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Fatherhood presents unique challenges and opportunities for growth, particularly when raising daughters. In this week’s Dads with Daughters podcast, we welcome Don Manning or Crazy Cool Family delving deep into the realities of father-daughter relationships, providing valuable insights and practical strategies for dads committed to being the best they can be.
Reframing Teenage Years
Understanding and Embracing the Journey
A common perception is that the teenage years are inevitably challenging. Dr. Christopher Lewis offers a refreshing perspective, suggesting that with the right approach, these years can be full of positive experiences and growth for both fathers and daughters. Central to this approach is the belief in the importance of a strong family belief system and a nurturing environment. By actively working to build relationships, fathers can play a crucial role in creating a supportive and understanding family dynamic.
Personal Growth and Faith
Dr. Lewis shares his personal journey, where his Christian faith and a wealth of parenting literature have significantly influenced his parenting style. The emphasis on feeling seen and heard in reversing trauma is a key takeaway, underscoring the importance of emotional availability and sensitivity to a child’s needs.
Creating a Family Culture
Building a Network of Relationships
The concept of building a family culture akin to a network of relationships is pivotal in maintaining strong family dynamics. Dr. Lewis emphasizes that this approach can create a cohesive unit where each member feels valued and understood. The ripple effect of this approach is evident in Lewis’s own family, where their methodologies attracted interest from others, leading to the development of a curriculum, writing a book, and creating a ministry.
Resources for Continuous Improvement
Over time, their ministry has developed numerous resources, including parenting books, a podcast, interactive workbooks, and a daily email subscription, all aimed at helping dads improve their relationships with their children. These resources stress the importance of fathers becoming better listeners, more encouraging, and building trust with their children.
Challenges for Modern Dads
Technology and Connection
Modern dads face unique challenges, notably the impact of technology on family connections and the lack of training in relationship-building. The podcast highlights the need for fathers to be proactive in carving out quality time with their children, away from screens and distractions.
Spending Quality Time
Intentional involvement in everyday activities, be it errands or special outings, is key to building strong bonds. Such consistent, quality time helps in understanding and connecting with each child’s unique personality.
Vulnerability and Self-Improvement
Importance of Being Open and Transparent
Both speakers agree that vulnerability—being open, transparent, and admitting faults—is crucial in forming stronger connections with daughters. This openness fosters a sense of trust and mutual respect, which is essential for a healthy father-daughter relationship.
Focusing on Self-Improvement
Dr. Lewis stresses that presenting the best version of oneself is more beneficial for children than focusing on their shortcomings. This perspective encourages dads to embark on a continuous journey of self-improvement, setting a positive example for their children.
Parenting with Faith Over Fear
Don Manning’s Journey
Don Manning shares his experience transitioning from parenting with fear to parenting with faith. Initially, fear led him to adopt a controlling style, which proved ineffective. Over time, Manning learned that building relational connections was far more impactful than merely enforcing rules.
Encouragement and Trust
Manning emphasizes that no single approach to parenting is always correct. The hardest part, he notes, is dealing with fear and learning to trust that his daughters will make the right choices despite the challenges they may face. This approach fosters a more relaxed and nurturing environment.
Crazy Cool Family Mission
Transforming Fatherhood
Dr. Lewis discusses the mission of Crazy Cool Family, an organization aimed at helping parents improve their relationships with their children and become better versions of themselves. The ministry encourages fathers to be actively involved and continuously learn about parenting and relationships.
Shared Experience and Reevaluating Beliefs
Most men aspire to be good fathers but often lack the knowledge or vision to achieve this goal. Reflecting on their upbringing or external challenges, both speakers recommend reevaluating long-held beliefs about parenting and embracing new insights—such as Dr. Lewis’s realization about teenage rebellion.
Conclusion
Fatherhood is a lifelong journey of learning, growth, and forming deep connections. By embracing vulnerability, prioritizing quality time, and committing to self-improvement, dads can navigate the complexities of raising daughters with confidence and grace. The insights shared by Dr. Christopher Lewis and Don Manning provide a roadmap for fathers striving to build strong, loving relationships with their daughters.
