The Importance of Dads - A letter to fathers

Dear Dads,

You are so important in your child's life!

I am sad that there is a belief out there that you are only good for working hard and "providing" for your family. I'm sad that you may have been lead to believe that you could never be as good at parenting your children as their mother and certainly not as nurturing. I'm sad that many women believe this. Because it flat out isn't true.

Research proves that you are so important. Kids who have dads that are hands-on involved in their lives have higher self-esteem, do better in school, and are socially more adjusted than kids whose fathers leave the majority of the child care to the mom. This is because you bring to the table qualities that most women don't. Not because you're better but because you're different, and kids need what you both have to offer.

A girl's sense of beauty and self-worth is largely influenced by you. When you are involved in your daughter's life, letting her know that she is precious and beautiful in your eyes, she is more likely to be confident in who she is and less likely to go seeking love and fulfillment in other ways and from other people. She learns what type of man to marry someday. She learns how men should treat her. What a great gift you can give to her!

Your son will learn from you what it means to be a man in this world. He'll learn how to treat women. He'll learn how to treat other people. He'll learn how to be a dad. Little boys want to be just like their dads. You have so much to teach them and an opportunity like none other to make a difference in this little life, and I believe that difference makes a difference in this world.

Moms need dads. It is difficult to raise children on your own. Some moms falsely believe that only they know best. Some even send the message that dads could never care for their kids as well as they can. But when dads work as a team with mom, family magic happens.

As a mom whose husband is deeply involved in my kids' life, I can't tell you how much deeper in love I am with him because of the great relationship he has with my kids. I can't begin to tell you how much it means to me to know that I have a partner in raising my kids. And I know that my kids are as great as they are because they get from my husband qualities and knowledge that I can't give to them. I feel so blessed to have an amazing husband who is an amazing dad!

Maybe you didn't have a great dad when you were a kid. Maybe you don't know what it looks like to be an involved, caring, nurturing parent. Maybe you only know how to be the "bad guy" or how to only be the "playmate". Most likely this is because that is what you were taught. It's not because that's how it has to be. You can learn to be so much more and it's so worth it!

But maybe you are one of those dads that is involved. You do parent your kids with love and grace and patience. You work as a united front with your child's mother. You take your responsibility as a dad to heart and see it as one of the most important jobs of your life. I want you to know that you are valued! Thank you for being the example to other fathers for what is possible. My hope is that what you contribute to your family doesn't get taken for granted and that you enjoy the thrill of raising your kids. Children bring so much joy to our lives!

Perhaps you've heard this all before. I'm sorry if this is the first time. Either way, you need to hear this. And you need to hear it again and again and again.

Blessings to you, Dads.

Tara

The "Family Vacation" Vacation

It was one of our first real family vacations. Isabella was three and Nate was one. We spent a whole week in Vail with my husband's parents. About three days in, my husband Asa and I were sitting in the sun by the creek while our kids were splashing in the water. I turned to Asa and said, "This is so great! I love being away with you and the kids, out of the daily routine. I feel like I am enjoying my kids more this week and really feel like we're having some great family bonding."

Asa got really quiet and didn't say anything for a few minutes. Finally he said, "I feel so guilty now. Before you said that, I was actually sitting here thinking how this vacation is such a drag. It hasn't felt like much of a vacation at all. We're still full-time parents just in a different location."

My husband was experiencing what most new parents experience. The realization that your life is not just yours anymore. Many things we experienced before kids will never be the same now that children are in the mix. A family vacation is one of these things. It's just not the same thing as those vacations we experienced without kids. But that doesn't mean that things are now worse. They are just different. And as Asa and I talked about it more, we concluded that we just needed a mind shift in expectations.

