1. After the video, do some silent reflection (2‑3 minutes): jot down 1‑2 key ideas you heard about manhood/responsibility.

2. Then pair up (“talk‑partner”) for ~5 minutes: each person shares his reflections with his partner:

• What resonated?

• What surprised or challenged you?

• How does that connect to your role as father/relative?

3. Come back to the full group and 2‑3 men share highlights.

Themes from Jesse Taken Alive's Interview

1. Responsibility to Pass on Teachings

2. Modeling Peace and Respect (Wolakota)

3. Listening and Learning Before Leading

4. Identity and Pride in Heritage

5. Perseverance and Courage

6. Hope for Future Generations

7. Humility and Gratitude

What is your Goal for this next month?

Resources to Share:

• Fatherhood Focus Group Flyer

• Fatherhood Trainings

Take the IDI Assessment (about 20 minutes)

Review Our Group Score (individual scores are confidential)

Building Bridges at Home: A Father’s Reflection on Cultural Growth

Opening Touchstone Practice

Circle of Trust:

• Give and receive welcome

• Speak your truth in ways that respect other people’s truth

• Turn to wonder

“What does it feel like to be a father raising a child in a world that may look different from the one you grew up in?”

Reflection Questions Anchored in the IDC (choose one question in each section to journal about)

(Denial → Polarization → Minimization → Acceptance → Adaptation)

Personal Growth & Awareness

• How do you talk to your kids about difference—whether racial, cultural, political, or generational?

Navigating the Home-School Divide

• What differences do your children navigate between your home culture and their school culture?

Relational Practices

• In what ways do you model curiosity, humility, and openness when engaging with others?

Closing Invitation: Setting a Growth Goal

“Where is one place in my life I could grow in presence, humility, or courage when it comes to differences? What would that look like at home?”

Try to name a behavioral goal, not just an abstract one (e.g., “I want to ask more curious questions when my child talks about a different cultural perspective.”)

Theme: Intergenerational wounds and the power of reclamation
Goals: Surface hard truths in a compassionate container; connect cultural resilience
Third Thing:  Video of Dr. Gabor Maté
Activities: Fatherhood Growth Guide linking IDC scores and Touchstones

Fatherhood Growth Guide 

A guide for setting Fatherhood growth goals connected with the Intercultural Development Continuum and the Touchstones for Creating Safe Space developed by the Center for Courage & Renewal.

Dr. Gabor Maté – Authenticity vs. Attachment

Core Themes

• Attachment as a Survival Need: Humans, like other mammals, rely on strong emotional bonds to survive. From infancy, connection, love, and belonging are non-negotiable needs that shape our ability to thrive.

• Authenticity as a Survival Need: Equally essential is the need to be fully oneself—aware of, and able to express, one’s emotions, intuition, and internal truths. Authenticity enables humans to navigate the world with integrity and resilience.

• The Conflict Between the Two: Many children experience situations where expressing their authenticity threatens their attachment—e.g., showing real emotions might lead to rejection or disapproval. To preserve attachment, authenticity is often suppressed.

• Long-Term Impact: Over time, this suppression disconnects people from their own emotions, leading to struggles with identity, mental health, addiction, or relational difficulty. The transcript highlights the tragic normalization of this conflict, even in adulthood.

• Healing and Wholeness: The call is to notice how early adaptive strategies (like silencing the self) may no longer serve us—and to reclaim our right to be both connected and authentic. This mirrors key insights from trauma-informed education and emotional intelligence research.

Touchstones-Aligned “Learn From” Questions for Fathers

Authenticity & Presence with Your Child

• Are there emotions I was taught not to express as a child that I now struggle to witness or allow in my own child?

Listening and Connection

• How do I speak my truth with my child in a way that also respects theirs?

Creating Safe Space for My Child’s Voice

• How do I welcome difference, silence, or strong emotion in my child without rushing to control it?
  
  

IDC-Aligned “Learn From” Questions for Fathers

Self-Awareness as a Cultural Messenger

• What messages did I receive from my father—or from my culture—about what it means to be a man or a dad? How do those messages shape my parenting today?

Fostering Intercultural & Emotional Growth

• What’s one way I could help my child feel that they don’t have to choose between being loved and being themselves?

Intentional Growth as a Father

• What stories from my own upbringing do I want to change or heal in how I parent?

What cycles are we interrupting? What do we carry forward?

1. Downloading – Listening by reconfirming habitual judgments

• You hear what you already believe.

• In parenting, this might look like tuning out a child’s words because “they always act this way.”

• The focus stays on your own narrative, not your child’s evolving experience.

⚠️ Fathering risk: Reacting on autopilot—missing your child’s actual need or message.

2. Factual Listening – Listening with an open mind to new data

• You suspend judgment and notice new or surprising information.

