Dads: HUG YOUR KIDS!

The Fathers Mandate Part 7 of 8

From Growing Kids God’s Way by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo
Scroll down to the reference for Chapter 4

Feedback: Andy from Better Dad Podcast says thanks!

Mandate number 7.  A father must routinely embrace his children.

Sherry and I meet in a hugging community. We meet through Phi Theta Kappa International Honor Society. Some folks shake hands, but PTK members HUG!

Mom’s touch provides kids with a feeling of comfort and love. Dad’s hugs

Mr. Ezzo warns that if parents, especially dads, don’t embrace their kids, they will eventually seek it from someone else. And they will find the affection they want and you will likely not like it.

Don’t let you daughter’s preadolescence physical changes cause you to treat her any different. She is the same person on the inside. She needs to know her dad loves her as she goes through these changes.

Hug your kids!

Tech Time

Which anti-virus should you use on your Android phone?

Facebook social engineering.

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Technology Safety is more about Behavior than the Technology!

Tent Camping with Kids

A little camper asleep on daddy's shouldersA few weeks ago I took Riley, Caden, and JJ camping. Well I started out on Friday night with Riley and Caden. They are the two Cub Scouts in the family. By Saturday afternoon Caden had experienced enough of the outdoors for one weekend and wanted to go home. Keep in mind that the camping trip took place exactly four weeks after Caden had back surgery and this kids is on oxygen at night. So we have to give him extra credit for sleeping in a tent even one night with temperatures in the low 40s.

Sherry had come out on Saturday with Josiah (JJ) and Levi so they could see Caden and Riley race in the Rain Gutter Regatta and receive some awards. Riley ended up winning the Raingutter Regatta against all scouts of all ages in all dens in the entire pack. He went undefeated for the weekend. We thought it was the boat design (with help form your truely) until Riley traded boats with another boy and beat him with his own boat. As you can see in the picture of Caden below it is a fairly low tech race so Riley must just have figured something out that no one else could. It is not like he was coached on how to best blow through the straw. The sails barely got hot glued on his an Caden’s boats just minutes before leaving the house on that Friday afternoon. So if you are here looking for the secret design of a Cub Scout Rain Gutter Regatta boat, it does not exist. The speed on Raingutter Regatta is all in the technique in my opinion and you kid either gets it or they don’t.

Josiah was itching to stay the night on Saturday after the boat races even though he nearly fell asleep on my shoulders.  The boys were all exhausted and Caden wanted to go home. Caden had begun to run a fever and was showing signs of needing oxygen earlier in the evening than normal.  Sherry and I swapped out Caden and JJ for the night Caden went home with mom and Levi to sleep in his own bed. As a result three out of four boys got to tent camp with daddy in one weekend.

Caden Racing in the Cub Scout Pack 458 Rain Gutter RegattaWhat I learned about camping with little boys Riley (9), Caden (7), and JJ (4) is that flexibility is absolutely necessary, required, and is a non-negotiable.

I had to bring along some O2 tanks, a suction machine, and a feeding pump for Caden, but we do that everywhere we go anyway as a result of his medical special needs. That’s part of our family identity right along with tent camping with daddy. We don’t make a big fuss about it and no one else does either.

The thing is that you don’t want to ruin these experiences like tent camping for these little guys. You want them to have fun. You want to create memories and build lasting relationships. That was exactly the result we got. All of them are chomping at the bit to go camping again. Mission accomplished!

What have been some of your experiences tent camping with little kids?

Podcast Episode 16 – Google Security Tips

The Fathers Mandate Part 5 of 8

From Growing Kids God’s Way
Scroll down to the reference for Chapter 4

Happy Birthday Caden
 

Mandate number 5.  A father must be the encourager of the family.

Not just encouraging words but a spirit of encouragement.

Leave notes for your kids in their lunch boxes.

Write a letter. Tell you wife to remind you about this one. Scapbooks!

Consider having dad sign Christmas cards and birthday cards.

Give your kids the opportunity to prove themselves trustworthy.
My dad gave me the freedom to drive my little sister around our farm in the old Ford Fairlane. I talked about this in my Howto Train Your Kids to use the Internet Safely.

9 year old driving 64 Ford Fairlane
Tech Time 

http://www.google.com/goodtoknow/

  1. Strong Passwords – change them
  2. Enable two step verification
  3. Always PATCH your operating systems, browsers, and applications
  4. Be aware of suspect web sites – social engineering
  5. Check for antivirus and malware – Use well know products and keep them current

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Technology Safety is more about Behavior than the Technology!


A Happy Birthday Note to Caden

Daddy and Caden at Sky Top Orchard Oct 2011 in Hendersonville, NCDear Caden,

It is your seventh birthday. I love you very much and I am thankful to God for allowing me to be your earthly father. You are a blessing to me and our entire family. I will never know in this life how many lives you have touched or led me to touch as a result of the experiences we have shared. I admire your strength and can not imagine the physical and emotional pain that you have endured in the past seven years as you have literally fought for your life.

