Jon Tyson: The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character (2021)

PART 1: INTRODUCTION

1. There Is a Need for Fathers

  • THE PRINCIPLE: The role of fatherhood is one of the most overlooked yet crucial roles in our society. The data and our own experience could not be clearer. When a father is present, emotionally healthy, and involved in his child’s life, the child has a tremendous advantage in the world to navigate its complexities and challenges with joy and confidence.
  • Statistics from https://www.fatherhood.org/: Children without fathers:
    • are four times more likely to live in poverty.
    • are more likely to suffer emotional and behavioral problems.
    • have higher levels of aggressive behavior than children born into married homes.
    • have two times the risk of infant mortality.
    • are more likely to go to prison. Only one in five prison inmates grew up with their father present.
    • are twice as likely to be involved in early sexual activity.
  • QUESTIONS
    • What comes to your mind when you hear the word masculinity?
    • What are some of the key moments in your life that forged you into the man you are today? What did you learn from them? How can you prepare to pass them on?
  • INTENTIONAL STEPS
    • What age is your son right now? What do you need to do to prepare him for the journey into manhood he is about to embark on?

2. Five Kinds of Fathers

  • THE PRINCIPLE: Being a father is one of the most sacred responsibilities a man can have. The current crisis among fathers threatens to destroy this generation. Stepping up and becoming intentional fathers will confront this brokenness and leave a powerful legacy in the lives of our sons.
  • Five types of fathers:
    • Irresponsible
    • Ignorant
    • Inconsistent
    • Involved
    • Intentional
  • Mormons have very intentional pathway for the formation of their young men
  • Definition of man: a man is an image bearer and son of God entrusted with power and the responsibility to create, cultivate, care, and defend, for God’s glory and the good of others.
  • Movie: The Work (documentary)
  • QUESTIONS
    • What emotions rose in you when your kids were born?
    • Which of the five fathers best describes how you have acted?
    • Reflect back on your own adolescence. What moments with your father shaped your life?
    • What are you hoping to see in your relationship with your son as a result of reading and implementing the things in this book?
    • What fears or hesitations do you have?
  • INTENTIONAL STEPS
    • Do a twenty-four-hour fast and dedicate that time to prayer. Write down the things that come to mind about how you were fathered and the kind of father you would like to be. Offer the years ahead to God, and ask for help in what’s to come.
    • Watch the documentary The Work.

PART 2: PREPARATION

3. A Preview of the Possible

  • THE PRINCIPLE: We need to have a vision of the day our sons will leave our homes and work backward from that day with a plan to help them gain the knowledge, skills, character, and experiences they need. This will enable them to move into the world as confident and healthy men
  • Book: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Funeral exercise: If this is your funeral, what do you want your spouse to say about you? What would you like to hear your kids say? What would you hope your coworkers would say? And, ultimately, what witness would God give on your one and only life?
  • Four questions:
    • What do you want your son to know about God, about himself, and about life?
    • Who do you want your son to be?
    • What skills do you want your son to have?
    • What formational experiences do you want him to have?
  • QUESTIONS
    • What are two or three of the top lessons you learned from your dad when you were growing up?
    • Did you feel adequately prepared for the realities of life when you left home? Why or why not?
  • INTENTIONAL STEPS
    • Exercise #1: Preparing for That Day. Answer the four important questions to think through before your son leaves home:
      • What do you want your son to know?
      • Who do you want him to be?
      • What do you want him to be able to do?
      • What experiences do you want him to have?
    • Exercise #2: Create an Asset Map. Begin by dreaming about the journey you’re going to prepare for your son.
      • What tools, what experiences, what people, what places, what trips can you put together in order to develop something extraordinary for him?
      • What do you want to give him in order to help him get ready to go out into the world?
    • Exercise #3: Form an Intentional Father Cohort. Consider getting a group of other dads together, perhaps friends from college or other men in your church, who have sons around the same age as yours—boys who are growing up together.

