Happy Thanksgiving Dad. Start a new tradition with your children. If your children spend Thanksgiving Day with their mother, then start your own Thanksgiving tradition where your children spend Thanksgiving Day with you on Friday. The ideal situation is to have a full Thanksgiving Day dinner at your house on Friday. Obviously this year you won’t have time to prepare a meal so take them out to dinner tomorrow to get your new tradition under way. Make it a point to tell them that you will be celebrating the holiday with them just the day after. Next year get your preparations under way on time so you can have your Thanksgiving meal on Friday. If you can invite family and friends to make it more festive.

Try to make a phone call to your children today. Even if you only stay on the phone for a minute, this lets them know that you are there and that you love them.

I used to play baseball in high school and college. I even played in an over thirty league back in the mid eighties. When my child Sarah was born in 1991, baseball wasn’t something I thought she would ever be interested in. But when she was about six, I took her over to the park to hit some baseballs. She picked up the balls after I hit them, and she got up to bat. She hit a few balls, and she even ran the bases. Sarah had and still has athletic ability- good hand eye coordination, flexibility, strength and agility. Well, when Sarah was 7, she came to me one day and said, “Hey dad can I play soccer?” I said, “Sure.” So I went out and bought her a soccer ball, shin guards, and cleats. I signed her up for the recreational league in town. I must admit I was pretty enthused. We practiced kicking the ball in the backyard, and we were both getting pretty excited about her first game.

Well, the Saturday of the first game came, so Sarah and I headed up to the soccer field. After some warm-up activities and a pep talk from the coach, the game started. To my surprise Sarah was in the starting line-up. She ran up and down the field for the first ten minutes or so, and she finally had an opportunity to kick the ball. She took her first kick, missed the ball, and landed flat on her back. She got up, and came crying over to the sideline and begged, “Don’t make me play anymore, Dad, I can’t do it.” She refused to go back into the game. The game ended, and on the way to the car she continued to cry, “Don’t make me play Dad, please, I don’t want to.” I mustered up all my courage and I said to her sternly, “You’re playing. You are playing. Now get in the car.” She got in the car and we drove home. On the way home all I heard was a bunch of sniffling and whining in the back seat. I didn’t have a very long ride home, but I can tell you this. She wore me out. I was emotion ally exhausted by the time I got home. We pulled up into the driveway, and I sat miserably in the car as I watched Sarah get out and walk into the house, sniffling and shaking as she walked through the front door. I sat stewing in the car and said to myself, “Who wants to play soccer anyway, dumb game.” I then attempted to further rationalize my thoughts by saying to myself, “Soccer’s for boys anyway.” I walked into the house, stood at the bottom of the stairs and yelled up the stairs, “SARAH.” She sniffled her way through a “Yeah dad.” I said, “Come down here.” She came down the stairs, and I said to her, “Look honey, you don’t have to play soccer, if you don’t want to play. It’s ok with me.” She said, “Oh thank you daddy.” She gave me a big hug and kiss and ran back upstairs.

Honestly, I felt like her hero. I was her knight in shining armor. I had just come through for her, and given her exactly what she wanted. I was sure I had made the prudent decision; I didn’t even have to ask her mother’s opinion. I figured what’s the big deal, no harm done. I was content in the knowledge that I had allowed my six year old daughter to make her own decision.

Well, I have another daughter named Grace (Grace is 6 years younger than Sarah) who came to me when she was six years old and said, “Hey dad, can I play soccer?”

I said, “Sure honey.” The same routine started again, the shin guards, the cleats, the soccer ball, the practice, and finally the game. But this time, the outcome was much different. Grace ran enthusiastically up and down the field from one end to the other. She never got near enough to even touch the ball, but she had a great time. Grace came off the field with a look of absolute joy in her eyes and said to me, “Boy that was fun Dad.” She played the first season, and had a ball. She played the next season and really improved a lot. She wanted to score really badly, but didn’t have the opportunity. She still loved the game. To her, every game was an event, an outing that ended with a snack and a Gatorade, lunch, and a fun time spent with me.

While this was going on Sarah was into cheerleading, gymnastics, track, palates, and even a little weight lifting. She loved designer clothes, having her nails done, tanning, make-up, and just looking good. She watched her weight and understood that in order to look good, she had to spend a good deal of time exercising. She commented to me one time that some of her friends on her track team had less body fat than she did and that they could run faster than she could. It was just a passing comment but I remember her saying it, and I most definitely noticed that she was bothered by this.