You are a special kid in so many ways. Your life has brought me to my knees before God more times in seven years than in all the other 37 years of my life before your birth. Our experiences have taught me to rely on God when man could not help. You have helped teach me a measure of patience that I am not sure I could have learned otherwise. Our entire family has benefitted from the growth that I have experienced as a result of being your daddy.

You are a silly little little boy who more often than not brings peace and love. Your love and hugs are one of a kind. You are most often the first one in the house to spring up and run to the door when I arrive home from a long day’s work. You give me a big hug and giant smile. Your smile is beautiful and your laughter is contagious. You are quick to forgive. You are one of the most empathetic and compassionate people I know, especially when others face pain or illness. You love unconditionally and you are loved unconditionally.

I LOVE YOU CADEN!
Happy Birthday!
Daddy

Caden has endured and continues to endure much in his life. In the past seven years, that sometimes seem like a few days and on other occasions has felt like a few hundred years, Caden has experienced multiple major surgeries. I have a hard time keeping track. The things I can recall off the top of my head are as follows in terms of what would be considered major surgeries:
5 – Open heart surgeries for (IAA Type B, VSD, ASD, Ross Procedure, Pacemaker, oversized PDA, and aortic stenosis)
1 – Heart catheter (went into cardiac arrest during this one and had chest compressions)
3 – Back surgeries to place and adjust VEPTR rods for scoliosis
1 – Stomach surgery for a Nissen Fundoplication and G-tube placement
1 – Neck surgery for a cricopharyngeal myotomy to try to help him swallow

You can read more about Caden past seven years on a blog dedicated to him called Caden’s Page.

Podcast Episode 13 – GKGW Fathers Mandate 2 – Regularly Demonstrate Love to your Wife

The Fathers Mandate Part 2 of 8
Based on Chapter 4 from Growing Kids God’s Way 

1.  A father must cultivate a sense of family identity. (Review)

– Be proud of your family – as Mr Ezzo said be the cheer leader (We are the Osbornes and we…) Rise above the level of mediocrity!

I added a couple of blog posts this week. One related to Cub Scout activities this past weekend. Our oldest two boys got to shoot BB Guns, Bow and Arrows, and Sling Shots.

Make sure your activities are in line with your family goals and values. Do you have them written down? Are your goals Simple, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, TRUTH based?
What education method makes your family unique: Public, private or home school?

2.  A father must regularly demonstrate love to his wife.

Mr. Ezzo says, “If you really love your children then give them the gift of confidence and security. Show them how much you love their mom.”

In Episode 4 I talked about the importance of Dating and Couch Time.

In Episode 7 I talked about the need for dads to take your wife out of her role as a mom and put her back in her role as a wife. To do this you need to elarn your wife’s love language. The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts by Gary Chapman 

In the coming weeks I will share ideas to help dads fulfill the remaining mandates
3.  A father must understand and respect his child’s private world.
12 minutes
4.  A father must give his children the freedom to fail.
5.  A father must be the encourager of the family.
6.  A father must guard his tongue and his tone and learn to measure his response against the excitement on their faces.
7.  A father must routinely embrace his children.
8.  A father must build the trusting relationship on God’s Word, not on human wisdom.

Tech Time

Microsoft Intelligence Report

The PDF report can be found in the download section ont he right side of the page.

An in-depth perspective on software vulnerabilities and exploits, malicious code threats, and potentially unwanted software in the first half of 2011.

45% – User Interaction Required
26% – Autorun of USB or network files

What you can do.

  1. Be smart.
  2. Implement strong passwords and Patch your systems. There are patches for your OS, Browsers (IE, FireFox, Safari, Chrome) Aplciaitons (Adobe flash, reader, etc), iTunes, Qiucktime, MS Office.

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Technology Safety is more about Behavior than the Technology!

 

Being a Home School Family

Using home school to educate our children is another thing that makes our family unique. Homeschoooling adds to our family identity. Certainly homeschooling is not for every family, but what ever your education method, that adds to your family identity. Dads, you should be very active and intentional in choosing how your children will be educated. Don’t take the public school education program blindly without understanding if it is the right choice for EACH of your children. One child may be better servered by a private school. Another child within the same family may be better served by public education or home school.

Sherry and I are passionate about home school education. We enjoy helping families through their review of education choices. Sherry is a former 3rd grade public school teacher and now she has several years of homeschool teaching under her belt. This is another subject that we approach carefully and prayerfully. We encourage you to do the same. To help you decide if homeschooling is right for your family we have a new resource. If you choose homeschooling we will lead you through the mounds of choices with curriculum, resources, books, co-ops, and more. Our new online support group web site launched this week is called the Home School Support Network. The site is a Blog and Podcast for now. Eventually we will be adding video and possibly even a member area. The first episode of the podcast was just released this week. We are waiting on the iTunes review process to complete, but in the meantime you can get the introductory podcast episode via the HSSN RSS feed.