A family vacation is not just about the parents getting away and relaxing. Some parents never realize this and end up hating family vacations because kids ruin this expectation for them. They resent their kids being there. Tensions run high the duration of the trip. Parents fuss. Kids argue. There may be glimmers of enjoyment, but overall everyone wonders why they did the vacation in the first place. Everyone comes home needing a vacation from their vacation.
Other parents decide that they are just parents, let go of all parts of who they are outside of parenthood, and make their family vacation all about the kids. All activities, locations, and food choices are all decided based on what will make the kids happy. The vacation is really an entertainment package for the kids, and while Mom and Dad may feel some joy in giving their kids a great vacation, parents get little or any opportunity to rejuvenate their own souls, connect with each other, and still may end up secretly resenting their kids for robbing them of their vacation time. Parents come home still needing a vacation from their vacation.

Families will enjoy their vacation when they change their expectations. A family vacation is about enjoying each other as a family. Not just making sure the parents are happy. Not just making sure the kids are happy. It's about doing something together as a family to create new experiences together and forming lasting memories. It's about getting the kids to try new foods or go to the local museum because they know it's something important to Mom or to Dad. It's about enduring the crowds and going to the festival because it's something the kids really want to do. And most importantly, it's about understanding that a family vacation does not take the place of a" parents only" vacation that needs to happen periodically as well.

We just came back from one of many family vacations we have taken since that trip to Vail. We were very thoughtful in how we planned the week to make sure that it was enjoyable for everyone. This time, we rented a house instead of staying at a hotel so that we could put the kids to bed at night and still stay up to sit outside drinking wine by the pool instead of feeling trapped every night in a hotel room once the kids went to bed. This also allowed us to not only save money on food, but be more flexible in making sure there was good food choices for everyone. Once we were at our destination, we had a family discussion about what each family member wanted to make sure they did during the trip and planned out together when and how we would make sure those things got accomplished. And when our nine-month-old woke up almost every night at 1:00 am for an hour-long cry fest, my husband and I would joke that at least we're up in the middle of the night feeling the ocean breeze.

By the way, my husband loves going on family vacations with our kids now. He enjoys getting to make up for the time he doesn't get to see them during the work week. He loves showing them new places and interacting with them as they experience new things. As a family, we enjoy our time together and the adventures we have. Because the family vacation is still a vacation. It breaks the everyday routine. It allows our brains and our bodies to do something fun with people we love. It slows down life and provides rest when needed. It's about not necessarily having to go somewhere, but not having obligations that prevent us from doing something if we want. This is vacation.

Family vacations are not a vacation from parenting. They're not a vacation from being a kid. These things come with us on our trip. We accept that going in. And because of that, we enjoy our vacation together.

Teaching Kids to Be Good Sports

I'm going to just be honest here. My little family of mine is made up of some very competitive individuals. I know that my husband and I lead the way on this. We enjoy healthy competition. We regularly play competitive games and we do keep score. I particularly love playing cards and strategy games with my husband because they are one of the few kinds of games I actually have a chance at beating him at. And Oh! how I love to beat my husband! Because my husband loves to win, too and he's really good at games of all kinds. He is not one of those "I'll ease up to let you have a chance" kind of individuals. And so when you beat him at a game, you feel a sense of accomplishment and want to bask in the moment.



When we first got our Wii, my daughter, then six, had this amazing natural ability with the Wii sports games, especially tennis. The first day, my daughter won almost every single game she played against her dad, complete with these killer serves that resulted in ace after ace. Like me, my daughter seized the opportunity to relish in the fact that she had "dominated" her daddy. True to his nature, my husband stayed up past midnight playing Wii tennis over and over so he would be sure not to be so "dominated" by his six-year-old the next morning. When my daughter discovered that Daddy had gained some skills overnight, she was driven to practice practice practice so as not to lose her ability to hold her own with her dad.


There was recently this wide-spread trend in childhood education circles that we should shelter our children from competition. No longer were there winners and losers. Everyone got rewarded with ribbons for effort. Soccer games were about the joy of playing soccer and no score was officially kept. The problem was, it didn't work. In fact, in some ways it had a negative impact on children. Psychologist and sociologists witnessed children who lost motivation to really put their full effort into activities. After all, what's the point if we're all going to get praised just for showing up? And kids really weren't being fooled by the new game playing strategy set by adults. While there was no official score kept, most of the kids on the soccer team knew how many goals each team had scored and who really was the winner. Kids were left wondering why adults were lying to them and were suspicious of the motivations for why games were being played if not to see who would win.


