Below are my highlights from my 2014 Reading List.
Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know
Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters: 10 Secrets Every Father Should Know
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Anna was having a tough time, but think about her poor dad. For the last two months, in her mind, he had been a sex-crazed, woman-abusing rapist. And he didn’t have a clue what was going on. Does television have an effect on your little girl? You bet it does. But you hold all the power.Read more at location 296
Your daughter will view this time spent with you vastly differently than you do. Over the years, in erratic bursts and in simple ordinary life together, she will absorb your influence. She will watch every move you make. She might not understand why you are happy or angry, dishonest or affectionate, but you will be the most important man in her life, forever.Read more at location 456
When she is twenty-five, she will mentally size her boyfriend or husband up against you. When she is thirty-five, the number of children she has will be affected by her life with you. The clothes she wears will reflect something about you. Even when she is seventy-five, how she faces her future will depend on some distant memory of time you spent together. Be it good or painful, the hours and years you spend with her—or don’t spend with her—change who she is.Read more at location 459
You have to—because, unfortunately, we have a popular culture that’s not healthy for girls and young women, and there is only one thing that stands between it and your daughter. You.Read more at location 489
And you should know that being a twenty-first-century hero is tough stuff. It requires emotional fortitude, mental self-control, and physical restraint. It means walking into embarrassing, uncomfortable, or even life-threatening situations in order to rescue your daughter.Read more at location 505
The only way you will alienate your daughter in the long term is by losing her respect, failing to lead, or failing to protect her. If you don’t provide for her needs, she will find someone else who will—and that’s when trouble starts. Don’t let that happen.Read more at location 518
Your natural instinct is to protect your daughter. Forget what pop culture and pop psychologists tell you. Do it.Read more at location 530
So remember that when she pushes hard against your rules, flailing, crying that you are mean or unfair, she is really asking you a question: Am I worth the fight, Dad? Are you strong enough to handle me? Make sure she knows the answer is yes.Read more at location 535
Do a gut check on your own beliefs, and think of what sort of woman you want your daughter to be. She’ll learn not only from what you say, but from what you do.Read more at location 592
Sure, other kids are experimenting with sex and drugs and alcohol, but other kids aren’t your daughter. And your daughter will respect you more if you don’t give in.Read more at location 683
her boyfriend, and care more about her—and what’s right for her—than other people. Let me tell you a secret about daughters of all ages: they love to boast about how tough their dads are—not just physically, but how strict and demanding they are.Read more at location 685
Can a woman be both gorgeous and humble? Can your daughter be brilliant, in passionate pursuit of a successful career, but still appreciate that she alone is not wholly responsible for her success? Absolutely. Humility will make your daughter’s accomplishments shine all the more, and she will be more emotionally grounded, more satisfied, and happier than if she had tried to imitate Paris Hilton’s life.Read more at location 1256
Humility levels the playing field. This can make the insecure bully feel frightened. But it is the truth. And truth keeps us living in reality. It keeps us from being absorbed by a life of spite and self-destruction.Read more at location 1272
The great theologian Oswald Chambers says, “It is not a question of our equipment but of our poverty, not of what we bring with us but what God puts into us.” God has filled your daughter with unimaginable gifts. Humility teaches her that these are in fact “gifts” for which she should be grateful, not proud.Read more at location 1287
The problem with making happiness her goal is the lack of guardrails. A goal of happiness can become a justification for self-indulgence. It can encourage selfishness. It can be how children become “spoiled.” And, most important, it can actually lead to unhappiness, as there are no limits to a child’s—or an adult’s— “wants,” and these wants never ultimately satisfy a deeper need. So happiness remains out of reach.Read more at location 1339
consider depression in teenage girls an STD, because it is almost always linked to underage sex.)Read more at location 1348
By far and away the most destructive lesson popular culture imbeds in our little girls’ minds is that they deserve more. They have a right to things and your responsibility as a parent is to provide those things. That’s what good parents, she thinks, are supposed to do in the twenty-first century.Read more at location 1379
She fails to consider the needs of others. It is as simple as that. Since she was born, her intuition told her to take what she needed, hold onto it, and get more. Those were the desires that drove her behavior. And everything in her environment fed that drive. Stores fed it by supplying fresh new things. Schools fed it by not holding her to high standards of behavior. And her parents fed it by desperately wanting to be good parents and giving her everything they thought she needed or desired.Read more at location 1400
