One of the pleasures of being a parent of teens is the long history you can reflect on. From time’s perch, you can finally start assessing what went right as a parent. (You can also assess what went wrong, but that’s for another post.) During my younger parenting years, I had always heard that if a parent models a behavior at home, a child is very likely to adopt that behavior, eventually. As a writer and former professor, I’ve always tried to model my love of reading history as a way to counteract our increasingly context-free culture of media soundbites and tweet-size attention … [Read more...]
‘Holiday Shear’ Back to Give Dads, Kids a Clean Cut Experience
Dads and their little dudes and darlings will once again have a chance to enter the holiday season with stylish hair, thanks to our longtime partner Dove Men+Care and Bishops Cuts/Color. On Saturday, Dec. 14, all fathers and their offspring can receive a "Holiday Shear" -- free haircuts, washes and styling with Dove Men+Care grooming products at 18 Bishops locations across the United States. And, as with last year's similar promotion between the two businesses, our dads have been asked to be special guests in participating cities where we have City Dads Group chapters. Holiday Shear is … [Read more...]
Dads in Line Getting Coffee
I met a friend for coffee the other day. It’s something we try to do on a regular basis, which, apparently, means once every eight months. Our schedules have proven difficult to align, despite our living two miles apart, having kids at the same school, and working in similar creative fields. It takes half a year and two dozen texts to create 90 minutes of quality time at Starbucks, 15 of which are spent standing in line. This is the sum of our parts, a life defined by new math and the old habits we cannot help but cling to. This is a pattern in my life, and I’m not sure how I got here. … [Read more...]
Christmas Dad Jokes, Puns Yule Sleigh with This Holiday
Christmas dad jokes? Seriously? No, funny. That's why they call 'em jokes, folks. C'mon, we've done Halloween and Thanksgiving dad jokes already so you should have been expecting these. Thus, through the miracle of Google, we have searched the internet for the best and worst Christmas dad jokes (and some general winter ones, too). Telling these around the tree will have your family wreathing on the floor with laughter and pining for more. So have a happy holiday season, all, and be sure to enjoy your elves! Best/worst Christmas dad jokes and puns Q. Who gives baby sharks their … [Read more...]
Black Fathers Need Different Narrative to Go from Good to Great
Does being “for” something automatically define you as being “against” something else? Can we celebrate and work toward a win for one group without having to subsequently celebrate another’s loss or misfortune? I regularly face these questions because I run a podcast and platform called, Black Fathers, NOW! When the conversation comes up regarding my podcast, especially outside of the black community, typically one of two things happens. Sometimes I gain immediate buy in and support for taking this initiative to try to change the public perception of black fatherhood as it tends to be … [Read more...]
Apology Holds Power to be Greatest Gift to Our Children, Society
A few weeks ago, my eldest child did something that made me quite upset. But to be honest, looking back on it now, I cannot even remember exactly what it was. As parents, we have to discipline our kids on a regular basis to varying degrees so keeping track of every occurrence could take up this whole article. But I do know he did something that made me mad enough to stop doing the dishes, call him into the kitchen and angrily reprimand him. I didn’t even see the incident. I just overheard him “arguing” with my wife in the other room, essentially defending something wrong he had done. … [Read more...]
Puget Sound Dads Join Forces to Create New Fathers Group
Washington is the latest state to join the City Dads Group network with the addition of the Puget Sound Dads Group, a chapter for fathers living in the Seattle metropolitan area and stretching the 90 miles from the cities of Olympia to Everett. With a growing population -- the Seattle metro area alone has nearly 4 million people, the 15th largest in the United States -- the need for a fathers' group seemed evident enough. The Puget Sound region, though, will be a challenging one to conquer because of its geographical vastness so the leadership is being divided among several members. … [Read more...]
Optimistic Parenting: Change ‘Oh, No! to ‘Oh, Well’ for More Upbeat Kids
Is your family generally optimistic? In today’s anxiety-inducing culture, optimism can be elusive — especially for kids. Fortunately, a new book titled Making Lemonade: Teaching Young Children to Think Optimistically can help parents nurture their children’s sense of optimism from an early age. Laura Colker and Derry Koralek are early childhood educators who begin their book with a hopeful premise: optimism is primarily a learned way of thinking, not an inborn mindset. Genes account for “about 25 percent of our optimism ... the other 75 percent is determined by environment, social … [Read more...]
Mixed Gender Sleepovers: Cause for Scandal or Celebration of Diversity
My oldest is now 10. Last year, or maybe it was two years ago, he went to a sleepover birthday party as kids do. At the time, I didn't think anything of the fact that he was the only boy on the invite list. After the party ended, I forgot it had even happened. I was at another party a few months ago where the topic was "that party with the boy sleeping over." The parents were sagely nodding to each other, relieved that one girl just went for the movie and didn’t sleep over. According to the group wisdom, her parents had done well. "Uh, yeah," I finally said. "That one boy there was my … [Read more...]
Adventurous Eaters Club Wants Kids to Explore Kitchen, Play with Food
One of the many universal struggles we parents go through with our kids is getting them to eat diverse and healthy meals. Life, after all, has more and better things to offer than just chicken nuggets and boxed mac and cheese.
Help is here for many moms and dads with the arrival of The Adventurous Eaters Club: Mastering the Art of Family Mealtime, a new family cookbook by actor Misha Collins of TV's Supernatural and his wife, Vicki.
The book, available starting today, tells the Collins' story of struggling to get their firstborn … [Read more...]
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