One day Sarah and I drove over to the soccer field to pick Grace up from a soccer practice. We got to the field, and Grace got into the car sweating; her face was as red as a tomato. Sarah handed a Gatorade and a snack over to her in the back seat, and Grace just sat there, contentedly guzzling her drink. Sarah looked back at Grace, then looked forward, looked back again at Grace again, and then stared straight at me. She said, “Hey dad, why didn’t you make me play soccer?”

I said (defensively), “I wanted you to play. Don’t you remember? You kicked the ball once, missed it, and fell on your head. Then you begged me not to make you play again.”

She answered me with, “SO? Why didn’t you make me?”

Now I was the one who was starting to sweat. I said, “You didn’t want to play. You wouldn’t let up until I agreed not to make you play.

Sarah then made a statement to me that I will never forgot as long as I live. She said, “But dad, you’re supposed to be in charge.”

Where had I gone wrong seven years earlier? At the time, it seemed like the right thing to do was to give in to what Sarah wanted. But it turned out that I hadn’t done what she needed me to do. I had allowed a six year old to decide whether or not she wanted to play soccer. What had she really needed at the time? She needed me to tell her that she was going to play soccer because I as the parent knew what was best for her, and I wasn’t going to give her a way out. She wanted me to be in charge, not allow her to be in charge. I unknowingly had let her down.

When I teach my graduate courses, I ask my adult students the following question all the time. How many things did your parents let you get away with as a kid that you wish you had never gotten away with? I usually get lots of stunned looks from my students.

Too often we allow our children to make choices and decisions that they have no business making. I see it all the time in supermarkets, stores, and malls, parents giving in when their children demand they buy something, or parents trying to coax their kids to stop crying or to stop running away from them. The children ignore their parents’ pleadings. Usually, the parents say something to their children like, “What do you want to do?” Well honestly, who cares what they want, they’re three years old!

I’m not totally sure where this whole attitude has come from, but I have my own theory that Dr. Benjamin Spock had a lot to do with it. Spock’s first book, Baby and Child Care” was first published in 1946 just in time for the baby boomer generation. In his book he spoke about feeding on demand, respecting your children, the need for flexibility, and the lack of the necessity to worry about spoiling. The paperback sold more than 50 million copies and was translated into 30 languages. Critics of Spock claimed that he was “the father of permissiveness.” In later years, Spock claimed that he never changed his basic philosophy on child care, that it was imperative to respect children because they’re human beings and they deserve respect. But he seemed to retreat somewhat from his teachings when he made statements such as “I’ve always said ask for respect from your children, ask for cooperation, ask for politeness. Give your children firm leadership.” Years later, he became more moralistic and he said that parents should give their children strong values and encourage them to help others. This is only supposition, but I hypothesize that Spock may have decided that he didn’t like what he saw in society and realized that he may have played a part in the screwing up of generations. In later editions of the book originally titled The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care, he stressed that children needed standards and that parents also had a right to respect. He stated in his book that parents were starting to become afraid of imposing on the child in any way.

I ‘m not claiming to be an expert on child rearing, but I do know that if children are re fed on demand they will be demanding. If they are allowed to say anything they want they will be disrespectful. If they are not held accountable they will be irresponsible. And if there are no consequences for inappropriate behavior they will be non-compliant. Parents today always ask, What can we do with our kids today? My question is, What are we going to do with these parents?

Once I relinquished my natural right as a parent to make decisions for my children, I was never truly able to reestablish my parental authority. From the moment that my daughter convinced me to allow her to make the choice not to play soccer, she learned she had the power to make basically every decision that came along in her life whether large or small. And the saddest part of all of this for me is that she blames me because I wasn’t strong enough NOT to let her assume a role she was never designed to play in her own young life.

Dr. Spock has since passed away, and I think many of us looking for a new voice to offer us some solid advice to help us sort out the mess we are in today.

This afternoon, I went to my 11 year old daughter Grace’s school conference, and it was wonderful. She is doing so well, and I am so proud of her, you don’t know. She is progressing in math, and doing excellent in all of her other subjects. I called Grace when I left the conference and told her that I was going to be picking her up. She was playing with a friend and asked me if I could take her and her friend to McDonalds. Was she kidding? I live for this. Unfortunately, her friend couldn’t go. But Grace wasn’t disappointed. She said, “I really just wanted to spend the time with you dad.” I love it when she says that to me.