4. Honoring Your Father

  • THE PRINCIPLE: We are called to deal with the brokenness of our past, understand the blessings we have inherited, and pass on a legacy of healing to our sons.
  • BOOK: The Bonfire of Vanities
  • BOOK: Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
  • QUESTIONS
    • Have you ever thought about the fact that your father was once a boy? How does that change the way you think about him now?
  • INTENTIONAL STEPS
    • Exercise #1: Tribute letter. Take some time to write a carefully crafted tribute letter to your father.
    • Exercise #2: Mountains and valleys. Write out all the highs and lows of your life and the lessons you learned from each on a timeline. Each of the dots represents a moment, lesson, or highlight for you to examine. Here are some questions to help you extract meaning and understanding from these events: - What happened? Name it. - What did you feel? Embrace it. - How did you respond? Own it. - How did this shape you? Understand it. - What did you learn? Extract it. - How can you grow from this? Use it.

PART 3: INITIATION

5. Ceremony

  • THE PRINCIPLE: Adolescent boys need to know they are being invited into a journey of growth and development out of childhood and into manhood. There needs to be a definitive break from normal life into liminal space where they can emerge and grow as men.
  • “Directional dinner”:
    • First step in process of entering the path into manhood.
    • Mother plays important role: she emphasizes father’s central role in boy’s life for the next season.
    • Mother brought son to his favorite restaurant at age 13.
  • Ceremony:
    • Right after dinner.
    • Ran into ocean with other boys of similar age.
    • Laid hands on them with other men.
    • Gave series of gifts: bronze pen, leather journal, footlocker.
    • Told him how proud he was of him.
  • Morning meetings:
    • Spend time every morning before school.
    • Take one night together every week just the two of them.
  • QUESTIONS
    • How do you think your son will respond to you creating an intentional, transformational path for him to journey along?
    • What features of the way I set up the experience so far do you think would work with your son? What would you choose to do differently?
  • INTENTIONAL STEPS
    • Exercise #1: Severing Dinner. Talk it through your wife and come up with a plan she’s willing to carry out. Plan out the night and make it as meaningful as you can. Brainstorm a powerful initiation, something your son will remember that will help him understand he is stepping out on a new journey. Take your time, make it meaningful, and go big.
    • Exercise #2: Initiation Ceremony. Create an evening, day, or weekend to initiate your son into the Primal Path. Don’t feel pressure to make this ceremony the highlight of your son’s life, but don’t wing it and underestimate its power. Try to include elements and relationships that will be meaningful to your son and will play a role in the path ahead. One note on social media: keep some elements personal and private.
      • When: What time and date will work? Is this connected to a birthday for your son?
      • Where: Place matters. Environments matter. Where is the best place for this ceremony to happen?
      • What: What elements will your initiation include? Prayers? Speeches? Laying on of hands? Gift giving? Words fromother key men? The involvement of your father and other grandparents? Physical elements such as cutting hair or special clothes? Some sort of definitive moment such as running into the water, crossing a line, or facing a challenge?
      • Who: What men have played a significant role in your son’s life? Who would you like to play a role in helping disciple your son in the future? Which friends and family would be significant for both of you?
      • Artifacts: What memorable gifts will you give your son that will last well into his life? Examples include pens, leather journals, bags, articles of clothing, storage options for the things accrued in the coming years, Bibles, medallions, and morale patches.

