When my youngest daughter turned 9, she told me she wanted to replace the poster of puppies-in-sneakers on her bedroom wall. When I asked what would be on next poster, she replied: “Usher, of course! Do you even know me?” As her stay-at-home father for many years, I actually knew her quite well, or so I thought. But as we thumbed through posters at a music store, her words surprised me again: “When I get it, I want to put red crayon on his lips so I can kiss him all day!” Whoa. Hello, tweenhood and another milestone. Flash forward a few years to our new house. Now my youngest's teen … [Read more...]
Does Your Family Need a Fresh Perspective? Try the Roof
“We can’t live like this,” my overheated 14-year-old daughter declared. We were a few days into our recent move to a new house — actually, to a very old house with many things that needed fixing. Its lack of air conditioning added to our misery, especially given the unfortunate heat wave. At first, my wife and I laughed at my daughter’s melodramatic statement (and her humidity-induced curly hair). People lived without air conditioning for millennia, I explained to her. Discomfort builds character, I reasoned to myself. Besides, we planned to install air conditioning in the near … [Read more...]
Life Lessons Taught to Teens at This Dad’s Driving School
“You have to trust the other drivers,” my father said gently. With those words, my fingers loosened on the wheel, my shoulders relaxed, and my eyes refocused on the right side of the road. I was 16 and about to take a driver’s education class, but my father and I thought it might help to practice beforehand. (My mother wanted no part of it.) For many teens, it would have been time to cue the father-son tension. But my father had always been laid-back and hands-off, so I did not dread driving with him. Even though this was his sixth time teaching driving to a nervous teenager (I am the … [Read more...]
Family Vacation Tips to Make Your Trips Positively Memorable
Traveling as a family is always memorable, but those memories aren’t always rosy. To get your next family vacation closer to postcard-perfect, I’ve learned a few tricks after traveling with multiple kids regularly, domestically and internationally, for work and pleasure from the baby years up through the tween and teen stages. Set your sights on limited sightseeing It is tempting to try to see and do aaaaaall the things because you’ve come aaaaaall this way and paid aaaaaall that money. You should not, however, because you will run yourself and your kids into the ground. Then all that money … [Read more...]
Mile-High Parenting: This Tip is a Lock for Flying with Young Children
Naturally, after a moment of concern for our daughter's well-being, we did what any responsible parents would do in a crisis: we blamed each other. _________________ Think you know everything about those tiny airplane bathrooms? Think again. When flying with our two young children years ago, my wife and I discovered a little-known but highly valuable feature of those bathrooms, at least on our particular plane. But first, a story. Our two daughters were ages 6 and 3 at the time. Like most parents, we dreaded that anything-can-happen stage of flying with children when wild imaginings of … [Read more...]
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