Conversation Starters For Dads With Their Daughters

If you're a father with daughters, whether you know it or not, whether your daughter acts like it or not, she wants you and needs you in her life. Here's Michelle Watson Canfield. She's a senior in high school.

She's not saying what you're saying. Do you know what the collective response was? When we pushed our dad away, we wished that he wouldn't have left. This is Family Life Today. Our hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson. I'm Bob Lapine. You can find us online at familylifetoday.com.

How can a dad stay connected with his daughter, even if she's asking like she's not really interested? That's what we're going to dive into today. Stay with us. And welcome to Family Life Today. Thanks for joining us. I think this is really interesting. We're going to be talking about the importance... We're going to be talking about talking.

That's right. We're going to be talking about how critical the relationship between a father and a daughter is. And you didn't have any daughters, right? No, I didn't.

Either did I, Bob. You pointed over at Ann. I was like, we're one. That's true. That's a good point. You guys didn't raise daughters. But I did have a father.

Well, and that's the interesting thing. Because Michelle Watson Canfield is joining us today as well. Welcome, Michelle. Thank you.

Enjoy to be here. You had a dad too, right? I did. But you have had no daughters. Exactly. So here we are talking about this subject. And I think it has to be of interest to you in part because you're a daughter, not because you're married to somebody. Well, now you are married to somebody who has daughters. So you're getting to see it from a whole different...

I'm the newlywed, though. So you're right. This is honed up a place. This is pretty interesting. I mean, like a couple months. We have to talk about this.

We do. And we may tell the whole story at some point. But you are, can we say that you are later in life? Oh, 60.

I'm totally good with saying my age. And single your entire life. Yes. And contented as a single. Yes.

And then God... But I did wrestle. I'm not going to lie.

Right. For years? Yes, for years till about five years ago and really felt like God was saying, Michelle, your whole lane is dads and daughters. And so you got in that lane and you were driving that lane.

You said you made a commitment, like I'm good being single the rest of my life. Five years ago. Every heart of every dad in this nation is turned toward his daughter.

I'm all in. And then? And then... What happened? Then, oh my goodness, the long story that's very short is that a man who is a widower who I've respected for years wrote the foreword to my first book. Dr. Ken Canfield started the National Center for Fathering 30 years ago. So we've been colleagues, always above board.

And his wife died last year. And so really it was one of those things where I just heard God's voice really speak to my spirit. And I was like, I wrote in my journal, okay, God, if you want me to marry Ken, I will say yes. And then I wrote, what? What did I just write and agree to?

So really this is an obedience thing, right? Not a romance thing. You are a newlywed still. You've been married for how long?

Five and a half months. There we go. This is amazing. And you know what? How excited she is about it.

You guys look like newlyweds. You do. Do we? Oh, yes. It's so sweet. You're sitting there. You're grabbing each other's hands. You're kissing.

I'm jealous. I want you to do that to me. Come on. We'll inspire you.

Oh, come over here, honey. Yes. See, that didn't happen with Dennis, did it? And I'm glad it didn't happen with Dennis. Why dads and daughters? Why is that the lane God laid out for you? Again, you've been single your whole life. You've been in clinical practice for years. Twenty-five years.

How did this show up on your radar screen in the first place? Right. So I've been mentoring and counseling young women for a lot of years, even since I was 19, mentoring them in churches and camps and, you know, different forums like that. So wait, wait, wait. At 19 years old.

Yes. I was a pastor's daughter. You were a mentoring girl.

You know, I was a Bible college student. And you have your doctorate in? Doctorate in counseling psychology.

Health psychology, counseling psychology, kind of master's and a doctorate. You are the smartest person in this room. Oh, my goodness.

Just want to let you know. No, it just means there's letters after my name, right? It just means I paid a lot of money and worked hard. That's all that means. Right? Piled higher and deeper. We know what PhD stands for.

But truthfully, I've mentored girls for so many years, four decades, and over and over just hearing through the years about so much heart pain with their dads not knowing how to connect with them. I think on the best of days, you know, you men are from Mars. We're from Venus, right, Ann?

