Have you ever done something you truly regret? Is there something you’ve said that has haunted you years afterward? I know I have. Just this morning, I recalled a time when I was in middle school and I got caught copying answers off another student’s homework.
As I remember it, I had walked into class and pulled out my homework to turn in. I was surprised to see that I had not finished the homework as I originally thought. With little time before the start of class, I went into panic mode. I noticed that one of the other students had left her homework out where I could plainly see it. I immediately began copying the answers that she had written down. It wasn’t long before the teacher came in and zeroed in on me. I’m not sure how he knew that I was cheating, but he was aware from the very moment that he stepped inside the room. He told me, and the girl that I had copied the answers from, to bring up our organizers. Our school had special organizers made for each student with a section to keep track of disciplinary marks. The girl became frustrated, as she had every right to be. She turned to me and told me that I needed to stick up for her. When we got up to the teacher’s desk, I said, “Sir, I am responsible for my own actions. She had nothing to do with it.” He replied, “I don’t care. You cheated and she allowed you to. You are both at fault.” Looking back, I wish that I had stuck up for her more. Really, I wish I hadn’t let go of my integrity to begin with. I have a lot of regrets from my years growing up. I have a few from yesterday and today as well. Life is full of them. You and I are not infallible people. We are not going to do the right thing every time. That’s why for this post, I want to talk with you about how we can be strong dads who respond to our failings appropriately.
The greatest threat to our integrity, once we have made a mistake, is pride. Pride is what keeps us from taking responsibility for what we have done or said. Pride can be a positive attribute when it spurs us toward doing what we know is right. I can have pride in my work, which will keep me from slacking off on the job. But, there is another side to pride that can be like shackles around our feet, immobilizing us from doing what we need to. Combating our own pride takes insight. If we are going to address the pride that we experience when we make a mistake, we must learn to recognize it when it appears. Just as identifying our other emotions takes practice (as discussed in the previous post), so it does with pride. Sigmund Freud, one of the most widely respected fathers of modern psychology, proposed a list of some ways that we protect ourselves mentally/emotionally when we experience opposition. These responses are called, “defense mechanisms.” We all use them, and we use them daily. I am going to give a brief explanation of each so that we can determine which traps we most often fall into when we face confrontation.
Repression: pushing unwanted thoughts into our subconscious, as if something never took place. It’s about choosing to deny what has occurred until we no longer believe it actually happened. An example would be someone that has become such a consistent liar that he has lost touch with reality.
Denial: refusing to admit that something has happened, with the awareness that it truly has. This is, from my experience, one of the most used defense mechanisms. An example would be when our boss calls us out on being late to a meeting and we reply, “No, I was on time.”
Projection: placing the guilt of your own actions or words onto another. An example of this would be to put focus on someone else’s short comings in order to take attention away from our own. I would be projecting my guilt if I said, “Yeah, I may have a little bit of a drinking problem. But, my wife is even worse than I am. If anyone needs help, it’s her.”
Displacement: taking our emotions out on something or someone that doesn’t deserve it. When we are upset about something that happened earlier in the day and we go home and take it out on our family, we are using the displacement mechanism.
Regression: falling back to earlier behaviors when faced with stress or confrontation. Think “grown man acting like a child.” When we name call, point fingers, throw a tantrum, or storm out of the room, we are turning toward behaviors that we know are no longer socially appropriate.
Sublimation: substituting an unacceptable action for something more socially acceptable. One example would be “doing research” or “checking it out” when we know that we have no business being somewhere or engaging in something. Another example would be when we tell someone that we are “concerned” for someone else, so that we can feed off some juicy gossip.
If we catch ourselves using these mechanisms, we have to ask ourselves what they are doing for us. Are they taking us places we want to go? Are they keeping us from taking responsibility when we have messed up? If so, we have to grab the reigns and pull this steed to a halt before it tramples over everything that we care about. That’s what pride will do if we don’t take hold of it. We don’t respect people when they refuse to take responsibility for themselves. We become frustrated when we catch someone using an obvious defense mechanism to keep from owning up to what they have done. That’s why we can’t be engaging in these same behaviors with our family and friends. Instead, we have to stop ourselves when we notice that we are starting to put up our defenses. Then we need to take ownership. It’s hard, and sometimes we have to backtrack a few steps when pride has already led us down the rabbit hole. However, if we want to continue to have the trust and respect of those we care about, then learning to fess up is an absolute must. We can be strong for our family when we say “no” to our pride.
Brian Faust is the Fatherhood Program Coordinator of Rock Solid Fatherhood in Warsaw, IN. He is the husband of the world’s best wife and father of three beautiful girls. He has nearly a decade of mentorship and mental health experience. Brian has a Bachelor’s in Psychology and a Masters in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from Grace College. It is his desire to come alongside men of all walks of life as they embrace their role as partner and father with rock solid strength.
