Archive for the ‘Parenting Tips’ Category
Moving from one side of the US to the other side was an awesome adventure/road trip. Although I did not experience too many Clark Griswold moments, it wasn’t for a lack of trying on my part. This is a big ole Country and when you start off your trip West by going South and East, one is bound to run into their fair share of situations. However, with the help of my trusty GPS and an ice chest full of Coke Zero, I survived and somehow made it to Boise, Idaho. Just in time for more rain than they have ever had in the month of May. So I got that going for me.
Now, I find myself moving into my apartment. Do not ever fool yourself into believing that downsizing is an easy thing to do. Going from 3000 square feet to 1000 aint easy, mostly due to the lack of space to “put/hide” stuff until you get around to doing what ever it was you planned on doing with it. Too bad my complex does not have a real garage where I can stash all the extra boxes of stuff. Looks like I will be renting some storage after all.
There has been one awesome highlight of unpacking, and thanks to this highlight the process is taking 3 or 4 times as long as it should. I am talking about the pictures and photo albums I brought with me. I have been enjoying 23 years of memories. The best part is the pictures are in no particular order. I will open a box and carefully wrapped will be Ziplocs of pictures from the late 90’s, another will have baby pictures, goofy pictures, teenage pictures, every year (up until 3 years ago when I switched from film to digital) of my kid’s lives are right there in front of me. I am re-living the “good” parts of our lives, after all most of us don’t pull the camera out to capture sad we use it to capture good.
I know somehow someway I will figure out how to preserve these memories for myself and my kids. Those simple pictures have given me the greatest joy. My decision to be a Dad first has been validated. I would not trade a moment captured in the pictures for any amount of money or job title. The laughter and tears I have enjoyed the past couple of days are truly priceless.
I encourage all of you Parents reading my blog to take some time this weekend and capture your joy of being a Parent. Nothing in this world is more important than the relationship between a Child and Parent. Do yourself a huge favor and create your memories of these awesome times. Now go do what you have to do to…
Make it a Super Day,
Kevin
One of the smartest things I did after my divorce was to start to listen and observe the interactions between children and their parents. Did not matter if I was in the store, Church, Library, Restaurant, Ball Fields, on a walk, the Golf Course, anywhere, I was always watching and learning what works and what didn’t work. At first I concentrated on “actions” and kept a notebook full of observations. As time went on I added sound and surrounding to the mix. Over the years, I have become pretty good at my stealth fact finding, although every now and then one of my kids will tell me to stop staring and acting like a creeper!
I’m telling ya Dad’s, you can learn a lot watching others. One of the big things I have noticed is the different ways people react to the same situation. We are all hard wired to behave in certain ways. All of life to this point has made you who you are. Because of this you react certain ways, however, at any time of our lives we can change the wiring and start to react differently. I’m sure if you spend some time thinking about this you will understand what I am saying. Think about the evolution of your ability to drive a car. When faced with an emergency you react based upon what you have learned (driving in rain or snow or ice). For example, people who grew up driving in real snow are clueless how to drive in Southern snow (ice).
Along with observing I started to ask parents why they reacted the way they did. Their reasons almost always go back to “That’s how I was raised”. I believe I can best explain this if we use a restaurant as an example. Picture separate tables at your favorite “family’ friendly restaurant, and think back to the kid’s actions. One table the parent is constantly ‘shushing” and giving directions to their kid’s to sit straight, be quiet, don’t put 10 sugar packets into the glass with 5 lemons and water, stop talking loud, stop hitting your sibling, be patient the food will be here soon, etc. Another has no kids sitting at it because they are up and playing video games or hanging out in the front of the restaurant. A third has a group discussion going on about school or sports or the other families at the restaurant. Finally the fourth has a calm and relaxed parent sitting at a table of kids who are clam and relaxed just being kids (sitting quietly, getting up, going to the bathroom, coloring, reading, texting, talking, laughing, walking around, spilling stuff, eating all the crackers out of the basket, etc).