TRANSCRIPT (Unedited transcript created by CASTMAGIC)
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:05]:
Welcome to dads with daughters. In this show, we spotlight dads, resources, and more to help you be the best dad you can be.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:15]:
Welcome back to the Dads with Daughters podcast where we bring you guests to be active participants in your daughters’ lives, raising them to be strong independent women. Really excited to have you back again this week. As always, you and I are on a journey together. I love being able to walk this path with you every week as we are talking about the thing that I know I’m most passionate about and I’m sure you’re most passionate about, which is raising our daughters and raising them into being those strong, independent women that we want them to be in their lives. And I know in the path that I’ve been on, there have been so many dads that I’ve turned to to try and gain more perspective. Because I didn’t know everything, And no dad knows everything. And as you walk into fatherhood, there’s not one right manual. There’s not one right way to father.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:08]:
So it’s so important that we as men are willing to step up and ask questions and listen and watch and learn, but be able to also take some tools from other people, put them in our own toolbox and be able to put them to work. And that’s what this podcast is all about. It’s all about helping you to find other resources, find other ways of doing things to be able to help you on this journey that you’re on. That’s why every week I bring you different guests, different people with different experiences that allow for you to be able to go on this path with others. Because we all have a journey to be on, and it’s so important to be able to learn from others. And today we’ve got another great guest. Don Manning is with us today. And Don has been on a parenting journey for quite some time.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:00]:
He’s got 7 kids, 4 daughters, 3 sons, And he is a business owner. He’s an investor. He has worked in real estate. He does a lot of different things, but he also has something called crazy cool family. And we’re gonna be talking about that as well as him being a father himself, and I’m really excited to have him here. Don, thanks so much for being here today.
Don Manning [00:02:24]:
Yeah. Glad to be here. You said strong, independent women, and that’s so I just laugh because that describes my 4 daughters to a t, and my wife too. I mean, I’ve got very we’ve got very strong independent women in our household, so it just that’s funny when you said that.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:42]:
I want to turn the clock back in time on you, and I know that you’ve got kids that range all the way from 34 on down. And your oldest 4 are your daughters. So I wanna go back to that first moment. That first moment that you found out that you were going to be a dad to a daughter, what was going through your head?
Don Manning [00:03:00]:
Well, first of all, so my wife brought our first daughter to the marriage. So I knew I was going to be a so I’ve got a blended family, you know, and so my wife then we had 3 girls and 3 sons together after that. So when we got married, my oldest daughter was 2. In some ways, I say I fell in love with her daughter and married the mom, but that’s not really true. But I really had no idea. So I’d I was the youngest in my family. I’d never been around kids. And suddenly, I’m married, and I have this 2 year old, and I’m not her dad.
Don Manning [00:03:36]:
And so quick story, so you’re talking about first memory. So Suzanne and I dated my wife, Suzanne, and I, we dated for a year before we got married. So we were you know, I was I was accustomed to Molly, our our oldest daughter. And so but we go on. We get married and and, we go on our honeymoon and we come back and I’m like, okay. Because Suzanne, you know, this was so typical of a dad. You know, I know how to parent better than she does. Right? And I’ve watched her parents, so I’m like, I can give her some advice.
Don Manning [00:04:03]:
You know? As we come into the house, new sheriff in town. We’re gonna take over. We’re gonna help her help my wife become a better parent. Right? That’s that’s kind of the the mantra I had coming in because I knew everything. And so the first night we get back home, and Molly’s daughter would wake up in the middle of the night, and she there was 2 things. She would wake up and she would cry, and she had a a pretty sensitive gag reflex. So I walk up there, and and and when I was with Suzanne, she would tell me about how, you know, she would have to stay up with her all night. And I was like, hey, I’ll help you with this because I think I can get her to go to sleep.
Don Manning [00:04:39]:
You know? Obviously, you know, again, I knew everything. I was so I walk up there. The first night, she’s crying. Honey, let me handle this for you. And I walk up the stairs to the second to the bedroom where her crib was, and I said, Molly, you know, I don’t have my shirt on because, you know, I’m 27 years old. I was in shape at that time. And, you know, so I walk up there and I’m just and I’m holding Molly out, and I just said, Molly, we you know, just gently I’m not being rude or anything, but just, Molly, we need to go to bed. You know, this is something we’re gonna do.
