“You have to be an engaged parent.”
That’s how Jeff Nelligan, a retired U.S. Army Colonel-TK and a public information officer in Washington, D.C., sums up his philosophy of raising three boys who are all serving their country as military officers.
“If you don’t raise your kids, society is going to raise your kid for you,” said Nelligan, our Lead Dad of the Week who lives in Annapolis, Md. “That’s what I mean about the engagement factor. When I was a young dad, I knew that early on. My dad had been very involved. It was intuitive that I should be the same way.”
His concern and one of the reasons he wrote the book “Four Lessons from My Three Sons” is a fear that most parents don’t have a strategic approach to parenting. “We have a strategy for every element of our life,” he said. “Why don’t we have a strategy for raising our kids?”
He was full on with fathering from the start. When they were still in elementary school, he took them to a D.C.-area mall, gave them each a $5 bill and a challenge to get their dad change.
“They disappeared into the throngs of a mall,” he said. “Two couldn’t get change; the other came back with 20 quarters.”
The point was pushing them out of their comfort zone in an age-appropriate way.
“Kids need a really big challenge,” he said. “They need to do this, and they don’t need a safety net.”
Today his sons are 29, 27 and 24 and graduates of Williams, Army and Navy.
This isn’t to say Nelligan didn’t get push back. He thought his oldest son had the qualities to be student body president in high school and should run. “I was nagging the hell out of him,” he said. “He looked at me one day and said, ‘Dad I know what I’m doing here’. I knew it was sincere and I shut up.”
Knowing that balance is key for every father. Welcome, Jeff, to The Company of Dads!