So how can you have 4 families at the same restaurant in the same environment acting in 4 completely different ways? I will bet you it has everything to do with how the adult was raised and nothing to do with the atmosphere at the restaurant. Which way is the best? That depends on your definition of “best”. Table 4 might be best for the adult, table 2 might be best for the kids, table 3 might be best for family and table 1 might be best for making you laugh at the poor adult’s efforts to raise perfect(?) children. There are no right and wrong ways. There are only ways that work best for you. If you see a family having a meal together and you like the interaction and parenting style, go ask the parent to share with you how they were able to make it happen. You might be surprised at just how easy it is.
Now y’all don’t have to limit your observations to a restaurant. Everywhere you go you have an opportunity to see new and exciting ways to parent. Do not feel embarrassed to ask “How do you do that?” people love to share stories about their kids. And we all love to share stories about how we did it right. Watch, talk, listen and learn. That is what being a Parent is all about. Now go do what you have to do to…
Make it a super day,
Kevin
As y’all know I recently sold the house I raised my children in after making the decision to move away from the Buffalo area. The process of going through 23 years of memories and accumulated stuff was at times a tremendous relief and at other times pert near the hardest thing I have done as an adult..be it married, divorced or single parent..As I was going through the process I was forced to make some decisions on possessions. Do I keep and move with me, give to a friend, put into storage, throw away, or donate to a local charity. I don’t know how well I did in this decision making, but will definitely have a better idea once my stuff arrives.
Now my kids need not worry, Dad did not get rid of all your things. Heck there stuff was the hardest to go through. No matter how many of my friends I asked, it seems none of them had a need for plaster casts of y’alls hands, so I still have those. Most of my tears of joy at remembering were your things. I’m pretty sure I remember all the clothes y’all wore while being clueless as to why I had 3 leather jackets of different shades of brown. Plus why did I have all those 40 and 42 inch waist jeans and shorts?
However, when all was said and done, I still had clothes, furniture, books and stuff which I wanted to donate. So I started the process of finding good homes for my old things. My first chin scratcher had to do with men’s clothing. For some reason Church clothing pantries aren’t hurting for men’s clothes. They all wanted kid clothes and any winter coats, but pants and too small for me golf shirts just weren’t big ticket items. My books were not “hip” enough for the new age book stores and too explicit for Church Libraries. Finally, I realized that there really isn’t a place to give away all those late night infomercial purchases. You are going to have to do some homework in order to donate your stuff.
In the end I had great success with AMVETS and Goodwill. They not only were an outlet for much of my things, but they thanked me for donating. Kid’s clothes went to local Churches. Infomercial stuff went to an odds and ends store way out in the country. My only complaint involved some furniture I tried to donate to Salvation Army. I did not know that they only take furniture they can resell in one of their stores, and a tear on the lining of my couch disqualified it from being donated (find out the rules before you have them show up to remove your things). However, the men loading the truck did haul the couch to the curb and an add on craig’s list “free couch/bed, first come first serve” had that thing gone in no time.
As I write this blog post, the things I did ship from Buffalo will be arriving in less than 24 hours. That will pretty much occupy me for the next few days wondering why I brought this and not that. So y’all know what I will be up to. Now go do what you have to do to…
Make it a super Day,
Kevin
A divorced single Mom friend of mine called me up the other day and surprised me with the topic of her call. She told me that “I was right” in what I said a few years ago. OK, I love to be right about something, but at my advanced age, I’ll be darned if I had a clue what she was talking about. I told her thanks for saying I was right, but could she please tell me what I was right about so I could do more of that what ever it was to be right. Her laughter at my cluelessness is still makes me smile.
It seems that a few years back we were talking about her kids and the changes she could expect as they grew older. Specifically, I imparted 2 bits of expert advice on the future. Number 1 was that when her 2nd and 3rd kids got old enough to drive she would go out of her way to make sure they got their license as soon as possible and where on the road asap. Number 2 was that her “perfect angel” youngest would one day make her eldest’s escapades seem angelic in comparison.
