311 | Managing Triggers, Providing a Secure Beginning, and The North Stars of Parenting (Dr. Dan Allender)
Episode Description
The way you parent stems from how you were parented. That’s why understanding the stories and trauma of your past is essential if you want to provide a secure beginning for your children. In this episode, Dr. Dan Allender offers expert advice to help you own the past, share your stories with others, and find beauty along the parenting journey.
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Dr. Dan Allender is an author, professor, and co-founder of The Allender Center and The Seattle School of Theology & Psychology. With a unique approach to trauma and abuse therapy, he presents on topics such as sexual abuse recovery, intimacy, marriage, and more. Dan and his wife, Becky, enjoy spending time with their three adult children and their grandchildren.
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· A child has a secure beginning if they have attunement, containment, and a parent who can repair ruptures.
· The level of failure in parenting is higher than in marriage, friendships, or work.
· When you’re triggered, take a 90-second pause to decrease emotional flooding.
· There are two great callings in life that you must hold together at the same time: to grow in intimacy and to grow in independence.
· Write down your thoughts and then share them with your wife, a group of men, and a story guide, such as a therapist or pastor.
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Podcast Intro: [00:00:01] Being a great father takes a massive amount of courage. Instead of being an amazing leader and a decent dad, I want to be an amazing dad and a decent leader. The oldest dad in the world gave you this assignment, which means you must be ready for it. As a dad, I get on my knees and I fight for my kids. Let us be those dads who stop the generational pass down of trauma. I want encounters with God where He teaches me what to do with my kids. I know I'm going to be an awesome dad because I'm gonna give it my all.
Dr. Dan Allender: [00:00:39] There will be nothing in your life that will matter more than how you love your spouse and how that love translates into both of you, husband and wif, engaging your children in ways that are rich and deep and long lasting.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:00:59] Welcome back to DadAwesome. Guys, my name is Jeff Zaugg and Happy 2024. This is the first podcast drop of the New Year and, man, I have a treat for you guys. Dr. Dan Allender, I've been hoping to have Dan join DadAwesome for it's been a couple of years. I've been hearing through John Eldridge, through Chris Bruno, Restoration Project, through a few other very trusted and guys I look to for wisdom, they look to Dr. Dan Allender for wisdom. So I knew this is going to be so helpful. Before I introduce Dr. Dan Allender, let me just quick celebrate, we're so grateful, you guys, the generosity of our community to end the calendar year. As we kind of finished up 2023, we saw an outpouring of generosity. I just want to celebrate, like if I could throw confetti into the space that you're listening to right now, I would do it because just truly grateful for the generosity of our community. Some of you guys were like, Oh, I wasn't a part of that, but I'm interested in helping financially support DadAwesome. Well, this is a great time. We're actually moving into praying for people that would contribute every month, like an ongoing contribution of generosity to fuel this mission. I'm referring to them as our anchor partners. We're entering the anchor season of DadAwesome, building a foundation and anchoring season to build resources for the local church, for dads and men. Just as we pursue this vision of seeing dads and bring their full hearts to fatherhood and activating dads to lead with wonder. We're praying for a team of people to give each month. So, dadawesome.org/give for that. Okay, so here we go. I actually had a three day drive from Minnesota to Florida, and I listened to so much content from Dr. Dan Allender. His podcast has over 500 episodes. He has so many books and you can listen to those, the audible version, or you can buy the the print version of those books. There's so much content I just listened and learned. And this is like, for me, at DadAwesome, when I find a treasure, I want to bring that treasure to you guys. But I could seriously imagine I'm wandering in a jungle, I find a hidden treasure. This podcast is only a small slice of the treasure of wisdom from Dr. Dan Allender. So, I want you to know, listen today, be encouraged, be inspired, but then go into the show notes, dadawesome.org/podcast and go to the links to his podcast, to his books, to the upcoming story workshop that he's doing. I just want to encourage you guys, don't stop with this 32 minute podcast, go deeper, go deeper is my prayer for you. So let's jump right in though, this is my conversation, episode 311 with Dr. Dan Allender. Paint us a picture of your current dad life, the grandpa life, the dad life kind of season.
