OVERDRAWN

I used to hear my wife say, “it feels like all I do is yell at the kids all day long”, I would then look at her like she was completely crazy because when I came home from work, there was proverbial peace in the middle east, the children were usually well behaved. I naturally assumed that I was just the perfect Father, she allowed herself to be stressed, or I was just the perfect Father, yes, I said it twice, I liked the way it sounded the first time. Anyway, when I would arrive home the kids were happy. It wasn’t until that I stayed home all day for a period of time that I realized that the kids are not always happy all day, they tend to get a little used to you. They get tired of listening to your every command, the excitement wore off a little bit, okay, a great deal.
I didn't realize this until I unfortunately let the cat out of the bag and one night, in a weak moment I told my wife, “it feels like all I do is yell at the kids all day long”, she then looked at me like I was completely sane, “ah ha, now you know what it feels like when you are not the big exciting news returning from being gone all day, they got a little used to you, didn’t they?“ They did indeed.

At this point, I had a couple of problems, my wife was apparently not completely crazy at all, were there other things that I think she is being crazy about and she is actually sane? Are vegetables really good for you, do I need to really wash my hands before eating, should I really put the toilet seat down, oh my gosh, do I need to listen better??? Who knows where this could lead, oh the anarchy this could cause!

More importantly, the second problem, are my feelings correct? Do my children go to bed and think, “geez, all Daddy did was yell at me all day”. What a heart breaker. I would guess that if I feel like all I do is yell; they most likely think all they get is yelling. This has got to change.

That next day I opted for a different approach, what would the Red Fox Father do? No I don’t mean you guys, the Red Fox Followers, I mean the animal, the Red Fox. The Red Fox is constantly teaching his pups how to stalk prey, hunt, and hide from danger. The Red Fox plays games with the pups to give them the skills to survive in a tough world. Throughout this process the Red Fox will celebrate even the most simple things that a young pup accomplishes. So, I realized that when my 4 year old took off his shirt without help I took it for granted, after all I have been doing this a couple times of day for 37 long years. In the past he struggled a little with this. I began celebrating some of the more “ordinary” things that my children accomplished careful not to overdo it. I don’t want my children to think that every little thing they do requires some great feat of praise but I did celebrate when they were able to do something that is usually difficult for a child at their stage of life. Stuff I had previously expected. Now I know what you are thinking, I lowered my standards, not true, I just allowed them a little glory in some of the little things and I didn’t overdo the praise, at times it was just a simple comment, “you did good”.
Simply put, I made deposits in their little emotional bank accounts. Prior to this I was overdrawn.

Surely we all have read the leadership books and how you must make deposits in your employee/spouse emotional bank account in order to make withdrawals but I never applied it to my children, heck, not sure I applied it to my spouse but that is another blog, called the Seahorse Husband (the seahorse male bears the young). I had been bouncing checks all over the house and at the end of the day, I was getting a notice from the Bank of Subconscious, I was Overdrawn. So with no government bailout to be found, I needed to implement change.
When I implemented this new praise deposit procedure I found that the number of reprimanding withdrawals I had to make were fewer. I had reestablished peace in the middle east.

Now I think that the thing to remember here is many small deposits work better than one large one. You can’t make withdrawals all day long and then expect at night to make a huge deposit and not get contacted from the Bank of Subconscious, you are going to get a notice. Don’t lower your standards, just recognize when you see that little extra effort with a little extra deposit, “good job”. Today my son came home from school and took off his shoes and left them in the middle of the floor. A few moments later, without me saying a word, he picked them up and put them where they belong, “nice work son”, deposit.

One more thing to mention, when you only make withdrawals the contrast between withdrawal and nothing is only half that between a deposit and withdrawal. The withdrawals become much more important when compared to a deposit then when compared to nothing. In other words I have found that I have been able to reduce the amount of withdrawals as well as the frequency.

I would like to add more to this topic but I need to wash my hands before dinner, we’re having vegetables. Maybe she's not crazy after all.

Be intentional, be engaged, be interactive, Be a RED FOX FATHER.