Yes. And we speak two different languages, even on the best of days. And so God knows me enough that he gave me something that is totally unique, and I just listened to his voice. So the story is really that in December of 2009, I was reading in Luke 1 how God told Zechariah that his yet-to-be-born son, John, would help turn the hearts, not the heads, of fathers to their children.

Right? And I was sitting there a random day and just heard God say, Michelle, that's what I want you to do. I thought, what? Like, truth be told, I never really liked fathers joining counseling sessions. They'd always say, okay, what are your three goals?

And they would just want all this data points. And I'm like, okay, that isn't really how I roll. I'm meeting people where they're at. And yet here God said, that's what I want you to do with men. So you're getting at the head-heart thing.

Absolutely. Because dads would come in and you felt like you heard their head, God said hearts, so what's that mean? Right, there's a discrepancy there is how do men get into their heart space? Yes, let's talk about that. Let's talk about that. And you know what, I love that you brought that up because so many men in the groups that I lead, which I'll tell you about in a sec, but really these men say, did you know this is really helping me with my wife too?

Of course. The things they're learning with their daughters are changing them from the inside out. And what I've found is that when men's competence is built, their confidence builds, like those go together. And so as a woman over here where I have great respect for the role that fathers have in the lives of their daughters and their sons is I'm a champion of men. And you guys can weigh in on this one, but I believe men can tell whether or not a woman is an ally. And I speak mostly at men's conferences, not women's conferences anymore. And sometimes I can feel the hostility when I walk in because I think they think I'm a threat.

Like, wait, this is a no girls allowed club. But then when they hear my heart, and I don't say this to sound arrogant, but they really do then see I'm an ally and they line up, many of them crying over estrangement. And they literally say, I don't know what to do.

Everything I'm doing is wrong. And so I'm like, you know, I'm going to give you some ideas and then I'll be your fall guy. If it bombs, you just blame me. And they're like, I'm really good with that. But anyway, back to the story.

And we can like go on the scene of ground and then we come back to the freeway. I've been explaining this to Bob and Dave. This is how we run as women. This is how we rule.

All those neural connections. I'm not sure I know what just happened. What just happened? So you asked me the question, how did I get into this fathering space? Luke won.

Luke won. Good job, Dave. Hearts of the fathers. Yep. So the next month when God said, I want you to start turning the hearts of fathers, help allying with me in doing that.

I wrote 11 dads an email whose daughters were my clients at the time in their teens or their twenties said, would you want to join me once a month for six months to see if there's a change in you, your daughter and your relationship? And 10 of the 11 men said, yeah, we're in. And once a month. That's doable. Exactly.

Couple hours once a month. And I had no curriculum. I had nothing. But every month, Abba would download to me. I call him Abba. It means daddy and Aramaic and men love a project.

Hence the name. It's the Abba project. And every month he would download the next idea.

I had no curriculum, nothing planned. And I take men through all kinds of topics like we start in the light end. I say the lighter end, which is really the format of my book now. Let's start with laughter. You know, where a dad can ask his daughter, what item of my clothing would you love to see me get rid of?

Come on, just make fun of that. You know, like, let's start with the fun stuff like that. Tell me about your wedding day. What colors do you want? Where do you want it to be? What flowers do you want? I have yet to find a dad who has even thought to ask his daughter those questions.

What a great idea. And it's not threatening. It's just her dream.

It's her vision. It's getting into her heart. Is this dads and 12 year olds? Dads and six year olds? Dads at what age? Well, I target teens and 20s when it gets harder. You know, I find a lot of dads say when my daughter's young, you know, you come home from work and she runs up and throws her little grimy hands around your neck and kisses your face and you kiss her boo-boo and it's all better really fast.

Right? And then she hits 13, 14, maybe 11, 12. And it's awkward. It's awkward. It changes overnight. All of a sudden, dad is not the coolest guy in the room anymore.

She wants her peers. And dads I have found are a lot more tender and soft on the underbelly than they may appear. And that starts hurting their heart.

