TIP 43. OFFLOADING CARES
For many fathers, the last thing they want to do when they get home from work, is to spend time with the children, playing with them or helping them with their homework. This is often because it is difficult for men to extract themselves mentally, from the stresses they face in their work environments, before they walk into their homes. One of the keys to raising children successfully is to ensure that you are at your best mentally and emotionally when you are with them.
The ability to offload the anxiety and problems of work, and be carefree, is a learned response that sadly, many men never achieve. It is however, an important ability to possess, as it enables us as men to think clearly and to be in the best position emotionally to assist our family, rather than hinder them.
An inability to offload the problems of work, all too often materialises itself in frustration and tiredness. This restricts many fathers from being able to give their best, in the home environment. Life is far too short, and our opportunities far too limited, to allow these precious times with our family to go to waste.
All too often when dads walk into the home, the family is waiting to see if they are in a good mood or not, before any 'family time' can begin. If we allow the anxiety and frustrations of work, or life in general to overcome us, we can begin to send the wrong messages to our family. They may think that 'they are the reason why daddy is sad', and a wedge begin to form in the relationship.
One of the best things we can do as a dad, if we 'lose it and blow our top', is to ask for the children's and their mother's forgiveness, and explain simply that it was not them you were frustrated with. If we can find a way in our heart to leave the cares of work at work, we will avoid many problems in our home, and home after all, is the place where we find our greatest fulfilment.
If we as fathers can show by our own example, by offloading 'the cares of the world', it will go a long way to helping our children to cope with the stresses that they also will face in their future.
Dads' Call To Action:
Offload the cares and worries of the day on the way home, because your family deserves your very best. Ask for God's help in being free from frustration and stress, and count the blessings you do have. It will cause your focus to be positive rather than negative.
(Matthew 13 v 22)
Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful.