Change Happens and You Can Handle It

When my boys were small they took up the sport of hockey.  This was hard for me.  I knew nothing about hockey.  To me, hockey was for thugs who had got kicked out of figure skating class.    

I was not alone in my perception.  Many people close to me were curious about my enrolling my children in a sport known for aggression and fighting.  Why not soccer, or basketball, or football? 

We are all responsible for the image we portray.  If the game of hockey is known for aggression and fighting, then hockey is responsible for its image.  I am learning, however, that hockey is not the only place where aggression and fighting break out.  Look around you.  The changes in our lives breed anxiety; anxiety breeds anger; and anger vents itself in aggression and fighting.  This takes place in all kinds of places from hockey rinks to church meetings, the dinner table, and wherever people do not get their way.  

If we want our children to be able to navigate change and transitions with grace and dignity, it is imperative that we learn to handle change and transitions with grace and dignity, too.  We all can learn to relax, lighten up, and settle down.  We must teach our children that they will not always be on the starting team or in first chair in the orchestra.  Classes will drop at the worst times.  Professors do make mistakes and some coaches are jerks.  We must teach our children that change happens – and they can handle it!      

In 2007, the National Hockey League initiated the “It’s Just a Game” Campaign.  The campaign was designed to teach the hockey world that hockey is “just a game.”  The National Hockey League was committed to changing its image.  Hockey is not about aggression and fighting.  Hockey is about teamwork, skill, and sportsmanship.    

In 30-second television ads children and others were portrayed in everyday situations, but acting like a “perceived” hockey player.”  Fights would break out in absurd situations.  The ad then concluded, “It’s just a game.”  In other words, “Relax.  Lighten up. Settle down.”   

In one campaign, a policeman pulls a man over for a traffic violation.  The man’s 12-year-old son starts yelling, “This call stinks, you moron! Are you kidding me? Where are your glasses!!”  The boy then starts yelling at the Dad, “Are you going to take this Dad?  Stand up for yourself.”  The campaign ends, “It’s just a game.” Clearly, bad behavior is ridiculous at hockey games and everywhere else.  [cf. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxduazZp7bo]. 

My boys loved hockey.  They were never in a fight.  They learned life lessons of teamwork, sportsmanship, and respect for authority. 

Our children will face many changes in life – especially as they head back to school.  As dads, we can help our children face these changes with grace and dignity.  We want our children to know that change does happen and they can handle it!

Jeff Sippy, a Dad-In-Training, is the father of three young men and the husband of Cindy. He enjoys sailing every chance that he gets. He is the senior pastor at Redeemer Lutheran in Springfield, MO and can be reached for question or comment at jsippy@rlcmail.org  

Summertime

For kids, summer is that magical time of no books, no assignments, no early mornings and no state assessments. They come into this blessed season, anticipating sleeping in, swimming all afternoon and if they wish really, really hard, going on some fabulous trip to some fabulous place. All expenses paid by the parents, of course. 

For dads, summer can be that not-so magical experience of little time off, little reprieve from assignments, little chance to sleep in, and little chance of not feeling constantly assessed. We always question our parenting, but never more so than during the good old summertime. The pressure is on to keep up at work, and provide memorable experiences for our children, as well.

While there may be times in which we can take our kids on what we deem “real vacations,” there are many other times when that may not be possible. Of course, a trip to see Mickey Mouse is going to stick in your child’s memory, but so is a water fight in the backyard. Some activities are dictated by geography, I am well aware of that. My family lived all over the country, and even in the Republic of Panama, so we had times where a trip to the beach was a cheap and easy memory to make. Other places we lived, just getting to a small lake was both time and money consuming. As our boys grew older, time, money and geography were joined by Little League and camp schedules. Planning “ultimate summertime experiences” became anything but, "fun in the sun."

I don’t envy the young parents in this age of social media. Scrolling through endless pictures of endless summer bucket list check-offs can be depressing for the father who is working 60-75 grueling hours a week just to put a hot dog on the rusty, 20-year-old charcoal grill in the overgrown backyard. But, a $5, half-hour water balloon fight in that weed-filled grass could provide a memory for your kids that sticks with them as long as any meet and greet with The Mouse. Now, there is nothing wrong with taking a lavish trip when given the opportunity, but don't forget that lavish love is really what our children crave the most. And that, fellow dads, is truly magical. I encourage you, today, to take the opportunities that are right in front of you - whether big or small - to make summer memories that last a lifetime, for both you, and your kids. Oh, and don't forget the sunscreen!

