Fatherhood as Your Children Age: From One to Twenty-One

Fatherhood always looks to the future. You have a goal in mind for your children, and as they grow and mature and differentiate themselves, your role changes with them. Once they leave the house, you can no longer ground them. You can’t control their movie choices.

You must train them to live on their own. But you still have an important role.

Scott Beyer has eight children, ranging in age from one to twenty-one. His oldest daughter is now married. He has children at almost every stage of life, and he has a lot of them. We focus a lot of time on the teenage years because that’s what people seem to have the most anxiety about.

We cover:

* The different stages of individuation. When they are born, they don’t think they are a different person from their mother. Of course, that changes.

* Cultivating gratitude.

* How a parent’s power shifts to influence, but only if you lay the proper foundation. Will they even want to listen to you when they are older?

* The most important attributes to instill in your children before they are teenagers.

* Being at peace when your children make different decisions than you would have. If you want them to be better people than you, you hope they make some better decisions anyway.

You can find Scott on his Love Better podcast, which releases once per week. He also runs the website BibleGrad, a free website to learn the basics about the Bible.

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