the most controversial thing I did as a dad
Hey folks.
I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who responded to my last email. I tried to reply to as many as I could personally, and I really appreciated the feedback.
The most significant feedback received was that the preference is for a combination of long and short emails. So, stay tuned; I will mix them up moving forward.
Now, let's move on to this week’s email about the most controversial thing I did as a dad when raising my kids.
"The biggest big business in America is not steel, automobiles, or television. It is the manufacture, refinement, and distribution of anxiety."
Eric Sevareid, in 1964
"Only be strong and very courageous…"
Joshua 1:7
When I was younger, I started a gang.
To join it, you had to lick a 9-volt battery as a part of the initiation.
This gang was for my kids, called the "The Dangerous Kids Club."
I got the idea from this book called 50 Dangerous Things (You Should Let Your Children Do), and I launched out with my wife’s blessing.
We live in a world where kids are constantly taught to be fearful.
This is the most anxious generation yet, and it doesn’t seem things will change soon. Our culture seems powerless to stop it. In some ways, it seems there is even an investment in keeping us anxious.
In The Comfort Crisis, Michael Easter notes the mainstreaming of anxiety for a generation of kids.
Scientists at New York University identify 1990 as the beginning of helicopter parenting. The researchers say that’s when many parents stopped allowing their children to go outside unsupervised until they were as old as 16 due to unfounded, media-driven fears of kidnapping. We’ve now deteriorated from helicopter parenting to snowplow parenting. These parents violently force any and all obstacles out of their child’s path. Preventing kids from exploring their edges is largely thought to be the cause of the abnormally high and growing rates of anxiety and depression in young people. A study found that anxiety and depression rates in college students rose roughly 80 percent in the generation just after helicopter parenting began.
Helicopters and snowplows. Seeds of anxiety with such good intent.
I have written before about the three most research-backed things that make a good father:
Emotional safety and affection
Shielding kids from unnecessary stress and anxiety
A healthy relationship with your spouse
The first and third ones are obvious, but that middle one is often overlooked. In our desire to shield our kids from anxiety, we have overcompensated and facilitated it in their lives.
Which is why the Dangerous Kids Club was such a hit with my kids.
It changed the way I parented. So much of what I previously did was based on caution and fear. My default answer to my kids was "no." The number one phrase I said at playgrounds was "be careful."
Now, if you know me, you know my commitment to safe and appropriate boundaries.
You know my vision and commitment to creating an environment of emotional safety for my kids growing up.
However, I was worried that the cultural anxiety was unnecessarily becoming their anxiety. It was being projected on them, not coming from them.
I wanted to raise resilient kids, full-hearted kids, and compassionate kids. All of which require bravery.
I wanted to help them fear God and not much else.
I wanted to move them into their calling and confidence.
I wanted them to hear yes more than no.
So, the Dangerous Kids Club was born.
We would do an activity each week that pushed them to face their fear and lean into courage. Nothing crazy, but enough to help them see they were more capable than they knew. These micro adventures began to change our family culture.
When my son was at the park and asked me to watch him on the swing, instead of saying, "Be careful," I would ask, "How high can you go?"
When my daughter rode her scooter down Broadway, I would yell, "Faster, faster" instead of, "Slow down."
They started to get the sense that this was God's world, that He was with them,
and they were going to be ok.
Over time, they came to need it.
In some ways being raised in Manhattan was its own version of a Dangerous Kids Club. They had to learn to take the subway on their own at the age of 10. They had to learn to navigate complex social situations with strangers in the streets. They had to learn to own their faith in a secular city.
Over time, the Dangerous Kids Club became our family culture. Risk became the 4th pillar of our family values.
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The truth is that we can’t shield our kids from reality, but we can prepare them for it.
My son did a gap year that pushed him to his limits and gave him a heart for the nations, serving in Nepal, Guatemala, South Africa, Turkey, and Hawaii.
My daughter moved to Tennessee, which, for New Yorkers, can feel like a foreign country, too!
When I discipled my daughter through her version of the Primal Path, we would start each morning with a Bible verse and a quote.
The verse was Proverbs 31:25, which says, "She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come."
And this gem from Frederick Buechner, "Here is the world, beautiful and terrible things will happen, don’t be afraid."
I did not know then, but I can see so clearly now that the Dangerous Kids Club was really for me. I had to confront my own fears of failure as a dad. I had to face my fear of control, reputation, and insecurities. I needed to say "yes" to the danger of entrusting them into God's hands, surrendering outcomes, and launching them into the world through love.
It hasn’t been easy, and at times, anxiety rises in my own heart, but I am learning to laugh at the days to come, even in the face of the beautiful, terrible things.
Make this a week to say "yes" to your kids.
A week where they learn they do not have to be afraid.
Thanks for reading.
Cheers
Jon.