Don Manning [00:05:07]:
And she looks at me and throws up all over me. And so that was my that was my initiation into marriage, into parenting the 1st night. And I’m like, I mean not I mean I don’t have my shirt on so it’s thrown up all over me. I’m going, oh my goodness this what is this life going to be? What is parenting? I was just so defeated at that point and so it got better after that. But that was my initiation into parenting right there. It’s a little bit different than the hospital, but, that’s where I was.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:05:40]:
That’s quite the induction into being a father. And, you know, one of the things that a lot of dads tell me, especially dads of daughters, tells me that there’s some fear, some fear in not only becoming a father, but fear in being a father to a daughter. What would you say has been your biggest fear in raising your daughters?
Don Manning [00:06:01]:
Yeah. I totally agree, and it’s been something that has I think getting away from fear, what I call it going from fear to faith, has revolutionized my parenting. I mean, you know, I tell dads a lot, you know, I speak to dads a lot in our ministry. Crazy Cool Family, what you’re referring to is is our ministry we do now, and we’ll talk about that later. But a lot of times when I talk to dads, I say, you know, realize at one time it was it was me and 5 women in my house. And one, there was a fear that I didn’t understand these beings that and so what fear and really my fear was is that they wouldn’t turn out well. That, you know, that they would be, you know, sexually active maybe or, you know, in negative ways, or they would be rebellious, or they would, you know, get that all the things you think about as a dad, they’re gonna be addicted to drugs, they’re gonna be, you know, not able to do relationships, and just all the things that that come out of it. And so and I’m a teacher at heart, so what I really focused on is helping them to obey and make sure they did what I said.
Don Manning [00:07:05]:
And I thought that was being a good dad, you know, that I could if I if I protected them and my fears led me to wanna protect and to teach and to tell them what to do. And when they didn’t do it, I told them again, and I told them again, and I told them again. And, you know, so the the fear was really that they weren’t gonna turn out well, and the way I responded to that was I just got onto them all the time. And that really didn’t connect relationally, and I and over time, I just wasn’t working, and I found they they avoided me. Some you know, they started they were a good relationship. I mean, I was involved in their lives, but it was still challenging as I my fear led me to do things that were not helpful in parenting.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:07:44]:
And as you’re talking about parenting, I know you have 7 kids, and parenting is never easy. There’s always those ups and downs as you’re raising your kids. They’re always going to throw you through a loop. There’s not one right way to parent, but there’s gonna be times where things are gonna be good and things that times that are where things might be more challenging. What’s been the hardest part in being a dad to a daughter?
Don Manning [00:08:04]:
I think one of the biggest challenges I’ve found is understanding the female and as a male understanding the female, and I’ve really done a lot of work with that to try to understand my daughters to to to really get to the bottom of their hearts. So they because I believe that belief and determines behavior, that how we believe and what we do determines who we are. And so rather than so often I felt like I was dealing with the surface, and the deeper I went with the relationship and the connection, the better my parenting got.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:08:37]:
Now when you have so many kids you have 7 kids, so that’s a lot of kids, you know, and a lot of things going on in that household. And with 4 daughters, one of the things that I guess that I would question for you is as a father, I know with 2 my 2 daughters, they’re very different people. They have different personalities, and they bring different dynamics not only to the home, but also just to the ethos of the environment. And I have to be very intentional about understanding who they are, what they need, and who they are as individuals to be able to build those unique relationships. How did you build those unique relationships with your daughters?
Don Manning [00:09:17]:
No substitute for time. For example, I I tell dads a lot that when I was a young dad with young children, young daughters, one of the things I did was I just took them with me whenever I went somewhere. So if I went to Home Depot, I was gonna have a 3 year old girl with me, and I would take them out on certain dates. Like, we would just go and, you know, for example, we and it didn’t have to always be just one child. You know, with 7, sometimes you have to do different things, but I would meet my buddy at Chick Fil A, and we would he had a couple kids. I had a couple kids with me, and and we would let them play, and and we would talk, and then but they would interact. And a lot of times we talk about it, Crazy Cool Family, it’s along the way. There’s a scripture that talks about in Deuteronomy where you do it when you lie down, when you rise up, when you’re walking along the road.
