The Championship Legacy You Pass On To Your Kids

As the NCAA college basketball tournament wraps up soon and you're either bemoaning the failure of your March Madness bracket or triumphing in victory, follow March Dadness, our game plan for Coach Dad. 

We started with Sweet 16 Words of Affirmation, advanced to Elite 8 Activities Your Kids Should Experience with You, and moved on to the Final 4 Character Qualities You Need to Instill in Your Children.  We cap off March Dadness with the Championship Legacy You Pass On To Your Kids.

Our mission at NFI is to improve the well-being of children by increasing the proportion of children who grow up with involved, responsible, and committed fathers.  Involved, Responsible, and Committed are qualities that we think are essential for fathers, and they make up the foundations of the legacy you pass on to your children and generations to come.  Leave a legacy of a champion by living out these qualities every day.

The Championship Legacy You Leave Your Kids

• Involved:  Be involved in your children's life - change diapers, read bedtime stories, discipline with gentleness, go to sports events and extracurricular activities, talk to your teens about important topics like sexuality and drugs and alcohol, get to know their friends.  Two of our favorite sayings at NFI are "The smallest moments make the biggest impact in the life of a child" and "Kids spell love T-I-M-E."  Be involved in the big and small moments and invest your time in your children's life.
  
  
• Responsible:  We like to say that responsible dads do three things for their children: provide, nurture, and guide.  Provide for your children's needs (this is more than putting food on the table; make sure they are safe, healthy, and loved).  Nurture your children by calling out their best qualities, encouraging them to reach their potential, and demonstrating your love by words and actions.  Guide your children by teaching them values, disciplining with gentleness, coaching them when they make mistakes, and helping them find their own direction in life.
  
  
• Committed:  Be committed to lifelong fathering.  Your job as a dad doesn't start when you get home from work and it doesn't end when your kids graduate from high school.  You are a dad 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, every day of your child's life.  When you're 80 and your child is 50, you will still be a dad.  Also, be committed to the institution of fatherhood.  In a era when 24 million children in America are growing up without their fathers, good dads like you need to be shining examples of fatherhood by mentoring other dads and children who don't have fathers.

As you strive be an involved, responsible, and committed father every day, you will create a Championship Legacy that will have generational impact in the lives of your children and their children.