by Michael Holland     

As you eat breakfast, make mental notes on some aspect of each of your kids’ activities from the previous day or evening.   Visualize the situation and make a mental movie of the impact of the activity or behavior had on them and/or others. During your afternoon commute home, take a moment to replay those mental videos. Choose movies that deserve a “review” (a coaching up moment), and then spend time discussing it with your child.

Each of your kids should receive at least one review per week. Make a plan to give a 10-second movie review for your child, giving fatherly insight on what you loved about the moment or where there’s opportunity for growth.  The review could be as simple as providing a positive stroke for consistently behaving as desired; for instance, you praise them for how respectfully they treated their mom in a specific instance.  The review may sometimes be more difficult; you might decide to walk them through the short and long-term consequences of a bad decision they made.

Kids want to know that their dad will be consistent in his approach. They want to be able to anticipate how their dad will react in a given circumstance. Your movie reviews will set the stage for providing that knowledge, both from your content and from your delivery. So start rolling those mental cameras today!