Step Up, Dad!: Your Kids Need You

By Mark Berchem

Dads have incredible power to affect their children's lives. Dads leave a lasting impact on their children whether they intend to or not. Will your impact be positive or negative? The choice is up to you!

This book will inspire fathers to reflect, resolve, and take practical steps to become a great dad. Learn how to:

• Recognize your power
• Affirm your children
• Spend quality time
• Have meaningful conversations
• Set a good example
• Strive for greatness

Dads play an indispensable role in raising their children to become mature and secure adults. Any man can become a great dad—if he desires to be and is willing to work at it. You can become your children's hero. Each man who reads this book will be inspired to take a step forward and become a great dad.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9781635822816

Book preview

1

RECOGNIZE YOUR POWER

Dads have incredible power. We will impact the lives of our children whether we intend to or not. We can’t help it. We are their dads. Our children will become like us regardless of our intentions. This important truth is illustrated in a photograph that my wife took of me with our youngest son, Joe. When our boys were little, one of the pastimes we enjoyed on our camping trips in northern Minnesota was throwing rocks into Lake Superior. We had a variety of contests: Who could throw a rock the farthest? Who could skip it the most times? Who could hit the piece of driftwood floating twenty feet off shore? I am sure I have thrown hundreds of rocks with my boys!

On one particular occasion when Joe and I were throwing rocks into the lake, Mary snapped a photo of us. Later in the day as she was looking through her photos, she showed me that picture. Look at that! she exclaimed. The photo looked pretty ordinary to me. I peered at it, trying to discover some unique thing she had captured with her lens. Look at how you both are standing! It was incredible—in that moment she had captured, Joe and I were standing with identical postures, throwing our rocks with our feet in the exact same stance and our throwing arms in the exact same position! Our left feet were slightly in front of the right feet, our knees slightly bent, our right arms extended and bent at the exact same angle. Who had taught my son how to stand? Who had taught him how to throw a rock? He just did it. He learned it by being around me. He watched me throw rocks and wanted to do the same. I didn’t do a darn thing to teach him that; it just happened. Dads have power. The question is, do we recognize the power of our example and use it to positively impact our children?

A person learns who they are in large part through their relationships. Whom they spend time with greatly shapes the identity of an individual. You will shape the identity of your children; the question is how. As your children’s father, your irreplaceable role in their lives will help them understand who they are, why they are here, and what life is all about. Your sons will look to you to help them figure out what it means to be a man—how a man lives, acts, and treats other people. Your daughters will look to you to help them figure out how they should relate to the opposite sex and how they should expect to be treated.

Think back to your own father. He exerted power in your life. He taught you all sorts of things without ever giving you a formal lesson. You watched him. You listened to him. You saw him interact with your mother. You watched him when he was alone and when he was with others. You saw him at his best and you may have seen him at his worst. You didn’t wake up in the morning and decide, Today I’m going to watch my dad. You just did it. That’s what children do—they listen not just with their ears but also with their eyes.

My dad loved a party. He loved gathering people together just for the sake of being together. My dad was renowned in our neighborhood for his fish fries. Once a year, he would fry up some of the fish he’d caught during the summer and make a big pot of homemade baked beans, and my mom would make her coleslaw. A cooler full of Hamm’s beer and a bunch of lawn chairs and he was ready. He would invite neighbors, extended family, coworkers, and an occasional person who rode the city bus with him. The food wasn’t fancy, but it was plentiful and the mood was light. And even though it was a bit of work for him, he so enjoyed gathering people together.

And guess what, so do I! Mary and I put a premium on family dinners when the kids were young. Now that our kids have all moved out of the house, we try to gather often for a meal and some family time with everyone together. I enjoy having people over. I love seeing them enjoying one another’s company. I like bringing people together. Where did I learn that? My dad never sat me down and told me about the value of getting people together and the protocols for having a party. I learned by being around him. The power of my dad’s example was my teacher. I don’t think he thought about his fish fries as a teaching moment, but they were.

My dad also taught me some negative traits and attitudes. We all have to wrestle with those less desirable behaviors that our dads unintentionally modeled for us. On more than one occasion I have found myself falling into a pattern of negative behavior that reminds me of my dad. Have you found yourself acting or speaking like your dad? Even though we may know the behavior or manner of speaking is not right, we still find ourselves doing it. And where did we learn that? Dads have power. Our kids are watching, and we will teach them many different things, whether we realize it or not. Think about the power you have to shape your kids for both good and not so good. How can you be more intentional about using your dad power to help your kids become the kind of people you want them to be? This book will give you some practical ways to use your dad power