So oftentimes I have found in now 10 years of mentoring men, coaching men, is that you guys are smart enough to say, you know what? I'm making it worse. I'm going to let mom go in. Here, you're a girl.

You go in. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, dad. He does.

He backs up. Well, yeah, you said that in the book. I loved how you said this because as a man, I resonated immediately. You said men would rather do nothing than do it wrong. Exactly.

That was really interesting. That's in some ways why we step out. It's like I'm doing it wrong. I know I'm doing it wrong.

I don't know how to do it right. She knows how to do it right. I'm out. And maybe his wife is critiquing him. That does happen a lot.

And then he pulls way out. Absolutely. Bob, do you remember that phase with your girls? I remember when I started to feel like, yeah, they're in a different place. They're not as interested in what I think or what is going on. And this feels a little awkward. Their bodies are changing. So hugging them feels different.

Kissing them feels different than when they were six years old. And I think you, as a dad, you're not sure how to handle that and what's right and appropriate, especially in this culture where dads are crossing the line and violating. This is where a dad goes, I don't want to be that guy. So now what do I do? You know what?

You sound like you were in one of the groups. This comes up every year and it is in the materials that I give these dads. And then we talk about it. And what I've told them is, as a woman, I can tell you this is God is my witness.

And you can weigh in on this, Anne, if you want. But inside of our bodies, we don't feel any different. So when dad starts backing off going, I don't want to touch you in the wrong place, what happens is we start thinking something's wrong with us. And dads who are listening, who have daughters who are developing, just remember, keep hugging her the same way. In fact, I had one of the dads tell me, a guy named Mike said when his daughter was 13, he started backing off because she was more developed and they used to wrestle. And so as you can imagine, it actually started causing distance in their relationship. I don't think just because they weren't wrestling, but I think that was a metaphor of distance that was happening where there was lack of physical contact happening. And then that is the perfect setup for girls to be wooed by the dud and the dude who's like, I'll go in, you know, she wants touch.

I mean, they can read it. I have to ask you about this and I'll ask both of you, because both of you had an experience of abuse in your background as children. Does that not affect the daddy-daughter touch aspect of a parent relationship?

Absolutely it affects that. Even sometimes unconsciously if it's been dissociated, right, where somebody is not even in touch with why touch from a man feels awful. And so for dads, you're going to have to pace with your daughter, right?

If she's reactive to touch, I encourage them to try a tap on the shoulder or kiss the top of her head or at the very least do an ET touch finger to finger, like something where you are initiating, because we know that in Malachi, God says it's the hearts of fathers who have to turn first and then in reciprocal response, the daughter turns. So yes, it is up to the dad to find a way to reach the emotional center of his daughter, even if she has abuse there. Did your dad know that you had experienced abuse? No, my dad didn't know I'd experienced abuse.

And my dad didn't either. And I do remember being in the fourth grade and my parents weren't very affectionate, my mom especially, but my dad did kiss me at night before I went to bed. But I remember being in the fourth grade and I said, I wonder if I'm too old for you to kiss me good night. And he said, oh, you probably are. And it was the last time I had any physical contact with either my mom or my dad. And I remember walking away out of that room and there was a sadness in my heart. I think I was hoping he would say, you'll never be too old.

Yes. But I think my dad didn't know. And so he's thinking, well, you know, yeah, you probably don't need it anymore. Is there ever a time when a daughter doesn't need it?

Absolutely not. In fact, a friend of mine said as a young life leader, he had a whole van full of senior in high school girls, you know, daughters. And his daughter was four at the time. And he said, okay, I'm overhearing a lot of negative conversation about your dads. Can you be the experts and tell me what do I need to know so that when my daughter is a senior in high school, she's not saying what you're saying.

Do you know what the collective response was? When we pushed our dad away, we wished that he wouldn't have left. I'm sitting here listening as a dad of sons hearing, tell me if I'm right, dads, step in. Do not step out. Even when it's uncomfortable, step into your uncomfortableness when it's awkward. I want to say to the dads listening, it's on us.

