Loving Daughters

Dear Pastor Lawyer,

My daughters are coming to the age where they are starting to notice boys and I was wondering if there was any advice you might give me about how to protect them from what could be coming. Thanks,

Martin


Dear Martin,

This is a good question and one that more men need to think about if they have daughters. Here are several ideas. The first thing a father must do in order to protect his daughters is to love their mother in a Biblical way. This includes leading the family in a strong spiritual life: teaching them the word, leading them in family devotions, carefully explaining how life fits in with the Word of God and how everything is addressed in the Bible. It also includes maintaining a strong physical relationship with their mother. Let the hugs and kisses abound in front of the children. Love your wife and let it overflow to the whole family. Another way to love your wife is to respect her in public and in private. Never correct her in front of the children and never yell at her at all. The father who wants to protect his daughters from the ravages of the world needs to begin by loving their mother.

The second thing the father needs to do is to love his daughter— spend time with her, talk with her, play with her, get to know her and let her get to know you. Make sure this time is actually spent with her, while paying attention to her. Some men will give their daughters a ride to soccer and think they’ve spent time with her. This is not what I’m talking about. Daughters need their daddies to love them and to care for them and to care about what they care about.

Another important way to protect your daughters is to be very physically loving with them. Give them lots of hugs and kisses. Sit with them and hold them while you’re reading together or watching TV. When you go places with them, hold their hand, even if it isn’t a dangerous situation. In short, shower them with physical attention. Then, they will not need to seek such attention from elsewhere.

Protecting your daughters also includes teaching them about how boys think. Boys view things from a completely different perspective than s do. For example, teenage boys are goal oriented and want one thing from a teenage . The s are relationship and romance oriented and think the boys want to have a special relationship with them. Suppose the boy says, “I love you” to the . What he means is, “Let’s smooch, etc.” The , on the other hand hears, “I love you,” and she thinks he means, “You are the most important person in the world to me. Let’s be good close friends”. In order to protect your daughters, you need to tell them how and what boys are thinking and what they are after.

Finally, you need to teach your daughters how to treat the boys. The Bible tells the boys to treat the “younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.” It’s safe to infer from this that the s ought to treat the boys as brothers, with purity. What this means is that the s ought to avoid flirting with the boys. Sisters don’t flirt with their brothers, and s shouldn’t flirt with the boys. Second, they need to watch what they are wearing in front of the boys. s who live in our obsessed culture don’t understand that the fashions are virtually ographic. s who want to look fashionable need to understand that fashion is ual by nature. s who dress fashionably will cause the boys to after them. There is no way for a in our culture to dress fashionably and at the same time to dress modestly. Because s view things from a different perspective than boys do, you fathers need to help your daughters understand that they need to treat the boys like brothers and what that means. Teach them not to flirt and how to dress.

I hope this helps.

Pastor Lawyer