INTRODUCTION
Who first taught you how to saw a board? To fly a kite? To catch a fish? Or to whistle through your teeth? If anyone taught you these sometimes whimsical but always practical crafts of childhood, chances are it was your dad. As you learned these simple skills, you very likely also learned "Nothing's more rewarding than a job well done." "If at first you don't succeed, try again." Or, "Never be afraid to speak out clearly for your beliefs." You picked up nuggets of knowledge that molded your character for life.
Dads have special ways of teaching kids that differ from the ways mothers teach. But they're just as important. For example, dads tend to rough-house and tease kids more than moms do—and by doing so, they "stretch" their children's social abilities. Fathers also have highly complex and important skills to teach—"dad skills," if you will—that raise a child's self-esteem, increase self-confidence and foster self-reliance.
So what exactly is a dad skill? Basically, it's a practical little skill or bit of knowledge that expands a child's abilities to cope with or understand the world and initially requires an adult coach. Take feeding a horse, for example. If a child doesn't understand how to behave around a horse, it can be dangerous to feed one. But with a wise, patient parent (you) at his side, a child can soon enjoy the unforgettable pleasure of a horse nuzzling his hand. Sawing a board smoothly is also beyond most children's capabilities. But with your help, your daughter can soon build a bird feeder the warblers and goldfinches will love. Many dad skills--such as learning how to tell time by the stars--also help a child more thoroughly understand his place in the universe.
Yet dad skills, by their very nature, also have far deeper value: they instill virtuous habits in children that are the essentials of good character. Learning to feed a big, powerful horse teaches a child that courage is not inborn or simply a matter of being fearless. Courage comes from knowing how to act in a scary situation and can therefore be learned. Sawing a board teaches a child the importance of having the right tools to do a job well. Maybe because the skills themselves are of such immediate value, the child tends to overlook the moral lesson. Yet each time the skill is used, the moral lesson is reinforced and becomes part of that great mysterious process we call character building.
The wisdom fathers possess has almost always been passed down through the generations by word-of-mouth. In fact, to our knowledge, most of the playful, practical lessons fathers have traditionally taught their kids have never been written down in one place—until now. Why bother to record in print what has essentially always been part of our culture's oral tradition? Because the skills and wisdom dads once taught their sons (and to a lesser extent, their daughters) are slowly but surely being lost. "Shinny," as in "Hey, let's shinny up a tree!" is not even in most unabridged dictionaries. Millions of boys and girls today are growing up without fathers. Many new dads who want to be more involved with their kids also grew up either without dads or with fathers who, for one reason or another, didn't take the time to pass this knowledge on. We wrote these lessons down not as lists of instructions on how to be a good father, but to ensure that there will always be good dads (! and now also good moms) who will never forget "the really important stuff" hidden in such simple skills as how to climb a ladder, how to fix a broken bicycle chain, and how to make a curve ball curve.
Does this mean the "101 secrets a good dad knows" are lessons only a father can teach? Not at all. A mother can easily teach her daughter or son how to use a compass, row a boat, or bait a fishhook—if she knows how. Problem is, just as many dads never learned how to make baby food or change diapers, many moms were never introduced to dad skills as little girls. Happily, this book should help correct this inequity.
The legacy of love continues. Pass it on.