Dr. Dan Allender: [00:03:55] As we began, I mentioned that I needed to end a tad earlier than what we had given a possibility because I get to take my daughter, son in law and two granddaughters to the airport. You know, we've had probably 13, 14 days with them. And it's some of the, and let me put it on two sides, some of the best days and some of the most exhausting days. You know, as 71 year old man, I don't have the energy that I once had to be able to get on the floor, jump up, run, keep up at least with two little girls, seven and four. But the reality is, you know, grandparenting is one of those gifts where you get to, first of all, watch your children parent. Nobody would have, no one I know told me about how sweet that was going to be. And all my children, I think, are better parents than Becky and I. And it's really a sweet gift to be able to see our children parent in a way in which they have truly learned from some of our mistakes, and that yet they've also developed their own way of being in the world. But, you know, having adult children, one of the realities that dawns on me virtually every year and that is you're never done. You are never done. And some of the most complicated days are with adult children. And yet our children love us, and yet they are pretty clear and vocal about where they have felt like we have not done well, past and present, and with a deep invitation, with honor and forgiveness, but to grow. So I think that's one of the things I would say it's just such a life giving presence when your children are taking in your life and growing, but when they have the ability to return that, to invite you to grow, that even with younger children has a level of mutuality that often I don't think gets talked about in the parenting process.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:06:18] Well, speaking of talking about that, that step, you had the courage and vulnerability to have your daughters on your podcast, which I'm going to link that to our audience, because what a gift to kind of reflected. And I believe your oldest is about, as I turned 42 next month, so I'm kind of in that early forties kind of that window, I think similar to your your children. What do you observe in to a few specifics around man my kids are getting this right that I celebrate them? What are what are some things you would just even affirm but also share is transferable wisdom to us dads?
Dr. Dan Allender: [00:06:53] Well, I think one of the things that's so important to begin with, and that is we parent from our parenting. We parent from having been parented. And so many of us know that there were some broken, broken parts of our parents that we inhabited and dwelled in and had no choice about. And that brokenness shapes how you parent. But there's also immense beauty, often with regard to what our parents offered us. And so we have to engage both words broken and beautiful. And for some, it is really heartbreaking to say there was very little beauty and just massive brokenness. Then you've got a whole group of people who would honor and say, Oh, I had a great childhood. And those people oftentimes are unwilling to actually name some of the heartache, some of the wounds that occurred even through the process of their parenting. And this takes us back to a category of attachment. What's love? And, you know, attachment theory is it may seem to some people like arcane and scientific, but it boils down to what research has indicated is a child has a secure beginning, if they have attunement. If they have what's called containment, and if they have the ability to have a parent who can repair of rupture. And that first category of attunement boils down to, I see you. I hear you. I feel your life, both the good, the ill and the moments that are unpleasant. I, I will let you shape my inner world, not control me, but shape something important that tI'm experiencing. And I think there are a lot of parents that we would have had, who especially I grew up with, parents who went through the Great Depression, went through World War II, and to bottom line it, they were highly traumatized people. And they didn't have a whole lot of attunement. They didn't have a lot of attunement for themselves, and they didn't offer a lot of attunement to us. So we sort of didn't really get the experience of somebody feeling sad when we're sad or feeling joy when we feel joy. And I think that's one of the key components of what you offer your children, participation in their inner life. Not control, not trying to manage and shape it, but to experience with them. That matters perhaps more than any one thing. But then the word containment. If we think about it, not as control, but as creating a big field, but it's got some fencing. So you are free, free, free, free to play, to fail, to struggle. But know that when you're on that jungle gym and you're way higher, then you really have the ability to manage. I'm creating containment, in this case, that means I'm going to captch ya or at least I'm going to do my best to do so. So, containment is I'm there to make sure that your choices bear a progressive movement toward goodness, which isn't the word discipline, it's that notion of I will hold you accountable. I will invite you into the process of where you don't know you can do X, Y, or Z. So there's a little bit of carrot, a little bit of stick, a little bit of again, the movement of I'm going to invite you to become more and more independent. And that's what containment offers. But again, back to this bottom line, we all fail. I mean, the level of failure in parenting, I think, is much higher than what's true in marriages and certainly what's true with regard to our friendships, our church, our work. So where you feel the effect of your own failure, I think is in the context of parenting more than any. So the ability to handle what will I do when I have failed, my child knows I've failed. We know I have unburdened myself, I've been angry, I've been quick, I've been impatient, etc.. And so the ability to name not just say I'm sorry, but to be able to name and Dad just blew up. Well, even that phrase Dad just blew up is a third person.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:12:05] Which is owning, personally. Right.