6. Home

  • THE PRINCIPLE: Until we know the story we are in, we will never know the character we are called to become. It is important that young men get a sense of a larger story and tradition, so they have some context for living well and break the delusion that the world revolves around them.
  • Bring your son into your story.
  • Design pilgrimage: show son most important places that played key role in his life.
  • Show key moments, key places and key people in your life.
  • Asked his father (son’s grandfather) to tell his son about his life & what it means to be a Tyson.
  • Organized family reunion for a barbecue.
  • Got book of family history from a relative.
  • QUESTIONS
    • What are the key places and moments from my teenage years that I would want to share with my son so he understands me better?
    • Who are the key people who’ve helped me become who I am?
    • What are specific themes or words l’d like to impart on this trip?
  • INTENTIONAL STEPS
    • Exercise #1: Family genogram. Create a genogram to help your son know your family legacy and history. Maybe there are things to be proud of; maybe there are cautionary tales.
    • Exercise #2: Story Context Trip.
      • When will you go?
      • What extra help will you provide for your wife to make up for your absence during this trip?
      • How much time do you think it will take to do this trip well?
      • Where will you go? Which parts of your timeline and story are important for your son to know and understand?
      • What special things can you do that will make this trip memorable for your son? What will create bonding moments that will last a lifetime?
      • What memorable ways can you show and impart your values to your son? What will help impress them upon him?
      • Who in your extended family would it be helpful for your son to spend time with to get an understanding of your family? Is there a family historian of sorts? Any family archives? Any old VHS tapes you can dig out to create context?
      • What will make this enjoyable for your son? At the end of the trip, what needs to happen for him to say, “Best trip ever”? Go after that.

7. Values

  • THE PRINCIPLE: Without values, a man is rudderless in a sea of relativity and compromise. With values, a man can navigate complexity and confusion with confidence and clarity. Infusing values—those of the family, those of manhood, and personal ones—is a great gift from a father to a son.
  • Types of values:
    • Family values
    • Personal values
    • Masculine values
  • Cardinal virtues (by Peter Kreeft):
    • Wisdom
    • Self-control
    • Courage
    • Justice
  • Exhortation of these values in Prov 31:2-9
  • Embodied in the life of Jesus
  • QUESTIONS
    • What are the principles, nonnegotiables, and values in my life? Do these values exist by default or design?
    • How can I understand the right values, shape them, and pass them on to my son?
  • INTENTIONAL STEPS
    • Have a conversation with your child about what you each perceive to be the values of your family.
    • Review your mountains and valleys sheet and look at the lessons you’ve learned. What values have you absorbed from the highs and lows of your life?
    • Make a plan to impart these values into the life of your young person. How are you going to codify them? Embody them? Model them? Call them out? Identify their presence in your son’s life? Celebrate the culture and fruit they bear?
    • The following values are especially unique to the ecosystem of men and are present in Christ. How will you model and embody these values?
      • Wisdom
      • Self-Control
      • Courage
      • Justice
    • Exercise: The Values Audit. It may be helpful to take some larger sheets of paper and brainstorm these sections.
      • Family Values:
        • What do you regard as valuable as a family? Why? How does this show up?
        • What values do you need to embrace to thrive and function in your home?
        • How do you act when under stress? In joy? In boredom?
      • Personal Values:
        • What matters to you?
        • What do you want to impart to your son?
        • What have you admired in others?
        • What have you learned about pain?
        • What have you learned about joy?
        • What have you learned about God?
        • What have you learned about yourself?
        • What aspirational values do you want to see developed in your son?
        • What values from your mountains and valleys exercise do you want to pass on to him?

PART 4: FORMATION

8. Five Shifts

  • THE PRINCIPLE: To mark progress from adolescence into manhood, a boy needs to understand how boys act and think compared to men. He needs growth and direction and challenges to move along this continuum so he can see the progress he is making toward maturity.
  • BOOK: Adam’s Return by Richard Rohr: five rules of manhood:
    1. Life is hard.
    2. You are not important.
    3. Your life is not about you.
    4. You are not in control.
    5. You are going to die.
  • Morning meetings:
    • Bible reading (Proverbs, Gospels, epistles, OT saints)
    • Biographies
    • Watch movies
  • Five shifts:
    1. From ease to difficulty:
      1. Took son to highest ropes to face fear of heights
      2. MOVIE: Braveheart
      3. BOOK: Endurance (Sir Ernest Shackleton)
    2. From self to others:
      1. Joined church service team
    3. From the whole story to part of the story:
      1. Took son to different parts of city/world
    4. From central to surrender:
      1. Death of pet
      2. Pushed son into the woods
    5. From temporary to eternal:
      1. Took son to cemetery
      2. Life = dash between date of birth and date of death
  • QUESTIONS
    • When you look at the men around you, which shifts seem to be more natural than others? Which shifts are more challenging?
    • Which of these shifts in thinking have you made as you entered adulthood? Are there any of these shifts you have not navigated well?
    • Which do you expect will be the most challenging shifts for your son to make?
  • INTENTIONAL STEPS
    • Make a list of resources you’d like to use for each shift: Bible passages, biographies, movies, experiences, and anything else you can think of.
    • Categorize them into the five different shifts. Plan to take at least a month or two on each shift.
    • What challenge or challenges will you use to help your child understand each shift and identify its rewards?
    • Use the following as a way to plan out each of the shifts to take your son through, from easy to difficult.
      • Scriptures to study
      • Biographies to read
      • Movies to watch
      • Trips to take
      • Places to visit
      • People to talk to
      • Cohort/solo events to attend
      • Possible challenges to mark shifts
      • Marking the moment and celebrating growth

