The Big Red Button

As hard as I try to be cool calm and collected, there are moments where the kids just seem hellbent on pushing the anger button – that big red button that sets my blood to boil, that big red button that says “DO NOT PRESS” written on it in a font that only kids can’t understand…

I admit that I have to fumble around for ages to pop the button back out again (ie., defuse the temper). Sometimes I wish it simply wasn’t there but it is and I have to deal with it…

The main two ways they seem to press  mine are

1) telling me they are/aren’t doing something when the opposite is clearly true. eg: Oldest Son says “I’m not doing anything to him” while his arms are wrapped around his brother’s neck…

2) ignoring me. I realise analytically (rationally) that this is normal, that it’s not personal, that whatever it is they’re doing is just soaking up their available bandwidth and Dad’s voice can’t get through. I know the techniques for calmly gaining their attention. But this still gets to me!!!!!

[Deep breath]

So. What presses yours?

Enough is Enough

All you Melbournites saw Sunday’s horrendous crash that took 5 young lives and shattered dozens of other lives, right?

The police urge parents to step in and find out where their children were going and how they were getting there. I gotta tell ya, at 16, 17, 18, 19 – if you don’t have the kind of relationship where that’s already happening, it ain’t gonna start now.

Folks, help me help some Dads save some lives. Some of you must know a Dad in Melbourne with sons about to hit adolesence, or Dad who’s got one son already doing stupid stuff and wants to do something about the next son not following in his brother’s footsteps. TELL THEM TO CONTACT ME! Someone must know a business looking to improve their public profile as an awesome supporter of families and youth welfare:  TELL THEM TO CONTACT ME!

Please, we actually can do something about changing this! In just one weekend, we can keep/start the ball rolling in the right direction for 15 young men and their dads.

Dads n Lads Retreats

Dudes and dudettes, it’s on! During the 90s I worked with youth. During the naughties I’ve increasingly worked with Dads. About time we combined them.

In 2010, we are putting on the most outrageously good-time retreats for Dads and their 11-13 year old sons where we can share some tried and tested strategies for building the kind of bond our sons need from us Dads while actually DOING THE BONDING! And everyone will be having so much fun they won’t even realise it’s happening.

See our Events page  here for more.

Tell me if you have corporate contacts who can help us take  this to the highest level and quality possible. I truly believe 2010 will see dozens of families with restored relationships, with an unshakeable bond between father and son, and with preventative meaures in place to save young people from the slippery slope of substance abuse and violence that’s plauging their generation.

Behold, the Anti-Cricket!

I thought I’d blog a little before I start work for the week. At the moment I have a couple of private clients who are fun to work with – and then I have a couple of contracts which are a little less fun.

Of late, my weekends have been punctuated with anxious sessions at the computer answering emails, preparing documents that I didn’t get time for during the workweek, and sometimes bouts of do-i-really-have-to-work-tomorrow-depression on Sunday afternoons where I’m no good to anyone.

This weekend I decided no emails, no stressing about work, no wondering how I’m going to fit it all in on Monday. I decided to recharge me and recharge the relationship with the family. I spent Saturday morning attending a great seminar (where I caught up with Chris of Pink Apple and actually met Mad Cow). Once I was home it was seminar notes and briefcase into the office and Pete into the x-box room where Oldest Son was arrogantly destroying the other teams in the Polish premier soccer league (FIFA10, folks).

The rest of the day was spent in such activities. It was amazing, though,  how often a little voice would try to steal my attention (and action) away. The voice said  “I’ll just go and check my emails” and “Wouldn’t you like a nap?”  and “Your son will be fine without your attention” and “This is unproductive” and “Watching your son do stick figure animations is boring, go read a novel or draft a marketing plan or draw up a timetable or something“. I call that voice my Anti-Cricket, as in the opposite of the Jiminy Cricket conscience character in Pinoccio (or however you spell it). It’s the opposite of the voice of reason (which we blokes seem to do a better job of not listening to). Well, if I can habitually not listen to the voice that tells me “Eat the apple, not the cream bun”, then I figured I could not listen to the Anti-Cricket.

So I spent Saturday afternoon and Sunday locked in occasional battle with the Anti-Cricket and apart from couple of moments where the diary came out, I largely defeated the little bugger. It’s been a lot of fun just hanging out, rebooting my own centredness and enjoying the boys having fun.

And wierdly, sitting down to work this Monday morning with a little more to do than usual, I actually feel calm. The late Sunday depressive illness only hung around the edges of my awareness for about the length of a commercial break and was chased away by more FIFA10 and stick figure animations.

I must say, I highly recommend chilling out with a focus on the kids. Good for the soul, good for the family, and I suspect good for the work output overall.