By the time I got over to pick Grace up, my 16 year old daughter Sarah was home from school. I had promised her the night before that I would take her to the grocery store to pick up a few items. She’s working out now at a gym, and believe it or not, she consults me for her work out schedule and her diet. We went to the store and picked up some fruit, yogurt, cottage cheese, and salad fixings. Sarah has her permit now, so she drove us to the grocery store. I have to be careful that I don’t give her too much credit for her driving ability. She’s good, but she is a kid, and needs to be taught how to handle the more difficult road situations. Honestly, when I look at her behind the wheel, she looks like she’s 12 years old. I’m never sure if she really hears me when I give her driving tips. I get those short answers from her like okay, right dad, and I know. Is she listening to me? I don’t know. We got the groceries, and I drove her home. She got herself together, and then we drove to pick up her friends so I could drive them to the gym. I dropped them off. Then I drove back to my house to sleep over. We stopped at McDonalds on the way, picked up dinner, and brought it to my house. We ate dinner, then sat down at the table to do homework. It makes all the difference in the world to just sit at the table with her while she does her work. It shows her that I’m there in case she needs my help, and it also shows that I mean business- that I expect her to do her homework. When I saw she was done, we went in the den and put on the TV. Then we got down the Christmas lights, and had a great time, laughing and joking around. Then I sat down in my recliner in front of the TV. She always lets me doze off in my chair. When she gets tired herself she wakes me up and we go to bed. It’s 4:17 in the morning as I write this post. She is still asleep. I love having her here when I wake up in the morning.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I feel like I spend more time with my kids now than I ever did when I was married. It can be done, but as a father I have come to realize that I need to just do it no matter what, and not think about how tired I am or that I just don’t feel like making the drive to pick them up. As I said earlier “I live for this.”

My 11 year old daughter Grace called me at 7:00 this morning. She wanted to know if I was picking her up today. I told her that I had to go to her school for the parent teacher conference at 2:00 this afternoon, and that I would be over to get her after that. Even though I know that Grace likes to spend time with me it’s always a major relief when she calls and wants to know if I’m picking her up. I think because I’m divorced, this means even more to me.

I didn’t always have this joy and pleasure of having both my girls, Sarah (she’s 16) and Grace with me as much as I do now . When I first got separated I didn’t have a place for my kids to go. I was living on my sister’s couch, and then I went to a pretty crummy winter rental in a shore town. So there wasn’t any place for them to sleep. I did buy a small condo after about 2 yeas, but at that point, my ex-wife wasn’t allowing me to take my children overnight. For 4 years after I was separated and then divorced, I picked up my daughter Sarah every Tuesday and Thursday after school, and then all day Saturday. On those days, Sarah and I would go shopping, do some homework, and then go out for a bite to eat. On Saturday I would try to have an activity planned but that wasn’t always possible either. I did my best. That’s all I can say.

Thanksgiving and Christmas were always especially difficult times for me because my children always spent those days with their mother. Needless to say I didn’t really have the holiday spirit. Then about four years ago I bought my own house and moved much closer to where they lived. That was a turning point for me. The main thing that happened was that I developed a routine with Grace, and she started to sleep over on Tuesdays and Thursdays. (Unfortunately, Sarah wasn’t much interested in coming over.)I started to feel excited when the holidays, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas approached. The only thing that I cared about was that my children would be with me. Tonight for instance I will get down the Christmas decorations from the attic and Grace will help me test the Christmas lights to see if they all work. We will put out some decorations, tell jokes, and talk about what we’re going to do for the holidays because we know that we’re all going to be together. On Thanksgiving day my kids will still be with their mother, but I have my own tradition of celebrating Thanksgiving on Friday. This is great because I get to celebrate Thanksgiving with all the fixins with my children and they don’t have to feel bad on Thursday because they’ll be celebrating the holiday with me on Friday. As a matter of fact I just invited my sister Kathy and her husband Hank to join us, and I’m really hoping they’ll be with me at my Thanksgiving dinner too.

Please, please don’t misunderstand me. This is not the ideal situation, but I think I’m making the best of my lot as a divorced dad. People who are divorced and have kids struggle through the holidays, and I think we dads can become very depressed. I believe that it goes with the territory. We have to make the very best of the situation and always remember that we have to do everything with our children in mind.

