Do You Want To Be A Stay-At-Home-Dad?

Congratulations Armin Brott on approaching twenty years of helping dads become lifetime fathers for their children and the dads their children need them to be.

Like many great causes their beginnings are fueled by a personal wanting for something more. In Armin’s case, it was a justifiable anger because of the lack of information and his desire to be the best dad he could be. Which he has ultimately provided for others, including the resources and wisdom he gained through his research?

The CyberHood Watch partners can only imagine the impact we will have after twenty years. Almost twenty years later and Armin is still empowering dads who want to more than the stereotype father figurehead.

In 1994 Armin authored his first of many books called, “The Expectant Father”, which has sold over a million copies. Armin’s most recent book, in the last couple of months, is the “Military Father” – A Guide for Deployed Dads.

The whole idea is to get people to understand how important fathers are, starting with the fathers themselves, said Armin Brott.

Armin touched on something that will personally affect me in the next year or so and that is “separation anxiety”. Not so much the separation when your child develops his or her own friends and it is no longer cool to associate with moms or dads, but more so the empty-nester separation anxiety.

More than thirty years I have officed from my home and have been a constant in all five of my children’s lives. Ironically, sometimes I felt I had too much time with them, but I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Did I make mistakes – oh yeah.

However, it is getting closer to the day when they will all be out of the house, and it is very likely then, I will understand the meaning of separation anxiety.

How do today’s dads differ from our dad’s generation ago?

Dads then and dads now are very similar on the inside; the difference is on the outside. Our dad’s generation before us was based on a different definition: a good father. A generation ago, the definition of a good father was you went to work, you made money, and you put shoes on everybody’s feet, and food in the refrigerator. That is what was expected and in some ways that was allowed.

Today’s dads are still expected to be the providers and protector. However, in addition to the latter responsibilities, dads are now expected to drive the carpool, coach the soccer team, and be the stable emotional presence in the home. There is a lot more responsibility for the contemporary father.

If you ever doubt for a moment that our children are not part of the new Net-Generation and the digital world – think again. Bill and I got a chuckle when Armin explained that his daughter literally completes six-thousand text messages in one month. In comparison, Bill pointed out that he has only accumulated approximately a thousand tweets on Twitter – oh yeah – that covers more than a year.

I think my older kids are beginning to unplug – they do not want to be at everyone’s beckon call – they want time to themselves.

Each generation of parents face new issues and new technologies and it is important for the current generation of parents to be responsible and be aware of what their children are doing.  Today’s parent faces new technologies and they can no longer remain the digital immigrant while their children become the new digital citizens.

The digital gap between parents and children can be the difference between a productive and happy childhood and a child who has lost their innocence only to live a life of torment. Today’s contemporary parent cannot be complacent with the role of technology in the child’s life. The flow of information available to our children is massive and today’s parent needs to be aware so their child does not drown.

As Armin points out, a generation ago, you had to stop and use the pay phone to reach home, or you had to be home to receive the call. You could control the amount of information that flowed into your child’s life. If you had to be the disciplinarian, you could remove the privilege of using the phone. Today it is hard to find privacy and avoid contact from the many sources of media.

The bottom line is many of today’s contemporary fathers want more of a relationship in the nurturing, care taking, and development of their child. Unfortunately, media has so often portrayed the mother as the sole caretaker of the children that dads have not been allowed to share in that role.

Surrounded By Love

Fortunately, Armin Brott’s, desire to be an active participant in his children’s lives as the nurturing caretaker has opened the doors to many dads who have yearned to take on such a role in their child’s life.

Armin’s journey over the past twenty years has provided other dads the resources to take an active role in the lives of their children.

Be sure to download and listen to the CyberHood Watch Partners interview with Armin Brott. In this post, I only covered half our conversation.

david c ballard

Technorati Tags: Anger, Desire, Empty Nester, Expectant Father, Figurehead, Heartbeat, Lifetime, Military Father, More Than Thirty Years, Personal, Separation Anxiety, Stay At Home, Stay At Home Dad, Stereotype, Twenty Years, Wisdom

You know your teen can handle the work, you know your teen knows what to do, yet you watch your teen fall short of meeting a certain educational goal. Many parents have witnessed this over the course of parenting their teens and many parents find it hard to endure a teen whom they feel isn’t trying their hardest. If you observe your teen refusing to do homework or making more out of an assignment than there really is, this is often a way of expressing their confusion, frustrations and at times, anger.

Under-achievement in teens can be caused by many things:

Emotional discomfort. A teen who has experienced a life changing event (addition to the family, a family loss, divorce…etc) is very likely to go through a period of educational underachievement.

High parental expectations. Many times parents put too much pressure on their teen to make a certain grade, excel in a certain subject or sport or perhaps pick a certain career path and this can have a negative impact on the teen. If the academic pressures on your teen are too strong, your teen may feel the need to rebel.

Undiagnosed learning disabilities – there are time where a mild learning disabilities is missed in lower level schooling or there could be a physical hindrance such as poor eyesight or hearing difficulty.

Peer pressure. Pure and simple, there is good peer pressure and there is negative peer pressure. Many teens feel that the smarter they are, that some of their friends won’t like them. They may feel the need to perform at a certain level to feel accepted into a certain clique of friends.

If you notice your teen becoming an underachiever, first check in with your teen to see if there is something that you can do to help. Communicate with your teen about how he or she is feeling about school overall and ask them if there are any problems.

You can then speak with your child’s teacher at school to see if there are areas where extra help would be beneficial. Many schools offer free tutoring services. There are many times that an underachieving teen has hit a downward spiral because they are disorganized and find it hard to keep up with the schoolwork and other activities they are involved in.

While it may be hard for some parents to digest, not all children are academically inclined. Even if your child isn’t a scholar, that doesn’t mean that they can’t excel in many other area’s. If you tune into your child, you can help them find out exactly what they are good at and passionate about. Letting your child know that doing their best is good enough and if their best IS a C then that is ok will go a long way with your child. It will encourage your child to try their very best and it will alleviate some of the pressures that they feel which may cause your child to rebel or shut down completely.

Many teens that are underachieving will see that it will affect their self esteem in a negative way. If you teen has low self esteem, offering them emotional and comfort will help them greatly. The best way to let your child know that you love them is to shower them with acceptance. Make sure that no matter what grades your child brings home, that doesn’t mean that you love him or her any less.

Help your teen manage his/her schedule better. Make sure that they have everything they need to stay as organized as possible. Help them to set goals for themselves as it pertains to school (grades, study habits..etc). You can even suggest that your teen start up a study group and offer to host it at your home.

The key here is to try everything that you can and to find out why your teen is not living up to their potential in school. If after working on this and tackling it from many angles, you feel you’re teen isn’t making any process, you may then want to consult a professional to see if there are some other issues causing the problems. You can seek professional support from a school counselor, doctor, therapist or clergy.

As a proactive parent we must seek resources to help our child take an interest in learning, growing and becoming independent. Being an informed parent is one of the 1st steps to ensuring your child has a brighter future.

Struggling To Help Your Teen In High School? Get help now. The Real Life Guidance to Helping Your Teen In High School report is available for easy and instant download to your computer.Article Source:http://www.articlesbase.com/parenting-articles/helping-your-teen-succeed-in-high-school-1398798.html

Technorati Tags: Academic Pressures, Anger, Career Path, Confusion, Divorce, Educational Goal, Emotional Discomfort, Frustrations, Hindrance, Homework, Learning Disabilities, Many Teens, Many Things, Negative Impact, Negative Peer Pressure, Parental Expectations, Parenting, Parents, Poor Eyesight, Underachiever