Category: Fatherhood

Fatherhood is one of the most rewarding roles a man can have. The bond between father and child is one of the strongest relationships, and active involvement from fathers greatly impacts their children’s development and self-esteem. While being a good father requires time and effort, the rewards are invaluable.

Man’s Best Friend: Teaching Your Children About Animal Safety

According to the CDC, approximately 4.5 million people are bitten by a dog in the U.S. each year. Half of these incidents involve children under the age of 12. Not to mention, a shocking 70 percent of all fatalities caused by dog bites involve victims under 10 years old.

With this in mind, it is imperative to take steps to teach your child how to remain safe around dogs. Additionally, parents should also understand the medical and legal actions taken during the immediate aftermath of a dog attack.

Bite Prevention Techniques

Children should be taught how to handle an encounter with a strange dog at a young age.

Kids’ basic prevention techniques include never teasing a dog, avoiding strays, and staying away from their food bowl.

They should also be taught to ask a dog owner before approaching any dog they are not familiar with. Although these tips will not guarantee that your children will never be bitten, they will help dramatically.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Here are some easy tips that you can use to help kids understand the importance of respecting dogs and avoiding bites! #Safety1st #StaySafe” quote=”Here are some easy tips that you can use to help kids understand the importance of respecting dogs and avoiding bites!”]

Getting Medical Attention

If you have a family pet, it will be practically impossible to prevent occasional scratches and bruises. However, if any bites break the surface of your child’s skin, it will be necessary to seek medical attention.

In most cases, the child will simply need to have the wound cleaned properly and possibly stitched up. Still, it is best to let an experienced medical professional determine if any other step should be taken.

Stray animals can carry diseases, so you should inform your local animal control office about the incident.

It is also important to note that your child may be left with emotional trauma due to the incident. You should take the time to listen to their concerns and reassure them that every dog will not bite them.

Additionally, it is a good idea to let them speak to a trained counselor if they have difficulty moving forward.

What Are My Legal Rights?

The victim often has legal recourse when they are bitten by a dog that belongs to another individual. However, it is necessary to be aware of your state’s specific dog bite laws.

For example, in Michigan, anyone who is bitten by a dog that was not provoked has the legal right to sue the animal’s owner for damages as long as they were not illegally trespassing on private property when the incident occurred. In other words, a burglar who a dog attacks in Michigan would have a tough time receiving any compensation for their injuries.

If you are unsure of what the laws are in your case, contacting a law firm specializing in this type of injury can be very helpful. Michigan is currently ranked sixth for dog bite claims, and State Farm paid $4.6 million to cover 151 claims in 2012.

Taking Legal Action

If a dog bites you or your child, it is important to contact a local dog bite attorney for assistance. They will help you understand the laws that apply to your specific situation, and they can also file a lawsuit on your behalf against the responsible party.

Keep in mind that some states, including Michigan, do not require the owner to have had any prior knowledge of possible vicious behavior from their animal to hold them accountable. Therefore, even if the dog was always friendly in the past, you still have the legal right to seek compensation for your medical expenses.

Dogs can be great companions for children, but you need to remain cognizant that they are animals and could lash out unexpectedly at any time. Fortunately, if you teach your children basic dog safety tips, they should avoid dealing with an attack in most cases.

Have you ever been bitten by a dog?

February 9, 2021
Teaching Kids Money Management

Teaching your child about money should begin early. Even before a child can read or add, he knows what money is.

When my brother, John, was four years old, my mom told him we couldn’t afford the toy he asked for. “Mom,” John replied innocently, “Just go to the ATM.”

How much you teach your child about money will depend upon their age. As children get older, money lessons will become more complex, but here are some beginning guidelines for teaching your children to be smart money managers.

Be Aware of Your Own Spending Habits

Children are always watching their parents, and they will learn from your example. If you regularly say, “I shouldn’t buy that,” but do it anyway, your kids will not realize the consequences of bad money management.

If you often declare, “This is a reward to myself for (X)” as you slide the credit card, you’ll teach your kids entitlement.

Even my mother, who is generally pretty good with money and exceptionally good at finding a deal, tends to reward herself often by spending money. I saw this as a child and unconsciously believed that I could reward myself for every little thing.

Trust me, those little “treats” add up, and pretty soon, I was spending much more than I should have.

Start a Savings Fund

Whether you believe in giving kids an allowance or not, teach them that they should pay themselves first whenever they receive money.

Let your kids pick out a jar or a piggy bank and decorate it. Put it somewhere they can’t get into it but can still see it, and help them put in 5-10% of their money every time they earn some.

If kids get into the habit of paying themselves first, they will be unlikely to live paycheck to paycheck in the future.

Also, you might want to set up a charity or tithing fund that they contribute to regularly. Some parents follow a 10-10-80 rule: 10% savings, 10% charity, and 80% spending.