Kevin Weaver, CEO of Network211 and father of three sons, lives with his wife KyAnne in Springfield, MO. He enjoys spending time with family, hunting and watching University of Kansas basketball with his boys! He can be reached at kweaver@network211.com.

Summer Fun for Dads and Kids

Summer time: school’s out, the kids are home.  It’s time to travel, take vacation, hit the beach or swimming pool, and see a few ball games.  Iced tea and lemonade tastes better when served 1 degree above frozen.  The air-conditioned dimness of a bowling ally soothes you on a glaring 95-degree day.  Barbeque smoke drifts around the neighborhood on the evening breeze, and fire works blossom in the darkness from late June thru Mid-July.  We each have different visions of what “summer time” based on how, where, and when we were raised.  But for everyone I know, there’s something about summer that says let’s have a great time by relaxing and doing something different.

Summer slows us down and gives us more time to connect.  Rather than seeing kids dashing around in the morning getting ready to head out for the bus, I watch as they leisurely meander in still wearing the same pair of old shorts and a t-shirt from the night before.  Even PJs get a break when you stay up late watching a movie because there’s nowhere you need to rush off to the next day.

Summer is a great time to learn a new skill or hobby.  One of my twin sons is trying to grow squash from seedlings he received as a parting gift from school.  It hasn’t died yet and a few flowers are opening up to welcome any passing bees. 

In early June, I finally finished teaching this same son to ride his bike.  The last time we tried, he fell off, got scraped up pretty badly, and has been reluctant to try it again since.  This time, it took less than 5 minutes before he was sailing along effortlessly as I ran alongside to keep up.  I was glad to see him easily get the hang of it, and he quickly left me behind as the sheer joy of speed overcame any last doubts about crashing.

July is a great month to remember our nation’s birth.  This year I gave my boys an assignment to read the Declaration of Independence, and each of them had to pick out several words or phrases that didn’t make sense so we could talk about them.  It did me some good to brush up on it as well.  One of my best teachers always said, “You’ll never understanding anything as well as when you try to teach it to someone else.”  True enough.

August’s dog-days are just around the corner.  We’ll beat the heat indoors playing games together.  My daughter’s recent favorite is Twister.  Part of being a Good Dad has been staying limber enough to keep up with this game.  I try to set a good example and can’t whine too much when my ankle ends up beside my head because all the easy-to-reach red dots are taken.

Being a Good Dad is a lot of work, and one of the greatest rewards of the job that I’ve found is spending more time with my family, my kids in particular. I don’t have any profound or secret advice to my fellow Good Dads other than to remember that Summer is the season for kids to be kids, and I’m blessed that there are plenty of excuses for me to join in the fun.

Sid Whiting is the father of three and the husband of one. He lives with his wife Gail and their children in Springfield, Missouri. He also enjoys real estate investing, serving in the 135th Army Band as a percussionist and bass guitarist, and plays in the Praise Band "Soul Purpose" and the "Hallelujah Bells" hand bell choir.  He can be reached for comment or question at sid.whiting75@gmail.com or on Facebook (www.facebook.com/WiseSteward).

Another Dad with a Dream of Freedom

The earliest founders of America had a dream for their children, their grandchildren, and for you and me.    In 1776, five men were appointed to draft the Declaration of Independence setting forth this dream.  They wrote, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights -- that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.” 

Almost 200 years later, Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream of freedom, too.  Martin Luther King Jr. was many things to many people.  Foremost, he was a Daddy with four children.  In his 1963 March on Washington Speech, he said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”

I am another Dad with a dream for my children.  What about you?  Do you have dreams for your children, too?

For all my teasing, I am not dreaming of a bigger, newer sailboat with a roller furling jib, wheel steering, a pressurized water system, and things like this.  I am not dreaming about a sailboat.  I dream about my children.  I dream about their freedom.  I dream about their hopes. I dream about their future.  I am a Dad with a dream.   

I dream for my children to have a deep understanding that their freedom does not come at the expense of someone else’s freedom; nor does their hope come at the expense of someone else’s hope.  I dream for my children to be happy.  I also want them to assist others in their happiness, too.  My children’s freedom is not just about them.  My children’s freedom comes in the context of community, in the context of other people, with an understanding that we are all free together. 
      

For me, freedom is not the right of my children to do whatever they want whenever they want.  For me, my children’s freedom is the power and ability to do what is right and to do what they ought.  I want my children to know that when their freedom or right encroaches upon the freedom and right of someone else then they are no longer free.  Then they are slaves who are oppressed by their own selfish, self – centered and reckless attitudes that will, in time, erode and destroy our community and world.   

