Just Call Me Dad

I’m told I have a unique view of the world by many people. I try very hard to listen to alternate points of view, and I read people like Seth Godin and Tim Ferriss. To me, my view isn’t really unique, it’s just different from the mainstream.

It comes as little surprise to those same people that I have some different views on parenting. For example, Nick is quite stubborn, and I really like that. Yes, it makes my job as a parent harder, but I think a stubborn streak will serve him a lot better in life than subservience. I try to reason with Nick and talk to him in a normal (read: not baby) voice as much as possible. I get a lot of raised eyebrows, but I think I’m doing the right thing.

On Saturday, I was faced with a parenting dilemma. We had purchased a kite the day before, and we were intending to make it fly that afternoon. Mom had made a request: clean up the living room before we go out. Ordinarily, I will pitch in to pick up toys as long as Nick is doing something as well. Today, he decided that it was more fun to roll around on the couch. Mom was getting frustrated, and the point was fast approaching where we should start laying down the law by taking toys away if he didn’t listen. Instead, I chose an alternate method. I played stubborn.

I kept asking him to clean up his toys. Every time he left the room, I followed him and turned him back towards the living room. I shut every door upstairs so that he had no escape, and I blocked the areas of the living room that were clean.

This went on for about 45 minutes. I know – a really long time. I would ask, he would ignore. I would ask, he would try to run. Then, something strange happened. He sat down in the middle of the mess and started to cry. Then he stood up, picked up his toys, and put them all away. On top of that, he was a perfect child until he went to sleep for his nap. He listened, came when called, and behaved well.

I view this as a parenting victory – I think that my actions reinforced who was in charge and enforced the rule that he needs to listen to his parents. Still, I know there are a lot of people who would say that 45 minutes was WAY too long to wait, and that he should have had a spanking and grounding after being told twice.

What do you think? Did I do well, or was I a pushover? What methods do you use to get your toddler to listen?

In February I decided that I really had to do something to get into shape. Well, that isn’t exactly correct, because I do have a shape right now, but it’s sort of round and flabby as opposed to flat and rigid. Perhaps I should say that I decided that I really had to get into BETTER shape.

A long time ago I started a running program and I really enjoyed the time spent out on the streets, pounding the pavement. Eventually winter and snow and ice came to my city, and the running stopped. I had every intention of running in the snow, but come on -40 is COLD. Spring came, and I reverted to my other favorite physical activity: killing zombies on the Xbox.

In the beginning of March I made the decision to enter a local 5k race that was going to take place at the end of May. I paid my registration, and started thinking about how best to train. I decided that I would blow the cobwebs off of the elliptical trainer in my basement, and then follow the couch to 5K running plan. I’ve been pretty good about using the elliptical, but Monday marks the day that I have to get out my running shoes and start hitting the pavement again.

So Dads, if you have any encouraging stories to share with me, I would love to hear them. And on Monday if you feel the ground shaking a little, it’s just me punishing the streets in front of my house.

Happy Easter!

A while back I was asked to write a guest post for the great website http://www.gladdads.com. Unfortunately, I didn’t get off my butt until just a couple of weeks ago. Thankfully, they were still happy to hear from me and recently posted the article that I wrote for them on potty training. i encourage you to check it out when you have a couple of minutes.

The worst four-letter word is of course…CAN’T. As in, I can’t do this, or I can’t do that. For some reason, Nick has started to say this a lot lately.

There are times when every four letter word is useful. The *F* one comes in handy when you drive your car into something, and I like to use the *S* one sometimes when I step in a pile of dog doo doo or a police car pulls up me behind when I am speeding.

The *C* word though – can’t – I’m not sure where it fits in. Yes, I could say that we CAN’T go to Toy’s R Us this afternoon, although saying that I don’t want to is probably more appropriate. Telling your son you can’t afford a new toy probably isn’t true either – you likely just don’t want to spend the money on that item.

When my son says he can’t do something, I try to respond with yes you can, I’ll help if you need it, or sure you can, let me teach you. I don’t like how often I hear the word can’t in today’s world. Perhaps it’s because I’m a sucker for motivational tapes and books, but I really believe that the words that we use to describe our situations and feelings have an effect on us. I wouldn’t say that I believe in “The Secret” (I’ve never seen it or read it), but I don’t see any reason to put negative thoughts out into the world.

Am I being pedantic? Or am I teaching my son a life lesson? If I explain why I don’t wan’t him to say he can’t do something, will he remember the lesson his entire life and achieve great things, or will he think of Dad as a stuffy old writer who was always correcting him?

I remember reading somewhere that instead of saying “I can’t do something”, you should say “How CAN I do this?”. That is a lesson that I would like my son to learn.

I do my best to be an active parent and not let the television babysit for me, but there are times when it is nice to turn on the Backyardigans (or more likely Thomas & Friends) and let my son be entertained.

As Nick gets older, he is more and more aware of the technology around him, especially as he sees Mom and Dad engaging in it. He’s been viewing videos on YouTube since he was six months old (In fact, for a time viewing The Wiggles was one of the best ways to get him to calm down when he was upset). He talks to Grandma and Grandpa on the telephone, and he sees me checking e-mail on my Blackberry.

