One night during the Thanksgiving holidays, my 6-year-old son was up late. His older brother and sister had already gone to bed and he was still wide awake, which is unusual for him because he’s usually the first one asleep.

Sensing an opportunity to spend some quality one-on-one time with him, I asked him if he wanted to go for a walk with me to see the moon and stars.

Bundling up in our coats and gloves, we ventured out into the cold, crisp night air with no agenda other than just to chat, walk, and take in the night sky together — which he loved.

As we walked, my son would talk about something and then ask “Right Dad?” to which I casually answered “uh-huh” not really considering his questions carefully. After this went on 3 or 4 times, it occurred to me that I might be saying “right” to something that may not have been right.

So I began listening to him more carefully.

The “Right Dad?” question must have come up at least ten more times during our walk. I wasn’t counting, but I began to notice that my son’s “Right Dad?” questions were really not so much about whether he was right or not about a certain thing, but more importantly…

He was wanting AFFIRMATION, VALIDATION, and ACCEPTANCE from the most powerful man in his life… his dad.

Basically, he was looking for my approval of him — that he was “valid” or “approved” or “accepted” by me.

In his booklet You Have What It Takes, best-selling author John Eldredge says every boy is asking the same basic question in his heart: Do I have what it takes? He wants to prove himself to his dad. He wants to impress him. He wants to be loved and accepted by his father. He is looking to his father for gender identity.

This is how God designed it. For us dads to bestow this upon our sons. No one on earth is more powerful in our sons lives than we are as their dads.

It’s something I need to be reminded of regularly. And maybe this little story will help remind you too… Right Dad?

Blessings to you and your family,

Joey Watkins

Founder, FamilyDads.com

P.S. – It’s almost too late to get a Christmas Cross Light for your front yard or a To Bethlehem board game for your family to have fun together during the holidays. Also, we’ve listed some of our best-selling Christmas gift items that are on sale right now at DadResources.com.

A father had three grown children, two sons and a daughter.

One son was divorced. The other son was getting ready to file for a divorce.

The parents had never liked their son’s wife and had tried everything they could to split the marriage and find him another wife.

The sons and the father had a broken relationship. It was so bad, if either son even saw him in a store, they walked down another aisle to avoid him.

There was much bitterness and hatred.

Yet this was a father who was very involved in church, even in prominent leadership roles.

The father attended an event where he heard about God’s promise and provision to fathers, God’s blueprint for the family, and the Biblical role of the father.

God turned the heart of this father in a very significant way… toward his sons, toward his family.

He was so convicted about his failure as a father, he asked himself…

“Is it too late? I’ve already done my child rearing. My children are adults now.”

He wrote 12 letters to his sons. Letters of repentance…

“Would you please forgive me for not being the father to you I should have been?”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to do anything with you?”

“I didn’t know how to call you out as sons?”

“I want to minister to you now.”

“I want to be the father to you that God intended me to be.”

As the father did that, and his heart was turned toward his children, God turned the hearts of his children to him.

The first son turned his heart to God for the first time, came to his father, and began to confess to him things he had done wrong.

The 2nd son, on the very day of filing divorce papers, after listening to the teachings from the event the father attended, was so convicted that he confessed his own sins and turned his heart to seek God.

His wife said when he walked in the door, she immediately knew something had changed his life. She said “I want that” and came with him to his parents for counseling! The parents confessed to the daughter-in-law how they had not loved her and all the things they done against her.

The dad sent the teaching messages to his daughter. Her husband listened.

The daughter said it completely changed his heart and turned his heart toward his family.

God healed this family!

It is a testimony of God’s promise to broken families:

“Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD; And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children and the heart of the children to their fathers…” ~Malachi 4:5-6

God keeps His word.  He  will turn the hearts of a family back to the fathers when the heart of the father is turned to the children.

Norm Wakefield will be sharing this teaching at the Dad Summit, the first-of-its-kind LIVE webinar event for dads. It starts this Sunday night at 9pm Eastern. There is still time to save $15 on Advance Registration.

