If we are willing to go so far as to die for our children, why is it that we often don't seem willing to live for them?

The Problem

• Survey results indicate that the average middle-class father believes he spends fifteen to twenty minutes a day with his kids.
• The actual average amount of time each dad spent with his kids was thirty-seven seconds, an average of 2.7 daily encounters of ten to fifteen seconds!
• The average American child watches between four and seven hours of TV each day.

Freedom to Be Kids

• What is more important a piece of furniture or a child? "I'll not have you ruining a million dollar child over a $300 dollar table."
• Give them the freedom to be kids. Our approach should be to help them get through growing up.

Protection from the World

• Our goal is protection not insulation.
• Children, not wise but foolish, discriminate best between that which makes them feel good and that which makes them feel bad.
• Too bad that many things which feel good at first deeply scar the lives of millions of our young people -- drugs, alcohol, sex.
• The duty and role of fathers includes protecting children from evil as well as teaching them righteousness.
• Teaching children what to look for in a friend, and placing them in environments where such young people can be found is a gigantic contribution to their beliefs and values.
• These days when we misjudge, we tend to underprotect, not overprotect.

Encourage, Don't Embitter

• Angry fathers are everywhere. I once heard an angry father yell at his elementary-aged son, "Why don't you act your age?"
• These are the words penned by Boswell's dad: "Gone fishing today with my son; a day wasted."

No Replacement for Time

• If we end up with regrets over the time we didn't give our children, it is a pain that never goes away.
• As Lee Iacocca points out, no one says on his deathbed, "I wish I had spent more time with my business."

Guardianship Through Prayer

• We can make no greater contribution to the well-being of our kids than to intercede for them in daily prayer.
• You may find some adaptation of this list helpful:
  • A saving faith
  • A growing faith
  • To be strong and healthy in mind, body, and spirit
  • A desire for integrity
  • A call to excellence
  • To acquire wisdom