Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and don’t reject your mother’s teaching. ~Proverbs 1:8
For more than ten years I worked with teenagers—first as a full-time youth minister, then as a volunteer when I went into the business world. While doing this, I often found myself in the role of sounding board; kids would tell me about their lives. As these kids talked, I found out that the number one thing most of these adolescents faced was parent problems.
As a man in his twenties, I figured that I had heard it all: “My dad is too busy for me.” “My mother doesn’t have a clue what’s going on in the world.” “My parents hate my friends.” On and on they would go.
But then there was Rick. Although he was only sixteen when I met him, I knew he was a little brighter than his peers. It was not that Rick got better grades than his buddies; it was just that he seemed to have more sense about him. Talking to Rick was more like talking to a friend. One afternoon we were sitting in a restaurant on Sheridan Road, sipping Cokes.
“I don’t ever want you to tell my parents I told you this,” Rick said with a wry smile. “But most of the time, they’re right.” I didn’t need to say anything.
“In fact,” Rick continued, “the older I get, the smarter my dad gets!”
Here’s the bottom line: if you’re a dad, you are smarter and wiser than your children. You have experienced more of life, and you can see things they cannot. So, how can you transfer your wisdom to the next generation? The first word of today’s text says it all: your children must learn how to “listen” to you.
Watching people who are hearing impaired has shown me how to listen. These folks have learned that they must compensate for not being able to hear in a similar way to how our children must compensate for their own “hearing impairment” with us. They must listen with their eyes. If your children are not watching you, they’re not listening. And if your children are not listening, how will your experience and wisdom ever do any good in their lives?
You have heard this so many times, but perhaps this time it will make more sense than ever. If you don’t spend one-on-one, face-to-face, intentional time with your children, they may never listen to you. If your conversation with them is always on the run or in a crowded room, they will never pick it up. And if you’re relying on them to listen to you while they’re staring at a screen—big or small—then you’ve lost them.
“Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction, and don’t reject your mother’s teaching” (v. 8) is deeply weakened when it’s not said by a father who dares to take the time from his busy work schedule—or from his TV or internet schedule—to say these words straight into his child’s eyes.
You are smarter than your kids. You do have much wisdom to share. Take confidence in this truth and then find ways to communicate it, intentionally, lovingly, in a normal tone of voice and without distractions.
Yours is one lucky kid to have a dad like you. Don’t tell him; he already knows it.