Raising a Boy to Be a ManSample

Raising a Boy Who Understands His Heart

The intensity of the show we were watching built as the male protagonist struggled to determine his next steps. And then, with a crescendo of musical accompaniment, he declared, “The answers are all inside of me!”Yeah, right, I thought.

“Believe in yourself and listen to your heart” is the feel-good moral of most children’s stories today. The problem is our hearts are inherently selfish. The man who tries to be the master of his own life is doing nothing more than making himself out to be a god.

One of the ways I’ve tried to help my son understand the wickedness in his heart is to admit the wickedness in mine. And that can be terrifying.

Will admitting my childhood mischief inspire my son toward mischief of his own? Will I inadvertently teach him it’s OK or give him ideas he might never have come up with?

After relaying a story of my childhood mischief one evening, my son looked at me in horror. “Dad, how could you? That was not good.”

“At the time, it seemed like a good idea. I thought it would be fun,” I said. “But God showed me I was wrong. Son, you’re going to want to do bad things, too, but if you listen for God’s voice, He’ll help you choose the right thing.”

Willingly being dependent on someone else goes against everything our society teaches. But when the One we’re dependent on really does have all the answers, how can we go wrong?

Are you open to talking about your failures with your son in an age-appropriate way?

Why do you think admitting our faults is so difficult?