Missing Dad

I am a single mother of a boy whose father is minimally involved. What do you have in the way of advice to see him develop into a man?

We would encourage you to focus strongly on your role as a mom. Often times, single moms or mothers whose spouses aren’t invested well in parenting, will try and function as both parents. You can’t play both roles, so let your focus remain on being the best mother you can to him.

In addition to that focus, we’d recommend three other ideas to consider:

1. Allow him to gravitate towards his dad and other men. A boy’s hunger for male attention is instinctive in every boy. Even when you see him chasing after a need that isn’t being met, allow him to do so. A part of every boy’s journey is reconciling himself to who his dad is and who he isn’t. This can be a very painful journey for many boys, but he has to come to these conclusions himself. You can’t shield him from this.

2. Help him find his way to strong, healthy, supportive male voices. When his dad isn’t involved, invested or available, he desperately needs male community. Find a school with strong male teachers, administrators, counselors, and coaches. Consider enrolling him in scouts, an excellent organization with strong male leaders and male community. We’d also advocate for helping him find his way to a youth group or small group experience where he has more intimate relationship with an adult male leader you trust and community as well.

3. Avoid the tendency to coddle him. As you recognize this longing, ache or hunger, you may feel a pull to compensate by coddling him or under-parenting him because you feel sorry for him. Coddling a boy in this way is never useful to his long-term masculine journey and may actually hinder it in a number of ways.

Boys and Sports

How do we deal with coaches and others kids who are too competitive? We want our son to play sports but do we do when the purpose seems wrong?


This is a great question and an important topic. Boys are highly competitive creatures. In certain stages of their development, they can become consumed with their ranking in the pecking order. All of life can become a competition for them unless we help them differentiate and identify contexts where competition takes place and where it doesn’t.

Sports are an ideal context for boys to learn about healthy competition, an opportunity to win and lose, working as a team, and an outlet to test his strength. Sports are also designed to be a place to learn skills and to have fun. Sadly, we have taken much of the good intended for athletic experiences and made it into a fiercely competitive arena. Parents and coaches crowd the sidelines yelling, cursing, and shaming boys and referees, modeling inappropriate behavior and redirecting the athletic experience toward something harmful rather than beneficial.

If you find your son is playing under a coach who is shaming or obsessed with winning, we would advocate pulling him from the league and finding a less competitive league with core values that match those of your family. Dialogue openly with your son about why you’re making this change and what you want him to get from his athletic experiences.

If you find he is playing with highly competitive kids, use it as an opportunity to dialogue about character. Invite him to brainstorm with his coach in how best to navigate this challenging territory. If that feels overwhelming to him, offer to do it with him. This will translate to life-long learning in how to navigate relationships with difficult people.

Furthermore, we worked with a dad who asked the coach to bench his son every time he made a critical, shaming or inappropriate comment to a teammate. This wise father was more invested in his son’s character and seeing him evolve into a strong team player than he was in seeing his son winning. Be willing to make this strong of a choice for your own son if you see him gravitating toward destructive patterns himself on the field or on the court.