9. The Power of Preparing for Moments

  • THE PRINCIPLE: So much of our lives is defined by moments. Moments of wonder, moments of heartache, moments of accomplishment, moments of regret. An intentional father is aware of the power of moments and works hard in advance to create life-changing ones.
  • BOOK: The Power of Moments by Chip Heath and Dan Heath: “Beware the soul-sucking voice of reasonableness.”
    • “That’s not possible”
    • “We can’t afford that”
    • Etc.
  • Key moments:
    • First cell phone
    • First exposure to pornography
    • First shave
    • First girlfriend
    • First breakup
    • First exposure to drugs
    • First exposure to the LGBTQ world
    • First exposure to death
    • First job
    • First exposure to racism
    • First time with a driver’s license
    • Whimsical moments
  • QUESTIONS
    • What moments did your parents get right? What moments did they get wrong? How have these shaped you?
    • Are there moments I didn’t mention that you want to make sure you mark for your child?
  • INTENTIONAL STEPS
    • Develop a list and design experiences to help mark these moments in the life of your son.
    • Master Moments List for Your Son, eg:
      • Getting a phone
      • Wet dream
      • First exposure to porn
      • First shave
      • First girlfriend
      • First breakup
      • Exposure to drugs
      • Gender, gay rights, human sexuality
      • First fight
      • First death
      • First loss in something that matters to him
      • First job
      • First paycheck
      • Racism and privilege
      • Getting his license and first car
      • Prom
      • Graduation
      • Baptism
      • Bullying
      • Lying to you, your wife, or other authority figures
      • Doubts about faith

10. Being Good at Being a Man

  • THE PRINCIPLE: Young men today don’t aspire to a moralistic vision of generic goodness. They want a deep understanding of what a man actually is and how to be good at that. They want the vision and skill to master the art of manhood. In this framework, confidence comes through competence. We must learn to transfer the tangible skills and the key elements of manhood to our sons.
  • “I’m not trying to make you into a good man. I want you to be good at being a man”
  • BOOK: Exponential by Dave Ferguson: framework for passing on competence:
    1. I do, you watch, we talk.
    2. I do, you help, we talk.
    3. You do, I help, we talk.
    4. You do, I watch, we talk.
    5. You do, someone else watches.
  • BOOK: How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
  • QUESTIONS
    • What comes to mind when you think about a good man?
    • What comes to mind when you think about being good at being a man?
    • How can you cast a vision of being strong, being courageous, and living from a full heart to your son? What needs to change in you for this to happen?
  • INTENTIONAL STEPS
    • What are some things in which your son has natural interest and you could help him achieve competency? Make a list, and then be prepared to add to that list in the next chapter.
    • Make a list of the skills you wish someone had taught you when you were approaching adulthood.