Humility is tough and it takes a lifetime to learn, so get going. Remember that if you don’t, she will suffer more than anyone else. You need to set, as early in her life as you can, what the priorities for your family are. Do you want the center of the family’s life to be the children? Should it be you, or you and your wife, or God? If you don’t clearly establish your family’s priorities, your daughter and your other children will. They can get very, very vocal.Read more at location 1408
She’s a kid. You’re the dad. You should decide. You should set the priorities. When you bring realism into her life, you bring her comfort because you bring limits. When you teach her always to think about other people, to put herself in their shoes, to know that everyone—her friends, neighbors, and sister and brother—is important, you’ll give her the gift of friendship and living to the fullest as a caring, social being. If you teach your daughter to be good rather than simply happy, she will become both. Teaching your daughter humility is a wonderful gift. And it can be taught only by example.Read more at location 1416
Many parents don’t talk to their daughters because they feel guilty. I often hear, “How do I tell my daughter not to have sex in high school when I was sexually active in high school?” Face it: whatever you did then does not disqualify you from being a good father now. Your daughter is at risk. You need to protect her. And honestly, she doesn’t want to hear about your sex life.Read more at location 1443
What she wants to know from you is what the rules are. When is it appropriate to have sex and why? That’sRead more at location 1451
Reiterate to her that sex isn’t a simple bodily function—it is powerfully linked to her feelings, thoughts, and character. Tell her that a lot of what she hears and sees about sex is simply wrong. Keep it straightforward, loving, and respectable.Read more at location 1453
Few dads realize how important hugging is to their daughters, but I’ve heard countless girls tell me they had sex with a boy (not even a boyfriend) simply for the physical contact, because their fathers never hugged them or showed them affection. Her body starves for you to hug her.Read more at location 1468
It can be an uphill fight. Television commercials about ecstasy-inducing shampoo might not seem like a big deal to you, but you need to remember that your seven-year-old daughter is learning that being “sexy” is very important.Read more at location 1478
Teenage girls tell me routinely that they think they have to have sex to be accepted, cool, desirable, and sophisticated. They don’t believe this because they’re teenagers—they believe it because they’ve been told it, with nauseating repetition, from magazines, movies, music, and television from the time they were little. I see this all the time in young girls. When they first try sex—not necessarily intercourse—they are curious and usually very disappointed. The disappointment makes them feel that something is wrong with them, because everyone else says it’s great. So they try it again and again. In very short order they become emotionally dulled. Their instincts tell them that intimacy with another person has occurred, but their mind senses that no love was exchanged, no commitment was made, no emotional depth was involved. They become confused about love because sex came before love.Read more at location 1494
When battles do heat up, however, you have to kick into high gear. Don’t be mean, loud, or aggressive. Kindness and strength in your beliefs work better. When your sixteen-year-old bounces into the kitchen with a bikini barely covering her large breasts and pubic area, smile and tell her that it’s a gorgeous color, but the suit is too scant for her beautiful body. Tell her she needs to find a more modest suit that won’t make other girls feel jealous. When she is twenty-five, she’ll thank you. Standing guard over your daughter’s sexuality is tough. It is nothing short of war. But teaching her that modesty is a strength and not a commodity of the prudish will pay off with enormous dividends.Read more at location 1518
Researchers have known for a long time that teenage sexual activity and depression are linked, but the question was which came first—the sex or the depression.Read more at location 1694
The findings were so clear that the authors said that girls who are engaging in sexual activity should be screened for depression. The researchers’ findings confirm my own clinical experience.Read more at location 1699
My point is that fathers are often the ones who bring pragmatism and solutions to family discussions. Men see problems differently than women do. Women analyze and want to understand; men want to solve—they want to do something. This often annoys wives and daughters, who can get swept up in thoughts and emotions, and conclude, as Leslie did, that you “just don’t get it, do you?” or even that you’re uncaring or heartless. But that’s only because you’re less interested in talking about a problem than in doing something about it.Read more at location 1911
A girlfriend of mine quipped that there are two types of women in the world: princesses and pioneer women. Princesses believe they deserve a better life and expect others to serve them. Pioneer women expect that any improvement in their lives will come through their own hard work; they are in charge of their own happiness.Read more at location 1920
But here’s where dad comes in. When your daughter daydreams about the sort of girl she wants to be and what she should expect from life, she takes her cues from you. If you teach your daughter—even inadvertently—that other people exist to serve her needs and desires, she will grow to expect that from others. If you teach her that life has limits and that not all her needs or desires can or should be met, she will learn to accept realism, and she will not live expecting—or waiting for—others to be servants to the princess.Read more at location 1931
The damage comes when a loving father indulges a daughter to the point that she expects always to be on the receiving end, and that all her material, physical, or emotional needs are to be taken care of by someone else. What or how much you give her doesn’t matter as much as the way in which you give. I have seen many wealthy girls grow up unspoiled and many poor girls become demanding, selfish grown-ups.Read more at location 1941
As a dad, whenever your daughter is in a tough situation, all you have to do is ask her this simple question: “So what can you do about it?” And it’s worth asking that question in situations throughout her life.Read more at location 1950
I am convinced that if fathers recruited even 20 percent of the intellectual, physical, mental, and even emotional energy they spend at work and applied it to their relationships at home, we would live in an entirely different country. I’m not referring to coming home and doing more chores around the house, the yard, or at your kids’ schools. I’m talking about truly engaging with your family as a husband and father. Much of what you can do for your daughter is simply to engage her in conversation and listen. Men often talk little, but they listen more. Your problem-solving brain can analyze what your daughter tells you, and you can help her think of ways to smooth over volatile situations.Read more at location 2046
Divorce is really the central problem that has created a generation of young adults who are at higher risk for chaotic relationships, sexually transmitted diseases, and confusion about life’s purpose. But that’s where fathers who stay engaged with their families can make all the difference.Read more at location 2160
Before your daughter marries, you need to be that man. You need to ask yourself: Do I live my life as a father with integrity? Am I honest? Do I work hard for her and my family? Am I loving and protective of my wife and daughter? These are very tough questions, but if you want a healthy marriage for your daughter, this is where it begins. A healthy marriage is based on respect. You want to have your daughter’s respect, and if you model integrity, you will—and you will teach her to expect it in her future husband. Choosing a spouse is the one of the most important of life’s decisions. Careers don’t bear children, fill you with exuberance, or bring you soup in bed. Spouses do. And you are the man who will teach your daughter about men.Read more at location 2252
Every father wants a son-in-law who has nothing to hide and whose relationship with his daughter will be founded on truth. All secrets hurt. So talk to your wife about this. Make an agreement to have no secrets between you. Practice this. Then watch what happens to your daughter. If you live a life without secrets, she probably will too. If you expect her to hide nothing, she is much more likely to come clean about drinking and other dangerous behavior. But if she finds out that you (or her mom) are living with serious secrets—and kids almost always find out—she will likely do the same.Read more at location 2347
She needs to know this so that when she chooses a husband, she will look for another man who considers her a gift, who considers her “enough.”Read more at location 2460
suffocating love. You will want to protect her. She needs you to fight for her and to care, to be there for her, to be strong. She wants the world to know that if you mess with her, you mess with her dad. Don’t let her down. Fathers who shrug their shoulders and turn away leave their daughters feeling crushed.Read more at location 2482
So first you need to train her to assess her impulses: Are they good or are they bad? Are they encouraging her to be stronger or weaker? Then you must help her identify thoughts, emotions, and desires that should be weeded out, one at a time. Help her to clarify her thinking, help her keep it simple. And once you do that, teach her to fight. Let her know that you and she are on the same side. Let her know that you will defend her from a very toxic, woman-unfriendly culture.Read more at location 2971
Be savvy in choosing your battles. In general, if her food choices, her hairstyle, or her taste in music annoy you, you can let these go (unless they are part of a larger problem—like an eating disorder or hanging out with a bad crowd). Save your energy for the bigger issues that you absolutely need to focus on: honesty, integrity, courage, and humility.Read more at location 3033
Finally, remember, nice girls die in car accidents. Nice girls get pregnant. Nice girls fall for bad boys. Teaching your daughter to say no could save her life.Read more at location 3200
Parent connectedness: mothers and fathers staying together, and mothers and fathers spending time with their kids. And no one is more important to a daughter than her father. You don’t need to read all the studies and psychology books to know what to do. Our cold little girls connected with their dad on that chilly June night. All your daughter needs is for you to spend time with her. Think of yourself as your daughter’s base camp. She needs a place to stop and settle, to reorient and remember who she is, where she started, and where she’s going. She needs a place to rest and get reenergized. You are that place.Read more at location 3218
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