Brandishing Lessons

Everyone knows that included in a father's responsibilities is teaching important life lessons to his children. Still, there is a certain art to teaching and not every dad has mastered it. Sometimes, even when the lesson is a good one, the delivery keeps it from being learned.

For instance, the Widness (UK) wonderer David Flynn was seemingly trying to explain how much pain the problems presented by his daughter and ex- were causing him. However, it was really not a well-thought plan to snatch up a sword and swing it about in a room with an 18-month-old baby and two other young children while threatening to literally demonstrate the stabbing pain they were giving him. Surely, with thought — and probably a bit less alcohol imbibing — Mr. Flynn could have made his point in a more readily grasped manner.

Similarly, kids should be careful with guns. Obviously, they have no idea of the pain that can be caused or the potential consequences of something fired ... even a bit of metal as tiny as a pellet. So we must take a moment to praise Palm Beach's Christopher Cady for disciplining his son after the latter shot his autistic cousin in the backside with his Christmas present. However, with that moment passed, it is important to point out that shooting his son in the chest to demonstrate the pain has proven an unsuccessful teaching moment unless dad was focused on teaching how one can get hauled off to the slammer for shooting someone, even with an air rifle.

Both instance do bring to mind one of the most important things fathers can teach. "It seemed like a good idea at the time" doesn't make it the right thing to do ....