Latest / The Family Teams Podcast / Ep. 100 | How to Win the Heart of Your Daughter

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Ep. 100 | How to Win the Heart of Your Daughter · The Family Teams Podcast

• 0:00
  Like I think one of the biggest things is sometimes dads, because they feel like they don't understand what it's like to be a female, they then thus kind of retreat or pull away.
• 0:13
  Hey guys, welcome to the 5-Minute Fatherhood Podcast. I'm your co-host, Jeff Bethke, along with my friend and mentor, Jeremy Pryor. Join us Monday through Friday as we chat about quick tips, skills, and ways to help equip you on your journey as a father to build your multi-generational family team on mission. Stay tuned.
• 0:35
  What's up guys? Welcome to the 5 Minute Fatherhood. Jeremy and Jeff here. We want to talk about daughters. So we'd love to take some time, look at sons and daughters. And I know that some of you guys may have a little bit less experience hanging out with girls. I know a lot of times I talk to friends of mine and they're like, I totally get having sons. I'm completely confused by the whole daughter thing. So each one is its own sort of different challenge and opportunity. So we want to talk about this.
• 1:03
  And I want to just ask the question, how do you win the heart of your daughter? And there is a basic key to this that I think is really important. You need to, number one, adore her.
• 1:18
  Number two, show her that you adore her in a way that she can understand. Those are the two, I think, most important things to understand about having a daughter. And this can be really challenging. And a lot of times it depends on which one of those you're struggling with. Are you struggling with the first one? Which is, you know, we got to be honest with it. Sometimes we get really annoyed with our daughters. We don't see them. They may see them as toys or play things or annoyances or whatever. However, you're experiencing her.
• 1:43
  And I remember this really hit me when I first saw one of my friends have a daughter. This was before I had one, and I watched him do this so well. He adored his little girl. And I just kind of, as I was a single guy, just sort of saw this happening and thought, oh my gosh, that was such a beautiful thing to watch. I saw the kind of relationship that they had.
• 2:05
  they shared. And from that moment on, I was like, I was so excited to have a daughter. I was actually more excited to have a daughter when I saw that than even having a son at the time when I was just in my early 20s. And God now has blessed me with four daughters. But there's all kinds of nuances and challenges about this. And so I was curious, Jeff, how you think about this idea of how do you really win the heart of your daughter?
• 2:28
  Yeah, I think, well, first, there's two steps there, I think. And I think the first one is getting rid of all your baggage about male and female difference in the sense of there is difference. But I'm saying, I think, how do I say this? Like, I think one of the biggest things is sometimes dads, because they feel like they don't understand what it's like to be a female, they then thus kind of retreat or pull away or...
• 2:51
  Kind of like, oh, I don't understand. So I'm just going to kind of remove myself from the situation. You know, connecting with my daughter can just be the wife's job or the mom's job. And that already is step one that's, I think, seriously, seriously bad. A lot of times I think I want to encourage fathers to go one step even deeper there because it's not always the case. But most of the time that's actually that disconnect is because of some type of level of brokenness in a father or a male's heart.
• 3:14
  And we don't want to push in there. We don't want to push into why am I uncomfortable with sensitivity or tenderness or connecting to my daughter. And there's a lot of really, really serious brokenness, I think, in there because of our culture, because of our views of women, because of just a myriad of other issues. So that's step one, in my opinion, that you've got to get over that hump. You've got to realize that that alone will just wreak havoc on your family.
• 3:37
  and in your relationships with your children, specifically with your daughters. So you got to push into the hard work there, or else you will have a serious disconnect that'll totally run rampant in all of your family relationships in regards to health, and it won't be healthy. So first step there, get healing, or at least kind of center in on the brokenness or understand why you're uncomfortable. Get there. Then to actually connect, I think exactly what you said, you step into your identity as a father and...
• 4:01
  And only then can your daughter step into her identity as a daughter, right? Like a daughter and a son by the nature of the word are not inherent. Like you can't be that without a father. Like you, the name and the identity is literally incumbent or contingent upon a parent, a father. So the more you step into your identity, the more they can step into their identity. Yeah.
• 4:21
  And as a daughter. And so I think that's how we see it as man. What does that mean then to be a father? Because if I step into that, then there'll be a natural kind of wooing or calling or orbiting around the father's identity of the daughter becoming a daughter and being adored and winning her heart. And I think that's just that one then becomes understanding the template of the father's heart, the capital F father, God in heaven.
• 4:43
  that we find in Jesus as tender, as meek, as righteous, as kind and gentle, protective, creator. You can just go on and on and on, but step into those kind of terms as what it means to be a father. And we see the father's dynamic with Jesus even more explicitly in the gospel. So study those, rest in those and say, am I being like that by the power of the Holy Spirit? Can I step into that? And I actually think when you do do that, that'll naturally then outflow
• 5:10
  of winning the heart of your daughter. It comes out when you are stepping into your fatherness in the righteous and right way. So that's what we would encourage you dads with today, is that is how you do it. Understand and look in your own heart first, because you have to understand what it means to be a true father and live in God's design for fatherhood. And with that and in that, then you will start to see this rippling effect towards it winning the heart of your daughter.
• 5:36
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