By Chris Savage

A few Trinity Dads and their wives recently attended a David Thomas Presentation on Raising Emotionally Strong Kids and Teens at Trinity Last week. We talked about it this past Friday, but we could probably talk about it for a few weeks. I’m going to dig into the presentation in this post.

“It’s easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.”

“Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.”

Okay, I’m done (I joke). So lets build some strong Children.

What Causes You Stress? (exercise)

Great place to start the conversation with your significant other. My wife and I went through this exercise and for #2 I came up with the following list.

• Writing it out
• Making a plan
• Talking to friends
• Walking
• Scripture/Prayer
• Making sure my body is rested enough to have all resources available to help me.

As far as support, David Thomas underscored that Men need more men around them because men lead all the terrible statistics for infidelity, suicide, porn, substance abuse, and suicide. This is mainly because we don’t process out what we are going through in the company of men.

Instead men tend to try and numb their emotions.

“Men need to talk about their man friends to their kids (so their kids know they aren’t doing it alone)”

“Moms need to talk about what they love doing with their kids (dads don’t tend to have this problem)”

The Three R’s of Emotional Health

“Emotional Health is the ability to name and navigate your experience”

Recognizing is the ability to know when you need a break.

Today I’m exhausted. I’m an consultant and an hourly worker so taking any time away from my job literally costs me money. Today, however, I can tell my “Check Engine” light is on and I need to go spend some time in the woods and do absolutely nothing. I need to remind my body and my soul that I’m not the source of my provision, God is.

While I’m in the woods my soul will start to surface all the emotions that I repress as a man who is just focused on doing, efficiency, and productivity. It’s key to my emotional health that I’m able to recognize and process my emotions and lift them up to God and to my friends.

As Fathers we need to learn how to name our feelings and give ourselves and our children the verbal specificity to not just name all their feelings “mad, sad, glad, scared, happy.” The ability to speak to God and others, and to teach our children the same allows the feelings to be expressed, empathized, and processed out. Just recognizing and naming allows me to regulate.

You can see throughout the Psalms that David was great at this. David was great at recognizing and expressing his emotions to God. The words quoted by Jesus on the cross were from David:

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from my cries of anguish? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest.”

– Psalm 22: 1-2

Have you ever felt like God has forsaken you and that He doesn’t hear you? Have you felt safe enough to tell Him?

But then David regulates by reminding himself of God’s faithfulness.

Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
    you are the one Israel praises.
In you our ancestors put their trust;
    they trusted and you delivered them.
To you they cried out and were saved;
    in you they trusted and were not put to shame.

v 3-4

He keeps this up throughout the Psalm:

• v6-8. You see him express disgust at himself and express his feelings of rejection .
• v9-10 Trust
• v11 Asking God for Help
• v12-v15 Fear, Feeling cornered, Out of sorts, melting fear, dry mouth.
• v16 Feeling eviserated, like his insides have been dorn out
• v19-21 Asking God for Help
• v22-24 Confidence (faith)
• v25-31 Worship

You can see that it took a bit of back and forth for David to recognize and regulate his emotions. Once he took time to express and remind himself of who God is and ask for help the emotional tank was emptied and he was finally able to remember and speak with confidence that God will deliver Him. He ended with putting his Hope in the end of the age when God makes everything right again, which explodes into a worshipful declaration of praise.

You can only hold so much emotion before it comes out.

If you don’t take time to express your negative emotions, and imprint the positive ones on your soul (reminding yourself of the good) they are going to come out sideways. This is when we end up numbing. This is when we end up with

• Escaping into work and drugs
• Controlling Obsessing
• Physical issues
• Depression
• Irritability and hostility
• Sleep and eating disorders
• Emotional Numbness

When we have unexpressed emotions they end up usually coming out sideways and we need to repair any relationships we harm. We have to ask for forgiveness and own our choices.

Conclusion

Let’s take the time, every day, to “pour out our hearts” to God and each other.

Let’s’ take time to use specific vocabulary with our children.

Let’s help our children do the same.

Let’s keep our emotional tank from overflowing with negativity, ask God for help, and live a life of hope of God putting everything right knowing that we are unceasing spirits with an eternal destiny in God’s great kingdom.

The first 100 years are the hardest, and then it gets easier! 😉