BEST Mornings with Dad



Are a Family Affair

At 6:30 on Tuesday mornings, Cindy Reeter is at Shipley’s buying donuts. By 7:00, a group of fathers and their sons will assemble at the Reeter home, for “BEST Mornings with Dad,” a group formed six years ago by her husband, Jeff. “Whenever it is father/son time, I’m all for it,” she says.

Designed to strengthen the bond between father and son and share positive values, the meetings emphasize Balance Excellence Service and Truth, the life principles to which Jeff credits his own success – in business and in life. Clearly a success in business, Jeff became the youngest Managing Partner in the Northwestern Mutual Financial Network when he was in his mid-30s. Today, as Managing Partner in Houston, he leads an organization that is responsible for sales and service operations for all of southern Texas including the Houston metropolitan area, Austin and San Antonio.

 

But Jeff is a father first and a business leader second. “No amount of success in business makes up for failure in other areas of life,” he says. He debunks the conventional business wisdom that grueling hours and sacrifice – of self and family – are the keys to success. In Jeff’s world, business appointments are scheduled around family commitments, and the number one job of his assistant, Judy, is to make sure he has time to be a good father.

By maintaining a strong connection with his three sons, Jeff is continuing a powerful legacy of involved fatherhood established by his own father, Dale Victor Reeter. And he is passing the values of BEST on to the next generation.

                      BEST Mornings with Dad

           

“BEST Mornings with Dad” emphasizes such concepts as:
 

Schoolwork matters

Character is all important
 

Truth comes from your parents, not from a classmate who is experimenting with drugs
 

Serve others. At Christmas the group adopts a needy family. 

Perhaps, most importantly, the gatherings foster open communications and place the fathers in a leadership role. The dads rotate in speaking and leading the meetings, roles that are new and out of the comfort zone for some. Each session allows time for the boys to write their concerns and anxieties, including peer pressures they might be experiencing, on a marker board for discussion. What started with one group of fathers and sons meeting in the Reeter home, has grown to several “BEST Mornings” groups in the Spring Branch area for both boys and girls.

Contact Carol Ward at (832) 257-6436 for information about starting a BEST Mornings group in your neighborhood.