Raising Men Not Boysናሙና

MAKE HIM SWEAT EVERY DAY

Make him sweat every day. Literally. My wife and I made it our goal to try and see those little beads of sweat on the foreheads of our boys. If it was six o’clock and we hadn’t yet seen that familiar mix of dirt and sweat running down the temples of their little boy faces, we’d take them outside to run around, throw the football, climb a tree, or whatever it took for them to experience that tuckered-out feeling we discovered every boy needs. Everything went better in our home—at dinner, at homework time, at bedtime, at just about every other time— when our boys played outside long enough that day to work up a sweat.

When they were toddlers, it seemed my wife was making up games, tasks, and all kinds of creative challenges to get them to physically expend the pent-up energy that God had implanted in their little bodies. In our electronic age, when most parents are quick to turn on a movie to occupy their boys or hand them a screen to engage their minds, we must work all the harder to purpose each day to get our boys outside to a park, a playground, or a jungle gym. We have to plan to get their bodies moving more often and for longer periods of time.