How do I show my kids my strict standards come from love? Dr. Ray tells dads that regular physical affection, even when teens resist it, softens the standards they enforce, and he shares what he did with his own son.
“Loads of love”
It’s not unusual to have your kids look around and see that the culture’s standards are lower than yours. Your goals as a parent, the things you want to teach, the way you approach raising kids is different from the bulk of people out there. If you’re raising, you hope, citizens for God’s kingdom, then your approach is going to be sometimes rapidly out of sync with the rest of the culture. Your kids know this, and some of them don’t like it, some of them don’t like it a lot.
So what do you do? How do you convince them that what you’re doing is not because you’re bucking for the Tyrant Parent of the Decade Award, but because you love them desperately? I want to speak a little to the dads about this. It comes more easily to moms, I believe, but it’s very important, and more so when it comes from dads. How do you express to those kids on a regular basis that you are motivated by loads of love, and not by “I’m the boss, kid, my way or the highway, punk”?
Affection sends a powerful message
There are many ways, but I look back on my own fatherhood and I realize how very important this is: affection. Physical touch, hugs, kisses, “love you.” Moms do it a lot, and maybe as a group they do it more than dads. I am so convinced of the power of that to get across the message that my standards are different from the culture’s, but it’s because I love you so very much.
It gets harder when they move into their teens, because the teen rules are: don’t embarrass me out in public, don’t touch me, don’t look at me, don’t say anything. I’ll just walk behind you by about 50 yards, and don’t turn around and look like you know me. We have allowed the kids to dictate how much affection we’re allowed to show them, especially out in public. One of the things that was critical for me as a dad was that I did not allow my children to decide when, where and how much I would show them affection. Not going to happen.
“Try not to stink the joint out”
My youngest son, Pete, went to St. Thomas Aquinas High School in Louisville, Ohio. His sophomore year he played basketball. He was 16. Before the home games I’d perch myself up in the fourth or fifth row of the bleachers and watch the kids horse around down there on the gym floor, guys doing what guys do, snapping each other with towels. I’d wait for an appropriate moment, and then I’d go down to Petey, grab him, hug him, and kiss him on the neck, on the cheek. And as a psychologist, I’ve realized it’s very important to be affirming and positive before a game like that. So I would always say, “Pete, try not to stink the joint out.” He would laugh.
Afterwards I said, “Pete, I’ll bother you when I do that.” He said, “Would it make any difference, Dad?” I said, “No, it wouldn’t.” And then he told me later that a couple of his teammates came up to him and said, “I wish my dad would do that.”
If you’re not an affectionate guy, nobody’s forcing you to not be affectionate. Maybe it doesn’t feel at ease, but it will feel at ease the more you do it. It sends such a powerful message to the kids: you’ve got to understand, son or daughter, how very much I love you and what you mean to me in my life. And that softens the standards you’re trying to get across and the way you’re enforcing things. They’ve got a smartphone and they’re 15 and they’re thinking, “How did I get stuck with this Neanderthal?” But it’s hard for them to deny all the affection coming their way. That’s hard to ignore.
To this day, my son, he’s in his 20s, I hug him and kiss him almost every time I see him. And I’m Italian, so we hug and kiss. Message to the dads: it’s wonderful to have high standards. It’s wonderful to walk counter-culturally. It is. You should have an easier time of it if they know how much you love them, and they’ll know how much you love them by how much you show it.
Dr. Ray offers more on parenting against the grain in Raising Upright Kids in an Upside-Down World.
Transcript of Dr. Ray’s audio blog, lightly edited for reading.