Don Manning [00:10:04]:
It’s like so often I think relationship is developed along the way. And if you just include your kids in your lives and you’re included in their lives, there’s a lot of you know, it may be in the car. It may be when they’re going to bed at night. For example, I made sure that I my wife was at home with these kids, so she was exhausted by the end of the day. Bedtime was a big time for me, and I took jobs that didn’t travel so I could be home at night. Decisions made like that helped me to make connections, deciding to include them in my life. And then the other thing I would say about that relationship is learning to be someone that asks questions. So often as dads we are in the lecture business.
Don Manning [00:10:48]:
We are, you know, we’re efficient and we tell them what to do and we make sure that everything is taken care of. But in reality, the, the need is with especially with females again is to ask questions and to not tell them what to do but find out what’s in their heart And that allows us to connect with them better.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:11:08]:
In raising daughters, one of the things when you say about connecting to their heart, I think about the fact that I know that I’ve had to step back and really look at my own self to be able to better understand my daughters and know that they are going to be expecting of me things that I would not always expect of other men, of other people. And it’s been a journey. And it’s been something that I know that is not always an easy journey, but I’ve had to step back. I’ve had to be willing to explain when I’m wrong, explain and talk to them about and be a bit more vulnerable with them than so I think we’re always programmed to be. Talk to me about vulnerability for yourself and how you’ve had to be vulnerable to be able to make those connections with your own daughters.
Don Manning [00:11:59]:
Yeah. The first thing I I love what you just said is that is you’re talking about yourself first and how you change to be a better parent and a better person. One of the things we tell people a lot is the best thing that I can do for my family is to present my family the best version of me. That so often as dads, we wanna say, I need to improve my kid. My kid needs to improve. They need to do this better, and so often the real focus needs to be on us because, and, it’s not just the connection, but our example to our children is more important than our instruction. Who we are with them, they see through the instruction to the person. They’re gonna follow a whole lot more of who we are versus what we tell them.
Don Manning [00:12:47]:
And so I think that’s a great what you just said is awesome that what can we do to be the best version of ourselves? And when we are vulnerable, when we are transparent is another way I like to put that is I find that my daughters would respond so much better to me. And again, just the the asking questions, the telling them, you know, realizing so often I think we need to we we need to show our daughters that we are perfect. And in reality, that’s not the best way to parent in my opinion. It’s you know, you’re talking about there’s not one method and that’s so true, but there are concepts that do work well and one of those is to be transparent, is to be vulnerable, and to share with them things about your life that’s going on as well as listen to things about them without being so judgmental. What does judgment come from? Judgment comes from fear. You know, our daughter tells us something and we are scared that they’re gonna go down a path and so we want to stop them. We do it with the best intentions. The same way we don’t tell them things about ourselves because we don’t think they’ll respect us or we don’t think they’ll like us.
Don Manning [00:13:51]:
We have things hidden in our hearts that we think are bad that we don’t want anybody to see. But when we keep those in, they see them anyway. And so so often and so then we become kind of hypocritical to them and we lose respect.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:14:04]:
So let’s transition a little bit because you’ve been talking a little bit about your crazy cool family and the mission, the organization that you started to be able to help parents, help fathers, help mothers to be who they want to be. But talk to me about the the genesis of this and where you started this and where you are today.
Don Manning [00:14:24]:
Well, when I was 4 daughters, like I said, 5 women in my house. I wanna be a good father, you know, and honestly, I talk to men all over the country now with our ministry. I find that most men want to be good to great fathers. They really do. I think I rarely talk to a dad. He’s like, you know, I don’t really care about being a father. It’s not real high on my priority list. I mean, do you see the same thing?
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:14:49]:
I do. People want to be the best dads, but they don’t always know how to.
Don Manning [00:14:53]:
Yeah. And maybe life is a little bit overwhelming or there’s challenges in our life. Everything from work to even addictions to we didn’t come from those type of homes. I also find that a lot of dads don’t really have a vision for what family can be, and I didn’t really either at that time. I’ll give you an example. I was at a conference just a couple of weeks ago, and they’re talking about well, even going back to a few many years ago, somebody said teenage rebellion does not have to happen. And my wife and I looked at each other, and we were like, wow. That really challenges our belief system because we have been brought up thinking that, oh, wow.
