Giving Your Kids Choices
Recently we’ve had some issues with our daughter not listening very well. Mostly this is happening at school where she continues to talk when asked to be quiet. We’ve tried bribing her with new earrings, clothes, new shoes and dessert, all things that we thought would speak to her interests and passions. Unfortunately, she couldn’t care less about those things. She doesn’t seem to make the connection between her actions and the consequences. I think part of it is that earning a sticker on her work in kindergarten or having a note sent home don’t seem to mean that much to her. My wife and I have tried to find different consequences that would get through to her, but nothing seems to be working.
So I asked a friend who counsels families what he thought would be a good approach. His advice was to give her choices. Instead of saying “you need to not talk at school so you can get a sticker from your teacher” or “you need to be quiet at home so your dad doesn’t lose his mind”, we need to present her with two well defined options. For example, “You can choose to be quiet at school and you will be able to watch 30 minutes of TV when you get home. If you choose to not be quiet at school, then you are choosing not to watch TV.” He told me this is a great way to get kids to see that it is a choice they have. It empowers them to make the right decision and leaves us as parents with the responsibility of doling out the appropriate consequence. Either way, the choice is theirs.
I find it too easy to just say “clean your room” or “put your toys away” without specifying what the alternative choice is. I should say “If you choose to put your toys away then you can go outside to play for an extra 15 minutes and if you choose to not put your toys away then you are choosing to go to bed 15 minutes early.” It’s a lot more work upfront, for my feeble mind, but it pays spades on the back end. At least that’s what my friend said.
I know I learned this in one of the parenting books I read a long time ago, but I guess it got lost in the madness. Do you give your kids “choices” like this? Does it work for you in helping them relate their actions to the consequences?
But he lost his job…
Over the past four years as a SAHD there have been typical reactions to the announcement that I am a SAHD when I meet someone for the first time. The best responses are those where they say they know someone else who does the same thing, insinuating there are at least two of us out there in the world that live this way. It goes something like this:
Them: So what do you do for a living?
Me: I stay at home with the kids and my wife works from home.
Them: Oh. I know another father who does that. His wife goes to my [insert civic group, church, exercise class, etc.]. But he lost his job.
Oh yeah, did I mention that when I tell them my wife and I chose for me to stay at home with the kids, the person gets a look of bewilderment?
For the stay-at-home dads, what’s the strangest response you’ve received when telling someone what you do? Please share in the comments!
Are Stay-At-Home Dads Finally Socially Acceptable?
There were two articles in my blog reader this morning about SAHDs approaching normalcy. One guy, Aaron Traister, posted an article about his experiences in a pretty conservative Philly neighborhood. He mostly thinks things have shifted to where being a SAHD is ho-hum news, nothing to see as out of the ordinary. Aaron’s article is well written and the last line caught me off guard and had me spitting tea on my desk. The other article, by Brian Reid at RebelDad.com, is more in line with what I see happening online and initially experience from some folks I meet.
I care about the perception of SAHDs in our society at large, but I am more concerned about the individual experiences a SAHD has as he goes about his daily duties. For me, regardless of how acceptable being a SAHD is or is not in our society, there are phases relationships go through from ignorance to learning to acceptance. I think this can happen to everyone when we meet someone who falls outside the “norm” of our worldview.
Some people I meet are just ignorant (not stupid, that’s totally different, though I do meet my fair share of those folks, too) of why a father would choose to stay at home with his kids. There worldview says only a mom should stay at home with the kids, or at a minimum, a dad should be working or trying to find work outside the home.
As I spend more time around these people we learn about each other and they begin to see that I’m really not that strange, at least in reference to being a stay-at-home dad. The relationships are casual and continue to grow. As they do, I find myself and my role as a stay-at-home dad being fully accepted. I can honestly and fortunately say I have not had the displeasure of meeting anyone who does not accept my role as a stay-at-home dad. Some people have their opinions about what they consider right or wrong, but it’s never interfered with their acceptance of what my wife and I have chosen to do for our family.