Let's do it. I remember feeling the same thing when my boys hit teenage years. I know it's different than a daughter, but I was like, oh, it's great when they're little kids and you jump in their bed with them and you roll around and you read Bible stories and you pray.

And then they're 15 and you're like, this is sort of weird. I'm not going to lay down in the bed beside him. I've got a beard.

He's got a beard. You know, I'm not going to hug him. And I remember thinking, no, I need to do this. I never had a dad do it. My dad was gone. So I'd never seen this. But I remember Ann saying, why don't you hug him anymore?

Why don't you lay down beside him? I'm like, well, it's weird. I can imagine even like Bob, be even stranger with the daughter.

But I knew then, and I'm not saying I did it well, I don't wait for them. I've got to step in and I've got to become the dad that still hugs and still lays in bed with them at night. And it could look different. It's going to look different. And I wish I could say they're going to, you know, if we called them right now, they say, dad, did that. Unbelievably, they probably say, yeah, he didn't do it great. You were standing in the kitchen with our 29-year-old and he said, dad, just hug me.

A 29-year-old man. He's like, dad, just bear hug me. And you had touched the boys, but you weren't bear hugging him. You're like, this is weird. But I needed to step into that. Absolutely. You know, especially when your son or daughter's asking for it.

It's like there's a part of us as men we just, when we don't know what to do, we do nothing. And it's like, you know what? You don't want to regret this. So go for it.

Absolutely. Well, the dad Mike that I was telling you about that backed off from his daughter as she was developing. Well, then she was 17. So he said, I haven't been really hugging her for four years, but they started doing these monthly dad-daughter dates with questions that I gave them, which is really what Let's Talk is about is equipping dads with more questions to get the conversation going. And because I always say as a daughter, when our mouth opens, our heart opens. This is big.

Right. When you said this and I read it in your book, I'm like, oh, I just stopped for a second. Actually, I got to be honest. I read it to her.

Yes, he did. I was doing something. I'm like, and listen to this. Is this true? And she's like, absolutely. And I'm like, it's true on a date night with us.

No question. So it'd be the same with a daughter, with a father. And when we stop talking. Am I right, men?

You go, what did I do? When we're closed, you know, heart, our mouth closes up. And so when dads are like, okay, I don't know what to do to reach her heart. It really comes back to talking. How can you get us to open up and have a conversation with you? And that's what this dad, Mike, did. And he said, and guess what's happened?

We were on about month six of the ABBA project. He said, we're wrestling again. All of that goes together. When I talk to men, you know, I go to do a session with just guys. I always make a joke like, if you're like me, you're sitting there like, just tell me what to do. You know, that's what a guy is.

It's like, put it on the bottom shelf. Tell me what to do. I'll go do it. This was your book to us. I mean, look at it.

Let's talk conversation starters for dads and daughters. Like, here it is. A manual.

What do I do? Open this. Well, I mean, I read the first one. Here's how you ask questions about laughter. I'm like, we're that elementary?

Yes, we are. And you can take question number one and look at your daughter and do it and guess what? She's going to open your mouth. Her heart's going to open.

Yours going to open. Here we go. Right? Exactly. Well, you talk about the three truths that dads need to know.

The first one is you are your daughter's introduction to male love. Absolutely. Talk about that a little bit. What does that mean? And don't we know that? So many little girls I asked about, you know, bring up the thing about a wedding day, her wedding day. And so she oftentimes is already thinking that way. Right?

Is what's that going to be like? And it's very romantic and magical, not realistic oftentimes. And our granddaughter, I remember when she was three and four, she would just go through the wedding album of her parents.

And I thought, I've never seen our sons in their whole life even want to look at a wedding picture. Yes. So I think the more a dad can, again, it's about the heart connection. Get her talking about her dreams and what kind of guy she's interested in and what wouldn't she want in a guy that she would marry and what would have her walk away.

I don't care if she's six or 16 or 26. It's getting her talking. I think as women, we figure things out by talking. Yes. Sometimes I don't even know what I'm thinking.

I don't even know what I'm saying. No. Yeah.