The Anti-Cricket can go chirp up someone else’s tree next weekend too.

Pacify Me!

I do read parenting books, but usually they’re as tough to get through as my ex-pastor’s sermons. (And the boring or just plain unhelpful ones are not the ones I tend to review here.)

Not this one. Comedian Chris Mancini has pulled off an eminently readable tome on being a New Dad written in the conversational style of the guy who feels your pain, your bewilderment and your stress, rather than the guy with all the answers.

Why read it then, if he gives no answers? Well, it’s not that he doesn’t bury nuggets of valuable advice and information throughout the book. There’s actually quite a lot of them (and Chris seems quite surprised at times to find himself coming up with them!). It’s more that Chris seems to set out to normalize the anxiety and pressures that befall a guy from the moment his partner first says “I’m pregnant”. (Actually, he starts earlier than that, but I’ll let him tell that story).

He almost lost me on page 3 when he dissed life coaches, but I’m bigger than that.

What follows is my 8 point summary of the book from where I sit. I do need to mention (because I’m aware that my readers come from varied faith and cultural backgrounds), if you can’t look past plenty of sexual references and coarse language, you won’t enjoy it. Anyway, here’s the summary:

1. Chris makes the point it’s normal to be freaked out (hey that’s the title of my blog!). In fact I think this is possibly the most valuable aspect of Pacify Me, apart form the laughs: normalizing the feelings many men experience regarding new baby. His reasons for those feelings include the feeling of powerlessness, which is something us males don’t do well…
2. Loved Dante’s 9 Infernal Circles of Babies ‘R’ Us…
3. The battle over having or not having the mother-in-law present for the birth. Well fought, valiant Chris.
4. The chapter on crying (the baby’s not Chris’) is one of the best summaries on causes/options that I’ve seen. What some books might spend 20 or 40 pages to cover, Chris nails in 5.
5. I enjoyed the constant pop culture references: Python, Star Wars, Dr Seuss. These make much more sense to me than references to the latest academic study in … whatever.
6. The trials and tribulations of finding a good daycare.
7. I also liked Chris’ authentic and growing relationship with his daughter.
8. Finally, men, you can read the back half of Chris’ book and feel like you know what you’re talking about when your wife or the mother-in-law wants to discuss (for example) what the baby should be fed as it grows older. I like knowing what I’m talking about (or at least sounding like I do).

 A good read that will help New Dads keep perspective and maintain a shred of sanity.

Permission to Fail

I’m not a believer in excuses. I’m a believer is self-development, in intentionally mentoring our children. I’m a believer in (& hopefully practitioner of) giving your best and reaching for your best, especially as a parent, step-parent, guardian…

But. Us Gen X-ers in particular are wonderfully adept at feeling guilty about our parenthood. [for more, see for example Daddy Daze's thoughts on the topic].

My two cents worth today - unglamorous and poorly worded – is really simple. Come to terms with the fact that you are going to screw up as a parent. Come to terms with the fact that the last time your kids will ever be perfect is the moment they were born. From there on it, they’re as fallible as you and I. They will screw up too.

I don’t think parenting is about perfection, but about loving and responsible engagement. Give yourself permission to fail even while stretching yourself to be a better man or woman.

hiding in a drawer?!

Once when experimenting with ideas for this site, I came up with the image above.

What the hell is that about?! you might be wondering. Well, I guess I was referring to the “withdrawal instinct” that seems normal for Men when we experience the evil twins Overwhelm and Overload. You know what I mean:

• your kids are screaming at a pitch that’s like having a fork jabbed into your brain stem
• your wife is in conflict with you over something that seems totally irrelevant, irrational & inconsequential and you can’t figure out how to end the conflict without collateral damage
• you’re trying to figure out a solution to the latest financial crisis and three different children want you to do three different things with them all now…

FatheredFive once described it as “being pecked to death by ducks“! His post got to the heart of the matter and spawned a bunch of passionate comments on that feeling. I was one of those commenting, because he expertly touched that nerve in me…

It occured to me as I was reading his post and the conversation after it, that engaging proactively and lovingly with others is the big developmental task for Fathers, especially those of us in our 20s-40s.

Retreating to the backyard workshop, the den, the home office, Moe’s Tavern or even the TV – it’s the instinct to withdraw driving those choices.

It’s the decision to go with the “flight” instead of the “fight” response to something/one stressing us.

Sullenly sitting in front of the TV, storming out to Moe’s Tavern, heading into the home office and closing the door -they’re the easy way out where no one gets hurt, right?

Or so we think.

Sure, we don’t break our beer stein over the dog’s head, beat our wife or go all Steven Seagal on our children. But.

By pulling away, we actually create little tears (not the boo hoo kind, the ripping a cloth kind) in the relationships.

