Surviving Toxicity and Abandonment as a Child to Become a Legendary Dad
Photo by Derek Thomson on Unsplash
A recent Dad Central podcast talks to Larry Hagner, author of The Dad’s Edge and the man behind the Good Dad Project, about the experience of moving forward from a highly unstable childhood to learn and develop fathering skills and move forward in a functional and positive relationship with his own children.
Larry Hagner strongly believes that our experiences do not have to define us, and that we can “choose what we want to keep from our past and what we wish to discard”. Larry has publicly shared his personal story, through his book and in interviews, to demonstrate to others that it is possible to create positive change in relationships by learning and practicing communication skills.
After meeting his wife, Jessica, and starting a family, Larry was afraid. His own “tumultuous” experiences with father figures in a sequence of family re-organizations throughout his childhood had left him with no idea of how to be a father to his children. After he and his wife had their first child, he found himself withdrawing and becoming distant from his new son. Finally, when he lost his temper with his 3-year-old child, he determined to make change.
He wanted to connect with other dads who were experiencing the same struggles and was amazed at the response. The Good Dad Project he set up took off and spread rapidly, with listeners and readers connecting and sharing their challenges and successes.
In a podcast with Dad Central on November 8th that can be found on Dad Central here, Larry talks about his life as a partner in an 18-year-marriage and as the father of four boys and shares his key learnings:
Forgiveness is a choice
Focus on what you want and how to get there
Skills are the foundation of building successful marriages and relationships
His early years were a combination of abandonment and toxicity. His birth parents had married very young and were married for four years before Larry was born, but their relationship had already deteriorated prior to his birth. They split up when he was very young, and his dad left. He had no contact with his dad and didn’t really remember him at all. When Larry was four, his mother entered a new relationship, and Larry’s birth father signed over parental rights to the stepfather. That marriage lasted 6 years. Both parents were heavy drinkers, and the relationship was volatile. After their divorce, the stepfather also disappeared from their lives.
When Larry was 12, he inadvertently met his birth father, who was by this time re-married with another family. For a few months, this felt really good, but then his father withdrew again. In retrospect, Larry now feels his dad, who was still very young, made the only decision he could at the time to make the best of his new marriage and family, which has endured. However, Larry went into a downward spiral of abandonment and gave up trying. He failed grade 8 spectacularly, with straight F’s, but he eventually managed to pull himself together, re-did grade 8, completed high school. He lived with his mother through his teens in what continued to be very challenging circumstances.
He went on to university, completed a degree, found work, and met and married his wife. One day, he again accidentally encountered his birth father. His dad opened up about his regrets and sadness for what had happened, and they have now re-connected and established an ongoing relationship.
Larry has learned that forgiveness is a choice. People often say, “I can’t forgive,” but, based on his own experience, he says, “You can.” It’s a choice. He has seen the impact that bad choices and regret have had on his dad, who was only in his twenties and early thirties when he made the decisions. Larry and his dad made an active choice seventeen years ago not to revisit the past, but to develop a relationship in the present in the time they have left together.
The big lesson Larry has learned as a dad is that avoidance doesn’t work. He knew what doesn’t work but didn’t know what to do to be a positive father. He has come to believe strongly that what we focus on grows. He really wanted to become a good dad to his boys and it has taken work and reaching out to develop the tools he has needed to make that happen. He notes that an instruction manual doesn’t tell you what not to do to put something together. The brain doesn’t hear the word ‘no’, so you have to put your focus on the positive skills you want to develop. He says, “Skills and tools are a tactic, and as you practice them they become habits.” He compares it to the tactical training required to become an experienced driver or to become a surgeon.
He shares a really useful tip he received from a mentor. When he asked, “How do you quiet all these negative voices (in your head)?” he was told that the first thing you need to learn is that you can’t quiet the voices. If you focus on trying to quiet them, you won’t be able to think about anything else. Instead, recognize the voices for what they are; they are going to come. The only thing you can do is to tactically learn and practice skills, and that volume will gradually turn down as your confidence and experience grows.
He talks, too, about the cornerstone quality of humility in developing resilience. “When we are humble, we teach and encourage other men to be the same. And when we are humble, we teach our kids how to be humble and admit mistakes.” He emphasizes the value of taking ownership of mistakes, admitting to them, and apologizing.
In his work with dads in the Dad’s Edge program, he says the skill men talk most about wanting is to be able to communicate better with their partner. Communication skills that they work within the program include:
learning to listen and share, rather than locking into problem-solving mode in conversation
tactical empathy
how to use tone of voice, and develop a voice tone of curiosity and appreciation
mirroring
learning how to recognize the emotional response of the person with whom you are communicating
learning how to ask generative questions to elicit ideas, connection, and a sense of psychological safety
learning to visualize the future you want to work towards; learning how to operate within your core values.
These concepts are unfamiliar to many participants who join the Dad’s Edge program, but they find that these are skills that can be learned and that contribute to building connection and develop relationship with their partner and children.
Larry finishes by stressing how important it is for dads who want to develop their skills to connect to a community of other men who share the same goals.