Why Cub Scouts?

Cub Scout RileyI was asked by a reader to write about Cub Scouts. As a fairly protective homeschooling family we take very serious our evaluation of extracurricular activies. Last year our oldest son Riley became a Cub Scout. Sherry and I had discussed putting our kids in Awana, Royal Rangers, or Cub Scouts but had not done all the leg work to investigate each organization. One day last fall we were on our way out of the local home improvement store and were met by a group of Cub Scouts selling popcorn by the exit. We purchased some popcorn and went on to the car. Then I asked my wife if she minded if I take a few minutes to ask about how to join and what ages the organization served. I took Riley (7 at the time) with me. The Cub Scout den leader that greeted us was very helpful and invited us to join a meeting at the local church to check it out. This allowed us to check out the meetings to see if the Cub Scouts would be a good fit for our family before purchasing a uniform and paying the registration fees. This process was a great help in making our final determination on whether to allow Riley to join or not.

What are Cub Scouts

Cub Scouts are the division of the Boy Scouts of America that supports 1st-5th grade boys. Cub Scouts work through fun and adventure to develop good habits in character development, faith in God, citizenship, sportsmanship and physical fitness, relationships, personal achievement, and community service.  All of these activities help prepare them for Boy Scouts.

Do Cub Scouts fit a Christian Homeschool Family?

Cub Scouts augment homeschooling for our family. We looked at Awana, Royal Rangers, and Royal ambassadors. However most of these programs are run as outreach rather than based on discipleship regardless of the way the material was intended to be used. We already have a solid Biblical teaching built into the homeschooling curriculum so Cub Scouts offered more of a balanced skill development model that helped develop life skills in areas that we may not normally give as much attention.

Why not team sports?

I will be brief on this one because this subject deserves way more attention in a future post. The short answer is that in my opinion and based on observations of other families team sports tend to consume way more time than Cub Scouts. Cub Scouts work well with our family to build family identity and encourage parental involvement. At the entry level of Cub Scouts which is called Tiger Cubs (1st graders) a parent or adult partner is required to attend all events with the scout.

Another advantage to Cub Scouts

Protecting the innocence of our children is a high priority. We tend to guard our children from inappropriate worldly influences as much as possible, especially with the younger children. We like to expose our children to the worldly influences on our terms and based on timing that more closely aligns with each child’s moral maturity and the context of their past exposure. Taking active roles in group activities were we can gauge influences and make determinations on when to have follow up conversations is important to us. We also never remove the option of taking our kids out of a program or activity if necessary. Even within Christian circles we do not assume that teachers and leaders have the same level of conviction for protecting the innocence of children.

In the end we decided to allow Riley to join Cub Scouts. This year we have alos allowed Caden to become a Cub Scout. This is Caden’s first opportunity to step out and join in activities witha group of his peers outside of our immediate family. This is a big step for Caden and our family given how guarded we have had to be with his immune system deficiencies earlier in life and his ongoing unique medical challenges.

We constantly evaluate whether the Cub Scout program is supporting and growing our family values or working in opposition. I encourage parents to evaluate all extracurricular activities against your family’s goals and values.

One last note about Cub Scouts in particular. Not all Cub Scout packs and dens are equal. Do not hesitate to move your child to another pack if the one you initially join is inactive, or disorganized. I would also not think twice about moving to another pack or den if the leaders and parents are allowing inappropriate behaviors.

Podcast Episode 11 – Why we are here, DigiNotar, Courageous Movie

Daddy Life Podcast Show Notes

Caden Update – Caden had surgery on Thursday, September 22, 2011.  Go to Caden’s Page for more details.

Legacy Home School Support Group live speaking event – Outstanding feedback several emails and one phone call.

DaddyLife.net Episode 1 audio clip – demonstrating improvements in quality and helping reiterate why this podcast exists.

PodcastAwards.com (Nominations end 9/30)

Podcast Name: Daddy Life
Podcast URL: http://daddylife.net 

Why are we here? The provide free content for parents to learn how to build solid relationships with the children. That will lead to children with teachable spirits who want to learn what their parents have to say about technology safety and so much more.

Tech Time

DigiNotar – Computerworld says “The Dutch company that was hacked earlier this summer by certificate thieves has gone bust and shut down, its U.S.-based owner said Tuesday.”