11. Roles to Master

  • THE PRINCIPLE: In order for your son to be good at being a man, he needs to understand and grow in the key roles of manhood. Learning and growing in knowledge, skill, and character in those areas will produce confidence as he moves out into the world.
  • “I’m not repairing a fence. I’m raising my sons.”
  • Six roles (archetypes) a man needs to master to be good at being a man:
    1. Role #1: Disciple
      1. Who is God?
      2. What is the gospel?
      3. What is the biblical story?
      4. How do I read the Bible?
      5. “Please, don’t outsource the discipleship of your kids to their youth group.”
    2. Role #2: Lover
      1. Listen to interviews with former porn addicts to discuss the effects of porn
    3. Role #3: Leader
      1. BOOK: Raising a Modern-Day Knight by Robert Lewis: “A man accepts responsibility, rejects passivity, leads courageously, and lives for the greater reward.”
      2. BOOK: Leadership Bible and The 20 Most Important Minutes in a Leader’s Day by John Maxwell
      3. BOOK: The Challenge of Leadership by James Kouzes and Barry Posner
    4. Role #4: Warrior
      1. Apologetics: fighting for the truth
      2. Mental toughness
      3. Physical toughness (Tae Kwon Do, lifting weights together)
      4. “I wanted [my son] to be physically strong and to learn about his role as a warrior.”
    5. Role #5: Brother
      1. Framework for building godly friendships
    6. Role #6: Wise Man
      1. Study book of Proverbs
      2. Stewarding time & money
  • QUESTIONS
    • What are some things you do yourself, instead of involving your kids, because you know you can do it faster? Could there be opportunities in these spaces for them to learn valuable things?
    • Do you think the six roles I listed are comprehensive, or are there other archetypal roles that come to mind?
    • Which roles do you think you are strong at, and which are more challenging for you?
  • INTENTIONAL STEPS
    • Write down each of the six roles and then list out various ways you can introduce them to your son. What activities would you like to do? What books would be good to read? What concepts do you want to dig into?
    • Use the following to design a process to help your son master the roles of manhood.
      • What do you want him to know, be, and do as a leader of others?
      • Scriptures to study
      • Biographies to read
      • Roles to Master
      • Movies to watch
      • Trips to take
      • Places to visit
      • People to talk to
      • Cohort/solo events to attend
      • Marking the moment and celebrating growth

12. Self-Discovery

  • THE PRINCIPLE: Our goal as fathers is to help our sons discover who God has made and called them to be. We are not to make them in our own image but to help them along the path of grace so that they are renewed in the image of their Creator. This will bring them confidence and vision to move forward.
  • Enneagram
  • StrengthsFinder
  • Spiritual Gifts
  • APEST Test
  • Myers-Briggs
  • Birkman Test: vocational discernment from a Christian perspective
  • QUESTIONS
    • How well do you know yourself? How has this self-awareness helped you make important decisions in life?
    • What are some of the big decisions you see your teenager needing to make in the coming years, and how do you hope that better self-awareness will help him make better decisions?
  • INTENTIONAL STEPS
    • When will you begin this process of testing and self-evaluations?
    • What are the specific tests you plan on having your child take?
    • Who will help you walk through these various tests?
    • What is your plan for exploring the results of these tests?
    • Use the following questions to help process each of these tests with your son.
      • What is the result?
      • What does this mean?
      • What does it explain?
      • What does it have implications for?
      • What does it help others know?