It's coming out of our mouths. Exactly. So when a dad can become more skilled in asking questions that allow her to think and then reflect and then speak, I believe that same clarity is going to carry outside the home. I say, dads, if you want your daughter to have a voice out in the world, you got to let her practice with you at home, which means it isn't always going to be respectful of you or mom. How many dads step in, you will not speak to mom that way.

Yeah. And then it goes sideways off the rails because maybe he didn't understand what kind of a day she'd had. So I think really the more dads can ask questions rather than make statements, he will pace better with his daughter because she'll get to tell him what she's thinking, what she's experienced, what she's needing, and that's going to help her outside of the home have more of a voice and be a world changer. And let's just take a little side note and talk to moms because I thought it was interesting, too, of how you distinguish the relationship between the mom and the dad. You're still saying the mom's important, too. Absolutely. So talk about that a little bit, but it's different.

It's different. And I've had so many moms say, like, I'm going to buy this book because mom is often holding the pain of her daughter in how dad is missing her. And so she's carrying this burden for her daughter. It creates problems in the marriage because now she's starting to resent dad for not stepping in. So I've had moms go, thank you, I'm going to buy this for my husband, or four, if they're divorced, my kid's dad.

Even if he's remarried, I want to help support. And I'm saying women listening, whether or not you're still married to your kid's dad, this is a way to practically invest in your kids' lives and their futures by equipping dad with more resources to dial into her heart space. And you also said that daughters feel like mom will be there in most cases.

Mom's going to be there, but there's a question about if the dad will be. Absolutely. Sadly, isn't that the way it goes? Yeah. I mean, you think about how many football players are out there thanking their mama. Right. You know, it's like, I know my mama's got my back forever.

But a lot of them are fatherless boys. Was that your football voice? That was pretty good. Did you like that? I didn't know I had a football voice. I was digging deep on that one. That's good.

When you get an NFL chaplain telling you your football voice is pretty good, you've hit the big time there. Oh, I love it. So number two was your daughter wants you.

Absolutely. She may not know how to tell you that, especially when her hormones are raging, which affects her moods, her behavior, and her thinking. Just expect her to go off the rails a little bit during those adolescent, pre-adolescent years. It's really not her fault. It's what's happening in her brain as hormones are surging. And I think sometimes what I've seen in coaching dads for a decade is they'll say, until you can make sense, like, I don't want to hear it.

You make no sense. And she's like, but that's all I know. That's the only words I have. So, dads, I know that this is going to require you to dig deep, to find skills inside of you that you didn't even know you had. But I love reminding men, at times where it gets really challenging with your girls, go back and find pictures from when she was first born or when she was five.

I mean, that's like the ultimate cuteness, too, right there. Find pictures of when it was really easy between the two of you, because that's going to awaken your heart to remember how much you love her during those years where you can't quite get to that place and remember what you loved about her. What's the goal? As a dad, I want to know, what am I aiming for? So, I want to connect with the heart of my daughter, and I want that just on a relational level. But why is this so important for her and for me?

Well, a couple things come to mind. One is that her identity is tied to her dad, right? Most women have the same last name as their dad. So, they're looking at their father saying, this is my name. I carry your name. So, I think we live in a culture where a lot of women don't know who they are or whose they are, right?

And they're prime candidates for the world. I put that in quotes, but to say, here's how we're going to define you. And even earlier, Dave, the thought came to me and I thought, do I say this?

Oh, here we go. When we talked about dads hugging their daughters, I'm just going to go out on a limb here. But men who are addicted to pornography are going to struggle more to engage their daughters physically because they're going to be pulling up images that are getting projected onto their daughter. So, dads, remember that in your home, as a leader, this is on you.

You were saying that earlier to initiate physical contact, but it's also on you to take that out of your life. That's right. So that you can be a representative, which leads to my second answer, Bob, is that the second thing of why this is so important is that you're building a bridge to God as a father, ultimately. Like, why on earth would God as a father trust men to represent himself to the world?