Parenting – Relationships and Character Training

  • The Father’s Mandate – In the next episode we will begin with part 1 of a 8 part series on I implement the Fathers Mandate from chapter 4 of the Growing Kids God’s Way parenting series by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo.
  • Pilot training example. Once my instructor slapped my hand and never apologized I was not interested in hearing what he had to say about anything.
  • Courageous Movie opens Friday September 30th.

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Technology Safety is more about Behavior than the Technology!

 

 

Podcast Episode 9 – Encouraging Resources for Dads

Daddy Life Podcast Show Notes

Caden’s Page – Discharged from the Medical university of South Carolina (MUSC) Children’s Hospital on Sunday August 28th. Details on Caden’s Page.

Andy Traub – http://www.takepermission.com/ “Be a Better Husband Podcast” He is also the co-host of “Business Tech Weekly” over at GSPN.tv

The FREE PodCasting 101 Webinar with Cliff Ravenscraft from PodcastAnswerman.com has been released as a FREE Video Tutorial. See LearnHowToPodcast.com

My wife’s Best Friend Adrienne shared a blog post with me via Facebook. The post was written by Jon Acuff who is the National Best-Selling author who is best know for his book Stuff Christians Like. Jon is also a member of the Dave Ramsey team. The post is titled: When Should You Let Your Kids Use Facebook?

BetterDadPodcast – Hank will be a guest on an upcoming episode of the Becoming a Better Dad Podcast with Andy and Cory.

Mark Merrill – Great online resource for marriage and parenting tips.

Local speaking event – Hank will be speaking at the Charleston, SC Legacy Home School support group Equipping Meeting on Monday, September 12, 2011.

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Technology Safety is more about Behavior than the Technology!

We Don’t Always Get What We Ask For


Parents of special needs children will tell you that they did not expect or specifically ask for the challenges that they face.  There are those rare gems who seek out special needs children to foster or adopt and I believe those parents will have a mansion or a castle in heaven as a reward. As a parent of a child who has severe medical issues I can tell you that the life we lead is very different that what we expected when my wife became pregnant with our second child in 2004. The difference has turned out to be such a blessing to us and so many others who have come into contact with our almost seven year old son Caden.

We visited a new church (Deer Park Baptist) this weekend. The message delivered by Dr. Stephen Carr was great. We learned how horrible of neighbors we are when the pastor looked at our visitors card and then proceeded to tell me that he lived two houses away from us on the same side of the street. [blushing] It turns out we had both been witnessing to the same family for some time now. I am sure we will spend some time getting to know each other moving forward.

Like with most sermons different people often learn different things from the same message regardless of what the pastor is teaching on. In this case I believe God spoke to me in a way the pastor may never have intended when planning this message. The message was framed by the interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman at the well in John chapter 4. I am pretty sure the pastor’s primary intent was to encourage believers to use average conversations to share the gospel so other people would get saved as a result. Just as Jesus did with the woman at the well by sharing the promise of eternal life. She in turn shared with others who also believed. I got a bonus message from a nugget he threw in there when describing the dynamics of the interaction between Jesus and the Samaritan woman. Here is how the passage goes in John 4:

7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)

9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.t)

10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?”

13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,14 but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” (NIV)

As the pastor pointed out, the Samaritan woman did not know what she was asking for. She was obviously asking for drinking water even though Jesus had just explained that he was offering something very different. What she got from Jesus turned out to be best for her and it saved her and many in her community. What the woman intended to gain with her request appears to have been a purely selfish. That way she “won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water”.

This is like when parents pray for a healthy child (some for purely selfish reasons). they want the perfect child in every way. They want a healthy, smart, and beautiful child. And then they end up with what the world describes as a “sick” child. Our son Caden if often referred to as sick by the doctors due to the vast number of complicated medical issues Caden has and still does face. Caden has had way more major surgeries than birthdays, surgeries on his heart, neck, stomach, and spine. Caden is exclusively tube fed and has never taken single bite of food by mouth and he has never been able to drink from a cup to satisfy his thirst even though he so desires to do so to this day. Not exactly what can be described as healthy.

Just like the woman asked Jesus for water even though he had described something different, we asked God in our prayers early in the pregnancy for a healthy child and he knew exactly what was giving to us. Just like Jesus did give the Samaritan woman water based on his definition, Jesus gave us a healthy child based on his definition, not ours. The woman did have to go back to the well for water to sustain her physical body. We have had to go back to the hospital to sustain Caden’s health.

What we received from God was an encounter with Him that sparked a change in the community around us like we could have never imagined. Like with many special needs children, you only need to spend a few minutes one-on-one with Caden to fall in love with him. God is using him to create a new definition for the word healthy.

As parents of a special needs child we have received way more than we could have asked for or imagined. We have a child that God has used to bring our family closer together, bring us closer to our friends, and closer to God himself. I don’t know exactly how many or if any have been saved as a result, but I know there will be some. Glory to God!