13. The Arc of Life

  • THE PRINCIPLE: Young men rarely think long and hard about the decisions and directions they want their lives to take. The horizon of their thinking often extends to the end of their current season and the start of the next. But wise men understand the arc and seasons of a life and seek to live well in each season to minimize regret and maximize joy.
  • High school: exposure to life
  • College: learning
  • Twenties: growing
  • Thirties: editing
  • Forties: mastering
  • Fifties: harvesting
  • Sixties: guiding
  • Seventies: imparting
  • Eighties: savoring
  • Nineties: preparing
  • Arc-of-life interviews: introduce your sons to people of consequence who will give them a model for what that stage of their lives might look like.
    • Who do you know who you believe has an incredible amount of wisdom, someone who could talk through the key temptations, lessons, and joys of each stage of life?
    • Who do you know who got college right, or who, as they reflect on their twenties, can say their twenties were a rich time of life? Who got their thirties right? Their forties? Their fifties? Who is in their sixties and is really investing in younger people? Whom do you know in their seventies who is pouring themselves out? Who in their eighties is savoring life? Who in their nineties is preparing well to meet their Maker?
    • Prepare your son to meet one-on-one with these individuals, maybe over coffee or a meal. Help him come up with questions to ask, things that will help him learn from these people about what makes each particular stage of life rich and rewarding.
    • What warnings can they pass on? What themes have they seen throughout life?
  • “Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith.” (Hebrews 13:7)
  • QUESTIONS
    • What stage of life are you currently in?
    • How have people in other stages of life spoken into your existence and helped you navigate or prepare for an upcoming stage?
  • INTENTIONAL STEPS
    • Make a list that includes at least one person from each of these stages in life for your son to meet with.
    • Help your son come up with a list of questions that will generate the kind of discussion you’re looking for—namely, dialogue that explores the joys and temptations of each stage of life.
    • Sixties: Imparting to the Next Generation. List names of possible people to interview.
      • What did you most enjoy about your sixties? Why?
      • What are three of your favorite memories from your sixties?
      • What are your biggest regrets of your sixties?
      • If you had your sixties to do again, what would you do differently?
      • What things must I absolutely get right in my sixties?
      • What things must I absolutely avoid in my sixties?
      • If you could speak into my life, knowing what you know about me, what would you say?

PART 5: RECOGNITION

14. The Gap Year

  • THE PRINCIPLE: Young men need a liminal space where they are removed from the normal rhythm and routine of life and given time and opportunity to see what is inside them. They need space to encounter those who have grown up in completely different cultural contexts and bond with other men. In modern life, nothing does this quite as well as a gap year.
  • Liminal year: between study and employment
  • Liminality: “the quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stages of a rite of passage, when participants no longer hold their pre-ritual status but have not yet begun the transition to the status they will hold when the rite is complete.” (Wikipedia)
  • World Race, Adventures in Missions:
    • organizations that take your son to multiple countries
    • Significant cost ($16000) but well worth it
  • Father-son pilgrimage to Camino de Santiago: 500-mile hike
  • QUESTIONS
    • What are your thoughts (and concerns) about a gap year?
    • What was your transition like from high school into whatever you did afterward, whether it was college, trade school, or employment? How do you think you could have benefited from taking some time off?
    • How would your child benefit from that kind of liminal space?
  • INTENTIONAL STEPS
    • What are some ideas you have for a gap year and a father-son pilgrimage? Dream big and think about some of the details. When? How long? Where? How?

15. Ceremony of Welcome and Blessing

  • THE PRINCIPLE: If a son does not receive blessing from his father, he will spend the rest of his life trying to earn that blessing. Creating a blessing ceremony will help cement our sons’ identity and heal wounds they have suffered along the way. It is something only we as fathers can give to our sons.
  • After son returned from gap year
  • “Dad, what’s next?” → “Whatever happens next, you’re going to get my blessing and operate out of that for the rest of your life.”
  • Show video celebrating his entire life
  • Have people speak words of affirmation over him
  • Questions to consider when planning ceremony of blessing:
    • What men should be there to bless your son?
    • Which friends should be there?
    • What will you share?
    • What gifts will you give him that will mark him forever? (Example: medal from Daily Stoic, maxed out Roth IRA account)
  • “Blessing is the projection of good into the life of another.” (Dallas Willard)
  • QUESTIONS
    • How have you spent your life seeking blessing?
    • What would you like your son to know about the blessing you are sending him out with?
  • INTENTIONAL STEPS
    • Make a list of the people you’d like to be present at this ceremony of blessing.
    • Where would you like to have it?
    • What affirmations should be spoken?
    • What gifts should you give your child?
    • How could you make this an extraordinary night where he delights in, and receives, your blessing?

16. The Intentional Father

  • Daily ritual: every day between 5:45 am and 6:30 am before school → key component of entire journey
  • Purchase hardcopy of books studied (part of gifts for him)
  • Recited list of values every day: “strength, courage, mastery, honor, vision, passion, discipline, and risk”
  • MOVIE: Band of Brothers (mini-series)
  • Document the journey