Blessings to you and your family,

Joey Watkins

Founder, FamilyDads.com

This video is a great reminder to all of us dads about the influence we have EVERY DAY through the eyes of our children as they are growing up! Well done and impactful production. I know I need to be reminded of this every week. If you have a thought, comment, or story to share after watching this video, please leave it below for other dads to read and be encouraged by.

Did you know that over 75,000 books have been written on parenting?

Whoa! That’s a lot of information out there for dads and moms.

And most dads like you and me won’t have the time nor interest to read even a tiny fraction of all those books.

Author George Barna, a dad himself with two daughters, (you may have heard of him, he is also a well-known Christian pollster and researcher) recently published a new book on parenting with a very unique twist:

“To amass a body of knowledge that could be absorbed and applied by all parents to help them mazimize their parenting potential.”

Sounds very worthwhile, doesn’t it?  After all, what parent doesn’t want to maximize their parenting potential?!!

But to write such a book, Barna’s team had to gather specific data from three sources:

1. Telephone surveys nationwide of parents with children under the age of 18. The parents were asked about their challenges, successes, and failures as parents.

2. Existing books on parenting practices, particularly those with a spiritual dimension. Those elements that were identified as significant were studied more closely.

3. Personal interviews of more than ten thousand (yes, 10,000!) young adults in their twenties who were leading “transformed” lives with genuine, mature faith (not merely church attenders.)

These young adults were asked what happened during their formative years that “worked.”

Their parents were then interviewed for their input on upbringing these children.

Would you like to know what the research revealed?

It’s all laid out in a concise, timely book by George Barna called “Revolutionary Parenting.”

In the book, Barna starts with a look at the current crisis in American parenting, specifically as it relates to raising children with a Biblical worldview and an understanding of spiritual matters.

The next section… which is the bulk of the book… summarizes the parenting research that his team did.

The final section closes with a very personal chapter called “How Studying Revolutionary Parenting Changed Me” in which Barna talks about ten specific lessons he learned from his research that has impacted his own parenting of his two daughters, and he shares all this with the reader.

One dad reader commented…
“This is one of the few books every Christian parent must read! Great book!!! Wish it had been around years ago! If you are a new parent or even if your kids are already teens — you need this book. It is short: a fast, easy, but meaningful read.”

Learn More and Order Revolutionary Parenting for yourself, or as a gift for another parent you know, at DadResources.com, the bookstore that supports FamilyDads–
http://www.DadResources.com/product.asp?itemid=16

This weekend, my oldest son Andrew did something for the first time.

He mowed our entire half-acre yard… front and back… with my riding mower.

I didn’t have to do a thing except give him a few pointers, keep an eye on him, and make sure he was being safe and doing a half-way decent job.

I’ll admit… it was nice delegating that chore to him! I’ve been looking forward to doing so for a long time.

But something strange happened inside of me as I watched him lap our yard with my yellow earmuffs cupped over his ears, his feet barely reaching the pedals.

If you’ve been at this stage of fatherhood, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

Yes, I was proud of him…

- Proud that he was mature enough at his age to be doing this.

- Proud that he was willing to take on this new responsibility.

- Proud that he wanted to “be like Dad.”

But something inside of me struggled with seeing my boy growing up!

Yes, I know it is inevitable.

I just wish there was a pause button to slow down his progression toward adulthood.

In just a few years from now, I will be looking my son in the eye, because he will be as tall as me. His voice will have changed. He will be driving a car. And he will be thinking about his future as a young man.

When that time comes, I hope to reflect on lots of fun times we had together when he was just a lad, and the privilege of being the Dad who got to raise him, invest my time, money, and energy preparing him for manhood, and more importantly, for eternity.

…and perhaps I’ll have a few regrets too.

But for now… we Dads can be thankful for our children.

And do our best to intentionally make the most of each day with them… one day at a time… while they are still with us growing and developing their minds, bodies, souls, and spirits .

Blessings to you and your family,
Joey Watkins
Founder, FamilyDads

PS – If you are looking for a fun Christmas game to build memories with your family, click here to see a game our family has lots of fun playing.