No matter how you do it, make sure savings and charity come before spending.

[click_to_tweet tweet=”Teaching your little one how to save and spend smartly can make a huge difference in their money mindset and habits for life.Here are some strategies to consider! #payyourselffirst #moneymanagement” quote=”Teaching your little one how to save and spend smartly can make a huge difference in their money mindset and habits for life. Here are some strategies to consider! “]

Teach Them How to Shop

To help kids get the most out of the money they earn, teach them to be thrifty. Take them with you to the store and explain sales, coupons, and price per unit.

The more they understand, the further they can stretch their money (and the less you will have to pay for).

It’s not necessary to create a formal, write-everything-down budget (especially when kids are young). Still, help children be aware of how much they are spending and help them develop thrifty habits.

For the most part, let children be in charge of how they spend their money. Making little mistakes while they’re young will go a long way in preventing them from making big financial mistakes in the future.

Teach Them Delayed Gratification

It’s around three years of age that most kids start saying, “I want, I want!” Teaching kids that they can’t always have what they want—at least right away—is crucial to their future success.

Studies show that kids who can delay gratification perform better in school and have healthier relationships.

So teach children that if they want that new toy or book, they can save up for it. Suggest jobs that they can do to save up pennies.

Not only will learning delayed gratification prevent kids from viewing mom and dad as an ATM, but it will also give them a sense of self-worth.

Teach Them to Work

Many parents suggest only paying for children’s essential needs (food, clothing, etc.) and having children earn money for the things they want.

Whatever your method, remember that kids who work for at least some of the things they want will be much more careful about how they spend their money. They certainly won’t spend their hard-earned cash as freely as they would moms and dads.

However, you choose to teach your children about money, start early. The better a child is at managing money, the less likely he is to give in to the allurement of credit cards or living beyond his means in the future.

And he’ll be smarter about things like investing and choosing construction loan lenders or a retirement plan. Teaching your child to be financially savvy sets him up for success.

Do you encourage your kids to save money?

January 20, 2021
How to Effectively Teach Your Teen Driver’s Education from Home
Whether your teen is homeschooled or their high school doesn’t have an adequate program, teaching driver’s education may fall on your shoulders. To prepare them, you’ll need to follow the necessary state guidelines and regulations in addition to giving your kid ample time behind the wheel.

Additionally, remembering to stay calm and patient during their learning period will keep stress levels down.

Guidelines and Regulations Refresher

Knowing state speed limits, traffic signals, signage, and regulations are key pieces of information to identify when teaching your child to drive. If you’re going to be their primary instructor, you want to familiarize yourself with all of your state guidelines.

Often states may require parents who are teaching driver’s education to take a refresher course on the basics or fill out certain forms to ensure they are instructing their children in proper road safety. You’ll find several classroom courses offered that can help give the parents the right tools for their teens to learn.

Highway Safety 101: Commercial Truck Safety

Commercial truck safety can be lacking in formal driver’s education programs all across the country, and many people don’t understand how critical this information can be to save lives.

To prepare your teen for highway driving, you need to instruct them on truck safety. Commercial big rigs can often drive aggressively, and your young driver needs to realize the importance of avoiding a potential collision.

By checking all vehicle mirrors before changing lanes as well as giving commercial trucks room to handle the road, they can bypass accidental cutoffs and accidents.

Common Hazards for Teens to Avoid Around Trucks

Your teenager will need to understand that they should be vigilant when driving around trucks, and they may not be aware of the common hazards associated with driving around big rigs. They should be mindful of and avoid these common mistakes:
- Stay out of the trucker’s No-Zone. That’s the spots behind and beside a big truck where the driver has very limited or zero visibility.
- Don’t suddenly change lanes in front of a big rig with your vehicle.
- When a commercial truck is making right turns, don’t maneuver to the right of them.
- Don’t make a big rig have to brake suddenly or have to make dangerous maneuvers by merging incorrectly into traffic.
- Make sure you don’t speed up or slow down when a truck merges or changes lanes.
- Make sure you give yourself enough headway when passing–don’t pass unsafely.
- There are air turbulence and crosswinds that can hit you and knock you out of position when passing big trucks–use caution when passing.
- Make sure you accelerate enough when you pull out in the road when there is an approaching truck-don’t misjudge their speed if you’re making a left turn in front of them from an intersection.
- Don’t pull between two commercial trucks.
Quiz your teen on these rules and observe them when they first start driving on roadways around large vehicles. Many fatal vehicle crashes are caused by passenger vehicles, so they must understand driver safety around large commercial vehicles.

Practice Makes Perfect

While it is necessary to teach minors about state regulations from a book or manual, the practice behind the wheel is just as beneficial. You can start in a vacant parking lot so that they can get a feel for the car.

