My Hero: Healing From Wounds of a FatherNäide

Day 12 - Demanding

Another way fathers can be wounding to their children is by having unrealistic expectations and being demanding.

We often see this in the area of sports, but it applies to other areas as well. Maybe the dad had aspirations to be a professional athlete but was not successful in it, so they pressure their kids into doing it to achieve success through them. Maybe the father wants the kids to take over the family business so he spends a lot of time trying to prepare them and not enough time on just loving them.

When we suffer from trying to meet high demands we can experience a lot of stress, frustration, anger, becoming despondent, and risk burnout. Some people perform really well in a demanding environment, but those folks are the exception and not the rule.

It can also cause us to associate our worth with how we perform. This opens us up to a whole new set of problems.

Remember that we only need to live up to God’s expectations of us.