I know this is not the case for a lot of stay-at-home dads, though. Everywhere they go they are met with stares, belittling questions about work and are generally not accepted. For those fathers I highly recommend connecting with other fathers online if there are no local groups. Or do the research and find other dads in your geographic area who would like to get together just to talk. Create your own group. The benefits of talking to other dads experiencing the same things as you far outweigh the cost of trying to find people and organize a meetup.
As a stay-at-home dad, do you experience these different phases with folks you meet? Or are they mostly stuck in ignorance?
Motivation to Simplify
The kids and I spent last week in Ohio living in a small apartment above my brother-in-law’s insurance business. We were visiting family and trying to escape the North Carolina heat, though Ohio was pretty warm also. The apartment had the basic fixtures, so we took with us the minimal amount of things needed to have a fun week.
It didn’t really occur to me while we were there, but walking into a room that isn’t cluttered with stuff that calls out for you to act on it was a nice change of pace. The apartment was less than 1000 square feet and we had plenty of room to live and sleep. Coming back home to our 3100 square foot, 3 story house that is full of stuff turned out to be a stress I didn’t expect to encounter.
So now that I’ve been able to live with less for a week I’m more motivated to simplify our house and get rid of most of the clutter. The challenge will be getting agreement from everyone as to what is considered clutter, what’s a “nice to have” item, and what is essential. I also have to overcome my tendency to try to do too much at once. For example, I’ve been known to drag everything out of a room and totally exhaust myself going through it so that I don’t even care that I’ve just reorganized the piles in various locations around the house – think deck chairs on the Titanic.
The plan is to clear out one drawer or simplify one surface to a point that the only things left are the items we really use each day. If I haven’t used it in the past year, it’ll probably be donated or trashed. Some things will go on Craigslist or eBay if the amount I can get from them is on par with the time it takes to sell it.
What encourages you to simplify? What have been some of the biggest challenges in doing so?
This is your new user interface version?
I use Liberated Syndication to host the media files for my podcast. They recently migrated my account to their new version, referred to as LibSyn3. I logged into my migrated account earlier today to update my credit card information and was visually assaulted by the following screen:
I honestly have no idea how I’m supposed to read this page. I’ve never seen an account page that popped up with a translucent background. I am just amazed that this is the new version and it seems to have been done on purpose. It looks the same on my MacBook Pro in both Safari and Firefox.
What other horrible user interfaces have you seen lately?
Cost: Kindle Edition vs. Hardcover
Can someone please explain to me why the Kindle edition is more expensive for Seth Godin‘s book Tribes? The hardcover is $13.57 but the Kindle edition is $16.99. I love my Kindle, but I was of the mind that electronic version of paper books would be cheaper in every circumstance. Obviously I was wrong.
Do you know of any other books where this is the case?
New iPhone Anyone?
I’m looking forward to picking up the new iPhone when it’s available. Our 2-year contract runs out soon and we’re eligible for an upgrade. It’ll be nice to see how the FaceTime works because right now when my wife travels, we do Skype as much as we can, but it’s still a pain because we have to be at our computers. Plus the multi-tasking is a feature that will really make my workflow zing along a little faster. I use the iPhone for almost everything, so I have some pretty high expectations for the newest incarnation. I’ll keep you posted on how whether or not they pan out.
Do you plan on getting the newest iPhone, whether upgrade or first-time? If not, do you use an Android phone and are you pleased with it?
Are you growing?
My personal goal has always been to keep growing, to learn as much as possible and then apply what I learn to my life. Sometimes the application of what I learn starts to falter and I find myself reading book after book and attending class after class without stopping to digest what I’ve learned and find practical life applications.
This usually happens when I see the change I need to implement as one huge effort or event. Does this ever happen to you? You go to a seminar and learn a cool new time management strategy or a way to run a meeting that is completely counter to what your company currently practices. You try to make the change, but the inertia of existing systems is just too great to make any effort stick. So we give up and settle for the status quo.
