Being a dad takes 'NADs

Visual Watch for Autistic Kids

Dillon — Sat, 07 May 2011 22:26:42 +0000

This could be great tool if your kid is somewhere on the Autism spectrum

From TED: Parenting Taboos

Dillon — Sat, 05 Feb 2011 16:44:07 +0000

A very honest and humorous look at parenting. More parents need to hear this.

DIY Art Supplies: Creative Shaving cream use.

Dillon — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 01:28:44 +0000

Dad are you home alone with your young child and have vowed to watch less [insert TV show here] and do more activities with your little one? How about some art? It may seem scary but for most of us our kids think we hung the moon and stars and anything we do is golden. Sidenote: I can’t juggle worth a da*n but my 3yr old thinks I’m a magician.

Here are some quick easy art activities you can do with stuff you probably have around the house.

Equipment:
Shaving cream
Plain paper
Finger paint

Cut/tear a large piece of paper and place a bit of shaving cream on it. Place a few drops of finger paint nearby the shaving cream and you and the kid[mostly the kid] go wild. Squish it, draw simple shapes (circle, triangle), swirls and any other ideas that come to mind. As a benefit you might even get the hear a soft “popping” sound as the paint and shaving cream mix. When done allow the paper to dry and proudly frame the work. By all means feel free to claim a day filled with multi-sensory, developmental activities with your child

Summer Water Safety

Dillon — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 07:08:36 +0000

Summer is upon us, beaches, pools and water play is the order of the day. I want you all to be safe out there and so below are some quick tips on how to spot a drowning victim.

Drowning does not look like we are conditioned, through television, to believe. In fact according to the CDC about 1/2 of children — 15 years and under — who drown do so within 25 yards of an adult and in about 10% of those cases the adult will watch them do it, having no idea that its happening.

Signs of Drowning

Head low in the water, mouth at water level
Head tilted back with mouth open
Eyes glassy and empty, unable to focus
Eyes closed
Hair over forehead or eyes
Not using legs – Vertical
Hyperventilating or gasping
Trying to swim in a particular direction but not making headway
Trying to roll over on the back
Ladder climb, rarely out of the water.

Something to bear in mind is that according to Francesco A. Pia, Ph.D, Physiologically, drowning people who are struggling on the surface of the water cannot stop drowning and perform voluntary movements such as waving for help, moving toward a rescuer, or reaching out for a piece of rescue equipment.

Be safe this summer and may no tragedy befall you.

This post was excerpted from the excellent article by Mario Vittone.

Role Model Meet Behavior Model

Dillon — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 16:26:24 +0000

Based on the small sample size of my group of friends that are dads, I will categorically state(that’s right categorically) that modeling correct behavior is a predominantly male shortcoming. No, I don’t mean that fathers behave badly or set poor examples for their kids. I am talking about the difficulty I, and my friends, face when correcting behavior that we deem unacceptable in our children. We I am quick to say don’t do that, or stop doing such without providing the alternative behavior I expect. It is easy to forget that our children don’t always know the correct behavior. Sidenote: telling them one or two times previously doesn’t always mean they’ve internalized it henceforth.

What does modeling behavior look like? Let me explain through an example. My seven month old is really exercising and enjoying her grasping reflex. This means that hair and noses or other suitable handle gets grasped and pulled. My 3 year old has a nice head of hair that affords grabbing; you see where this is heading. Much screeching ensues because my 3yr old yanks, forcefully, her hands out of his hair. Our response to this is to put her hands back in his hair and using his hands show him how to gently remove her hands while saying to her, “gentle.” This works great on a few fronts, we cut down the screaming, my 3 year old learns to be firm but gentle and my 7 month old starts associating the word gentle with an action.

Try it the next time you want to get you child to stop a particular behavior, in some way model the behavior you would like or expect. The older they get the more you can switch to verbally asking them to figure out the correct behavior with you providing guidance.

Happy Father’s Day

Dillon — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 20:09:19 +0000

Playing with Food

Dillon — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:19:03 +0000

My preschooler son is really beginning to enter a motor skills mastery stage. He wants to perform tasks he finds challenging and do so without my help. He wants to put on his pants, lotion his arm, peel his egg and all without my intervention thank you. In my saner moments I make every attempt to nurture this. A great way I have found to encourage him is through cooking—yes I let my preschooler cook. He loves cooking and as a bonus his involvement in the preparation encourages him to eat. Below is a lunch we work on. It consists of a ‘cado(avocado as pronounced by my son) salad and a Kabob sandwich. (We got the original recipes from a Whole Foods booklet originally).