I mean, talk about a big mantle. And yet, isn't it interesting in John 8 44 that Jesus himself, this is red letter in the Bible, called Satan what? The father of life. The father of life. Father of lies. He is a counterfeit father.

Yeah. I always thought he'd be called like the CEO of lies, you know, some other word, but he's the father. Oh, I've never thought of that. Who is a counterfeit father. And so dads just know back to what's so important about this relationship between a dad and a daughter is you are building a bridge to God as a father so that when you're not there, she knows she has a dad, capital D, who will protect her, define her, love her and invest in her. And any of us here can tell you, we've all had these conversations with young women who will say, I struggled with a relationship with God because of my relationship with my father.

Yes. If that's what father means, I want nothing to do with God because of the brokenness and the disconnectedness. And I think as dads, we have to recognize this is not just about how we get along with our daughters, which is important. It's vital.

It's what we all want. But what Michelle has said, we're building a bridge that's a bigger bridge than just how we get along inside the family. Yeah. And I know that for years, my struggle with God was connected to my dad being absent. You know, he left mom to have divorce when I was seven. And it took years for me to understand God's here. He's present.

He didn't abandon. He's right here. But as a dad, then I was like, OK, I'm going to be there. I'm going to be present. And yet it's easy to be physically present and emotionally absent, you know, with a son or a daughter. And so even as we wrap this show, I'd be like, dads, show up. I know you don't know what to do. We've got a resource for you to help you, but show up.

But there's one other thing and we don't have time to develop it maybe in the next minute or so. But moms, when your husband does show up and he's not doing it right, let him do it wrong. Don't step in and correct him because he's going to step away and he may not return. And I don't mean he's going to leave the house, but he may not emotionally engage if you stop what he's trying to do, even though he's awkward and he's not saying the right things. At least acknowledge his efforts. Let him try because, right, his daughter is longing for that. And even if he does it wrong, she's still getting a dad who's there. So, man, let's step up and do it.

And the dad who says, I don't know where to start. Yeah, we got it for you. Michelle's written the book. That's the guidebook.

It's like you said, Dave. Page one. Ask this question. Page two.

Now ask this question. I mean, it's pretty bottom shelf. Yep, there's 60 topics and it's dad, lead her to laugh, lead her to love herself and others, lead her to look deeper, right? At things inside that she may not naturally really want to reflect on. Fourth section is lead her to lament even some dad wounds, dad voids. And then the last one is lead her to listen where we flip the script and the daughter gets to ask dad questions. So there's 60 conversation starters and activities where I really have a goal to equip dads to lead to be the hero they want to be and that their daughter needs them to be. We are making the book available this week to Family Life Today listeners who can help with a donation to support this ministry.

Again, Michelle's book is called Let's Talk, Conversation Starters for Dads and Daughters. And the book is our thank you gift to you when you reach out to help support the ongoing work of the Ministry of Family Life Today. You help provide practical, biblical help and hope for marriages and families all around the world. Hundreds of thousands of people every day who are connecting with us, listening to this program either on radio or via podcast or on our app or by asking Alexa to play Family Life Today.

You make all of that possible for yourself and for others when you support this ministry. And again, if you can make a donation today, we'd love to send you a copy of Dr. Michelle Watson Canfield's book, Let's Talk, Conversation Starters for Dads and Daughters. It's our thank you gift when you go online at familylifetoday.com to make a donation or when you call 1-800-FL-TODAY to donate. Again, the website to donate, familylifetoday.com or you can call to donate 1-800-358-6329.

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Go to your app store, type in family life as one word and download the Family Life mobile app. And we hope you can join us again tomorrow when we're going to continue talking about how dads can more effectively connect with the hearts of their daughters. Michelle Watson Canfield will be back with us tomorrow. Hope you can be here as well. I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch. We got some extra help from Bruce Goff and our entire broadcast production team. On behalf of our hosts, Dave and Ann Wilson, I'm Bob Lapine. We'll see you back tomorrow for another edition of Family Life Today. Family Life Today is a production of Family Life of Little Rock, Arkansas, a crew ministry. Help for today. Hope for tomorrow.