With his growing addiction to Thomas & Friends, it was only natural that trains would extend into his YouTube viewing. In many ways this is great, because there is a plethora of Thomas & Friends videos and fan recreations on YouTube, many of them very well done and with millions of views.

I began wondering if I could capture some of these videos and transfer them to my telephone for use in outside situations. There are lots of places where kids are forced to wait such as doctor’s offices, restaurants, the mall, in the car, etc where a 5 minute video could prevent a crying fit or prevent him from running around bothering others.

What I found was a handy website called KeepVid (http://www.keepvid.com). This site allows you to download and save any video from YouTube (or other streaming video sites). It even gives you a few options for how you would like the video to be saved. Be aware that there may be copyright issues with downloading some videos.

This was great, and I could now watch the videos on my laptop without an internet connection. However, it didn’t really solve the problem of getting the videos onto my phone; none of the download options were compatible with my Blackberry. For that problem I turned to AVS Video Converter (http://www.avs4you.com). This software allowed me to convert the video into the correct format. Because I use the free version, there is a watermark at the beginning and end of the videos. Those of you using different devices may be able to download videos directly to your device without any conversion.

The end result is a 5 minute babysitter that grasps Nick’s attention when I really need it.

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I don’t pretend to be an expert on food. To be honest, I’m not even very knowledgeable about the topic of food. Sure, I’m a pretty good cook, and I have some ideas about what food is good for us and what food is bad for us. However, I don’t know enough to keep me from being in the 66% of people who are currently overweight.

A few weeks ago, Nick and I went to Wal-Mart in the afternoon and we bought a three pack of Reese Peanut Butter Cups. We each had one, and the third cup stayed in my coat pocket. That night when it was time for a bedtime snack, I offered him the third peanut butter cup. My wife made it clear that this was not an appropriate snack. Of course, when I actually thought about it, I also knew that this was not a healthy snack. However, habit and convenience led me to not think about it.

I think that most of us know about food, but we don’t spend a lot of time actually thinking about food or the food that we eat. Of course, as adults, we have every right to eat whatever we want and live with the consequences of that. However, my concern was that I was teaching Nick some poor eating habits, and that did not sit well with me. I reached out to a Nutritionist with a list of questions, and that will be the subject of a coming blog post. In the meantime, I came across an excellent video from TED 2010. In it, Jamie Oliver (of Food Network fame) talks about childhood obesity and the way that we feed our kids. It’s about 20 minutes long, and really made me think about how I feed my son, and also about how I feed myself. I hope that you enjoy it.

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While I have dramatically cut back on the hours that I work in the past year, my son does still go to daycare for a portion of the day (typically from 8:30 to 4). Our lifestyle changes have meant that I can spend much more time with Nick and more time at home, which has been very positive and something that I am not willing to give up.

For two days this week and all of next week, our daycare center is closed while the wonderful women who run it take a well-deserved vacation. So, I cancelled all of my out of the house meetings and am keeping Nick at home with me. So far, the experiment has been going great, although I do find it difficult to find the time to sit down at the computer and type when my son is pulling at my leg and asking me to play trains. What I did yesterday was get up early and work before he got up, then took regular and long breaks throughout the day to play. We even went out to the library together for a little while. Of course, I worked while he napped in the afternoon too.

However, I do feel guilt. Like, if my son is here, I NEED to be playing with him all the time. I know he needs time to play by himself to develop his imagination, but I still feel guilty. In fact, as I write this he is watching Sesame Street and I have a nagging feeling that I am letting Elmo babysit while I ignore him.

I will check in next week after I’ve got some more practice doing this and let you know how it all worked out. In the meantime, if any of you SAHDs out there want to share any tips for working while your kids are at home, I’d love to hear them.

I have one other little thing to mention to you. This site is proud to participate in Fatherhood Fridays, a feature run by www.dad-blogs.com. Well, this just happens to be the 52nd Fatherhood Friday. That’s right, one year of excellent dad blogs. If you haven’t check it out yet, please visit them today.

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I am a big fan of podcasts; I listen to several as a way of keeping myself educated and informed on business matters. I’ve been searching for a good fatherhood podcast for some time, with limited success. It’s not so much that the podcasts haven’t been good, just that they haven’t really struck a chord with me. For example, the GeekDads podcast is very well done, but just didn’t really catch my attention.

A couple of weeks ago I visited Cast Of Dads and downloaded episode 7. Entitled “We Were All Morons”, I thought it was worth a listen. Unfortunately, it took me until yesterday to listen to the podcast – it was worth the wait.

The podcast consists of 5 Dads who are responsible for 13 children across a wide range of ages. The banter was natural, and really sounded like a group of guys just getting together and talking about the things that were on their minds.The podcast included a great discussion on dealing with bullying that I though was handled really well. All too often a group of guys would revert to bravado and deny that they or their children were ever bullied. Instead, these men offered up personal insights and workable solutions to the problem. Bravo.

So if you, like me, enjoy listening to podcasts, please check out the Cast of Dads. Their podcast is located at:http://castofdads.squarespace.com.

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This picture was tweeted to me yesterday morning. I thought it was fantastic and worth sharing.

Drew Brees and his son

I couldn’t find the source for this image, so if anyone knows, please tell me so I can give credit where it is due.