Category Archives: Parenting

Life, Lifestyle, Parenting

Why (and How) Dads Should Spend Time Alone with Their Kids

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Food on the table. A roof over their heads. Education from the best schools. Money for their other needs.

What does it mean to be a good father? For many men, they equate that role with being a good provider. While there is certainly nothing wrong with providing for the needs of your children, the truth is that it is just a fraction of what fatherhood is really about.

Times are a-changin’

Traditionally, dads have taken the role of the provider or breadwinner while moms tended to their kids and homes. For many dads, that can mean having little time to spend with their kids.

But with the changing times and the evolution of cultures, more and more dads are now beginning to spend more quality time with their young ones. Compared to 50 years ago, dads have tripled the time they spend with their kids.

Why spend more time with your kids

Numerous studies indicate that spending more time together benefits both dads and their kids. What are these benefits?

  • Kids perform well in school

When a father takes a paternity leave to take care of his little one, his child is more likely to do well in school later on. And when a dad spends more time helping his child with schoolwork, his chances of becoming successful inside the class increases exponentially.

  • Kids develop positive traits

Masculinity has been associated with many positive characteristics, like confidence, assertiveness, and loyalty. But on the flip side, these same traits, when taken to the extreme, can lead to qualities associated with toxic masculinity. These include lack of empathy, aggression, and detachment.

When dads spend more time at home, they provide their kids, especially boys, with a positive role model to pattern their behavior after. The result? Boys who are open and emotionally present.

  • Happier couples

Apart from the kids, both moms and dads also benefit from the increased time that fathers spend with their children.

When a father spends more time at home, not just to play with the kids, he becomes more aware of the things involved in raising his children. Tracking appointments with doctors and school activities as well as tending to the house all take a mental toll on moms.

If you spend more time at home, you’ll be able to share and unburden your spouse of this mental stress. In turn, you develop an equal partnership that strengthens your relationship.

Spending quality time with the kids

Most fathers get the opportunity to spend time with their children after coming home from work and during the weekends. If you have never been alone with your kids, this may seem like a daunting idea.

Part of that fear stems from the fact that these interactions are usually done in the presence of your wife. Plus, your mind may be swirling with several questions. These are perfectly natural.

If you wish to overcome these fears and ensure that you have a good time with the kids, whether you’re just staying at home to play video games or you’re planning to visit a park, here are a few essential things to remember.

  • Don’t hesitate to ask questions

You might think that you know your kids well, but your wife probably knows their quirks better. From their favorite foods to their preferred clothes, don’t hesitate to ask your wife things that you might not know about your kids yet. And don’t commit things to memory; write everything down instead.

  • Let your kids be your focus

If you rarely spend quality time with the kids, every second that you spend with them should be sacred and respected. That simply means that you should be physically and mentally present. Turn your gadgets off before entering the kids’ play area with the young ones.

Momentarily forget about your commitments at work or the upcoming football match that you had been raring to see and focus your attention on the activities that you have planned to do with your little ones.

  • Plan your day around your kids’ personal rhythms

Kids, especially toddlers, have their own rhythms. As much as possible, you should plan your day with them around that rhythm.

For example, if you are heading out somewhere, make sure that you do so after they have been fed and have had their naps. This will help ensure that your kids won’t make a fuss and you will be able to maximize your enjoyment of the time spent with them.

  • Let your wife have her “me time”

Spending time alone with your kids will give you a better perspective of the things that your spouse does to keep the household in good order while taking care of the children.

While you are taking care of the kids, allow your wife to have the opportunity to do the things that she wants, whether she needs a well-deserved trip to the salon or spa or she wants to simply catch up on her favorite series on Netflix.

The clock is ticking

Your kids will only be young once. Soon, they’ll be making friends and would rather spend time with them. Take advantage of their youth and spend as much time with them as you possibly can, whether that means buying kids’ play area tickets for some fun bonding time this weekend or spending a lazy afternoon together at home.

Life, Parenting

Need Time To Yourself In A Busy House? Make A “Dad Cave!”

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dad cave, man cave, fatherhood, personal time, rest, relaxation, parenting
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Sometimes when we spend quality time with our children we might think that we just need a little moment to ourselves. If we watch TV with our kids and it’s yet another episode of Teen Titans or something that we cannot comprehend we may need a little time to ourselves. When we don’t have a physical space in our home but now the opportunity is coming to renovate the junk room, setting up a “dad cave” might not be the most popular option in the household but if you’re setting up a room for everyone is there something you can do to get some sort of cave for your needs?