Dr. Dan Allender: [00:12:07] I just screamed at you. I am wrong. And I wonder what it made you feel. Do you see how repair of rupture almost always returns to attunement? And if we can, in one sense, hold those three realities as the nature of what is love. So when you say, Oh, my dad loved me. All right, great. That's wonderful. How attuned was he? Not much. Okay. How about containment? Oh, yeah, you know, I met the switch a lot. Oh, baby, that's not containment. That's not the invitation to explore and fail and yet have strong arms underneath you. How about an ability to apologize, to name? So I've worked with people many times where I'll hear a phrase like, Oh, my dad loved me, my mom loved me. Let's go back through these categories. Attunement, containment, repair of rupture. And when you sort of fall flat on your face when you begin to name, no, not much of that. Not much of that. And really none of that. Then what do you mean by love? Well, they did their best. Yeah, that will work well, when you stand before the face of God. And so when you begin to say you need to hold your own past struggles as inevitably playing out to some degree with regard to your children. And we tend to be extremists on one side or the other, and that is we overcompensate for attunement when we've had very little. We provide too much control when we've had too much free parenting. So, you know, one of the, I think, hard but important gifts is to do that kind of who am I as a parent as a result of reacting to both the brokenness and the beauty of my parents.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:14:20] Dan, this is so helpful. I think sometimes of the visual of upstream, downstream. Upstream, looking back at my story, my interaction with my mom, my dad, and then downstream, how am I being that's affecting directly my four little girls? Would you take us deeper into and I know it's so there's so many layers of complexity you do whole workshops around story of looking upstream, downstream. I don't know if you use that language, but...
Dr. Dan Allender: [00:14:47] Realy I don't use it, but it sounds very, very, very apt. So I was a fly fisherman. I don't know why haven't use that language. Really brilliant. Thank you.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:14:59] Yeah, just take us into a little deeper, Dan, but the having the courage to go into my own story and look upstream and and really, my dad passed away four years ago. So some of that is going to be reflective myself, prayerful journals, not with him in conversation, but there's still work to be done. That is, it's a gift. All the time I spend upstream is a gift downstream to my little girls. Would you explain that a little deeper, how that parlays?
