Volcanoes, Self-Esteem and Travel tips for Dads

You are looking at a photo of Mt. Rainer from my flight from Vancouver to Omaha for the 15th Annual At Home Dads convention. I’ve seen Mt. Rainer a million times, so why take a photo today? Read on.

I think almost universally among fathers, what we’d like to give our children is more time. I can say almost unequivocally, that is what our children want from us more than anything else. I’ve yet to meet anyone who said, “You know, the problem with my dad was that he spent too much time with me.”

In my corporate workshops for dads, I spend a great deal of time helping dads overcome the challenges of being busy to ensure that their child still gets the message that they are important. Some of the tips I give to traveling dads include skyping from the road, recording a bedtime story before you go away, putting pins in a map to mark where you are going (a good way to teach geography, too) or even setting up a little treasure hunt where dad can give the first clue from the road. Yesterday, my son inadvertently helped me come up with another.

When I told my four year-old son the other day that I was going away on a plane trip today, he asked if he could come with me.

“I’m sorry love, it’s just a trip for daddies. We are going to all get together and tell each other about how much we love being dads.”

“Please?” he begged. “I want to see all the things you are going to see.”

“Right” it hit me, “I’m going to take pictures of what I’m doing and email them to you every night.”

I know I’m shaped by my own experiences of having a father who lived 500 miles away, but I think it’s safe to say that children, especially younger ones, don’t understand it when dad says he has to get to some work first before he can play, or that he’s leaving town for another business trip. The danger in this scenario is that if it repeats, children can wind up feeling like a second priority.

It doesn’t take much effort to let them know they are always first and foremost in your mind. “I know you love volcanoes so here is a picture of one from the airplane. I saw it and it made me think of you,” might not seem like much, but it will mean the world to my little boy.

Nobody's Perfect

The Human-Blur that is my son at the moment.

Lest I’ve portrayed myself as an infallible father in some of my blog posts, I need to open up a bit.

Parenting my four year old right now is a pain.

My son is in a near perpetual hyper-annoying state right now, where he is commanding and defiant—bellicose and belligerent. His favourite pastime at the moment is trying to get his way all the time.

I know this is a natural stage for kids. They explore their limits and test your boundaries. Sometimes it’s even funny when he’s looking incredibly stern and proclaiming things like, “No daddy, it’s not your choice!” and “I’m going to count to nineteen!” As I listen to him, I wonder, “Is that really how I sound?”

There are other times, however, when the constant conflict is plain exasperating. Everything—from getting dressed to going to bed—is a battle. Sometimes, I can’t win for losing. The other day he was barking at me to help him put on his socks. After calmly getting him to change his tone and say “please” I sat him on my lap and started putting on his socks.

“No, let me do it!” he snarled.

“Connor, you just asked me to…”

“WAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!” he shouted while throwing his head back.

My inner monologue at moments like these  (at least the part I can write without being investigated by social services) go something like this: “What am I doing wrong? I’ve tried everything. I’ve had the patience of Job, and I’ve been short and firm. I’ve given him a long leash, and I’ve shortened it. I’ve been polite, and I’ve laid down the law. I’ve given him choices, and I’ve taken them away. Maybe I’ve just totally screwed him up with a total lack of consistency.”

In short, I beat myself up. I’ve been blessed with a happy, healthy son who has largely been a dream to parent and now he’s the Tasmanian devil on steroids. Surely, it has to be my fault.

Then the other morning, after stand-offs over teeth brushing, face wiping and turning off the TV (all punctuated with great “harrumphs”) I thought we were headed for another conflict over putting on his shoes. Instead, as I was bent over about to tie up his laces, he put his hand on my back and said, “You know daddy, even when I’m grumpy with you, I still love you.”

“Me too,” I said choking back the instant tears. “Always.”

Now maybe my son has just learned that the word “love” will make his dad melt on the spot, but I like to think at moments like that, maybe I’m not doing such a bad job after all.

Don’t forget to cut yourself some slack as a parent from time to time. While it is essential to want to take responsibility and raise a healthy child, sometimes your kids can just be little shits—just like we can. And that’s OK.

Good boy or good job?

My wife and I are currently finding great humour in a general societal trend we’ve just noticed.

Our little two-month old, for whatever reason, seems to be a very happy baby. If he’s not sleeping, he’s happily gurgling away, either to himself, or to a doting parent or grand-parent. More than once, when we’ve been out in public—at a movie or a restaurant—we’ve had people come up to us and say, “Oh, what a good baby! He hasn’t made a peep.”

It makes us wonder, if he’d been crying the whole time would people say, “For heaven’s sake, what a bad baby you have!”?

This leads me to think about good and bad. I have never uttered the words “good boy” to my sons, and I never will. Why?

Well, let’s say my son does something positive—picks up his coat, takes his plate back to the kitchen, or even hits a baseball. If I say, “Good boy” then what is implied when he refuses to pick up his coat, doesn’t clear his plate, or strikes out? Surely, if doing those aforementioned things makes him a good boy, not doing them makes him a bad boy. I think we teach kids about good and bad early enough that they can easily make that interpretation.

Early childhood educators will tell you to praise or condemn the behavior, not the child. One study I came across aptly illustrates why that is sage advice. In the study, kids were divided into two groups, divided as equally as possible across academic, cultural and socio-economic lines. Each group was given a test. As you would expect, the averages panned out to be more or less the same. Then, for two weeks, one group was told, “Wow, you guys are so smart” with the emphasis being on intelligence. The other group was told, “Wow, you kids must have worked so hard for that test.” For them, the emphasis was on effort. After a few weeks of this pattern, the kids were given the same test again. The group that had been praised for effort saw their average mark go up. In the group where intelligence was lauded, the marks went down.

The researchers came up with two hypotheses. The first was that the praise for smarts made the first group complacent. The second was that, while children could not control how smart they are, they can control how much effort they put out. Praising effort, in other words, was an act of empowering these children.

We all want our kids to succeed. As I’ve mentioned in the last couple of posts, we dads sometimes push our kids hard to achieve, particularly in the hyper competitive world of sports. If you are one of these dads, try to adopt terms like, “great work,” “good job” and “super effort.”

Calling your child a “good boy” when he hits a baseball, by default, means he is a “bad boy” 70% of the time.