My parents owned a bar and from the time I can remember which was about four years old I spent my time sitting on a bar stool. Most kids were playing with their friends or some toys that they had I was always talking to strangers and playing with beer boxes. It did have its advantages, like as I got older I had a built in job and I really learned how to talk to adults. You always had to agree with them because you did not want to lose them as a customer. Always polite always considerate and never giving anyone a hard time, of course I learned how to curse like a sailor at a very young age and got a taste of beer when I was about ten years old. The place had its characters that were both humorous and sad at the same time. I always thought it was normal for a guy to spend 4 or 5 hours drinking at the end of a work day before they went home. Many times as I got older I would drive some guy home who was to drunk to drive. When I got him home I found out why he spent that amount of time in the bar after work, his wife was less than happy to see him when he got there not because he was drunk she just didn’t like the guy.

One of the things I loved as a kid was the fact that there was always cash around. I would ask my dad for a dime or a quarter and he would reach into the till and hand it over. One warm summer evening around 5 o’clock I asked my dad for a quarter and he said “no.” I asked again and he said “no.” I finally said “c’mon dad please.” He did not give in. I got as mad as an 11 year old could get and walked out passing four customers sitting at the bend in the bar right by the door and on my way out I said “CHEAP.” As soon as I said this I knew I was in trouble and I tried to think of words that sounded like cheap that I could use to try and convince him that he just heard wrong. Then I had to find a way to get back in without him seeing me. There was only one way in and that was through the bar. Well I rode my bike for a while and then decided to try and get passed the blockade. When I got back to the bar the bar was closed. The bar that was open 364 days a year was closed. He locked the door and made me knock to get in. I knocked on the door and he opened it. I asked him to hold the door open so I could bring in my bike. He stood there grabbed me by the arm and said to me “What did you say on the way out of here.” I told him I said “cheap.” The grip on my arm got tighter and he said to me “After all the nickels, dimes, and quarters I have given you call me cheap.” I said “sorry dad.” He then loosened his grip and told me to go upstairs. My dad took a break around 7o’clock for dinner and took a nap until 9 when he went back downstairs to work. Around 8:30 I learned the biggest lesson of my life. He called me into his bedroom and sat me down. My dad said to me “Do you know why I locked the door to the bar after you left.” I said “no.” He said to me “After you left the bar the four guys who heard what you said started talking about you and what an ungrateful and selfish kid you were, and I couldn’t take it. I had to put them out, I just got sick hearing them talk like this about my son.” My dad put those guys out in my defense and because of the ache he felt in his heart. My dad used my own stupidity as a time to teach me that I can’t say anything I want and he wanted me to understand that whether or not I think anybody else hears my comments doesn’t matter, somebody hears and starts to develop a perception of you as a person. I never forgot this lesson. You see all along I thought those guys would ride my dad on what a cheapskate they thought he was because he would not give me a quarter. I was so wrong. As I look at this story all I can think of is the way kids speak to their parents today at a younger age than I way when I called my dad cheap. Kids didn’t just wake up one day and decide that they were going to be rude to their parents. This has happened so slowly it was almost unrecognizable at first but now we ask “What are we going to do with these kids.” I could have named this essay “Cheap” because of how ironic it is that I called my father cheap in front of his customers when he truly was not cheap, and I ended up feeling cheap, and deservingly so, when my father was done with me. Even though it is cheap to sit a kid down and talk to him today the way my dad did, does anyone take the time to do it anymore?

<a href=”http://behavioral-management.com”>for more about Jim
Burns http://behavioral-management.com/</a>

It’s 7:30 pm on Sunday night. I just came back from a four hour ride from Chambersburg, PA. I’m an independent educational contractor, and I teach all kinds of graduate classes in three different states. I have been gone since Saturday at 3:00 am and I am worn out. I was a public school teacher for 12 years, a high school and middle school administrator for 15 years, I teach graduate level courses to teachers, and have two Masters Degrees in Special Education and Educational Administration. I am a seasoned educator. As I was driving back home all I could think about was the fact that tomorrow at 2:05 I have appointment for a conference with my daughter Grace’s fifth grade teacher. Don’t get me wrong, Grace is a fine student, but there is something scary about about sitting across from another teacher listening to a report about my own daughter.

