Posts Tagged ‘single parents and children during holidays’
“So what do you do when the person you care about doesn’t want to make changes that will benefit them? First, we need to look at ourselves before we even begin to open our mouths. You can not ask someone to do something that you aren’t first willing to do yourself. If I am overweight, how can I ask the person I care about to lose weight while I sit on the couch?”..this was taken from a blog entry by my friend Matt Hoover (winner of Season 2 on NBC’s The Biggest Loser Reality Show).
Although Matt was talking about how you get loved ones to accept the fact that they need to lose weight, when I read his blog I was struck by how many times I told my kids to do something while showing them that I did the opposite. I want to discuss this theme in today’s blog. Do what I say, not what I do.
I need you to stop what you are doing and be very critical of yourself as a parent right now. Are you guilty of telling your kids to bundle up (according to the President we are in the midst of “Snowmageddon”) and go play outside while you are sitting back in your recliner watching ESPN? Are you guilty of telling your kids to eat their veggies while they see the empty pizza boxes from the nights they were not with you? Do you tell your teenagers to “Never drink and drive” while you routinely have a beer or glass of wine with diner and then drive the Family home? Are you on your kid’s back to do home work while you spend the night on FaceBook or watching TV? Do you harp on your children to do their summer reading and never once read a book in front of them? How about critiquing their “effort/hustle” in sports while waddling around with your “Parent 35” hanging over your belt?
Many things we expect and require our children to do are things we don’t do ourselves. Do you make your bed every day? Do you pick your clothes up off the floor every day? Do you rinse and put away the dishes when your kids are not with you? Do you shine your shoes and dress appropriate every day? Do you exercise and keep your weight at a healthy level? Do you drink and drive? Do you have a beverage to relax as soon as you get home from work? Do you end up tipsy by the time a celebration (birthday, holiday, Saturday) is over? Do you wear your seatbelt all the time? Do you smoke or think you “hide” your smoking from your kids? Do you talk about and/or gossip about neighbors and friends? Do you attend Church on a regular basis? Do you treat your Ex with respect and act friendly when ever you are around her? Do you show up on time for games and events?
Most of what a child learns is through watching and trying to do the same as their Parents. Think back to you lathering up and shaving with your Dad. Remember smoking candy cigarettes? How about playing house and Dad drinking coke in place of Budweiser? Don’t even get me started with dress up or “50’s” dances at school (time to feel OLD the kids are now having 80’s dances). Our children are little sponges and they absorb everything we do. The actions you routinely do are what your children will definitely do. You have a 50/50 chance that they will do anything you “say”.
Time to take a look at the model behavior you are setting for your children. Make changes where you need to. Enjoy being active with your kids. Learning and communicating with your kids. Enjoy being the Father you always wanted to emulate. Today is the day you can make this happen in your life. Just get off your butt and do it.
Now go do what you have to do to…
Make it a super day,
Kevin
If the games this weekend are any indication, the Super Bowl is going to be an amazing display of Offense with a touch of Defense thrown in for good measure. America’s Team is still in the hunt..while the Hoodies Team is making tee times. Potentially the NFC championship could break all kinds of “age” records for quarterbacks, and the combined age of AFC quarterbacks barley qualifies for an AARP card.
So what does this have to do with being a Single Dad? How does Football and raising kids relate? It probably doesn’t. But the Super Bowl does give a Dad an opportunity to establish a tradition with his kids that is highly unlikely to be “shared” year in and year out. We have just enjoyed/survived/endured/cried through the 2009 Holiday Season. You may or may not have gotten to spend as much time with your children as you wanted to. The every other Holiday at Dad’s house can get old in a hurry. So this is a perfect time for Dad to establish his own Holiday.
Let’s look at a typical Super Bowl Sunday. You wake up and like 99.99% of Americans have no chance of going to the Big Game. So you go to Church and wear the colors of your favorite Team just to see if anyone picks up on the fact that there is a game today. You get home after a quick stop at the store for chips, dip and beer. Pretend to do stuff around the house. Get the itch to go out around 4 so you get a good seat at the bar. Claim your spot at the bar, toss back a couple of good luck shots, decide on pitchers of beer or Jack and Coke, eat a few dozen wings (halftime buffet isn’t for another 5 hours), and buy the last few squares in the pool. By game time you are looking through one eye, playing darts or pool and missing most of the commercials and all of the game, and oblivious to what game it is much less who is playing. Next thing you know the alarm is going off and you have to go on-line to see who won as you didn’t even make it to half time before the cab came and picked you up.
Sound familiar?
Here is another way to spend the day. Declare Super Bowl weekend Dad’s Weekend. Start planning with your kids your Super Bowl Holiday menu. Let each child select an appetizer and a main course. Use a cook book which has easy to follow instructions so they can “make” their selection. Head to the grocery store on Saturday morning to insure you get all the ingredients. Start cooking on Sat afternoon if you need to make sure there is time to get everything made and hot on Sunday. When your kids are young convince them to go to bed early on Sat because they will be staying up late on Sun to watch the game (this will not work for a child over the age of 11). Make sure you do the wash and everyone has the proper “uniform” for watching the game.
