Bill Belew has raised 2 bi-cultural kids, now 34 and 30. And he and his wife are now parenting a 3rd, Mia, who is 8.

A dad can teach his son a list of good things which will build his character and personality right from the childhood. Here are few of them.

1. Teach him to respect women: A dad will play an important role in a son’s life, how he treats women in the future. He can get the guidance right from the childhood starting from his house only. It is essential that you talk to him clearly about what it means to respect women  starting with his mothers and sisters  and also show him in your actions and the way you treat his mother or talk to his mother/sister with love and respect. Teach him to never disrespect a woman. Tell him the value of women and they should be respected.
2. Teach him to never ignore emotions: Boys are tough, everybody keeps on thinking like this. Teach your son to share his feelings and never ignore them.  It seems that manhood today is associated with “strong and silent. However, your son will be happier and healthier if he learns to know his emotions and work through them. Encourage your son to talk to you about how he feels about certain situations. Who knows  it could be good for your emotions, too. And you can start to share your feelings which you couldn’t share with anyone.
3. Teach him the value of honesty: Start teaching your son value of honesty. Actually honesty is a very good policy to be learnt from the childhood so that he can inculcate this quality in himself from a very early age. This quality would make him grow as a person and this will help him a lot in his future like in his job, married life.
4. Teach him the value of cooking : Lot of men think that cooking is only for women. Tell him that cooking is a very good thing and everybody should learn that. Teach him cooking and value of cooking. Tell him that  by knowing how  to cook he will never be hungry. One thing relates to cooking that is cleanliness. With cooking he can start to be clean and put things in an organized manner. Being clean and knowing cooking would help him in several ways.

These are little things which would help him build a bright future and when he looks back in his past he would find your lessons which helped him becoming such a great man.

Thank you for reading.

Please feel free to comment.

Talk to Bill and others about their experiences raising bi-cultural Japanese-American kids.