Don Manning [00:15:32]:
The teenage years are just gonna be so hard and it’s, you know, it’s always gonna be just almost a disaster and we never know what they’re gonna do and, you know, just all the things. And at this conference I was at a couple weeks ago, there was a lot of people talking about that. Well, I wanted to tell them I didn’t get a chance. I wasn’t my I was just participating in it, but I wanted to tell them, guys, hey. It doesn’t have to be like that. What if your belief system is that that teenagers are fun and teenagers are gonna be a a delight to your family? Well, so years ago, I’m I’m probably 10 years into this journey and I’m going, you know what? I wanna I wanna be my best, and I wanna you know, in effect, I’m a competitive guy, and I just said, I wanna win at family. I’m gonna put a lot of time, effort, and energy into this. And what does winning at family look like for our family? And so we’re a we’re a Christian based organization, Christian family, and we said we want our kids to have great faith.
Don Manning [00:16:31]:
We want us to have we want them to have great relationships with us. We want them to make wise decisions. We want them to follow our faith and be able to choose that. We want them to have the choice but be able to choose that. And and I was like, how do I get there? And so what happened was is that we just started to study a lot of things within the church as well as other authors and people, and it was really interesting to me that it was all over the board that the parenting literature and advice and things were all over the board. But we found that as for our 7 kids, it’s kind of going back to what we said before, that when we connected the people who were having success and this was either faith based or not faith based. I’m reading a book right now about the effect of trauma on children and it is amazing and they say that even trauma can be reversed if a child has parents or other parents first or other people that are relationally connected in their lives, if they feel like they are seen and heard. And so we found that true in our family that the connection was so important and that the culture we were building in our family was super important.
Don Manning [00:17:41]:
We needed almost like building a greenhouse in our home for the relationships. I look at family as a now, as a network of relationships, And so goes that network, so often so goes our family. And so we started to focus on that and then over time, our kids started to really again, the girls and the boys started to really respond to that. And when you, you know, Christopher, when you have 7 kids and they’re good kids, people start asking you what you’re doing because they and they really were. We had a good relationship with them because we focused on that. They had good relationships with each other for the most part, and they were confident kids that were not and they weren’t valedictorians and they weren’t the star athletes. It wasn’t about that. They just they just radiated a confidence in their lives, and and and our family kinda was was becoming a little bit set apart.
Don Manning [00:18:34]:
And this was honestly, a lot of it was in our church, and people started asking us, hey. Would you show us what you’re doing? And because, you know, just like we did, we we talked to a lot of successful families what we And so that led to us just teaching younger families in our church and developing a curriculum which eventually led to writing a book, and now we have a ministry. And we’re a Christian ministry, but we really focus on how to build connections within your home, that family network of relationships, and how to build that culture where we just believe if you build well on the inside, you can handle anything on the outside.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:10]:
And I know you have a number of resources that you’ve created over some time, and one is a podcast, and you’ve got some workbooks. Talk to me about some of the resources that you’ve created and what you’re trying to accomplish through the different means that you’re trying to engage with people?
Don Manning [00:19:28]:
We started out with our book, Crazy Cool Family. We’ve written now 7 parenting books that are on Amazon. Everything from our workbooks to certain little what we call microbooks, which are very, like, very issue based. It’s just short, little, quick reads. You can go to Amazon and type in Don and Suzanne Manning or Don Manning or whatever. I haven’t figured out yet how to make Amazon link it to Crazy Cool Family yet because it’s because we’re the authors of the books. But so usually, I tell people to go to Amazon and type in Don Don Manning, and you can see all of our resources there. But, basically, we started out with a book, and then at that time, we started out with a podcast.
Don Manning [00:20:06]:
We were just talking. Both of us have about 250 episodes. We’ve been doing we’ve been doing ours about this is this is season 6 of our podcast. So, and we do it about once a week. So there’s lots of resources in that podcast. So we’ve talked about we’ve got different guests or sometimes Suzanne and I just talk or we’ve talked with our kids sometimes. Lots of different resources there. And then this year we came out with what I’m really excited about is what we call our 2 guides, which are basically just 2 6 session workbooks.