I don’t live with Grace (she lives with her mother), but I get her three or four days a week and she stays with me. I know she does have some trouble in math, but she receives tutoring twice a week, and I help her with her math homework when she’s over. She is a fantastic all around kid, but I know that she isn’t exactly the strongest in terms of her work habits. Sometimes I think that I love her so much that I let her get away with things. I don’t want to see her struggle with her school work; do I give her too much help?A good friend of mine who was also a teacher went in for a parent teacher conference for his own daughter. The teacher told him and his wife that she was concerned because their daughter seemed a bit withdrawn. She suggested that he and his wife go for outside help. What he did was to evaluate his own parenting. Basically, he discovered that he needed to spend more time with his daughter.

I think sometimes as a parent I hear things about my own kids and get defensive. I leave the conference and wonder who the report was about, my child or me? Being divorced can make me dwell even more on this question. I think divorced dads have even greater guilt and concern because they wonder if they are involved enough in the educational growth of their children. Time will tell. Right now I’ll just concentrate on tomorrow’s conference.

As a young boy I experienced all kinds of problems in my family. My father was a bar owner and a pretty heavy drinker. His behavior was very unpredictable at times, and we never knew what was going to set him off. We were always walking around on egg shells because we didn’t want to say or do something that would send him off on a drinking binge. I knew though that my father had a real interest in me, and wanted the very best for me. He just had a hard time expressing how he felt. As I became older and entered my teenage years my dad started to enjoy watching me play high school and community league baseball. He would go to my games, leave alone when the game was over (as I went with my friends), and would usually say very little to me about my performance. I never really expected him to say anything, so I was never disappointed.

During the summer of 1971 when I was 16 years old, my first cousin Jim and I spent a lot of time together at each other’s houses. We played baseball and hung out with other kids. I enjoyed the visits, and so did he. He was an only child, and I was the only boy in my family. We had a lot in common, and during this time we were pretty good friends. My cousin wasn’t quite as good at baseball as I was, but he was what I call a rooter. He enjoyed watching baseball and really enjoyed watching me play. During one of his visits I had a scheduled game. I had to be at the game early so my dad and cousin came later. During the game I had three hits including the game winning hit. I was the catcher and threw three runners out trying to steal second base. I had a great game. When the game was over my dad drove my cousin back to his house, and I hung out with my friends.

I went home, went to bed and got up early the next morning and left the house. The normal routine was that would open the bar in the morning. My father would sleep a little later and then relieve her in the bar around 11:00 in the morning. He would work until about 4:00 in the afternoon and then come upstairs and take a nap. I can always remember him sitting in his recliner napping in the afternoon. He needed that nap; he was in his late 50’s and had to be ready to work the night shift.

That afternoon, I returned home around 5:00 to find my father in his recliner, but he was awake. He jumped up out of his chair like he had a spring under him. He ran over to me and hugged me hard and said, “I was so proud of you last night.” I thanked him, and I felt him squeeze me like he never did before. I felt the warmth of his body, but even more felt the warmth of his words.

Well, I’m 53 years old now, and I still remember that hug and those words. Sometimes parents can say so much to their kids about their performance that it can almost seem like white noise. Most kids know their parents are going to speak well of them, because they are their parents. But sometimes kids can get a false sense of their abilities when their parents go overboard with the praise. But, the right words of praise and encouragement at the right time can actually change a child’s life. In my case, my dad didn’t offer a lot of praise. As a matter of fact he was very critical of me at times. This experience was life-changing for me. I quickly forgot all the times my father had said critical things to me. As a father myself, I know I have the power to determine how my own children view themselves. A father’s words do truly make a difference.

<a href=”http://behavioral-management.com”>for more about Jim
Burns http://behavioral-management.com/</a>

I was watching a report on the nightly news the other day that was talking about Mommy Blogs. Stay at home moms who have started blogs to talk to other moms about child rearing, disciplining kids, best buys on disposable diapers, and other things that are related to being a mom. This was a novel idea, but as I was watching this I said, “What about the dads?” Well this blog is for the dads. It’s for me as a dad and for you as a dad, whoever you are. Dads need advice, inspiration, guidance and wisdom when it comes down to raising their kids and dealing with their wife, or as in my case an ex-wife. I am divorced and I have spent unending hours over the past eight years working to maintain a positive relationship with my kids. I have two daughters, Sarah and Grace. Sarah is 17 and Grace is 11. I am going to share daily stories about them, offer advice, and try to inspire you with some stories about my own up bringing. I want the dads out there to contribute to this blog to offer help to me, and to other dads who need help who are sick of seeing their wife or girlfriend at the computer reading mommy blogs.