On game day..Have a blast. Enjoy your kids. Cook, laugh, make messes, clean up after yourselves, drink kool-aide and cokes, pig out on your children’s special menu items, and keep track of the commercials you like the best. Make it a Super Day all about you and your children sharing time together. Know that years from now you can probably move the get together anywhere in the world and your kids will know Super Bowl Sunday is their Dad’s Holiday. Cherish having a weekend that is yours no matter what year it is. Don’t worry about the Pools you are in, you can win or lose just as easily at home as in the bar. Make memories (like my oldest turning to me after the half time show and saying “Daddy is that what I think it is?”). Enjoy the Big Game with the most important people in the World..your children.
Now go do what you need to do to..
Make it a super day,
Kevin
I was talking with a couple of single Dad friends of mine and we got to discussing our 2010 New Year’s Resolutions. We laughed about how this was going to be the year that we lowered our gym memberships to an average of $1 a day and not $30 for the 1 day a month we went to the gym. However, one of my friends started talking about his real dreams and goals for next year, changing the conversation completely. In the process of getting serious about making 2010 a super new year, I got to thinking what my girl’s dreams are for 2010 and beyond.
As a Single Parent, OK as a Parent, it is very easy to get so wrapped up in “our” world that we overlook the world of our children. I know my goals and dreams. I know mine have changed year to year over the past 20 years or so (went from traditional Family dreams to Single Parent Family dreams in 1995). But I would be hard pressed to sit down and share my kid’s dreams for 2010. Why is this, after all I blog about things to do to be a successful Single Dad. Shouldn’t a requirement for being successful be that I know my kid’s dreams?
You see in my case, I asked once a long time ago and failed to keep asking. I can tell you what their dreams were when they were young. I can even tell you their favorite food and colors and season, and song, and TV show, etc. Know what? I would be 100% wrong with my answers. The TV shows from 10 years ago are off the air (and the last of the Barney tapes was destroyed in the last basement flooding..no seriously, I promise), peanut butter, butter, and marshmallow on raisin bread doesn’t cut it for a nutritionist, purple was out thanks to Mr Bailey. Quick how many of you reading this have “the answer” in your brain, but have not taken the time to update the new answers?
Here is my challenge for you. This Christmas Season, take the time to write your kids a note (email, card, letter, facebook message) use whatever method you use best when communicating with your kids. Do 2 things in this note. 1) share with your children your dreams for 2010 and 2) ask them to share their dreams for 2010. This way as you go through the year you can constantly be on the outlook for situations and things that support your kid’s dream. You can become a better informed Parent as to what the dream actually pertains. If you are lucky you might even be able to be a go to source for information. At the very least you will never run out of interesting topics to discuss when you and your kids are together.
If your child is younger, ask them to draw a picture or make up a play or tell a story about their dream(s). Video tape or record your child as they embellish what their dream is. Let them get creative and use all their senses of communication. File the letter/email/etc you get back so that years from now when your grandkids are the same age you can pull out their Parent’s dreams and share. Reconnect with your children in a manner in which there are no wrong answers. Only what is in their heart. I bet you can even plan vacations and outings around getting to know more about your child’s dream. Have fun with this and let your kids have fun as well.
Now go do what you have to do to….
Make it a super day,
Kevin
Look around; everywhere you look you will see that the Christmas/Holiday Season is upon us. This is the time of year when our young kids start to really try and behave. Teachers look forward to a couple of weeks of no kids. Neighbors become Clark Griswald wannabees. Stores have massive sales, both in-store and on-line. Friends become friendlier. There is a nip in the air and maybe snow on the ground. A wonderful awesome time of the year.
With all this joy and comfort and yule-tide happiness all around you..why are you feeling like crap? How can you not be filled with happiness? Why are you tired all the time? What is going on? Why does this time of year constantly bring out these feelings in you. How can you spend so much time “snapping” at your kids when they are trying to act like angels?
Now I am NOT any type of MD, but I am a Single Dad, and have been there done that for the past 15 years. Granted each year gets better and easier to deal with, but dagnabit, the Holiday Season always reminds me that for whatever reason my Family is not going to be sitting around the tree enjoying a traditional celebration. I get depressed. I know it is coming and I do things to head it off. However, I still battle a mild form a depression year after year.
Probably not the Christmas message you were expecting to hear, but a very real happening for many Divorced Parents. I have spent a lot of time searching for the “why” behind these feeling. And I was very surprised with what I came up with. I truly believe the biggest reason behind my mild depression was the result of repressed anger. 15 years later and I am still “angry” that I am not spending Christmas the way I dreamed of spending Christmas as a kid.