What would happen though if we went to a class and asked “What’s the smallest thing I could take away from these sessions that would have a positive impact on my work or life?” And if we ask our brain the question, it’ll look for the answer. And when it finds the answer, it’s up to us to recognize the answer and then take that small action. Luckily small action isn’t as scary as big action. Jumping off a chair doesn’t have the same repercussions as jumping off a cliff. So if we look for small actions to take and then act on the lessons learned we’ll put our lives in the upward trend for growth
So the goal is to keep growing. There may be seasons of rapid growth, but the general trend should be consistent, upward progress. Your mind, body and spirit will work together to pull every aspect of your life to a higher level.
What small actions are you taking today to improve your life? Just jump.
“Happy SAHD” Review
I watched the documentary film Happy SAHD last night and wanted to share some thoughts and give you a taste of the film. Like most times when I sit down to do something, one or both of the kids needs something or just want to know what I’m doing. As soon as I hit play, one of the kids started throwing stuff around in their room instead of trying to go to sleep. After checking on them and getting myself a snack I was ready to watch.
The movie features fourteen dads from the Baltimore area who are the primary caregivers for their children. The film starts out with the dads telling how they moved into the SAHD role, with what seemed to be the majority did so for monetary reasons. Several fathers were teachers and social workers, so their wives, as accountants and such, had more earning power. One father did take FMLA (Family & Medical Leave Act) time for 3 months and decided he had a better job staying home with the kids. As each dad discussed money and the cost of putting kids in childcare, I wondered how many SAHDs exist that chose to stay home for the primary reason of wanting to raise the kids full-time. Our decision for me to stay at home was some of both, but mostly related to the fact that I didn’t enjoy the work I was doing and taking time off seemed like a good choice after my wife received a job offer.
The movie continues discussing how the fathers were perceived by their extended families and how with the increase in a woman’s earning power, though still not equitable in the workplace, allowed men the freedom to choose what they wanted to do. One father even mentioned that they just “threw grandma under the bus” because they revealed she did not approve of him staying at home with the kids. And one guy joked how his father “thinks I have tons of free time.”
The next topic discussed was the “Societal Scourge”. I think that is a very fitting title because SAHDs are sometimes treated like lepers. The film mentions one dad who was approached by a police offer while he was at the park with his child when nearby moms were concerned that something might be wrong. The crappy Stephen Colbert skit about SAHDs was even included in the film as evidence that society doesn’t understand, expect, or for the most part, accept fathers can be great caregivers.
The benefits fathers get from being there for their kids was covered as well as some of the side effects dads experience when they forget about the more mundane parts of being at home like laundry and housework. The dads said things like “You think you know, but you don’t” and “your juggling skills are challenged” in reference to what is was like going through the transition of being a SAHD. The best line though was the dad that stated “I just want him to take a crap….”. It is indeed a great accomplishment for any parent when your kids can do their duties without help.
The support the dads receive from being in a group of people facing the same situation was discussed as well. The differences in how moms and dads handle situations was commented on by the dads and one of the moms. The mom noted that her husband wouldn’t care if she sat on her ass all day and ate cookies, but she would care if that’s what her husband did while she was at work. And most of the dads plan to return to work when their kids were in school and there was “no excuse” to be at home full-time.
The best part of the film was during several of the interviews the dads had to stop responding and check on their kids. That truthful touch provided the authenticity I needed to see in the film to really connect with everything else they were saying. Because I really could relate to everything the dads covered. But seeing them being distracted as well in front of a camera just made it easier for me to say “Yep, that’s my life as well!”.
The worst part of the film was watching the guy rap at the end about being at home with the kids. Though it was like a train wreck because the lyrics were so funny I couldn’t stop watching.
I recommend any SAHD, especially those just starting out, watch this film. It gives an honest portrayal of what the daily ups and downs can be like for a SAHD. Plus it’s funny. If you’ve been a SAHD for a while, you’ll see parts of yourself in the responses from the various dads.
“We’re not the norm. Get used to it!”
Encouragement to do Small Things
Upcoming…
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