Category Archives: Parenting

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

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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.

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

Be The Dad Your Kids Need You To Be

Stepping up to the mark as a father is not easy. Some dads are thrown into the role without really thinking about it. It seems to be common that babies are being born due to an ‘accident’ between the parents. So, often the dad doesn’t have a choice. Every child is a blessing, and even though some might not be planned, they should all be seen as a blessing. The moment you saw your little baby we just know your heart would have melted. But then it turns into a rock solid ball of stone again, and dads seem to take a back seat when it comes to parenting. Some dads turn into a ball of mush and can’t help but do everything for their little baby. But for some, being a dad is just totally alien, and not something that comes naturally. It’s just like some moms. Everyone expects moms to be this super mom right from the get go, but it’s not always that easy. So, we’re going to talk to you about becoming the dad that your kids need you to be, so that your family can have the best life possible.

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The Provider

This is the one role that men like that take on wholeheartedly. Just like mothers have the natural instinct to be a mom, fathers have the natural instinct to want to provide. It’s like an unwritten rule. Plus, the family is going to rely on you until your partner can return to work, which should be after nine months to a year. Even after that, your family needs you to be the provider. Raising a child is just so expensive, especially as they get older. So being career driven and money driven is going to give you and your family the best life possible. Always make sure you’re looking out for a career that will help you to achieve that, rather than settling for a job that doesn’t!

Healthy & Happy

Everyone wants to be happy and healthy, and you’ll no doubt want to be around for many years to come to see your children grow up into their own adult life. However, dads are notoriously terrible at speaking about their health and well-being. Issues as simple as hearing issues are ignored for years because they don’t want to face the problem. Sound like you? Or does it now, if you’re struggling to hear. A hearing instrument specialist will find the best solution that’s compatible to your lifestyle, so you don’t have to be paranoid about people judging you for having a hearing aid!  Any other health issue that you have that you keep ignoring, get to the doctors about it!

Hands On

Being hands on is so important. If you want to build a bond that means your kids can come to you for everything, you have to be involved with everything. Don’t be the dad that just sits back and waits for it to be play time. Cook their dinner, wash and dress them, take them to school meetings. The more involved you are, the stronger the relationship.