“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...]
Try These 5 Things to Become a Better Parent
Chances are you have taken classes to help make you a better parent. Or you have read books and taken advice from your own parents and people you trust. You might also scour Facebook and Twitter for blogs and articles that will help you have a clue about how to navigate parenthood without completely wrecking our kids.I have been a stay-at-home dad for almost 11 years now and there are some things that I have learned along the way that aren’t often mentioned in discussions of “How to be a great parent.” Here are five things that have not only helped saved my sanity as a parent, but have … [Read more...]
Encourage Creativity in Children Through Art, Conversation
It began with a simple question from my oldest daughter, age 4 at the time: “Daddy, what is art?”“Art,” I began, “is something that, well, let me think about that for a moment.”What was art, indeed, I asked myself while continuing the mindless routine of a frantic preschool morning: load the dishwasher, supervise the brushing of teeth, check the backpack, and head out the door.On the way to school, I muttered a few tidbits about art being a way humans change materials like clay or paint into beautiful objects. As with so many adult explanations of abstract concepts, however, the … [Read more...]