I believe my children’s dream begins with me -- without blame of others, complaint, or excuses.  My children’s freedom begins in a home that is free of anxiety and anger, blame and complaint.  My children’s freedom begins with me and an understanding that we are all equal and these rights belong in balance and to all of us, not just a few, or some, or the elite. 

This is my dream and it begins with me.  But a roller furling jib would be nice, too!

Jeff Sippy, a Dad-In-Training, is the father of three young men and the husband of Cindy. He enjoys sailing every chance that he gets. He is the senior pastor at Redeemer Lutheran in Springfield, MO and can be reached for question or comment at jsippy@rlcmail.org

Life Lessons From My Father

Growing up with a Dad as a pastor, our lives were always under a microscope, being construed and misconstrued. There was no shortage of voiced, or unvoiced, expectations from members of the church, the community, even those who didn’t personally know us. It was a difficult reality, but it taught me a lot about people. More importantly, it taught me a lot about the character of my Father.

We donned the church doors each time they were open, and just as frequently when they weren’t; twice Sunday for church (sometimes Sunday afternoons for service prep) Wednesdays, Thursdays, even Saturdays for the occasional wedding or funeral. Dad worked as a bivocational Pastor, which means he had a regular 9:00 to 5:00 job to put food on our table and keep the lights on at home. I didn’t get to see Dad a lot during the week, and had to share him with 100+ others when he was home, but I knew he was there. He was always there.

I’ve heard my Dad give countless sermons. He somehow always found time to prepare with his 60+ hours of combined work. I remember this ongoing joke Dad used from the pulpit in each church he served, that Sister Moss (my Mom) had heard him preach enough that she would sleep during his sermons, and not to worry if anyone heard her snoring. It always got a laugh. Mom would peer at Dad through the top of her reading glasses with a half grin, letting Dad know she heard him, again. Those were some fun memories. Still, through years of sermons and services, Dad’s words aren’t what impressed me.

Being a ministry family, we would have to find creative ways to get by. I think the current cultural term is “Life Hack”. Our clothes were yard sale specials. Our vehicles were at least 10 years old. If something was broke, Dad would just fix it, or we’d make due. Like the time the reverse went out in our ‘88 Olds, and we had to park on an incline wherever we went to ensure we could back out without having to push. I don’t remember those times as “hard times”. That was just part of life. So it only made sense to me that Dad would pull over behind a stranded vehicle and help, even if we were headed to church, or stop to help change a flat tire in the rain for someone who obviously couldn’t. “It was just a divine delay.”, he would say. But he knew it was more than that. He knew it would have been a missed opportunity to serve others.

What I learned from my Dad didn’t come from words behind a pulpit. It really didn’t come from words at all. The lessons he passed on to me came from seeing him put others before himself. He taught me that you do whatever you have to do to take care of your family. He taught me that giving is always better than receiving. And he taught me to never pass up an opportunity to show love to those who need it most.

I love you, Dad. Thanks for everything.

What My Dad Taught Me

Sometimes dads are just dads. They don’t think about how they influence their children, or more clearly, how their children learn from them. We men often go about our day with our heads in the clouds or our minds entangled in some issue, all the while we are being watched. Kids absorb as much or more through observation as they learn formally. So while you tell them to be kind to people, they really learn how to treat people by watching you. You can explain the value of reading, but if your kids never see you reading, they may shrug their shoulders the next time it is mentioned. “Do as I say, not as I do”, really never works.

Dads and moms are teaching by demonstration twenty four hours a day. And because no one can fake who they are 24/7, the good things and the not-so-good things will be on display for your kids. Kids will emulate you because they love and trust you and that is usually, but not always, good. Which brings me to what I learned from my dad.

I loved my dad. He was so interesting and mysterious. He had adventure in his heart and did things I wanted to do. He had been to places I wanted to see. Stories of his travels had me breathlessly hanging on every word. I longed for his attention and waited for him to come home - sometimes for hours, sometimes for months, even years. My Dad was a contradiction in himself. He was slight in build but had very strong hands and a stubbly beard. He was a real gentleman, charismatic, very intelligent, and well-liked by most people most of the time. There was just one huge problem, my dad was a raging alcoholic, and he changed into someone else when he was drinking. And it wasn’t pretty.

I discussed learning from my dad in my book, “The Power of Dadhood”. As follows,

“I learned so much from my father. I learned from him that I needed to get an education. I learned that people would judge me by my actions and react to me according to my attitude. I learned the importance of reliability and trust. These things I learned from him because he demonstrated how difficult life can be without them.

