Josh McDowell - How to Be a Hero to Your Kids

How to Be a Hero
to Your Kids
(art to come)

How to Be a Hero
to Your Kids

by
Josh McDowell
and
Dick Day

How to Be a Hero to Your Kids

Copyright 1991 Josh McDowell and Dick Day

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher, with the exception of brief quotations for reviews.

Scripture quotations are from the New King James Version (NKJV), copyright 1979 by Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers. The New American Standard Bible (NASB), the Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1977. The Living Bible (TLB), Todays English Version, copyright the American Bible Society 1966, 1971, 1976. Used by permission. The New International Version of the Bible (NIV), copyright 1978 by the New York International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan Bible Publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

McDowell, Josh.

How to be a hero to your kids / by Josh McDowell and Dick Day.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-8499-0881-7 0-8499-3826-0 (pbk.)

1. ParentingUnited States. 2. Parent and childUnited States. 3. Child rearingUnited States. I. Day, Dick. II. Title.

HQ755.8.M42 1991

649'.1dc20

91-1972

CIP

6 7 8 9 QBP 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Printed in the United States of America

To my four children. You are a delight to your father, a joy to your mother and a testimony of Gods love and grace. Without you, this book would not have been possible.

Josh McDowell

In love and appreciation to:

My teachers and students;

My One LordJesus Christ;

My One wifeCharlotte;

My nine children

Five by natural birth

One by adoption

Three by marriage

My five, and soon to be six, grandchildren.

Dick Day

Contents

Despite the fact that Dick Day and I have co-authored this book, you will note that it is written in the first person throughout. We chose to do it this way because so many of our illustrations involve our own families, and it seemed simpler to use first person for purposes of communication. In addition, we often use he or his in reference to a generic person, rather than he or she or his or her. This is done merely for convenience and is not intended to be offensive in any way.

Dick has taught me most of the concepts expressed in these pages, and chapters 6, 8, and 14 are also under his personal byline. While rearing ten childrensix are Dick and Charlottes and four are Dotties and minewe have seen the principles in our Positive Parenting Plan bear fruit in our own families. Now we want to share that plan with you. Dick and I think as one and have but a single goalto help you become a hero to your kids, and to become better heroes ourselves!

Josh McDowell

Every book is a combined project made up of the efforts of many people.

We would like to acknowledge the following people for helping make this book a reality:

To Dave Bellis who guided this book project through its many twists and turns and helped shape and mold it into its final form and for producing the video series for which this book is the companion. To Joey Paul of Word Publishing for his encouragement, leadership, and belief in us to publish such a book.

To Sheri Livingston Neely for her talented editing of the book and seeing it through its many stages of completion.

To the Dads Only Newsletter for giving us both insights into parenting that has so positively affected our lives.

And finally, a special thanks to Fritz Ridenour:

Dear Fritz,

Thank you so much for using the writing skills God gave you to take our transcripts, interviews, and research and mold them into such a powerful, easy to read book. Your talent with words, spiritual insights, and servant spirit made it a joy to work with you. I trust many kids will be blessed by their heroes as a result of all our combined efforts.

Love,
Josh &
Dick

Needed:
Heroes with a Plan for Positive Parenting

AT FIRST the words hero and parent can sound a little incongruous. Parents have to do so much correcting and disciplining, so much nurturing and nose-wiping that the label hero just doesnt seem to fit. This book is built on the premise that parents are the logical ones to be heroes to their kids and offers a practical plan to help them do it. In these first three chapters you will learn:

a definition for the word hero that goes beyond the celebrity image and describes the parent who wants to be a caring role model for his or her children

why we need heroes in our homes now more than ever

why millions of families remain trapped in a cycle of dysfunctional co-dependent living from one generation to another

the most important reason for being a hero to your kids

how the six As of positive parenting provide a plan to build a happy, well-functioning family

why a hero never tries to kid a kid.

1
You Can Con a Con,
You Can Fool a Fool,
but You Cant Kid a Kid

WHENEVER I speak to groups of parents on how to be a hero to your kids, I get varied reactions, one of which usually sounds like this:

Me? A hero to my kids? Their heroes are Madonna or maybe Mel Gibsonfilm stars and celebrities. Or athletes. My son, for example, likes Michael Jordan in the winter, Jose Conseco in the summer, and Joe Montana in the fall. How can I compete with that?

My answer is always the same. Parents dont have to compete. They dont have to take a back seat to celebrities because, according to my definition of a hero, parents are heroes alreadyall they have to do is start acting like it.

The goal of this book is to share with parents what it means to be a true hero in your home and why it is so important for moms and dads to be heroes to their kidsespecially today.

The Family Is under Tremendous Pressure

You dont have to look very far to realize that these are not the best of times to be a parent. The culture in which we have to bring up our children is not family friendly. All families are under tremendous pressure, and many of them are in deep trouble.

Of the children who were born in the mid-1980s, the estimates are that by the time they reach eighteen years of age, 60 percent of these children will have lived in a home with only one parent presentdue to divorce and separation, not death. According to the Census Bureau, one in every four families today has only one parent. Single-parent families are up 150 percent since 1960.

The number of women who have joined the work force passed the 50 percent mark long ago. A report by the National League of Cities says that by 1990, 64 percent of all families in the U.S. had working mothers. In these families were 10.4 million children under the age of six.

Working wives have created a new vocabulary, with terms like Mommy Track and Latch-key Kids. One study done in Los Angeles and San Diego Counties showed that eighth-grade students who took care of themselves for eleven or more hours a week were at twice the risk of substance abuse (alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana) than those who had some kind of parental supervision.

And what do latch-key kids often do while taking care of themselves after school? Undoubtedly, a favorite pastime is television. One source estimates that by the time a child finishes high school, he will have spent eighteen thousand hours watching television, compared to only twelve thousand hours interacting with school curriculum. And while watching television for those eighteen thousand hours, he will have vicariously participated in eighteen thousand killings.