• As a dad, you might genuinely observe that your child is struggling today, even if they usually aren’t.

• This level is curious and objective.

✔️ Fathering insight: “Something’s different today—what’s going on?”

3. Empathic Listening – Listening with an open heart

• You step into your child’s emotional world, sensing what they feel.

• It’s not just “I hear you,” but “I feel with you.”

• This level builds trust and emotional safety.

❤️ Fathering gift: “I’m with you. I can see this is hard.”

4. Generative Listening – Listening with open will; sensing what wants to emerge

• You slow down, become deeply present, and create space for transformation.

• With your child, it means listening beyond the moment—tuning into who they are becoming.

• It invites co-creation, growth, and deeper connection.

🌱 Fathering potential: “I’m not just solving this moment—I’m helping shape who you’re becoming.”

Why It Matters for Dads

• Listening is more than hearing—it’s love in action.

• When a child feels deeply heard, they feel safe, valued, and understood.

• Moving from empathic to generative listening creates space for healing, creativity, and lasting bonds.
  
  

Practice “Levels of Listening”

“Learn From” Reflection Questions for Fathers

• What do I tend to assume or expect when my child starts to speak—and how might that affect what I actually hear?

• When have I recently been surprised by something my child said or did—and how did I respond?

• What helps me open my heart when my child is struggling—and what makes it harder to do so?

• Can I recall a moment when my full, quiet presence helped my child say or do something they hadn’t before? What emerged?

• What kind of inner environment do I create when I listen—hurried and reactive, or spacious and safe? What might shift if I slowed down?

Fill Out This Form: Fatherhood Listening Reflection Form

Then Use This Levels of Listening Guide

Duane Hollow Horn Bear:
Wówaȟwala (woh waȟ wah lah) – gentleness, peace

1. “What would it look like for me to meet my child each day the way the grandfather meets the dawn—quiet, open, and ready to receive what’s emerging?”

2. “When in my fathering do I make space for my child to ‘sing their song’—not just what they say, but who they are becoming beneath the words?”

What Listening and Presence goal do I have for this next month?

Theme: Fathering as cultural legacy and future-making
Goals: Celebrate growth, clarify commitments, and mark transitions
Third Thing: Ceremony, video message from an elder, or river rock ritual
Activities:

• A Father's Commitment Scribe activity

  1. Collect  your "Remember" poem, your  "Fatherhood Growth" summary and your "Listening Reflections" summary and upload them to the GPT by hitting the  + sign. 

  2. Work with the scribe to perfectly design your authentic commitment statement for your children / family.

  3. Decide how you might want to present, display or gift that at our final celebration.
     
     

• “Becoming the Bridge” closing circle: 

  1. Invitational sharing of commitments

  2. Each names one gift they now carry

  3. Process poem "Becoming the Bridge"

Becoming the Bridge
by Scott Simpson

There is a quiet you enter
once the work of pushing is done—
not the quiet of death
but of standing still in the middle,
where the river narrows.

A man doesn’t build the bridge.
He becomes it.
His feet planted in his father’s gravel,
his arms lifted toward the blueprints
his children are scribbling
on the wind.

The gift is not knowing—
but remaining.
The gift is not wisdom—
but being willing to listen again
to the story your own father couldn’t finish.

Sometimes the gift is silence.
Sometimes it is remembering
how your grandfather’s eyes
shifted when the war was mentioned.
Or how your son’s mouth
tightens when he feels ashamed.
You don’t need the whole story
to hold both ends.

There is a breath you carry
like a lantern
that flickers more than it shines.
It lights nothing ahead
but warms your ribs,
so your children can hear
how fire sounds
when it is waiting.

You do not tell them
where to walk.
You tell them what it felt like
to walk blind through fog
and still come out dry.

You hold their questions
like tools
in the belt your father left you.
Not answers,
but weight.
But usefulness.
But something worn smooth
by the hands of many men.

Being the bridge means
you never stop aching—
but you learn the ache
is a direction.
Not pain,
but purpose stretching
from then to now to next.

There are mornings you will wake
with no name for what you are.
Let them pass.
The work is below naming.
The work is the listening post
between what has been
and what could be.

The greatest gift is this:
you get to stand
in the only place
where everything
still touches.

Learn From Questions for Journaling and then Sharing

Learn from your own place in the arc:
Where do you feel yourself standing between what came before and what is becoming? How do you honor the past without being bound by it—and make room for the future without controlling it?

Learn from the wisdom of stillness and silence:
When you pause in the “middle of the bridge,” what do you hear? What truths surface when you're not trying to fix, teach, or lead—only to listen?

Learn from the ones walking ahead of you now:
What are your children—or the next generation—showing you about the world they’re building? How can you offer your presence as ballast, not blueprint?