Be the Dad She Needs You to Be by Kevin Leman

Author:Kevin Leman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2014-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

More than anything, your daughters want to please you. That’s their inner motivation. When they know you’re not happy and that they’re causing your unhappiness, you’re in the driver’s seat to see change happen—for the good.

Stuck in the Middle?

• Be pragmatic and unemotional.

• Use only a few words.

• Deliver a to-the-point message.

Dads who remember these things when in the heat of battle between females will come out feeling good about themselves.

When Mama and Daughter Are Going at It

When the females in your house are waging war, what happens next has everything to do with how you respond.

If you’re a hothead and you fly off the handle, saying things such as, “Would you two cut it out? I’m sick of hearing it” and “Stop it. Stop it right now. You two are acting like idiots,” you’re just pushing the warfare tactics to a higher level. But if you have a calm demeanor in the midst of battle, you can be an emotionally settling force in your family.

There’s some important information you need to know first, and it’s about Mama. Mama Bear is most likely to knock heads with the daughter who is most like her. So if you’ve ever mumbled to yourself (out of your wife’s hearing, of course), “These two deserve each other,” you’re spot on. But like a dad can be a good teacher to a daughter, he can also be a great teacher to a wife.

Listen carefully, though. You never do this in front of a daughter. You always do it behind closed doors, where only you and your wife are involved in the conversation.

You might say something like this: “Honey, you’re the queen of relationships, and far be it from me to even suggest you do things differently. But it seems to me that this whole thing—the big hassle we’ve had in our home—started when you greeted Little Missy at breakfast with not a hello or a good morning but a ‘Have you cleaned the bathroom yet?’ I know as a man that I hate it when people ask me questions. I think maybe things got off on the wrong foot this morning and sort of spiraled down . . .”

This is where you, Dad, need to be the pragmatic one in the family. Don’t get dragged into the fight. Stay out of it emotionally.

Even when your wife snips back with, “If you’re asking me to apologize, I’m not going to,” you stay steady.

You say calmly, “You do what you think is best. But if you do come to that decision at some point, I think you’d be showing her how big of a person you can really be.” Then extend the olive branch to your wife and say something like, “How do you feel right now? Good about your relationship with her?”

Most women will then calm down and say, “Well, no, I don’t.”

Then gently add, “I’m not the relationship expert you are, and I could be wrong, but I think you need to own up to your part of it.

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