The truth that most human development experts have known for some time is that competition is an important part of human development. It drives the survival of the species. It encourages goal setting. It motivates learning. And it teaches an undeniable aspect of life, that it is full of experiences of competition. We compete against our peers for the next promotion at our jobs. We compete against other bidders for that house on the corner we want. We compete against thousands of other fans to claim the limited number of tickets available for the U2 concert. And sometimes we win. And lots of times we lose.


All this aside, playing games is fun. Yes, losing is disappointing. We all would prefer to win. But for most of us who have learned to play games for the enjoyment of the game know that it's worth the risk of losing for the sake of having fun and bonding with our friends and family. This is ultimately what we need to help our children learn as well.


Instead of sheltering our children from competition, parents should embrace it as an opportunity to help their children appropriately deal with winning and losing. I think most parents would agree that they desire for their child to be a humble winner and a gracious loser. Why? Because we hope that we would behave this way in similar situations, and we certainly hope that others would, too. After all, if we're going to go through life regularly involved in various competitions it would be nice if others would be humble winners when we lose and gracious to us when we win. Right?

So how do we help our children become good sports? Here's some quick tips to help teach your kids how to have fun competing and win and lose with dignity:

1. 
   Do not tolerate behavior that is inappropriate regardless of whether or not it's taunting or excessive celebration in times of winning or pouting and tantrums in times of losing. Clearly let your child know that you are not impressed with this behavior and will stop the activity, leave, etc. Follow through with this so your child learns that attention gets removed when they try to bring attention to themselves inappropriately.


2. Let your children lose. Be careful not to always let your child win. You don't want your child to expect to win all the time. Life does not work this way. And your child will be in for a shock when his peers don't let him win at the games they play together. Use losing in the "safe" environment of your home as an easy way to practice losing gracefully. Play games with them that they can reasonably win on their own but that it's possible they could also loose.


3. Help your child take the focus off them in winning and losing by asking them to think about what the other person or team did well. Encourage them to share their observations with the other players.


4. Before your child starts a game, remind them that we will cheer for whoever wins. This is the rule in order to play the game. Make it fun to celebrate whoever wins.


5. Watch sports games and other competitions with your child and talk about what both teams are doing well and what each could be doing better. Discuss how the winners are feeling and how the losers are feeling. Point out examples of good sportsmanship and help your child recognize when someone is not being a good sport.


6. When your child loses, help them try to process why. Was it a game of chance? If so, approach the game as something exciting. Who will win this time? Was it a game of skill? Is there something they could have done differently? Is there something they could practice or keep learning? Empower your child to learn from their experience instead of feeling helpless in their loss.


7. When your child wins, of course celebrate and be happy with your child. Talk about what your child did that contributed to their win. And if they are playing on a team, make sure your child recognizes what others contributed to the win. But remember to teach that winning isn't everything. Make sure that you are giving praise and attention outside of games and competition so that your child doesn't feel like they've let you down as well as themselves if they lose, or that they gain your approval only when they win at something.


8. Make sure that you are modeling good sportsmanship yourself. Be aware of the messages you send when you are watching sports games, other competitive shows, even political elections.
   

We have fun with our kids. We tease each other and playfully "smack talk". But I love that when my daughter wins the board game my son says, "Good job, Isabella!" and gives her a high five. I love that when my daughter's best friend won the Super Citizen Award at her school, Isabella started crying, not because she was so disappointed that she didn't win it but because she was so happy that her best friend did. I love that my kids get to witness their dad shaking the hands of the other soccer team he just played telling them, "good game" and reliving some of the great plays of the game with them even though his team just lost.

It is true that some parents do not teach their children well about about how to be a good sport. Unfortunately, experiences with these families give us all a bad taste about competition. Don't let these few bad apples spoil it for your child. With your guidance your child can be a great winner and loser and enjoy the competitions life has in store.