Don Manning [00:20:36]:
It’s very interactive. They’re only hard copy because you get to journal in them and really go through them, and they’re available on Amazon and but those two manuals together, there’s, like, 12 sessions in both manuals together. They create this comprehensive guide to giving you the key concepts to how to connect everyone in your family and how to build that culture in your home. All the resources kinda have the same theme. They’re just different delivery systems for them. And then the last thing I’ll tell you is is we also have a daily email that we can you can subscribe to on our website, crazycoolfamily dotcom. It’s a couple of minutes a day. It’s it’s again, it’s faith based as our ministry is, but it’s a it’s a quick clip every day.
Don Manning [00:21:17]:
You can read it in 2 minutes or less just about to kinda drip our concepts into dads and moms about how to connect with their kids and how to connect everyone in their family and they build unity and culture in their homes.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:21:31]:
Now you’ve worked with a lot of dads over the years, I’m sure. And with the conversations that you’re having, but whether it be in person or through other means, what are some of the biggest struggles that some of the men that you’re talking with are dealing with? And how are you helping them to be able to move through those challenges?
Don Manning [00:21:51]:
I think the biggest challenge that men face today is the technology and the culture that are out there. And it is difficult to connect with our kids when all they wanna do is get on their phone. And I think that and the secondary you know, the corollary to that is is that as dads, we’re usually not well trained in how to reach our kids. We’re not really well trained in the relationship arena. And when you combine the technology that’s separating all of us with that we’re not trained with the relationships, then a lot of dads are having trouble with that connection piece with their children and so and also with their wives. And so we do a lot towards helping dads learn to become better listeners, more encouraging, more inspiring. You know, so many dads are, oh, they’re on their phone all the time. I can’t talk to them, and when I do, I feel like I’m getting on to them all the time.
Don Manning [00:22:49]:
Well, there’s different ways to overcome that. And we focus a lot to help dads learn how to build trust with their kids, build relationship with their kids. And really, so many dads, it’s not really that fun being a dad. Well, it can be. It can be a lot of fun with the right attitudes and concepts, and we try to help them do that.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:07]:
So you’ve been doing this now for quite some time. And as you look at the future, where is Crazy Cool Family going?
Don Manning [00:23:15]:
Great question. I what we find is learning to be a parent does not happen in days weeks. It doesn’t happen in a weekend seminar. It happens over months years. As parenting is a long term game, it’s something and, you know, I I really challenge dads a lot to become learners. I was with a dad just, you know, a few weeks ago, and blended family had come together. They had 6 kids between them, had been married for a few years. And I challenged those dads, you know, at that conference to be learners.
Don Manning [00:23:46]:
You know, what what are you doing to learn about being a dad and and to to improve your dad’s skills? And he goes, you know, he goes, man, I’m in IT, and I’m always learning about technology. He goes, I on the side, I’m a personal trainer, and I’m always learning new things about personal training neck techniques and and nutrition and things like that and and weightlifting and aerobics. He said, I’ve never thought about learning to be a dad. And I’m like, I’m glad you came because, you know, now he’s got a new focus. I said, how do you expect to be a great dad if you never learn? And the way you learn to be a dad is not by reading one book. It is by consistently putting input in over the course of years. And then just like anything else, you know, Steph Curry didn’t learn how to shoot the jump shot he has today in in a weekend. He learned it over months years and and continual practice.
Don Manning [00:24:37]:
And that’s what we try. That’s where Crazy Cool Family is going with our daily email, with our materials. We want to kinda we want to be a a part of a man’s life and a family’s life for years as we drip our content into them so that those parents can learn over time to become excellent at the most, and arguably the most important thing we’ll ever do in our lives.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:24:59]:
No. It is so important, and I appreciate you sharing that. Now we always finish our interviews with what I like to call our fatherhood 5, where I ask you 5 more questions to delve deeper into you as a dad. Are you ready?
Don Manning [00:25:09]:
Yeah. Absolutely. I feel like I’m on jeopardy or something.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:25:13]:
In one word, what is fatherhood?
Don Manning [00:25:15]:
Relationship. It’s connection. I think the most important thing we can do in fatherhood is connect.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:25:21]:
Now when was the time that you finally found that you succeeded at being a father to a daughter?
Don Manning [00:25:26]:
I don’t know that I’ve found that yet. I I think with every daughter, it was different. There’s different times that I won their heart. But I think that when I feel like there’s trust in the relationship and there’s interaction, there’s a bridge that I feel like I’ve crossed with each daughter and with my wife too, where we trust each other.
