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Dad of Divas
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Posts from a father of 2 girls about life and about misc. happenings in a busy household. Continual thoughts on the evolving nature of being a parent.
Recent Posts Tagged With 'self improvement'
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 30: A Penny Saved Is A Penny Earned
What is the value of teaching your child the value of money and the value of entrepreneurship at an early age? The picture you see here was a few years ago when my daughter (then at age 3 and ¾) took her first venture into being a saleswoman. At&n...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 29: The Value of Friendships & Identifying True Friends
My youngest started school this year and on her first day she came home excited and stated “I made a new friend.” As all of us remember, friends were those people who truly carried us through good and bad times. Unfortunately, there also were tho...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 28: Teaching Perseverance
Having your children know how to stick to the things that they start is one of the most important things that you can teach as a parent. The skills that you teach them regarding this will be ones that will continue to show up as your children get old...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 27: Set Up Rituals With Your Kids
Kids are creatures of habit, they expect things to be the same as they have been in the past. For me, this was specifically important as we moved in the past year. Both of our girls were at an age where they knew the rituals that we had been doing at...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 26: Be Engaged With Your Kids
When I talk about being engaged, I am referring to doing things directly with the kids that are important to them and that they find enjoyable and fun. This could be something such as cooking with them, playing sports or games or other such activity ...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 25: Talk To Your Kids
One of the most important things in learning a new language is to speak to others in the language and have others speak to you in the same language. Also, in reviewing numerous parenting books, language acquisition of infants is greater with those t...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 24: Become An Author
I have always written in journals. I still even have journals from when I was younger. As I have gotten older I still have continued to keep a journal. I have found that doing this helps to keep track of small things, important things as well...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 23: Serving Others
I am a Rotarian and their creed is "Service Above Self", thus for me it is important to be able to live this on a daily basis and also espouse it to my children with the hope that they will follow my example as they grow older. Serving others can be...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 22: Always Use Words, Not Violence
Children are exposed to violence everyday as they turn on the television, look on the computer, read magazines or stories. They see it in front of them and yet do not always know how to process this. If they also see and feel violence within their o...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 21: Be Your Child\'s Biggest Fan
Children are looking for your approval at all times. They want to feel that they are wanted, needed, and accepted for who they are. As they begin to grow and learn about their passions as we talked about in yesterday's post, it will be important f...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 20: The Power of Passion
Children need to be exposed to many things as they are growing up. As parents it is important to let them explore different types of activities and interests. We need to encourage these interests and not trivialize them in any way (even if they don'...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 17: Know When to Hold 'Em, Know When To Fold 'Em
As a father there are times when I just want to freeze time and not let my girls get any older. I want to capture their innocence and bottle it up so that they will always know what it was like to be free of inhibition, doubt, and the other cares...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 16: Be Cognizant of Being Over Protective of Your Kids
Today and tomorrow's post are going to be about issues regarding the protection of our children and being able to let go when needed. Today we are talking about being protective our children. When I talk about this, it is important to know what it...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 15: Set Aside Bad Habits
Whether it is eating unhealthy, watching to much television, spending too much time on the computer, not being active, we all have our bad habits. The challenge as parents is to not let these habits become so chronic that your children begin to emula...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 14: Preserving Memories
As anyone will tell you I am a person who loves to take photos. You will find many of them on this site. I do this as a hobby but more so to document my and my family's lives. I believe strongly in the importance of preserving memories. As mentioned ...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 13: Defining Your Family Values
Family values are things that are many times passed down from generation to generation, and they play a monumental role in how your child learns and grows. Defining this time will help your family to understand what is important and what it means whe...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 12: Set House Rules
J-Mom and I sometimes watch Supernanny and one of the first things that she would always do is have the family set the house rules. For the first few years of Diva-J’s life we worked on inherent rules, but as she got older, we came to find that the...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 11: Show Love In All That You Do
Most reports that I have read show that children (and most people) thrive best in a loving environment. With this in mind it is important for us to be able to show our children our love daily. This is not always an easy task, especially on the days w...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 10: Be a great role model
Being a good role model encompasses not only what you say but rather what you do in your everyday life. Your children are watching you everyday to learn the things that are not only expected by you, but also what is right and expected as a contributi...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 9: Set aside anger and frustration
It is very easy as a parent to lose your top. Kids know (or learn) how to press your buttons and we all have days where we need to go and cool off (or at least I know that I do). Does this mean that you are a terrible parent? I do not believe so, in ...
30 Days to Becomning a Better Parent Day 8: Read to your children
Reading is something that J-Mom and I have tried to instill in both Diva-J and now Diva-PJ. Having a love for reading promotes imagination and can allow for your child to reach heights that they never could without the opportunity of being literate.T...
30 Days to Becomning a Better Parent Day 7: Maintain a sense of humor
Anyone who is a parent will know that having a sense of humor is paramount to success. This is not only important for you as a parent but also for your children to learn as well as there will be many times where they will need to simply laugh things ...
30 Days to Becomning a Better Parent Day 6: Be consistent
It is hard to maintain consistency within a child, but it is ultimately one of the most important things that you can provide for your child as they grow up. Consistency covers a lot of terrain. It stands for issues surrounding discipline, routine, a...
30 Days to Becomning a Better Parent Day 5: Be a kid yourself
In life as a parent you tend to think that you need to above the fray and provide a lasting impression of adult authority. Though in many cases this is important, as it shows your children the importance of demeanor in adulthood, there is something t...
30 Days to Becomning a Better Parent Day 4: Listen to what your child is saying
How many times have you been in the room and your child is talking to you, but you find yourself having to ask them to repeat what they have said (this could also go with your spouse too). To often I find that people tend to hear but not listen to ot...
30 Days to Becomning a Better Parent Day 3: Patience is a virtue!
How many of you have gotten to your last straw with your child, to the extent that you start getting frustrated and mad at what they are not understanding? How many of you have waited and waited for your child to simply "get it" and they just don't?...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 2: Balance Out Your Life
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 2: Balance Out Your LifeToday we are talking about balance, and I am not talking about the scale that you used in your high school biology or chemistry class.To be a parent one must find balance within their li...
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 1: Find Your Inner Parent
30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Day 1: Find Your Inner ParentWhen you were growing up did you see yourself in the future as a Mom or as a Dad? Did people say to you, you are so good with kids, or did they make sure that their kids stayed as far a...
Announcing the 30 Days to Becoming a Better Parent Project
Following the lead of Brett over at Art of Manliness I am going to be embarking on a ambitious effort of providing some insights into parenthood and sage wisdom that has either been shared or that I have researched in regards to parenthood and what ...
How do you build your sandcastle?
Lately I have been thinking about life and how quickly it goes by as well as the people that we touch in our brief time that we have on this Earth. No, I am not being morbid, nor fatalistic, but instead, I have been thinking about how each of us do o...
