Forbes magazine recently published a list of the 50 most common questions asked in a job interview. The top two questions? What are your strengths? and What are your weaknesses?

Each of us has been uniquely created with abilities and traits that are easily recognized as our personal strengths. Some of us are gifted musically, others of us shine academically. Some of us would be described as empathetic, others are depicted as effervescent.

We also--if we are honest--all have areas of our lives where we are lacking in terms of talents or attributes. While we may have keen insight as to what makes people tick we may be clueless as to what makes our car engine tick. We may know how to organize a major event but can't seem to organize our closet. 

In a healthy family environment, children's strengths are recognized, affirmed, and developed. But in homes where serious dysfunction is present (e.g. a parent's addiction, uncontrolled anger, abandonment, constant criticism) a child's greatest strengths can be taken to such an extreme that they become his or her greatest weaknesses. Driven by the often insatiable need for attention and affirmation, a child's God-given abilities and traits can be transformed from blessings to curses.    

• A child's desire for excellence, fueled by the insecurity of a chaotic environment, can become a need for perfection.
• Living in a dysfunctional family environment can turn a child's spirit of independence into a “nobody’s gonna tell me what to do” attitude.
• Taken to an extreme, a child's sense of responsibility turns into his or her becoming super responsible. He or she begins to believe that they are responsible for everyone and everything.

• A child's caring nature becomes detrimental when he or she  become so busy caring for others that they don’t care for themselves.
• For a child trying to prove his or her worth, being disciplined and task-oriented can become an obsession--so much so that there is no room in their lives for spontaneity or fun.
• A child's sense of humor can be affected in that his or her natural ability to joke and laugh becomes a means of avoiding their pain; they are always “on,” they find it hard to​ ever be serious because serious hurts too much.

• A child's boldness to say what he or she believes, when elevated by the anger associated with their home life, can lead to their being argumentative. He or she have to be right in every situation--even when they know they're wrong.
• A child's sense of loyalty can become an undying allegiance that prevents him or her from acknowledging reality, often leading to their involvement in gangs and toxic romantic relationships.
• When living with people who are unsafe, a child who is naturally shy can become reclusive.

• A child who is compliant by nature, when subjected to a demanding parent, learns that it is wrong to stand up for themselves.  
• When a child's rights are violated in the home, his or her assertiveness can turn into aggressiveness.

The damage caused from growing up in a dysfunctional family environment is far reaching. Everyone in the family system is affected. Many times the effects aren't recognized until they rear their ugly heads in our adult relationships.

The first step toward addressing our "issues" is recognizing that there may be underlying reasons we have them. Many times when trying to understand why we are the way we are we don't connect the dots between past and present.

Once we gain an understanding of where our behaviors originated we can get about the business of reshaping them. We can find healthy ways to address our still-present need for attention and affirmation. With our Creator's help our strengths can truly become strengths once again.

Every family has rules. Many family rules are spoken, some of them often. Look both ways before crossing the street. Come when you're called. Don't talk back. Tell the truth. Be in by ten. 


Some family rules are unspoken, yet just as clear. Don't bother your father when he's watching sports. Kids who get Cs and Ds in school are losers. You must go to church every Sunday. Don't think outside the box. Hang around with people who look, act, and dress like you. 


In family systems infiltrated with serious dysfunction--divorce, alcoholism, abuse, depression, workaholism--children often strictly adhere to three unspoken family rules: 

1.  don’t talk
2. don’t trust
3. don’t feel
   

Children from troubled homes learn at an early age not to talk about family problems. We keep them to ourselves either because we are embarrassed about what’s going on or because we’re convinced no one could possibly relate. So we stuff our family stuff.

We learn not to trust others. Children are, by nature, very trusting. Not trusting is a learned behavior. When children are unable to trust it is most often the result of their trust having been violated by the people closest to them.

When children find they can’t talk freely about what is going on in their life and when they are distrusting of those around them, they tend to shut down emotionally. They “turn off” feelings like anger, fear, frustration, loneliness, or sadness because they have nowhere to go with them anyway.

