How did we become good at being a dad?

Happy Father's Day dads.

Billy around 1

Have you ever considered how someone becomes a good dad? Over the years I have read a lot of parenting books and looked at it from the Bible. In one sense I am still learning. I can tell you I have listened to dads and being a dad is to far from the list of many dads I know. Dads who are invested in their families spend more time thinking and growing then I think they are given credit for.
A motivation for my son is to be a better dad than I was. I'm OK with that. I am now in life's doctorate program called being a grand parent. I am now invested in my children and their children and one day children's children. Ah I am way to young for that.
Three books stand out with these three thoughts I like to share:

1. Howard Hendricks, Heaven Help the Home: The Bible has very practical principles that can be known and lived out. There are important things and then there are things not so important. Not everything is a principle and opinions are open for discussion. Teens love knowing this.
2. David Elkind, All Grown Up... written in the eighties is still worth reading; Parents have to grow up, kids need them to be parents. They have to set limits and make decisions. They have to be the one who meets the emotional and physical needs of the child and not the other way around.
3. Josh McDowell's book How to be a Hero to Your Kids, has a discussion about rules need a relationship and how to build acceptance in your kids. The idea when a kid out grows a rule get rid of it. Somewhere in Josh's ideas I also picked up try to find ways to say yes. It works...

These ideas have been tested. They gave me some flexibility when I needed the most. Somewhere I also got the idea that parenting is a thirty year term in our modern world and the goal would be adults not babies. To know my kids as adults is the most satisfactory part of my life.
Sitting down with friends talking dad stuff still goes on. Class is still in session. Keep walking