Dr. Dan Allender: [00:15:27] Well, and again, once I get too far into the weeds, you can redirect. But our brains are literally built to hold reality through story. So when you see a fact, you don't see the fact as nothing other than the brute reality. You weave into something of meaningfulness in order to keep it as impactful. So in one sense we are story making beings. So we're constantly assessing our world in accord with paradigms. But the moment you use the word paradigm, you're actually talking about the nature of a story. So the Bible, 70% story, seems rather important to God and certainly the way that we are neurologically built, we interpret the world through the range of our own explicit and implicit memories. And every memory is a form of a story. So when we ask you to go upstream, as you put it so well, what we're basically saying is what shaped you to be who you are? You didn't come out of the womb fully formed. You came out with proclivities, capacities, but your environment, your earliest learning environment shaped how you perceive suffering, how you perceive joy, how you perceive risk. And so can we begin to build at least an overarching notion of how you approach life? So that comes out of story. So a person who's a risk taker, for example, is a very different story than the person who's very conservative and security minded. Neither is better, neither is worse. But to know what is the proclivity built into your way of being in the world isn't just a language like, Well, I'm a risk taker. It's like, what are the stories that actually shaped you to take certain risks when your brother, your sister is so very different? So once you begin to get a feel for and it's really a good word, feel, like, put your hands on the wood, feel the grain, have a sense of how the contours actually are shaped. You can now, down the river, begin to see some of the predictive elements of, you know, if if I'm demanding that my son or daughter take risks that I was not allowed to take. Oh, you're not really paying attention to your child. You're living out the effects of a parenting strategy on your father's part that you didn't like, and you're going to make sure your children don't suffer. So oftentimes we're trying to correct, which is a beautiful thing, but we often overcorrect because we've not actually faced something of the trauma that we're working out in our current life. So, you know, you've got Faulkner and others who have put it brilliantly. The past isn't the past, it's still being played out in the present. And so until we begin to own the past, we don't really have the ability to fully shape the future as we most desire.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:19:14] So the shaping and the, or the owning and then shaping, I know that the painful parts of my story, though, I know are it's worth it to go in with the counselor or go in with my friends and, like, explore like this is how I'm feeling today because of what happened there. It's still with me. I still it's easier to to numb or to push it aside or avoidance it like the the easier is to say, no, it doesn't impact my decisions today so I can leave that the past. How would you encourage me to, no, be courageous, schedule the appointment with the counselor? How would you encourage me to, don't leave it alone, it's coming forward?
Dr. Dan Allender: [00:19:53] Well, maybe the hardest sentence to say is it's so obvious, even as you talk about your four girls, like you would die for them. I mean, you are a faithful, I'm sure, because you're a sinner, you fail. But you're a faithful father who really wants goodness for your children. And it's a little bit like that, let me change a very different image to this. So you play pickleball, you play tennis or whatever, and you simply know that you've got certain skills that are actually excellent. But if you're planning on a major hike, the idea of, you know, you're in your early forties, you're probably in great shape, but if you don't do a bit of work beforehand, you're going to be sucking air. So I think that's the image that I would offer and that is, do you think parenting comes naturally? Do you think it's just that, you know, you got you got the chops to do this? I mean, it's the hardest job in the universe. And so no preparation, no plan, no exercise beforehand. So I think that opening is to be able to say there will be nothing in your life that will matter more than how you love your spouse and how that love translates into both of you, husband or wife, engaging your children in ways that are rich and deep and long lasting. So, again, people have heard this a million times, But, you know, I've not met, I've had two dear friends die this last year. And neither of them at the ends of their life would have said, I wish I had worked more. I wish I had made more money. Again, their grief and they were both good men and both really good fathers, but their grief in the departure was I no longer get to be directly a father, a husband, as I have been. So that's just the existential and the mortality issue of being able to underscore like you need to be talking with other men. And that's why I love your podcast and the orientation of what you're doing. You're getting men to talk with other men about the nature of what's involved in being a good father. And so much of this is just hearing other men go, I don't know what I'm doing. And like, nobody gave me any kind of, shall we say, tutelage on what it meant to be a father. I learned so much about what it meant to be a father by watching my wife be a good mother. But in that sense, having a heart to say every day I'm a new learner, I'm a learner. And in that, I'm not going to deny I've got something to offer today, but I need so much more to be able to live out well. And it's not just for their sake. I think this is one of the strange parts. It's mutual. Like I was with my six year old grandson, he got a new spinning rod. And as a fly fisherman, I must admit, I, I don't have too much prejudice against that. But, and yes, I did buy him his first fly fishing rod. But we went out to