Our goal is to enter into the fray and sort it out, but to do that with everyone’s best interests at heart. Bloody difficult and bloody hard work! But bloody well worth it in the end.

How are you guys finding proactive loving engagement difficult?

And where are you seeing the proof of it being “well worth it”?

How Am I Doing… Really?

Many moons ago, I wrote a very long parenting article – much too long to submit to a magazine like my others. It’s been sitting around collecting dust for a couple of years, but I’ll link to it now and maybe it’ll be of service to someone out there.

It’s designed to explore the following:

If I was to ask you how happy are you with your parenting overall, what would you say? Would you be beating yourself up with good ol’ Gen X parental guilt? I’m finding more than a few parents are saying to me they feel they’re doing poorly in their role, way too close to it to really even assess things…

 

What if I followed those questions up with: “How do you know how you’re doing?” What evidence would you turn to so you could give me an accurate appraisal of your ”effectiveness” as a mother or father? Wouldn’t it be good to find markers that actually give you factual information?

It’s called How Am I Doing … Really? . I’d love you to read it and would welcome your feedback.

Adventures in Parenting meets Freakedout Fathers

 A break from all the ups and downs of the Aldin family’s journey to fame and fortune today …

One of Katy Lee’s adventures in parenting is exploring the potentials of podcasting. Like those of Bad Dad Radio and Digital Father, I enjoy Katy’s podcast (and her writing)… so it was a very cool surprise to be invited to chat with Katy for her latest episode.

Why not pay her a visit, listen to us chat for half an hour and see if you can find an idea that helps you de-stress a little as a parent.

You can hear the podcast at Help for stressed-out parents.

What I’m Learning from Changing My Children’s School

A big thanks to Robert Hruzek for hosting his “What I Learned from …” Writers Carnival. This piece probably isn’t exactly what he had in mind. (But he’ll get over it! )

What intrigued me about his topic was that he wanted us to talk about what we learned from change. I had always thought that you learn something and then you make a change because of it. But in thinking about this I realised that sometimes you make a Huge Change because the circumstances are demanding it – and you learn during the process and from the process itself.

So here’s what I’m learning this week from the potentially stressful process of uprooting our boys from a school they’ve loved and transfering them to a new one…

1) It’s Never Worth Staying in an Unhealthy Situation Just Because it Seems Easier.

We often stay in situations that aren’t good for us, that we even hate, simply because it’s painful or scary to change. But pain has no accent – in other words, we think pain means something bad is happening but it may not be. It may actually be that things are improving.

My back hurts. Every day. It also hurts to exercise. Sometimes the dull ache of backpain seems more attractive to live with than the more acute pain of exercise. But that acute pain eventually fades and the exercise puts me in a place where my back pain diminishes further, if I press through it.

Have I labored the point enough?

It became clear to my wife and I a couple of weeks ago that to leave our sons in a school that literally overnight exchanged a culture of nurture and excellence for an atmosphere of anger arrogance and “amateurism” would be negligent … and just plain dumb!

2) Change is a Before, During & After Process.

Before: We had to

• do our homework/research
• prime our kids
• ramp up the reassurance and security with Youngest Son
• ramp up the information-flow and transparency with Oldest Son
• set up a playdate for Youngest Son with a boy who would be in his class next year (so that he had a friend already “waiting” for him in the new situation)

During: Now that they both know it’s definitely happening, it’s been more of the same above while wearing an aura of calm, & managing time well to make more time for their friends (so they don’t feel like we’re ripping them away from the people they love).

After: … Well, we’re not there yet. We anticipate the usual “teething” troubles that come with any new situation. Our intention is to

• remain positive about the new school
• optimistically navigate our way through new systems and routines
• keep lots of space open to talk through the difficulties of the New

It takes great care at all stages to navigate change well. So far, so good.

3) Generation Ys (& Zs) Crave Information.

Let’s face it, they’ve been swimming in information all their lives. To withhold it in a time of great change is destined to create great anxiety and conflict in your family.

Some of the commentators I’ve read say that generally, given the information, kids these days make pretty solid decisions. While that’s debatable, I have found that my kids do seem to make some pretty good choices (or go with our flow) when we provide enough of the information they need (rather than adopting the “Trust me, I’m your father” non-discussive approach).

It impressed me to watch the Principal at the new school (during the initial interview with Oldest Son). He took the boy’s questions seriously and answered them fully.

We’ve been upfront with the reasons for the move…

In a time of change, information is like oxygen.

4) Kids are Resilient and Fragile at the Same Time.

Kids were created to grow. Change is a Growing Time. They will grow through it – and grow well – if we parents handle them and the transition with care.

For me, the lesson continues. But this is what I’ve learned so far…

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