It is a wise father that knows his own child.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
When I retired, people like John Elway and Michael Jordan advised me to enjoy it yet to also pursue other interests. I knew that finding a job wasn’t going to be a problem. I joined Fox Sports Net that fall as a broadcaster. I also investigated ownership possibilities with NASCAR, although the economic crash prevented us from securing enough funds to get it launched.
One of the best things about my retirement, though, is that it gave me a new opportunity to focus on my family. I love each of my kids in a way that words can’t describe. If you’re a parent, you know what I mean. They are a part of me. We have a bond that can never be broken.
I’m sure every father who’s involved in his children’s lives feels that way. I’ve observed, however, a trend in parenting today that bothers me. Too often, I see dads (moms too) who try to be buddies with their kids. They act as if they and their children are equals. They’re so concerned about keeping the kids smiling and satisfied in the moment that they say yes to whatever their kids want, even though they need to be thinking about the long term and sometimes saying no. In our society today, it seems everything is available and permissible in terms of language, alcohol, drugs, and sex. Kids need clear guidance from someone in authority to steer them through that. Fathers shouldn’t try to be friends with their kids. A dad should be the leader of his family.
Not long ago, I had a conversation about this with my daughter Timon. She’d just turned fourteen. She’s a fantastic kid who almost always makes good decisions, but with boys already in the picture and all the other teenage temptations looming, I knew the road ahead was sure to have bumps. I needed to remind her who had the keys to the car.
“Timon,” I said, “for the next six or seven years, we may not like each other very much. I just want you to know that I’m fine with that. You don’t have to like what I say. In fact, the less you like it, the better I may be doing as your dad. All I need you to do is listen to me and follow what I say and I’ll get you through this.”
My daughter looked at me like I’d lost my mind, but that’s okay. Sometimes a dad’s role is to be the no-fun parent.
I tell my kids, “Life is a rope. You get to grab hold and swing it from the tree as high and far as you can. If you can manage that, I’ll stand back and guide you from there. But if the rope starts to choke you, I need to jump in and swing it for you.”
I don’t see myself as a strict disciplinarian, but I do try to establish boundaries for my children. I want them to understand what they’re supposed to do and not do. I have no desire to check their cell phones every day or control their every decision, but if I see behavior that doesn’t line up with what I expect, I’m more than willing to step in.
Taylor was always a straight-up kid. I never had to worry about drugs or underage drinking or those kinds of issues. When he was twelve, though, there was a time when he talked disrespectfully to people in authority over him. I’d heard that he sassed his teacher at vacation Bible school. When I asked him about it, his flippant answer was, “Oh, yeah, I did that,” as if it was no big deal.
I needed to take action right then or the problem was only going to get worse. So what did I do? I punched Taylor right in the chest—not hard enough to hurt him, but hard enough to get his attention. Believe me, it worked! It helped him realize that he was out of line and I wasn’t going to tolerate it. We talked some more and I never had that trouble with him again.
Am I saying that anytime you have a problem with your children that you should punch them? Of course not. A dad’s discipline has to fit the crime and the kid. You have to know your children and know what’s going to be most effective as a teaching tool—what works for our family might not work for yours. At the time, Taylor was almost as big as me, nearly six feet tall. He already knew what I expected, so more words wouldn’t be enough by themselves. He was too old for a time-out or a spanking. To show him I was serious, I felt I needed to make a physical statement—and if that left him wondering what his crazy dad would do the next time he crossed the line, that was fine too.
I don’t enjoy disciplining my kids. I do it because I love them and I know it will pay off for them in the long run. The trick is figuring out the right method for each child at the time, because every child is unique.
Timothy and Tamar, who we often call Mar-Mar, are perfect examples of this. Even though they’re twins, we have to take completely different approaches to disciplining them. Timothy likes to please. When he makes a mistake, he’ll say, “Dad, I know. I shouldn’t have done that.” He wants nothing to do with a spanking. He’ll do anything to avoid that belt.
Tamar is another story. One night when she was just four, she came into the bedroom where Sherice and I were sleeping. Even though she’d been doing fine sleeping in her own room, she’d suddenly decided she wanted to stay in the bed with us. “Tamar,” I said, “you have a bed and a beautiful room of your own. You need to sleep there.” I picked her up and put her back in her bed.
Tamar had a fit: “I don’t want to go in my room! I don’t want to go in my room!” Ninety minutes later, she was still screaming. Something had to be done. After what seemed like a hundred warnings, I finally pulled out my belt and popped her a couple of times on her behind—nothing too hard, you understand, just enough to get the point across. (Again, you may find another method of discipline that’s more appropriate for your family.)
For most kids, and certainly for Timothy, that would have been enough to take care of the situation. But not for Tamar. She stopped yelling, looked at me calmly, and said, “Are you done? Why don’t you get Mommy and have her whip me too, because after you guys are done I’m still coming into your room.”
Wow. That belt didn’t mean a thing to this child. What was more, she was challenging me. Now it was a battle of wills. I had to win this one and show her who had the authority or we’d have problems for the rest of our years together.
Tamar’s bedroom had more than one exit, so this time I picked her up and put her in another bedroom, which had just one door. I told her she could scream all she wanted, but she wasn’t going to sleep in Mommy and Daddy’s bedroom. I sat in the room with her, my back against the door, while she hollered. I eventually fell asleep there. Four hours later—yes, you read that right—she finally calmed down and woke me up. “Daddy, I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll go to bed now. I’m sorry.”