a lake. No fish, Absolutely no fish. And we fished for probably 90 minutes. And after about 90 minutes, he looked at me, goes, Papa, I'm exhausted. And I'm like, Oh, Gus, you've done so well. Look how much further you're throwing at the end than you did at the beginning. And he just looked at me and he said, This is the best day of the year. And I'm like, okay, kid, you want college? You want your first Mustang? It's yours buddy. Of course, I can't afford it, but the bottom line becomes, Oh my gosh, I walked away and my wife looked at me when I got back and she said, Did you catch a lot of fish? I said, nothing. She goes, I was, Well, you look so happy. Oh, I got an honor That will not be equivalent to any honor other than what I have heard from my grandson. So that sweet gift of mutuality and it's pretty infrequent that you, as a parent get that kind of feedback from a child. But when you do, we're talking gold, utter gold. And yet it doesn't happen without planning, preparation, a sense of purpose. But also that gift of, I've got so much more to learn. And I feel that.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:25:12] Yeah, that, that reward that you're describing, to do hard things, to enter painful conversations, to explore memories of, man that was, I don't want to go back there. If we know that the gift is for our kids, the gift is for our grandkids, the gift is for ourselves, the gift is for our marriage. Because any of the healing we experience from our upstream story gets played out. I mean, it really, it truly has unlimited positive impact areas if we can experience some healing. So yeah, I love that. I know that my like signals of, oh, there's more to be explored here often are in moments of my emotions flare. I'm like, Where did that come from? Like where, I'm feeling something and I'm usually actually it's most of these moments are to my wife, Michelle. She sees like, what is like, what is up? There's clearly something up here. And I would love to just explore with you if you could explain a little more, those those moments where our feelings, our emotions are are, and something's triggered. How do we be kind to ourself in those moments? And how do we explore little further what's behind them?
Dr. Dan Allender: [00:26:22] Well, and you've already put it brilliantly, so I'll simply repeat what you just put words to. You know, the first thing that happens with the trigger, is that it's unexpected. We usually can't predictit. But when it happens, we're flooded. And even if we're not flooded to the point of a tsunami, we're still taken over to a degree. And it's important to know that there is an actual brain bio process happening. Your body is being flooded to some degree with stress by a chemical like cortisol and adrenaline and, or adrenaline and the catecholamines. And so this isn't something you just choose to not engage. You have to be able to name I'm being flooded. I'm being triggered. But even with the word triggered, that's why I prefer almost the word flooded. I'm being flooded right now. And if all I do is pretend I'm not, then the water's going to get higher, not lower. So I need to be moving to high ground in that moment where some degree of flooding occurs. And usually that means some degree of pause. Like tap out. You know, you're you find yourself on the border of yelling at one of your kids and you just know, you know, yeah, they may be irritating you, but your anger is not compared to the nature of the pushback or the lack of patience on the part of your child. What do you do? Well, take 90 seconds, and that's what research would indicate. 90 seconds will allow about 10% of that flooding to go down and to be able to just to go like walk to the garage. You know, if you're about to go somewhere, you know, there's nothing you need in the garage. Walk to the garage. Like if you don't want to take a walk, go to the bathroom. I don't have to go to the bathroom. Close the door. You don't have to take your pants down. Just sit on the toilet for 90 seconds. Might take you a little bit more, but literally what you're doing is you're lowering your stress by a chemical. And in that process of pausing, yeah, there's the step that you were putting words to, and that is what's going on? Now, how you say that phrase is going to be the issue of kindness. What's going on? What's wrong with you is not helpful. Or blaming the other. Like, what's wrong with you? So contempt towards yourself or toward others is how we often resolve our sense of feeling out of control. If we can blame ourselves or blame somebody else, we have a restoration of power. Bizarre that blaming myself gives me power when I feel some degree of helplessness. But it's true. So being able to go and this passage means the world to me, Romans, Chapter 2 verse 4 it is the kindness of God that leads to repentance. And then Paul asks such a poignant and hard question, Why do you treat the kindness of God with contempt? So we've got to wrestle with our own contempt for ourselves, for others, and to be able to go, no kindness, is not niceness, let's be very clear. This isn't just being pleasant, getting along. No, kindnesses is I want goodness for glory. And I want goodness from my glory. So to be able to be kind and again, not that it's an attractive image, but as I'm sitting on the toilet with my clothes on because I'm about to erupt at one of my children who's 44 and 40 and 36. And I'm like, you're triggered, take a pause, 90 seconds. Go sit down. And then to be able to say, Dan, what's, what is going on? And almost always it's a degree of hurt. Disappointment. Now, can we tend to that, but without indulging and in some sense making us the core issue? But can we begin to go, yeah, that comment by your 44 year old daughter hurt. And she's not meaning to slap you in the face, but you heard it. And maybe there's something eventually to come back to. But just, do you wish kindness toward her and toward your own heart? I think that would begin the settling process to then be asking the question, what else might be going on given one's own history and one's story?
