The Legacy of Absence

Imagine a son or daughter who realizes dad has chosen work, sports, or other addictions instead of them. This is abandonment—and the consequences will leave a negative life-long legacy. But there is a solution. It's not an easy road, but it's not impassable. The Legacy of Absence explores the ways in which involvement and reconciliation can heal the wounds created by a distant father, and turn even a physically absent father into one who is involved with all aspects of his child's life. Author Tim Olson has spent 53 years as a teacher, principal, pastor, and life coach studying, observing, and researching family relationships and father/child dynamics. He will help readers discover:

• the sources of anger, not just how to manage it

• the 4 types of fathers

• how a home without an involved father typically results in poorer education, health, financial security, and many more affecting the spouse and children

• that real masculinity is not what society says it is

• how good or bad fathering is learned primarily by observing our own fathers • what the father wound is and how everyone who has a father gets it

• the sources of identity, transference, and misogyny

An uninvolved father may not have chosen his child, but it is never too late for change. The Legacy of Absence can help.

Tim Olson is an author, educator, pastor, and life coach with forays into audio publishing, radio hosting, and home remodeling. His understanding of father-child relationships was fostered through years of observation and application in education, coaching clients around the world, and working with the National Fathering Ministry in Minnesota and Ukraine.

As a business life coach, it was through coaching family business owners that the significant connections between a father and his children (or with his own father) finally gelled into an observable pattern that helped form the basis for his coaching and for this book.

Through it all, he's found his way to helping others to discover who they are meant to be and to become that person.

He and his wife, Kay, have been married for 53 years and are blessed with three children, six grandchildren, four bonus grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. They make their home in New Hope, MN.