Dangers of Parental Disagreement

In a previous post, I told the story of how our lamp shade got broken ( read You Break It, You Pay For It). After giving us $4 from his coin bank, Nate had decided that he wanted to try to sell some of his toys to pay the remaining amount of his half for the new shade.

The other day, we were doing a run to Goodwill to drop off some items we had cleaned out of the garage. I told the kids that I would pay them a dollar for every toy they wanted to give away mentioning that this could be money used toward buying Christmas presents for friends or, in Nate’s case, to pay off the remaining $3 balance on the lamp shade.

Nate raced up the stairs and came down with his large Tonka Dump Truck and proceeded to take it outside where his dad was loading up the car. I could overhear the following conversation:

Dad: What are you doing with that?
Nate: I’m giving this away.
Dad: No. You don’t need to give that away. That’s your good truck.
Nate: But Mom’s going to give me a dollar for it.

Seconds later my husband came inside. “Why are you letting him give this away?” my husband asked.

I explained to him what I told the kids.

My husband did not think this was a good idea. “He plays with this truck. We could go upstairs and clean out a ton of toys that they actually don’t play with and give those away. It doesn’t make any sense to give away toys that they play with.”

I totally saw his point. On the other hand, I argued that the toy must not be that important to him if he was so willing to give it away for a dollar. Besides, they had so many toys that I actually didn’t care which ones they got rid of.

My husband and I went back and forth on this until finally I agreed that we’d hold off on the toys until we could spend more time really helping the kids think about which toys they wanted to give away.

Fast forward to yesterday. I was asking Nate to do something for me that he was reluctant to do. Before the power struggle I knew was coming began, I reminded Nate that he needed to listen to Mommy.

It was almost as if he was waiting for the cue. He looked up at me and said, “I don’t always have to listen to you.”

“Oh yes you do, Nate,” I responded.

“But sometimes I only have to listen to Dad and not to you,” he retorted.

“What are you talking about? Mom and Dad are a team and you need to listen to both of us. What Dad says and what I say are the same.”

And then Nate brought up the incident with the truck reminding me that what I had said didn’t mean anything and that Dad was the one who got to decide what to do with the truck in the end.

I work with dozens of couples helping them parent more effectively as a team. One of the major things I always emphasize with them is that you never disagree with each other in front of the kids. If there is disagreement, you always go into another location away from the kids to work it out so that you can come back out as a united front.

Even when it’s a small disagreement like taking a truck to Goodwill.

The fact that my husband disagreed on what should be done with the toys was not the problem. It’s OK that we disagreed. And our discussion was not the problem. We argued back and forth on the issue and came to a mutual agreement that worked for both of us. The problem was that we did all of that in front of the kids leaving the impression that Dad “won” and therefore must have more authority than Mom even though that is not the case. If we had had our same discussion in private and then I came out telling Nate that Mommy and Daddy have changed our minds and we’ve decided to wait until we can go through your toys together, it would have changed the perception of who was really in charge for Nate. He would have seen us more as a united team than two opposing sides battling for a win.

Thank you Nate for reminding me of this.

How good are you and your spouse at keeping your parenting disagreements private? Do your kids see you as a united front or opposing sides? What can the two of you do better?

A Parenting Issue or A Relationship Issue?

Today I’m going to post a bit differently than I normally do and address an issue that has been coming up a lot lately with both friends and clients. For simplicity sake, I’m going to write today’s post in the context of marriage. However, for those of you who are single parents still interacting with your child’s other parent, hopefully you will see that the comments below can still apply.

Let me begin by offering some main points:

• It is inevitable that you and your spouse will have different parenting styles to some degree
• Your different styles and approach can and will create tension in your relationship at times
• Healthy relationships will recognize the differences, seek ways to compromise in order to work together as a team, and pursue additional resources that will help them develop a similar approach to parenting their kids
• Couples who are in constant disagreement about the appropriate way to parent their kids are not simply experiencing a parenting issue but a relationship issue
• Kids thrive and have less discipline issues when their parents operate as a team and are constantly working on keeping their own marriage healthy than kids whose parents are in constant opposition to each other

Clear signs you have a RELATIONSHIP ISSUE:

• You are constantly arguing over the “right” way to discipline and raise the kids.
• You have resigned yourself to the fact that you just have different parenting styles, yet feel resentment toward the other parent that this is acceptable
• Whether you realize it or not, you both tend to undermine each others parenting styles in a variety of ways, sometimes blatantly and sometimes quietly once the other parent isn’t looking
• You complain about the other parent’s parenting style or role to your friends and family
• You feel like the parenting roles are completely lop-sided – “good” parent vs “bad” parent, “in charge of the kids” vs “in charge of making money”, “nurturer” vs “playmate”, etc.
• You have said in some form, “Our marriage is fine, it’s just the parenting issues that create problems for us”

There is definitely a wide spectrum for which the above applies. For some, you might be experiencing this on a very small scale. Often times when I experience even just one of the above “symptoms” it’s a cue to me that my husband and I should have a talk about why this is happening and work together to find a way to get our relationship back on track so that we’re a team again.

However, many parents believe that these struggles and frustrations are “just the way it is”. And because everyone keeps saying “marriage is hard” this must be part of the “hard part” where we stay frustrated and miserable with each other hoping that once the kids move out everything will be “back to normal.”

In fact, there is research that estimates that up to 90% of marriages experience a dramatic decrease in marital satisfaction after a baby is born. Your chances that your marriage will end in divorce skyrocket within three years of having a child. The Gottman Institute has known this and has been studying this for many years. Recently, the statistic came back into the news as the University of Denver and Texas came out with similar results.

But it’s not the child itself that causes your marriage to suffer. It’s simply that having a child challenges your relationship in a new and deeper way. Any small weakness that was already there before kids suddenly becomes dramatically amplified once a baby enters the picture. And sometimes issues that didn’t exist in your relationship before suddenly develop because, well, things are different now. Your relationship is challenged in areas it never had to experience before. But the conclusion is not that marital dissatisfaction is close to inevitable and so therefore must be accepted. Because it is clearly possible to have children and actually maintain or increase marital satisfaction. The 10% proof of this is beside the point. I just don’t believe for an instant that the introduction of a child in a relationship was meant to destroy that relationship. That just doesn’t make sense for so many reasons!

Looking beyond research and common sense, annecdotally I know that if you are loving and caring toward each other, and your relationship is a priority, and you both have an attitude of “we’re in this together”, then the challenges that come with having kids are blips on the screen. They don’t damage the relationship. In fact, they actually strengthen the relationship as you grow and sharpen your relationship together.

But if the two of you don’t come together and find resolution, that’s not about the kids. That’s about YOU as a COUPLE. It is a flaw in your relationship that needs to be healed or it’s not going to go away. Eventually, you will find yourself within the 90% of unsatisfied marriages, or worse, divorced somewhere down the road.

So what you can do?

• Stop blaming your differences in parenting for the dissatisfaction of your relationship.
• Set up a private consult for learning effective communication and problem solving skills or attend a workshop together on the topic (visit www.xylemfamily.org for upcoming classes or contact me if you’d like to consult with me directly. There are other organizations that offer similar services as well). Studies show that even taking one class can improve your odds of a happier marriage
• Take parenting classes together
• Try out marriage counseling. Even if you think your relationship is not “that bad”, it can’t hurt to have a third party give you more tools for improving your marriage. Seeing a counselor does not mean you are a failure. No marriage is perfect and we can all use more tools to make our relationships stronger!
• Address the disagreements within your parenting and family roles early when you first experience them. They are much easier to solve at this stage than if you wait until they have grown larger and dug their roots deep.
• If you have let your disagreements effect your relationship for some time that doesn’t mean your relationship is beyond help or repair. Still ask for help.
• It’s OK to ask for help. This is being a good parent, a good wife, a good husband and a strong family.

Your marriage is the most important part of your family. It effects your kids, it effects your parenting, and it effects the overall strength and happiness of your family. Where are the weak points in your marriage? What needs to be strengthened? What are the real issues in your relationship that need to be addressed so that you can focus on being a team and lead your family together? What are you going to do about it?

Thanks for reading.