Jeff Zaugg: [00:32:08] This is so helpful, Dan. Beyond attunement, containment, repair, that framework, which is so helpful. I want to move us a little bit to the stories of our kids, especially, you know, dads and maybe my season of younger kids, and we're looking I've heard it kind of joked about before, well, I'm saving money for their college and I'm saving money for their future counseling. So they're going to need it because of me. Like, I've heard that kind of joke and that like, I love that care of just an awareness of knowing, hey, I am going to cause some pain to my, my, my kids. But at the same time, I want to make decisions today that causes them to move with love and care and kindness to to not have those hurts in the future. So any any other just tips for us younger dads or this is, this will help them in that journey?
Dr. Dan Allender: [00:32:57] Well, think in terms of there are two great enterprises. And again, I don't want to get too far in the weeds, but what's called the cultural mandate. Genesis chapter 1, verse 26 through 28, in terms of male and female, He created them in the image of God. And then there's this build and multiply, subdue and rule. And those two elements, fulfill and multiply, I would say the very essence of that is it isn't just about having children, but it's the nature of intimacy where fruit is able to be grown. So your children need to grow in intimacy, in intimacy with you, intimacy with their siblings, with their grandparents, etc.. So that's one great, shall we say, it's it's it's way more important than learning to read. Way more important than learning multiplication tables for third grade, fourth grade, etc., etc., and all the tasks. But you keep your eye on the ball. And the ball, at least at the beginning of the cultural mandate, is fill and multiply. Be intimate. The second is subdue and rule. And that's the notion of having an impact in the world. In other words, not just having an impact but growing the beauty of the world to be even greater than it is. So that's the notion of honor or the idea that we are meant to be uniquely different, individuated, independent. So you've got two great callings in life. One is to grow in intimacy. One is to grow in a sense of impact and independence. So being in that position, to be able to say my my first child, Annie, was like her first day in preschool, we had moved and the teacher said to her, How are you feeling, Annie? And my daughter, age four, says, Well, I'm feeling somewhat ambivalent. And the teacher went, Well, Annie, what does it mean to feel ambivalent? And she looked at the teacher like, And the teacher is telling me this later, like, Are you an idiot? You don't know the word ambivalent. And she said, Well, I feel somewhat excited. This is very new and I'm unsure, so I'm a little scared. And so I feel both excited and sad at the same time. So if you mess with my daughter at age four or five, you are dealing with a highly articulate, independent, her world need to be managed the way she wanted to be. She didn't have a whole lot of trouble with independence, but she struggled even as a young child with intimacy. If I looked at my second daughter, she was a snuggler. She was so sensitive to the tensions in the room, her level of emotional intelligence was off the charts. And yet she had a very hard time making decisions. And so what I'm saying is, as long as you've got clarity about what the war really is, yeah, we want our children to have an education, to have a future, to be able to get better at sports. But there's only two things that matter, intimacy, independence. And holding them together, oh, my goodness. Because many who choose independence bear a certain risk, a lack of trust for intimacy. Some who have a much more intimate, connected sense have a hard time making decisions that upset others. So what I'm saying is, as an adult, how are you holding together both intimacy and individuation or independence? Because you're called to fill and multiply, subdue and rule. So if you're struggling with that, which I am, then why would you be surprised that your children are? This is the reality, we live in a sinful world, and a broken world as already with a proclivity to our own false independence. So our task is in some sense to parent in a way that accentuates the giftedness, while also helping a child name and engage the parts of their own world that don't come as quickly or naturally. So that's why I've been, I think those two, if you will, they're, they're north stars. But it's combined North Star that allows me clarity, even with my adult children, to be able to say, as a parent, I'm still engaging their invitation to intimacy and to independence.