How many of you are holding back..keeping this anger bottled up inside you…never expressing that you are pissed to be Divorced? Yes, we sit around with our buddies talking about the Ex and how messed up the system is. BUT have you ever just come out and expressed that you are angry about being alone/divorced? I finally did in the paragraph above. Yep, took me 15 years to finally admit out loud what I have known for a long time. Getting Divorced sucks and it did not fit into my dreams of being a Dad.
Anger is a big reason why so many Single Dad’s struggle with being successful. Everytime we are faced with a “what do I do” scenario with our kids, good ole anger is in the back ground (this would be a problem if there were 2 adults..how should I know how to cook, I know how to change the oil and mow the lawn..which brand of “pads” is best for a teenager..etc). When you get angry your ability to perform your best is diminished.
So this Christmas/Holiday Season do yourself a favor. Express your anger. Be honest that everything isn’t perfect. Meet your depression head on. Take every opportunity to Love your children and spend as much quality time with them as you can. Rediscover how amazing the next few weeks truly are. Now go do what you have to do to…
Make it a super day,
Kevin
As the 1st of the Holiday Season’s holidays comes to an end (Happy Thanksgiving to all of y’all), I am reminded that being a Single Parent during the Holidays sucks. Granted being a Single Parent at anytime, isn’t a bed of roses for you or your kids, BUT during the Holidays it has an extra special degree of “How did I get myself into thisness?” about it. Don’t get me wrong. For 15 years I have tried to “spin” the Holidays to hide the fact that deep down something just wasn’t right. And for 15 years I have been able to mask about 80 to 90% of the suckiness. Bottom line, it is up to you as a Single Parent to make the Holiday time as special as possible and put your own feelings on the back burner.
OK, let’s get some of the real negatives out of the way and then look at ideas I’ve picked up from friends and my kid’s friends. In my mind the biggest negative to the Holiday season is missing the “smiles”. No matter how you and your Ex split the Holidays up, one of you is going to miss the pure life is awesome joy and happiness that kids have. There is no better place to be than around the tree amid the chaos that is a child at Christmas. Married Parents get to both enjoy, Single Parents might try to enjoy (Big Mistake because what do you do when you start to date? Bring her along and just be the “4” of you pretending all is normal?), but most Single Parents miss out on every other year.
Another is forcing your kids to choose between Mom and Dad. I know a couple of times I was guilty of trying to out gift, out cook, out tradition, just out do my Ex in everyway. I’m sure my kids enjoyed the extravagance but they still were forced to make both parents feel special by fully participating in all events. Trust me this will not work for a very long time. Here’s an example, when my kids were with Mom for the Holiday meal, good ole Dad picked another day to celebrate the “Day”, complete with full meal and Holiday cheer. Better, but that still leaves Dad all alone on the “Real” day.
Holiday’s were meant to be spent with Family, and as a Single Parent that isn’t always going to be possible. So what can you do? How do you avoid the deep depression of screwing up the Holidays for your kids by being Single?
A very good way, and maybe the most difficult is to communicate with your Ex. Talk about gifts and go 50/50 on them (start telling your kids in July that Mom and Dad are “BOTH” buying the gifts no matter where they get opened), pick above the waist (best for her) and below the waist (come on Dads pants/jeans/shoes/boots how difficult can that be?) for buying clothes, establish Christmas Eve vs Christmas Day gift opening, talk about and plan Holiday meals, and plan if there will be any travel involved. This can have a huge impact on the Holidays so don’t even pretend it doesn’t need to be discussed.
Here are some amazing ways I have learned to celebrate the Holidays and keep the blues at bay..OK try to keep the blues at bay.
• Almost every town has a Turkey Trot or Jingle Bell run. Sign you and the kids up and walk/run your way to a huge appetite. The 1st time your kid beats you is an experience you will treasure forever.
• Breakfast/Brunch at one house, the big meal at the other.
• If traveling with mom always have gift opening after they get back (Dec 26th sales are much better than Black Friday sales).
• Summer Thanksgiving/Christmas/New Years. Works great for Dads who get their kids during the summer and there is something to be said for being able to camp outside on July 4th/New Years after watching all the fireworks set off to celebrate a new year together.
• Go to Amazon.com (I bought this book this year), find a Holiday cook book, pick out a meal, and make it with your kids.
• Let a friend and his Family adopt you for the Holidays..(Thank You Gelias). Especially great when your Family is miles away..
• Volunteer at a local Food Bank/City Mission and serve meals, do dishes, take out garbage, make others feel loved when they have no one.
• Book an All Inclusive trip and wear plenty of sunscreen.
• Make Holiday meals a “Progressive” diner. Appetizers at your place, meal at Mom’s, deserts back at your place, and rotate who does what with your Ex so that you each get to make everything (be sure and send leftovers to the other house).
Above all, realize that Holiday celebrations are always going to be difficult, but not impossible to get through. Love the opportunities to be with your kids and share your own special time together. Share yourself with others, when your children are not with you. Remember the reason for the season. And do what you have to do to…
Make it a Super Holiday Season,
Kevin
