and people in the Body of Christ. He learned to stop trying to control
things and surrender to God. And then he had a vision in which he saw his dad
as a little boy, shaking, abused, and insecure. (His dad had turned to alcohol
and drugs to numb his pain until eventually it killed him.) For the first time
David cried for his dad and he cried until the tears were gone. He felt love,
not hate. He said it was like God reached into the pit of his stomach and pulled
out the black glob of tar that was his hate. Like Jesus, he learned to look
past his pain and see his offender's pain. Jesus prayed for the disciples who
betrayed him, the people who mocked him, the soldiers who tortured him, and
the religious leaders who had him crucified.
"My father's chair, sat in an empty room. My father's chair, covered with
sheets of gloom. My father's chair through all the years. And all the tears
I cried in vain. No one was there in my father's chair."
IDENTIFY YOUR FATHER WOUNDS AND FATHER BLESSINGS
At New Hope we're all wounded healers. And the good news is that that's the
best kind of counselors! Maybe you have some father wounds that need healing.
And maybe you received some blessings from him that you need to appreciate.
I developed "The Father Wounds and Blessings Inventory" to help you do that:
http://www.newhopenow.org/selfhelp/father_wounds.html
This will serve as the CE Exam for this month.
REFFERAL ORGANIZATIONS FOR THE PUBLIC
National Center for Fathering: Information for many father situations
and issues, training for fathers, research on fathering, 1-800-593-DADS (3237),
www.fathers.com.
Heritage Builders: resources from Focus on the Family to help parents
encourage faith in their children, 1-800-A-FAMILY, www.heritagebuilders.com
New Hope Referral Categories: "Abuse & Violence" and "Relationships
(Including Marriage and Parenting)", www.NewHopeNow.org.
RESOURCES FOR HEALING FATHER WOUNDS
Ministering God's comfort to the father wounded is close to my heart. So
I have a number of resources on this at www.ChristianSoulCare.com
Here are some encouraging articles and self-tests that are available on my
website or at NewHopeNow.org for free:
1. "The Father Loves You!" (Short list of Bible verses to meditate on)
2. "God is a Loving Father" (How God's Love Can Heal Father Wounds)
3. "God's Love Letter" (A letter from your Heavenly Father made up of 100
paraphrased Bible verses)
4. "Father Wounds and Blessings Inventory"
5. "God Image Questionnaire" (Identify the ways that you experience God's
perfect love and the ways that you don't)
I also have the following cassette tapes that I can mail to you for $6 each:
1. "Returning to the Father" (Forgiving your dad and recovering from your
own shortcomings to find God's love)
2. "A Meditation on the Lord's Prayer" (New insights and inspirations on Jesus'
prayer that begins, "Our Father.")
3. "The Parable of the Loving Father" (Inspirational and healing re-telling
of the Parable of the Prodigal Son)
ADDITIONAL ENCOURAGEMENT
Here's some additional material from a past class on Healing Father Wounds:
THE FATHER FROM WHOM ALL FATHERHOOD DERIVES IT'S
NAME
I believe that dads are commissioned by God to model and mediate the Heavenly
Father's love to their children. What a tremendous opportunity and responsibility.
And what a difficulty it is for some people to experience God as a loving Father
if they haven't experienced that from their dads. (More on that in a minute.)
Provision, play, purpose, and power are what we need from God too. In the
Bible we read that God offers these things to us, and so much more!
Reflect on the following sample of Bible verses that reveal our Father God's
love for us:
"[The Father] guarded him as the apple of his eye." - Deuteronomy 32:10
"A Father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling.
God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing."
- Psalm 68:5-6
"How much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask
him!" - Matthew 7:11
"Your Father in heaven is not willing that any one of these little ones should
be lost." - Matthew 18:14
"Jesus answered, 'I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to
the Father except through me... Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father."
- John 14:6,9
"And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor [or Comforter]
to be with you forever - the Spirit of Truth." - John 14:16
"For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but
you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, 'Abba, Father [or Pa
Pa, Father].'" - Romans 8:15
"I will be a Father to you and you will be my sons and daughters, says the
Lord Almighty." - 2 Corinthians 6:18 & 2 Samuel 7:14
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose
us.. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his [children]." - Ephesians
1:3-5
"Through [Christ] we. have access to the Father by one Spirit." - Ephesians
2:18
"[God is] the Father from whom all fatherhood derives its name." - Ephesians
3:15
"Now to [the Father] who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or
imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in
the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever!
Amen." - Ephesians 3:20-21
"How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called
children of God!" - 1 John 3:1
HOW TO CONNECT WITH FATHER