Yep folks I nailed those predictions. Not because I am a fortune teller, but because I have been there done that and survived to tell the stories. There are many more predictions I could make for that very reason. Been there done that survived to tell the stories is not something you just get as you grow older. It is a gift you earn as you parent your children through out their lives. I know the things my kids experienced, and I bet your kids will enjoy many of those same experiences.
2 very important sources of how I parented as a Single Dad came from listening to older kids and other parents of older kids. I heard the older kids through volunteering to be a Sunday school teacher. Amazing the stories you can learn as a “cool” adult teaching Sunday school. Additionally, when I met a Parent (single or married, male or female) I was always asking them what to expect or be prepared for next. I truly believe that one of the best ways to learn about the future is to talk with someone who has been there done that survived to tell the stories.
I urge you to find your Advice givers. Seek them out. Always get all sides of the situations input..kids, parents, teachers, coaches. Learn from their wisdom. Learn from their mistakes. Learn from their failures. Just learn all you can from where ever you can. I guarantee that entire knowledge base will payoff in amazing ways for you and your kids.
Now go do what you have to do to…
Make it a super day,
Kevin
I know many of you are wondering how a Single Parent can not find the time to update his blog. After all, once one is Divorced there is nothing but time on your hands. It is not as if you have a wife constantly nagging you to “honey do..” do this and do that. Nope the biggest concern should be if I you should watch the entire Master’s coverage today or sneak in 18 holes while everyone else is watching. Commercials are the perfect time to update blogging.
Normally, I would agree with you. Once the kids choose between Mom or Dad house, you either have a house of chaos or a house of quiet. However, when one decides to sell the ole homestead after 23 years, the last couple of weeks can be very stressful and time consuming. Ok, I will be honest, a lot of the time consuming “things” were in fact me sitting around making to-do lists of things to do, or dreading having things to do, or me fixing to get after doing things that need to be done, or..I think you get the picture. I was overwhelmed with the things to do and couldn’t find the time to start doing them.
I finally got the motivation to start doing and stop thinking. My Agent called and scheduled the final walk through on Wednesday night, a mere 48 hours before closing. I haven’t sold many houses, so the concept of a walk was a bit daunting. Especially given the fact that all my good intentions of packing before the movers came, were just that, good intentions. Being the good soldier I am, I asked my Agent what I had to do for the final walk through. He assured me that boxes and in the process of moving were normal, and I just needed to allow the new owners access to the house and let them do their thing.
OK, now I am back to square one, you might remember I had to clean my house before the cleaners could professionally clean my house, and now I had to pack up stuff before the movers could professionally pack up my household stuff. As an old Calvin and Hobes cartoon once said…”My life needs a rewind button”. The process of cleaning and packing and moving had to begin. The luxury of procrastinating was no longer valid in the big scheme of things. The time for action was here and by golly I was being forced to act. So for the last few days I have been burning the candle at both ends and moving out of my house. The closing has come and gone, the locks have been changed, and I am no longer a home owner.
I got to thinking though, that the process of selling my house and moving out was a lot like the process I went through as I became a Single Dad. After thinking about divorce, separating, paying Lawyers, going before the Judge, finding a new place to live, thinking about how to get the house ready for my kids to live with me, the day finally arrived for the final walk through. My kids and I were going to be “home alone” in our new place. All the thinking about what I would or would not do was over. It was time to be a Single Dad and make every moment with my kids count. Some times you just have to stop thinking and planning and ‘fixing to” and just get after it. Just like moving, I couldn’t do it alone and needed my Agent, as a newly Single Dad, you might not be able to do it alone. I encourage you to look for and find a place to learn about the process. Every bit of knowledge you can learn will pay off for years to come. You can sit around and think about learning, or you can just go and start learning. In the end the choice is yours.
Now go do what you have to do to…
Make it a Super Day,
Kevin