Dr. Christopher Lewis[00:25:47]:
Now, if I was to talk to your kids, how would they describe you as a dad?
Don Manning [00:25:52]:
It’s interesting. My younger kids would have described me as an intense, teaching, challenging dad. My older kids would describe me as still intense, but more encouraging. And I would say they probably describe me as involved, that I coached all their sports teams. I, loved to connect with them, and I think they would describe it as involved.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:26:15]:
Who inspires you to be a better dad?
Don Manning [00:26:17]:
Jesus. I don’t want that to be trite, but I believe that the best example of being a father is God. And when Jesus was baptized so Jesus is 30 years old. He has not started his ministry yet. He has done nothing of importance. He’s he’s a carpenter, basically. And he gets baptized, and God says something to him when he comes up out of the water. He says, this is my son whom I love.
Don Manning [00:26:42]:
In him I am well pleased. And I ask dads this a lot, and I ask myself this question. Do my children believe that I believe that about them? You know, this is my I own you. I claim you. Not I own you, but I claim you. I love you and I’m pleased with you. I’m delighted in you. I think you’re amazing.
Don Manning [00:27:01]:
Is that what our kids think? And that’s the best model of parenting I’ve ever seen.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:07]:
Now you’ve given a lot of piece of advice today, things that you learned along the way, things they’ve learned from other parents and other fathers. As we’re finishing up today, what’s one piece of advice you want to give to every dad?
Don Manning [00:27:18]:
Be a learner. I mean, if one of the things is is that I tell dads this a lot that if you could have seen me as a dad at year 5 and you would see my kids today. You would be like, there’s no way. There’s no way that could happen because I was there was so much I had to learn. And, honestly, I started out I wasn’t very good at being a dad. I mean, I tried hard because that was kind of a mantra of my life. I am a hard worker, and I do like to I’m motivated, and I’m I’m not lazy. But, man, I just messed it up a lot, especially with my young girls.
Don Manning [00:27:53]:
And so I would tell dads to be a learner and to learn about themselves as well as a learner about relationships because the the cool deal about this deal with fatherhood is we can all be amazing. I believe every dad can be amazing. I believe every relationship with every child can be amazing. There’s things we need to learn and it’s not easy, but it is possible. And I want to tell dads that you can win and it’s worth winning. It is so fun to do family when things are going well and it is so difficult when things are not going well.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:28:29]:
Well, Don, I just wanna say thank you. Thank you for sharing your story today, for sharing the journey that you’ve been on, but also the journey that you’ve been on to help other parents in many different ways. If people wanna get a hold of you or find out more about you, where should they go?
Don Manning [00:28:44]:
Crazycoolfamily.com is our website. And then just if they wanna email me directly, it’s it’s don at crazycoolfamily.com. I hear from dad and parents all over the country with different questions and things, and our resources are all there. I would really challenge them to sign up for our daily email because we not only do a daily email, but we also tell you of things that we’re doing to help you go further with your fathering and parenting journey. And so that would be the place to start out with is connect with that daily email. Promise you, it’s a quick read, and you’ll be encouraged and inspired to be your best.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:18]:
Well, Don, thanks again for being here today, and I wish you all the best.
Don Manning [00:29:21]:
Thanks for having me.
Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:22]:
If you’ve enjoyed today’s episode of the Dads with Daughters podcast, we invite you to check out the fatherhood insider. The fatherhood insider is the essential resource for any dad that wants to be the best dad that he can be. We know that no child comes with an instruction manual and most dads are figuring it out as they go along, and the fatherhood insider is full of resources and information that will up your game on fatherhood. Through our extensive course library, interactive forum, step by step roadmaps, and more, you will engage and learn with experts, but more importantly, dads like you. So check it out at fathering together.org. If you are a father of a daughter and have not yet joined the dads with daughters Facebook community, there’s a link in the notes today. Dads with daughters is a program of fathering together. We look forward to having you back for another great guest next week all geared to helping you raise strong and powered daughters and be the best dad that you can be.
We’re all in the same boat and it’s full of tiny screaming passengers. We spend the time. We give the lessons. We make the meals. We buy them presents and bring your a game. Because those kids are growing fast. The time goes by just like a dynamite blast. Calling astronauts and firemen, carpenters, and musclemen. Get out and be the world to them.