Unfortunately, I also saw how dependence on alcohol and drugs could steal my father’s charm and waste his intelligence. Yes, I learned quite a bit about life from my father, but what I didn’t learn was difficult to pick up on my own. Among those lessons missed early on were simple skills and pleasures of standing up straight, manners, confidence, physical competition, love of reading, and being comfortable in my own skin. Yes, my dad graduated from the School of Hard Knocks, but it is not exactly in the Ivy League of Childhood Mentoring. Too easy to get accepted into, his school lacked standards for graduation. “

I worked hard in school and earned a scholarship to college. That allowed me to become an Air Force officer and to work my way out of poverty. But I was still unsure of myself and never stood out. Not until I was in my forties did I begin to flourish, after years of spinning my wheels, by reading self-help books. They do work for those that need them.

I am in a very good place in my life now. But it took me a while to get here, mostly because my lack of self-confidence kept me from taking chances and a feeling of not measuring up to others made me a bit of a loner. Those are heavy anchors to pull around as a kid, and even as an adult. I believe my dad could have helped me with that. My mom was raising six children alone and had her hands full. Beyond that, she’s not a male and I needed a man in my life.

Not all kids would have reacted the same way. Some would have become tougher on their own, others would have never recovered. Fully a third and maybe up to 40% of kids are raised without a father in the home. Those with fathers have a distinct advantage even if their dads are a bit clueless. So a takeaway here is that you, Dad, can teach as a good example or a bad example. If you are lucky, they will know when your examples are not to be followed. The worst case is when they don’t know any better and are misled. Another takeaway is to occasionally ask yourself what you are doing to guide your children. That simple question, asked every so often, can make all the difference. Dads do teach quite a bit. What and how they teach is so very important.

Michael Smith, the author of The Power of Dadhood: How to Become the Father Your Child Need, is the father of three adult children and grandfather of four. He is a retired US Air Force officer and resides with his wife in St. Louis, MO. Michael can be reached for question or comment at mike@michaelbyronsmith.com. 

What I Learned from my Dad

When I was growing up, my dad was a man of few words, but many actions. And in my 13-year-old opinion, far too many actions. Case in point: car washing. It took my dad forever to wash and clean out a car. He painstakingly, meticulously detailed each nook and cranny, until the automobile was practically back to show-room worthy. He wasn’t slow, he was sure. He was sure to do things right, or at the very least, do his best to do things right. He worked hard, kept his word, took care of things, and took care of me. And at 13, or even six or 16, I don’t know if I quite appreciated the way my dad always got things done. I would have rather he, like so many other adults, just talk about doing them, or take shortcuts to get them done in a more timely manner. However, neither of those options were ones my dad was willing to take. So, I continued to watch him do things, and do them well. Regardless of the amount of work, patience or time they took, and much to the chagrin of his young son.

Then, something happened. As high school was winding down, and life out in the big world for me was winding up, I realized something: I could do things. A lot of things, and a lot of things a lot of my friends couldn’t do. Whether it was small home improvements, car repairs, reading the financial section of the paper and somewhat understanding it, or driving a combine, I was your guy. I hadn’t gone to school for any of these things, and I certainly had not done any sort of formal apprenticeship. I simply had the privilege of having a front row seat, watching a one-man, life-long, almost silent infomercial of how to do things, to the best of one’s ability. To do them well. To do them right.

Fast-forward to my own home of a few years ago, full of rambunctious boys, restless and a little frustrated at the fact the tools had to put back in their places, or the expensive shoes their grandmother bought them couldn’t be left in the middle of the floor, or that we periodically stopped what our family was doing to take a few minutes to help a family less fortunate than ours. 

Now, fast-fast-forward to the home of my son, as I sit and watch him with his son, my grandson. Every puzzle piece is put back in the box. Every toy is put back on the shelf. Every chance to help a neighbor or open the door for an elderly person is witnessed and endured by an energetic, playful, three-year-old. Will it matter? Well, we’re into our fourth generation of running on the fact that it most certainly has.  

Teddy Roosevelt once said,  “It is no use to preach to children if you do not act decently yourself.”  Thanks for the vacations, ball games and days at the lake, Dad. But, most of all, thanks for doing, and doing well right.  It stuck!!

Kevin Weaver, CEO of Network211 and father of three sons, lives with his wife KyAnne in Springfield, MO. He enjoys spending time with family, hunting and watching University of Kansas basketball with his boys! He can be reached at kweaver@network211.com.