It’s often been said that men have two basic feelings: “Okay” and “MAD!!!” Though this may be the only “feelings” that some men know, in reality, men have access to a wider spectrum than we might give ourselves credit for. Though we often call men “beasts” or “machines” when they accomplish something amazing, neither one of these terms is actually true. Men are capable of understanding and benefiting from our emotions. For some of us, expressing how we are feeling does not come easy. I know that I often find myself saying, “Wow, I didn’t know how much this was affecting me until just now.” If you can relate, this may be a helpful topic to explore. For this post, I will discuss how we can get the most out of our emotions without allowing them to rule over us. By doing so, we provide a healthy emotional well-being for our spouse, children, and self.
Emotions are only as useful as the amount of control we have over them. If they are running the show, they can be destructive. When we are running the show, they can be a useful tool. Think of emotion as the acceleration and logic as the brakes on a car. Both are needed to get to your destination. If your brakes go out, you are likely to fly out of control. If your acceleration isn’t working, you aren’t going anywhere any time soon. Emotions give us that “oomph” that we need to get the wheels spinning. Emotions propel us forward by providing motivation and resolve. We need our emotions, but we also need to have control over them. When we act with logic, allowing emotions to be our drive, we have the stop and go power we need to get to our desired destination.
Fall and winter are approaching. Over the next few months, it is going to start getting increasingly colder outside. Many of our favorite activities to do during the warmer months will no longer be enjoyable (unless you still enjoy a cold dip in the pool). Often times, it is hard to think of some activities that the family can do together that doesn’t involve going to the park or playing ball in the backyard. That is why this week’s post will be another tool for the box: activities to do with the family inside. Here is our list for the week:
I didn’t see much of my father until I was in late middle school. It was around this time when I decided to start wrestling as a sport. I wasn’t half bad. Growing up, I was a short and lean, but I was also surprisingly strong. This, coupled with the fact that I am double-jointed and practically impossible to pin, gave me an edge as I wrestled in the lowest weight class. I had won many of my first matches, which felt good given I wasn’t the most athletic. My dad would pick me up after each match to take me home. On the ride home, we would stop by the gas station and grab a Milky Way candy bar. This tradition made the victory feel all that much more significant. Getting that candy bar was my dad’s way of telling me that he was proud of me.
I will be honest, I don’t have an endless supply of insight to give you fathers out there who have a older boy. My oldest is 6, and I have all girls. I haven’t read to0 many books on raising boys (though realizing my deficit, I will soon). What I do have, however, is some first hand experience delving into the lives of some young men (ages 11-18) with what many would call “rough backgrounds” during my time counseling at a residential center. There were to programs for the residents, behavior modification and juvenile sexual offense. Both groups were a challenge to work with, but I can honestly say that I got a good look at the heartbeat of many a young man. I hope to share some of this experience with you now, and possibly more in the future. I am not sure how relevant the information will be to each father, but I will do my best to reflect on my experiences, and hope that there may be some useful takeaway for yourself.
Together, we have covered some heavy, yet essential topics related to being a Rock Solid father. It is my desire to balance these topics with others that present the same practicality, but with a lighter tone. The Dad’s Toolbox series, as I am calling it, will consist of some tips, tricks, and resources “of the trade” that I have gathered over the years. These tools come from my readings, research, and from brushing shoulders with other fathers like yourself. To give a feel of how the toolbox series might look, I introduce you to our first tool: bedtime stories.
Have you ever been caught in the act of a really poor decision? If you have not, congratulations! You truly are a rare breed of human being. For the rest of us (I’m guessing all of us) there are multiple times in life that we look back on and shudder as we think of that awkward moment when we were first discovered. When I think about this topic, I go immediately back to the time my mother found a swimsuit magazine underneath my bed. Note that I grew up in a conservative Christian home, so this was a huge “oh-no” moment for me. We were looking for something together in my room, but for the life of me I can’t remember what it was. It was only a few minutes before my mom had pulled the magazine from under my bed. I immediately went into creative mode. I was trying desperately to think of a logical scenario for why I, the boy who rarely stepped out of line, would have this blatant contraband hanging out in my personal living quarters. That’s when my mother said, “Which one?” I was confused. She said it again, slightly different, “which one do you like?” I pointed to one of the women that I found the most appealing, still shocked by the turn of events. She gave a little, “huh,” and then said “she’s pretty.” For whatever reason, this is where my memory cuts off. Though the incident took place many years ago, I can still feel the same dread I felt then whenever I think back to that moment. This was one of those times when I was reminded of the virtue I had lacked, 
When I first ask fathers what three topics that they would most like to discuss when we start our mentorship experience, 