Mark Creech on parents and children: Lessons learned from estranged relationship with his father

Children go through four stages in their relationship with their parents, said Rev. Mark Creech among the lessons he picked up from an estranged relationship with his own father.

The Christian speaker and Renew America columnist wrote about his relationship with his own father and the lessons he learned from this relationship as the world celebrated Fathers' Day Sunday, June 19.

There are four stages children go through in their relationships with their parents, Creech wrote. The first stage is when children look up to their parents as if parents could not possibly do anything wrong or that they knew the answers to everything. He referred to this stage as when parents are idolized.

What follows next is a disenchanted stage where children realize their parents' faults and limitations. This usually happens during the teenage years when kids "demonize" their parents and fault them for everything.

The third stage is when children "utilize" their parents, a phase when the relationship becomes "based almost entirely on what we can get out of them."

The last stage is the ideal stage when children realize their parents are just human beings, too.

Creech recounted his own experience with his father whom he didn't speak nor meet with for two years for "real and perceived sights." He only dealt with the situation when he found himself in the same shoes as his estranged father after Creech's own relationship with his teenage daughter turned downhill.

Creech wrote, "In my distress God said, 'Mark, why should I bring your daughter home, when you haven't spoken to your father in two years? Go and be reconciled with your father.'"

He shared how God's message made him run to his parents' place and reconciled with his father.

"Strangely, every wrong I felt that I had suffered, which had precipitated the crisis between me and my Dad didn't seem to matter anymore," he shared.

His relationship with his daughter turned for the better as well.

Pope Francis once said, "A good father knows how to wait and knows how to forgive from the depths of his heart."

A year ago, the Vatican pontiff talked about ways to achieve successful parenting, particularly fatherhood.

The pope taught that being present in the child's life, practicing patience and mercy, and referring to God's guidance are the keys to successful fatherhood.