We had to get up at six o’clock the next morning. When I woke up Tamar in her bed, she smiled and said, “Hi, Daddy, how are you?” as if nothing had happened. It had been a very long night, but I’d learned important lessons on how to discipline and not discipline Tamar, while she’d learned that I wasn’t going to back down when she challenged me.
Anyone who says parenting is easy doesn’t have a kid of his own.
There are all kinds of philosophies on raising kids. I know many people are against any kind of corporal punishment. All I can say is that when I grew up, everybody in my neighborhood got whipped or spanked when they disobeyed their parents, including me. I never got a whipping I didn’t deserve and I hate to think about what I might have done if I thought I never had to face my dad’s belt. My father was far from perfect, but other than the night he threatened to kill me, I think the way he handled family discipline was just about right.
A spanking isn’t effective for every child, and absolutely you have to be careful about it. If you’re angry, you need to calm down before you do anything physical. A spanking should be a rare occurrence, used only when your child defies you or ignores repeated warnings. It should sting only a little, and a couple of swats are all you need. And the older your kids get, the better it is to find another discipline option. These days in the Brown household, that might mean taking away the cell phone and other electronic devices, saying no to friends coming over or trips to the mall, and removing swimming pool privileges for a day or two.
Discipline shouldn’t be a dirty word. The Bible says that “He who spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is careful to discipline him” (Prov. 13:24). I don’t need to be friends with my kids. I need to be their dad.
I’ve probably given the impression that I’m a stern taskmaster who’s always watching for my children to step over the line. That’s not me at all. Even though I do have expectations and respond quickly if they’re not met, I try to balance that with lots of love and connection.
I travel often, but when I’m home I spend as much time with my kids as I can. That’s one area where I’m trying to be different than my dad. My father was always either working or recovering from work, so he didn’t have time or energy to be involved in the lives of his children. Whether it’s coaching one of their teams, attending their events, driving them to school or practice, or just hanging out at home, I aim to be around my kids. And of course we’re together at church whenever I’m in town.
Just as my kids have their own individual responses to different methods of discipline, they’re also individuals when it comes to what they enjoy and how they connect. Timon is our touchy-feely girl. Sometimes you can talk and talk to her and never get a conversation started, but if you rub her head or her back, she’ll open up. I try to give her extra hugs or do silly things like “accidentally” bump into her. Physical touch is what brings her out of her shell.
Timothy, on the other hand, is all about getting time with Mom and Dad. He’ll walk into my office and say, “When are we going to have a Daddy day?” He loves board games and playing any kind of ball. The best way to show Tamar that we love her, meanwhile, seems to be through gifts. Buy her some clothes or a snow cone and she’ll light up like a Christmas tree. The point is that each one is unique, so Sherice and I try to parent them accordingly.
My kids all love to travel. We take at least one family trip a year to Lake Tahoe, which is always a great chance for us to enjoy being together. We also consistently include the kids in extended family gatherings—and we have a lot of them. My mom, brother, and sisters all live within two miles of each other, so we get together every Monday night at Mama’s house for dinner and catching up. Timon is part of a competitive cheerleading squad now, so she can’t make it as often, but over the years the kids have had a lot of time and fun with their grandparents and aunts and uncles and seen the value of a close extended family.
The Brown family’s competitive spirit comes out two or three times a year when we all get together at my house for a game night. I’m not talking about cards and board games. We take it to another level, based on the TV show Minute to Win It. We divide into two teams and use stuff you can find around the house to see who can prevail in sixty-second contests. It might be flicking cards into a trash can, bouncing Ping-Pong balls across a table, or balancing items on your head. On a typical game night, we might have thirty family members there, men and boys versus women and girls.
Believe me, it’s intense. I pull out a bunch of old uniforms so all the guys are wearing number eighty-one. In each category, one contestant from each team faces off on our racquetball court, where everyone else can watch them through the glass. We have a referee too. You better believe there’s a lot of cheering and yelling, not to mention a little trash talk. It’s all a good time, and the best part is that no matter how young or old, everyone participates.
People say I was a leader on the Raiders. It was a role I grew into, but once I became a team captain and had the opportunity, it was a challenge I took seriously. I tried to be a link between coaches and the younger players who weren’t always sure what was what. I talked with other staff in the organization to stay in the loop on what was happening. I served as a players union representative. Most of the time, people seemed to appreciate what I did. If I was going to be a team leader, I wanted to do it to the best of my ability.
None of what I did as a leader with the Raiders, however, is even a fraction as important as what I do as the head of my family. The influence I have on my kids is powerful. For better and worse, it may extend for generations. That’s why, as in everything else, I lean heavily on God to show me the way.
Scripture says, “Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Eph. 6:4). That’s a verse I take to heart. All the love and discipline I impart to my children will only go so far. More than anything else, I want to lead them to a love for and relationship with God. Just like Mama did with me and my siblings, Sherice and I make sure our kids are in church as often as possible.
Recently, Timon asked me if she could attend a music event for kids in downtown Dallas. I eventually said yes, but not before I secured a promise from her to lock in more at church. “The more church you get, the more it frees me to say yes to these kinds of things,” I said. “When you get God in you, it reassures me that you know how to handle situations when you’re away from us.”
Going to church doesn’t guarantee a relationship with God, of course. But the more you expose your kids to what God and His Word are all about, the more likely they are to understand Him and invite Him into their hearts. That’s what I’m after—to get God into my kids. I believe that’s what any dad should be after. When he does that, he has become a true leader.