As children, following these three rules makes sense. Kids somehow believe that by not talking, not trusting, and not feeling their suffering will be lessened. But continuing to adhere to these rules as adults can have serious consequences. The rules that help us as children harm us as adults. The same rules that protected us from hardship as children prevent us from wholeness as adults

The first step in overcoming a painful childhood is to break the rules.

We must talk about the things that caused and, more than likely, continue to cause so much pain. We must bring to the surface those things we didn’t or weren’t allowed to talk about. Our dark family secrets must be brought into the light if they are ever to be stripped of their power. We can’t ignore them. We can’t pretend they aren't there. We must talk through them.

The key to breaking the “don’t talk” rule is to first break the “don’t trust” rule. We must find safe people we can talk to. People who have our best interests in mind. People we can be comfortable confiding in. People we can trust. 


As we seek to recover from a painful past we must assemble a support base of trust-worthy people and lean on them often. Yes, this involves risk. Yes, risking is scary. But trust is the single most important element to a healthy relationship so it is well worth the risk. Find a counselor. Talk to a pastor. Confide in a close friend. Learning to trust is not easy. Know that going in. But it’s crucial to our recovery.

And, finally, we must learn how to feel. When we’ve found people we can trust, when we’ve discovered that we can talk about things we may have never talked about before, we must begin to deal with any feelings that may pop to the surface. We must process those feelings we have spent a lifetime trying to suppress. We must feel our feelings and feel them all the way through if we are ever to be done with them. That is the only way the pain of our past will no longer pervade our present.

Does your painful childhood still hang like a dark cloud over your adult life? Life-giving freedom comes from breaking the rules.

(an excerpt from When Father is a Bad Word)

The significance of a father’s love in the lives of his children is immeasurable. A review of almost 100 studies published between 1949 and 2001 shows that a father’s love is just as important to a child’s development as a mother’s, and sometimes more so.

Research has found that the love (or lack thereof) of a father affects a child’s behavior, self-esteem, emotional stability, and mental health. While this is also true of a mother’s love, Ronald P. Rohner, Director of the Center for the Study of Parental Acceptance and Rejection at the University of Connecticut, states that in some cases, “The withdrawal of a father's love seems to play a bigger role in kids' problems with personality and psychological adjustment, delinquency, and substance abuse.”

The presence of a father’s love in the lives of their children boosts their sense of well-being and actually improves their emotional and physical health.

But facts aside, fathers today, often in an effort to appease their guilt, continue to downplay their role in the lives of their children. They excuse their lack of regular involvement in their kids’ lives by reasoning that it’s not the “quantity” of time they spend with their children that’s important, it’s the “quality” of that time. There is an old Greek term that describes that kind of thinking: loadus of crapicus. Kids need their fathers’ love and nothing shows that love more than spending time with them. 

(excerpt from When Father is a Bad Word) 

The relationship a child has with their father has a profound impact on the relationship, if any, they have with God. It is normal even for people who are raised in a healthy family system to project significant people in their lives onto others and expect them to behave in similar ways. It is common to project our parents onto teachers, bosses, spouses—even God. In the world of psychology this is known as transference.

It is very typical for children and adults to project their dads onto God:

· Boys whose dads walked out on the family often grow to be men who believe they can’t rely on God. They rationalize, “Why trust Him? He’ll just walk one day, too.”

· Daughters of workaholic dads can become women with an insatiable need to be valued by God. They attribute their father’s voice to God: “Not now. I’m busy.”

· Sons of strict, legalistic, judgmental dads often, in their adult life, view God as someone whose love must be earned. Their life is all about following the rules.

· Girls who were sexually abused by their fathers become, in many cases, women who find they simply cannot have a close relationship with a male God. The word “intimacy” for them has forever been ruined. 

Here is the dilemma: When we have “father issues” and transfer them onto our Heavenly Father we build a wall between us and Him. In doing so, we separate ourselves from the very thing we’re looking for—a growing, trusting, loving, saving relationship with a Father who wants what’s best for His kids.