Five Secrets Great Dads Know by Paul Coughlin

Author:Paul Coughlin
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group
Published: 2010-02-01T00:00:00+00:00

SECRET #4:

GREAT DADS GIVE THEIR KIDS WINGS

Ominous research tells us that today’s kids are more timid, risk-averse, and anxiety-ridden than past generations. Fear, my fellow dads, is our newest baby-sitter, our most prominent child-care consultant. The reasons are many, but one of the most misunderstood and underreported is our nation’s most pervasive preoccupation: overprotective parenting.

We coaches call them “helicopter parents” because they constantly hover, and they know how to attack. Most have no idea how their micromanaging hurts their kids behind the scenes, in the locker room, on the bench. By taking everything into their own hands and trying to make life smooth and painless, parents prevent children from developing the abilities they need to actualize their potential.

I want to encourage you toward charting a better course for your children. When we’re all racing in place on the same Tour de Fear hamster wheel, everybody loses—children and parents.

We’re afraid that our children will fall behind their peers. We’re worried our kids might not do as well as other kids. We’re terrified that we’ll fail, and that our children will grow up to be the everlasting proof of our inadequacy. Letting them learn and make choices and take calculated risks feels wrong, even broken somehow.

By living out of our fears, we’ve made parental panic culturally acceptable. But the apostle John, in proclaiming the truth of Jesus, made clear that where love reigns fear is thwarted (see 1 John 4:16–18). Instead of build-ing entire lives and families on a foundation of fear and frenzy, we can choose to equip and empower our sons and daughters for a future of fullness.

Ultimately, kids need to learn how to fly, and we must ask: Just how strong can their wings get if they’re never allowed to use them?

We run to find quick answers and complete solutions to any little problem our children face. We do this whenever we have little or no faith that the issue could be worked out over time and doesn’t need constant attention and intervention. We speed down to our child’s school and bring them their homework assignments and books because they carelessly left them at home, instead of letting reality sink in, teach, and minister. We don’t allow kids to play even on safe streets because we’re freaked out about kidnapping. Many men, like me, not just mothers, struggle with parenting that smothers.

Contrary to our assumptions, kids who receive constant parental protection don’t do better in life. When they’re too often harbored from inevitable hardships and challenges, they do not develop a keen understanding of their own abilities and weaknesses. Sometimes they become overconfident, processing a distorted sense of themselves. They behave as if they are the center of the universe because, well, they have been for years. They are self-consumed and make others suffer from their excessive self-esteem, a common denominator for bullies. If you want to know why some children today are so thoughtless toward others, look no further than their over-parenting parents.

But most of the time they

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