Mix Up The Styles

It could very well be the fact that this spare room has to become an office or somewhere for the kids to play away from the living room, but that doesn’t mean you can’t incorporate something that’s for you! There’s plenty of whiskey decor or colorful pictures that can provide a little bit of your own personality. By taking the opportunity to allocate a little area of this room that’s for you means that when you come to use that space all by yourself you can feel a little bit more comfortable.

Adding Some Creature Comforts

You can put things in there that will please everyone. Not everybody has the luxury of a spare room so there will be a lot of debate as to what will go in there. Crowd pleasers are the usual items of furniture like couches. But if there’s not enough room for a long couch you can set up an armchair and a footstool so you can take the opportunity to relax. You also need to think about lighting. Making the place nice and bright will help if you are doubling the space up as a home office. Installing a dimmer switch gives you the opportunity to create mood lighting so you can turn this space into whatever you want.

Renovating The Basement Or Garage

If you really feel like you need to have some sort of dad cave you might want to think about renovating the garage or the basement because they are not particularly popular rooms. You can make plenty of space in your garage by utilizing Slatwall Systems to get most of your items off the floor and neatly hanging up. A garage can be cold in the middle of winter and a basement might not be easily accessible. This gives you plenty of scope to make it a bit more to your style. Renovating these spaces can be a bit more expensive, especially if you want to install insulation, but with somewhere like the basement you’ve got more scope to put things in there that don’t suit the rest of the house. For example, if you wanted to put in a pool table or a space for your hundreds of video games, this is the perfect chance! But make sure that both spaces are safe first. It would be a good idea to check out some finished basement ideas so you can see what appeals to you and how you can incorporate that into your basement design.

Dad caves are few and far between, primarily because they end up being taken over by the rest of the family. Compromise is the name of the game but if you want to set up somewhere that feels like your space you can always try these options.

Going Healthy, Health, Lifestyle, Parenting

The Smart Box: Introducing Healthy TV Watching Habits To Our Kids

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healthy, tv, kids, parenting, watching kids
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When we consider the ways of keeping our kids healthy, it’s not just about the obvious things like eating right and exercising but it’s about encouraging healthy habits in life. We can look back and realize that we made certain mistakes or instilled unhealthy habits because we do them ourselves. A very good example is television. The latest Infinity Dish statistics show how television plays a role in almost everyone’s life. Perhaps there were a few times when you needed a break so you put your children in front of the television but this has now spiraled out of control and now you’ve got couch potatoes for kids! But when we look at the idea of watching television there are ways for us to encourage some healthy habits. 

Being Aware Of Questionable YouTube Content

It’s something that we think is pretty harmless, especially for toddlers. When we put on a kids YouTube channel that plays nursery rhymes we may not realize that there is a lot of unhealthy and questionable content out there that individuals are trying to sneak into the videos. We should monitor our children’s living habits but we should also think about the streaming services we use. If you have a Firestick it’s so easy to install apps that have various questionable shows and cedars. A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is something that might help and if you’re wondering why would you use a VPN for Firestick it is a good way to keep yourself anonymous so you’re not easily targeted with specific content. Using a VPN can also be useful when travelling abroad, as some of your child’s favourite shows may be blocked by the local internet. For this reason, if you’re traveling to a foreign country like China, make sure to have a reliable service like ExpressVPN China at hand to ensure a fast and secure connection without encountering any common restrictions. Whether you are at home or abroad, once we get into certain viewing habits the algorithm kicks in and so we are suggested more and more questionable content, so having a degree of privacy can be important.

Turn The Television Off

It sounds obvious, but the television becomes a background to our lives. Turning the television off when visitors come by, eating meals, or doing other tasks means that you don’t rely on the television to become a babysitter of sorts. Our children can easily become distracted by what is on television and when our children are young, this is the perfect opportunity to make sure they don’t rely on this for the rest of their lives. This can mean a lot of harsh lessons for ourselves when we are used to watching television. But when you live by the rules yourself it’s far easier to enforce them. It’s a good idea to impose certain time limits. For example, if your children have started school, two hours should be the maximum. And when you start to schedule their day after school it gives you an opportunity to incorporate other important skills. 

Choosing Educational Content

This is such a difficult topic to get our heads around. It’s easier when your children are preschoolers because there’s a lot of shows out there about counting and giving your children certain nuggets of knowledge. But as your children get older it can be harder to monitor this. Not allowing your children to plan their own weekly viewing schedule can seem a little bit on the harsh side but when you allow a certain time limit consider incorporating things that you think are educational into their TV watching time.

Television can be a good thing, just as long as we approach it with the right balance.