‘cado salad

Tips: Use both pink and yellow grapefruit for great results. Also this can get very juicy so work over a bowl or sink. After you have peeled and pitted the avocado allow your kid to cut it to the appropriate size
Ingredients
2 grapefruits
2 avocados, peeled, pitted and chopped
1 head lettuce
Method
Carefully peel grapefruit, making sure to remove all of the white pith. Cut along the side of each membrane to release the segments and let your kid tear them the rest of the way through. Place in bowl. Add avocados and toss well. Arrange lettuce leaves on a platter, spoon salad over the top and serve.
Serves 4

Kabob Salad

Tips: Your kid(s) can roll the meat and cut with a knife. Switch the cheese for apple like I did because of my kid’s dairy allergy. Grapes can be substituted for the tomatoes. Break off the sharp end of the skewer to make eating safer. Serve with mustard or your favorite condiment.
Ingredients
4 thick slices whole grain bread, toasted and cut into (1-inch) cubes
4 slices deli ham
4 slices deli turkey
16 cherry tomatoes (or grapes)
4 leaves lettuce
1/4 pound cheddar or provolone, cut into cubes (3 apples cut into cubes as well)
2 kosher dill or sweet pickles, thickly sliced
Method
Alternating ingredients, thread bread, ham, turkey, tomatoes (grapes), lettuce, cheese (apples) and pickles onto skewers and serve.
Serves 4

Spanking + Discipline Inequation

Dillon — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 20:58:35 +0000

There is an in-equation held by some that spanking = discipline or more pernicious no spanking = no discipline.

CNN recently ran an article on spanking and its ill effects. Some on a network where I occasionally hang out have rightly – I believe – criticized the choice of the study group, low-income families, as the outcomes may be affected by multiple other factors apart from spanking. However, the comments that followed, had as their basis the erroneous equation that no spanking = no discipline.

At its core discipline is about instruction and teaching our little disciples (children). Surely we can teach without spanking. It may require more creativity, some patience – in my case a lot of patience – and a change in mindset. Our goal should be to guide our children to fully functional adulthood in a way that models the world they will live in. As a general rule hitting an adult as a teaching tool (excluding contact sports and martial training) constitutes assault. Therefore rather than a question of right or wrong spanking is ineffectual and not particularly suited for our particular context.

As for comments such as “pain teaches, like touching a hot stove” I say why stop there shame can teach us too, maybe we should allow our kids to speak in public while naked in a room of strangers. “I know a kid whose parents didn’t spank, he was trouble”. Knowing someone who doesn’t spank and has terrible kids is like knowing a black person that steals, hardly indicative of the lot.

I propose a new equation spanking = compliance < discipline.

Big Events

Dillon — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 22:05:17 +0000

A while back we—my wife—had a doctor’s appointment and had told our two year old as much. Problem solved! When we got there he seemed happy and unconcerned. We went to the Radiology department, for a sonogram of my wife’s gallbladder, and she had to leave through the door that closed and we couldn’t follow. Problem not solved!
I had forgotten a key concept in helping our children to deal with emotional situations. The concept of “Giving them Words.” Why is this necessary? This is necessary because we learn largely by example and our brains are pattern matching machines. In this specific instance my 2 year old needed help in understanding what was going on during this big event. Left to his own it was just as if mom had disappeared and wouldn’t return while bad things happened to her. Not a comforting situation to a two year old.
Now that I had been smacked in the head by the broken-hearted, banshee wail of my son, I got my act together quickly. I explained that mom was going to have a big camera—complete with appropriate hand gestures— placed on her belly and a picture taken. I assured him she was safe—a word he was previously introduced to—and repeated this a few times. Full meltdown averted. The idea of the camera stuck and it was all he could talk about, relaying it to mom when she returned.
Why did this work? First off this would have worked better if before we got there I had explained the situation in the above terms. However, this worked because I used words/concepts my 2 year old understood e.g camera, safe. I used big expressive gestures to convey some emotionality similar in “bigness” to his emotional state. In the end this allowed him to come to his own, non-traumatic, understanding of “what happened to mommy.”

Blame Game.

Dillon — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 00:56:38 +0000

Today, in the parking lot of the supermarket across from my home I saw something upsetting and wrong. A mother was walking with her two children, about ages 4 and 7. They were running/walking in front of her and she wasn’t paying much attention to them. She then crossed to the other side of the street without holding their hands or guiding them. On their own they attempted to cross, got half way, hesitated and ran back. There was a car coming their way, albeit slowly. The mother snapped, yelling at her children. She called them bad, berated them for running in front of the car and lay on the guilt trip about them wanting to be run over by a car.
I find this situation wrong and upsetting for many reasons. Mainly, however, is the blaming of the children for her failing. If your child plays with something dangerous, runs across the street in traffic or engages in any other potentially harmful activity of which you disapprove. Please check to make sure that you didn’t create the situation to begin with e.g left the knife within their reach, failed to help them cross the street or teach them how to do it appropriately. Also, just because “you could do it at that age” doesn’t mean that your child can or should.
In fairness to the mom, her reaction may have been driven by fear, but it only further illustrates how we sometimes act without realizing it.