It started, as so many important moments do, with a question. My son, Eitan, had been watching television, one seemingly inconsequential kids show or another, when a commercial came on for a Lego model. He said immediately that he wanted to get it. My wife, Trudy, and I, without batting an eye, said that we would be happy to buy it for him. Eitan smiled broadly, pleased with his instant victory, and resumed watching. After a moment or two, he turned back to Trudy and me, his satisfied grin replaced by a look of confusion. “Why didn’t the commercial show any boys playing with the … [Read more...]
Parenting Fails Can Sometimes Be Wins for You and Your Kids
I’m not that great of a parent. But sometimes my bad parenting actually works out. Some of my parenting fails are actually kind of wins! I made a list of things I do wrong as a parent that actually make my sons happy so who cares … besides me, 10 years from now, when my instant gratification policy has turned them both into monsters. My Nine Best Parenting Fails Co-sleeping – Sometimes it’s by choice, sometimes it’s because I can’t be bothered to bring him back to his room. But my 5-year-old loves it, and assuming that he grows out of it before he’s say, fifteen, I’m not too … [Read more...]
Angels Play on Sandy Ground Dedicated to School Shooting Victimes
We had gone to the wonderful Maritime Aquarium in Norwalk, Conn., with one of my wife's best friends and her son. The aquarium is small but nice: they have seals, sharks and even sea jellies you can pet. Honestly, if you get a chance to pet sea jellies in a controlled environment, I totally recommend it. The staff at the aquarium was very knowledgeable, explaining why they kept the jellies in a frigidly cold tank and about their life cycles. Though no one had an answer to the sea jelly versus jellyfish debate. Seriously, does that look like a fish? After a nice lunch at a local Greek … [Read more...]
Summer Spent Longing for What These Months Used to Mean to Me
The alarm went off this morning just after six. And my daily routine began: morning service, breakfast, drive the kids to camp, work, pick up kids, work, dinner, hang with kids and work. Oh, how could I forget – ensure kids have done their summer work for school. Yup, that’s pretty much my daily routine. You know what that reminds me of? The rest of the year! Remember when summer was different? Remember when the season could not come fast enough and it could not stay for long enough? What filled your summers? Mine changed over the years but all had an element of magic. My … [Read more...]
Time to Buy HomeDadCon 2018 Tickets, Book Hotel Slipping Away
Time is running out to purchase a discounted ticket and book an on-site hotel room for the National At-Home Dad Network's 2018 conference, aka HomeDadCon 2018, scheduled for Sept. 13-15, in Orlando, Fla. The convention, now in its 23rd year, brings together fathers who are their family’s primary caregiver. HomeDadCon offers them "professional development" as men who embrace parenting as their most important job, allows them to network with other active and involved dads, and also gives these full-time parents a chance to relax. To that last point, HomeDadCon 2018 ticket holders have already … [Read more...]
Marketing to New Parents Can Create a Home Full of Unnecessary Baby Gear
It’s been said that the best way to learn a foreign language is to immerse yourself in the culture. So two months into this fatherhood thing and I’ve fully immersed myself into this really screwed up world called the language of parenting. Never before in my life have I spent so much damn time talking about poop. Not shit. Because, babies don’t do that. They “poop” or “go poopy.” Newborns aren’t throwing up or vomiting … they are “spitting up.” And my daughter doesn’t drool. Well, actually, apparently she does drool because, this is the term we choose to use as a crossover from … [Read more...]
Tough Love Can Look Like No Love if You are Not Judicious
"James, you’re not helping him by being tough, you’re being mean." It took a while to let that sink in as I looked at my wife in disbelief. I couldn’t believe that what I thought was showing my oldest son, tough love, was actually looking like and feeling like I had no love for him. My dad was huge on tough love and it helped push me to do things I might have never tried. Now as a dad myself, I also use tough love on my kids. However, this one time I had to agree with my wife. I wasn’t showing my son tough love, I was being a dick. I was killing his pride instead of helping him … [Read more...]
Rubber Band Helps this Dad Snap Back into Loving Parental Mode
I’m not one for jewelry. I don’t wear a necklace, and I definitely don’t wear any bracelets. I don’t wear a watch, or a Fitbit; I never even wore a LiveStrong band. I keep it simple. Beauty like this doesn’t need adornments! But I’ve been wearing an rubber band on my wrist for a little while now. It’s not a fashion statement; it’s a reminder. It’s a reminder that I am too hard on my 7-year-old. It’s a reminder that I yell too much. That I say “no” too much. That I lose my patience with him too frequently and I scold him too often and I don’t cut him enough slack. It’s a reminder … [Read more...]
Educated Children Learn to Manage Their Responses, Rather Than Beat the System
“Dad, they shouldn’t give us so much homework to do during summer. It’s not fair and it’s not right.” I nod my head in agreement with my son, and tell him part of me agrees with him, but it doesn’t matter because this isn’t a debate. His homework is his responsibility. It’s part of the joy of going into 8th grade and getting ready for high school. High school. It doesn’t seem possible that my son is almost old enough to be in high school. It is hard to fathom how fast time has gone, but it’s growing easier to imagine a time when he will not be a little boy any more. Truth is that … [Read more...]
PTA Needs to be Resource to Help Students with Social, Health Issues
“If parents want to give their children a gift, the best thing they can do is to teach their children to love challenges, be intrigued by mistakes, enjoy effort, and keep on learning. That way, their children don’t have to be slaves of praise. They will have a lifelong way to build and repair their own confidence.” – Carol Dweck
In the spirit of Carol Dweck’s quote, it is important to address the role of parent-teacher associations (PTAs) in today’s schools because they can exponentially improve prevention of depression, anti-social behavior and suicide … [Read more...]- 1
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