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:38:33] And we want to move beyond sparking the thoughtfulness or good thoughts or good intentions to being dads of action. And within this, I mean, I'm sure the dads listening have already been sparked with a, man, there is there's parts of my story that if healed, if I experienced wholeness, there would impact in such positive ways. My kids, my marriage, my circle of friends. I immediately think to like action steps, like seeing a counselor, reading potentially one of your books or a book on like, Let's go into this, friends, like bringing this to our friends or going into a conversation with a spouse. What would you guide to just say, Do something? What are some of the next steps you would encourage the dads who are wanting to explore?
Dr. Dan Allender: [00:39:21] Well, and again, I know they can't see us, but what I'd say is you should always have a pad of paper and a pen not far from you. And again, a lot of men will go I don't journal. It's like, well, can you write two sentences? Can you write five? A lot of this is literally finding a way to take what is inchoate and abstract and just sort of filtering through us and letting it become very black and white and clear. You know, to write down, you know, as you've interacted with one of your children, you know, I make too many demands of this child that I don't make of others in my family. Wow. Well, that's that's priceless awareness. And all it took was one sentence to name each child triggers something different in you, both beautiful and broken. Can you begin to say, as you begin to take notes on one child like I have, I mean my children, when I pass, will have massive amounts of information about my thoughts about them, each and every one of them. You know, I take notes, and again when I say take notes, sometimes it's literally no more than a clause. More than that was an incredibly difficult conversation with Andrew over X or Y. And in that what I want them, what I want for myself is clarity. And you just named a bunch of these fabulous things. But it begins with, I think like write it out. Write two sentences out. Three sentences out. Then, who does that get shared with? And I would say, here's my order of priority. First and foremost, with your wife. And in that sense, you're opening the door to levels of conflict, because a lot of times we know that one of the four major areas that's of concern and conflict in a marriage happens to be how you parent. So there are going to be tensions of difference of opinion, etc., etc.. Just stepping into that oftentimes, even without resolve, will create a level of intimacy between you and your spouse because at least you're talking. Then second, what I would say is a group of men, two or three other men that you're going, Hey, let me just tell you what happened. Let me, you know me well enough to know a lot about how I live. And you give me your reflections. So from your spouse to some of your compatriots and the third into what I would call story guides. And yeah, usually that's a therapist, but could be a coach, could be a really good pastor. It could be a really good plumber. I don't care who it is. But in our day, I would say in most occasions, that's usually a good therapist to begin that process, as you put it so well, going back stream, going downstream. If you go up, and then you begin to think about how the up is affecting the down, back and forth. All I can say is a good hearted man who's open to new data, to literally learning year by year what it means to parent well. Because parenting a two year old is a whole lot different than a five year old, etc., etc.. So what's required at every stage is so different that in some sense you need help as a parent, as your child makes transitions, those transitions are going to awaken within you, things you weren't aware of in those prior years, especially as you get into adolescence and sexuality and a kind of peer oriented life versus a parent oriented life. Oh my gosh. It's just this is all about you being transformed in a way in which the love you offer teaches and invites them to see the face of God.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:43:58] Dan, this has been it's so helpful. I'm so grateful for you. You guys just celebrated 500 episodes of your podcast. We we celebrated 300 episodes a few months ago so I can and just sending our DadAwesome community and I will too, your books, your podcast, there's a story workshop in Atlanta coming up that I know is going to livestream as well. So I'm going to link all that in the conversation notes. So grateful for you. Would you say just a short prayer over all of us?
Dr. Dan Allender: [00:44:23] Well and again, two things before I end. One, it's so apparent as we talk, but what wisdom you bring and yet your own awareness of the need to continue to grow. That's what I would hope that we can trust the wisdom we do have. And yet what what seems almost contradictory, but the ability to also say, I've got so much more to grow that should be there until you take your last breath. So, Father, thank you. Son, thank you. Spirit, thank you. Thank you for the life You have given each of us and what You wish for each of us to bring to one another is a taste of Your love, a taste of Your righteousness and a taste of Your kindness. So we ask in this day, no matter what the day holds, that there would be a sense of anticipation, not dread, sense of looking into the day as to what You're doing and what we can do to bring something of that taste to others. We ask that all in yYur name, Jesus. Amen.
Jeff Zaugg: [00:45:34] Thank you so much for joining us this week for episode 311 with Dr. Dan Allender. All the conversation notes, the quotes, the transcripts, all those links that I mentioned are going to be at dadawesome.org/podcast. As I mentioned in the intro, anyone interested in being a part of our, our anchor partner team, the team that supports monthly the mission of DadAwesome, go to dadawesome.org/give. You could set up a recurring monthly donation to support this ministry. Guys, I just want to celebrate for a moment, you have chosen to listen to this episode. You've chosen to listen to DadAwesome. You are moving towards being DadAwesome for your family. And it matters so much. Let's be dads of action. Let's not be dads that just listen and feel, Oh, that's a good feel. I'll just feel more intent or I'll have more intents. Let's be dads of action. We talked about that in this episode. Going to set up an appointment with a therapist, a counselor, could be your action step. Writing, beginning to journal and reflect on these are the areas of my story that I, man, I'm feeling triggered or I'm feeling flooded in this area. Man, meeting with a small group. Be the guy who says, Let's gather around a campfire, let's gather around a cup of coffee. Let's talk about the dad lie. Let's talk about our stories. I mean, just someone who says, I'll go first. I'm going to invite guys to go rent a cabin or spend time in the wilderness and we're going to all share our story. We're going to share our story. Take an hour each, each guy is going to share for an hour their story. I mean, these are these are things that are uncommon, but they're common for dads who are choosing, man, I want to bring my full heart to the fatherhood journey. I want to bring that full heart to my kids, I don't want to pass on pain to my kids. I want to pass on life and love. And I want them to know I was a dad with courage that was willing to go into my own story so that I could raise them with stories of flourishing, not stories scattered with hurt and pain. So, guys, well done, Well done. Have an amazing. Week praying for you guys and cheering for you guys as you step into being DadAwesome for your families.
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· 4:58 - "It's really a sweet gift to be able to see our children parent in a way in which they have truly learned from our mistakes, and yet they've also developed their own way of being in the world. Having adult children, one of the realities that dawns on me virtually every year and that is you're never done. Some of the most complicated days are with adult children. And yet our children love us, and yet they are pretty clear and vocal about where they have felt like we have not done well, past and present, and with a deep invitation, with honor and forgiveness, but to grow. That's one of the things I would say it's just such a life giving presence when your children are taking in your life and growing, but when they have the ability to return that, to invite you to grow, that even with younger children has a level of mutuality that often [doesn't] get talked about in the parenting process."
· 37:36 - "The reality is, we live in a sinful world and a broken world as already with a proclivity to our own false independence. So, our task, is in some sense, to parent in a way that accentuates the giftedness, while also helping a child name and engage the parts of their own world that don't come as quickly or naturally.
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