Parents should put themselves in their teen’s shoes and remember what it was like to drive for the very first time. Having compassion, patience, and a lot of time will give your new driver time to relax while adjusting to this new skill.

As your teen gets a grasp on the basics, they can slowly move to low traffic side streets. Practicing in all types of weather-related conditions is just as crucial to their safety, so you need to ensure that they can handle anything that Mother Nature throws their way.

Driver’s Education and The Learner’s Permit

Your child will need to obtain their learner’s permit before legally driving on main roads with an adult in the car.

Your city’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) has driver manuals with information in regards to the state’s road and traffic safety laws, which your teen will need to study and fully understand, to be exam ready. The DMV will also have the required paperwork to fill out. Good luck, and stay safe!
June 2, 2020
Help Ensure Online Child Safety with the kidSAFE Seal Program
Parents want to keep their kids safe online, protecting them from inappropriate content, dangerous predators, or unsafe online interactions. Monitoring your child’s online activity is essential, but how do you ensure that your child’s activity is safe? The kidSAFE Seal Program makes protecting your children as they surf the web easier than ever.

Simply by looking for the kidSAFE Seal on kid-friendly websites, parents can know their children are visiting sites that follow practices to keep their kids safe and secure.

Supplementing your current online safety procedures with the kidSAFE Seal Program allows you to protect your kids when they’re on the web. Together, kidSAFE, open lines of communication, and parental controls can make the Internet a kid-friendly environment.

How the Program Works

The kidSAFE Seal Program reviews the safety practices of child-friendly websites. Sites that comply with five core safety rules can earn a kidSAFE Certified Seal.

To acquire a kidSAFE Certified Seal, websites must comply with five safety rules:
1. Chat and community features must be safely designed.
2. The site must feature rules and education on online safety.
3. Must have procedures to handle safety issues
4. Offer parental controls
5. Must feature age-appropriate content, advertising, and marketing
Websites and their products can boast their kidSAFE certification if they meet these important standards.

Websites can secure the kidSAFE+ Seal by further complying with additional privacy rules modeled after the federal Children’s Online Privacy Protection Rule. These additional standards include asking neutral age questions, establishing parental notice and consent procedures, and having a COPPA-compliant privacy policy.

Websites that meet these additional standards will have the kidSAFE+ Seal on their websites and products.

What the kidSAFE Seal Program Means for You

Websites that display the kidSAFE or kidSAFE+ Seal have gone through a rigorous, independent review of their safety practices. When you and your child log onto a kidSAFE website, you know that you are using a website that meets a high standard of online safety.

While kidSAFE does not conduct a review of the site’s content, such as its age-appropriateness, you can rest easy knowing that websites displaying the kidSAFE Seal were designed with child-friendly safety features in mind. When your child logs onto an approved website, you know that the chat and community features are secure, and the site has established procedures in place should a threat to safety or security occur.

Even more, you know that the website has parental controls in place, and moderators are accessible to handle any problems or complaints.

How to Find kidSAFE Websites and Products

Tap into a searchable directory of products by visiting the kidSAFE website. Here, you can scroll through the always growing list of websites and products that have earned the kidSAFE Seal.

By clicking on any site in the directory, you can learn specifics about what features the website offers. Within the kidSAFE directory is a certification page for each site that has earned a kidSAFE Seal.

If you do not see your child’s favorite website on the list, you can submit it. Afterward, kidSAFE will add your suggestion to its list of products to review. The kidSAFE Seal Program directory will continue to grow, so check back regularly for updates as more products are reviewed.

Advantages of the kidSAFE Seal Program

The Internet can be a fantastic resource for your children. It can enhance their technological skills, create bonds with family and friends, and supplement their education. However, the Internet also poses dangers, and, as a parent, it is up to you to protect your children.

Make sure the Internet remains a helpful resource for your children by trusting the kidSAFE Seal Program. The searchable directory allows you to assess a website’s safety practices quickly. Paired with your assessment of the website’s age-appropriateness, the program keeps your children on sites that make their safety and security a priority.

The program is an additional way to protect your children when they’re surfing the web. Maintaining open lines of communication with your children and closely monitoring their online activity are the first steps in ensuring online safety. The kidSAFE Seal Program serves as another measure of protection for your children when they are online.
January 17, 2020
Determining If Your Child Needs Glasses
Do you suspect your child needs glasses? When children are going through vital developmental in their early childhood, they get about 80% of their learning through visual stimuli. Therefore assessing and testing their eyes during these early years is vital to ensure that they reach social and intellectual milestones.

Plus, it gives them the self-confidence to go out into the yard or playground and explore.

As parents, there are tell-tale signs that can be picked up during infancy and early childhood that point toward vision problems. Generally, the more serious the problem, the earlier it’s picked up.

During the first few months, a baby has very poor vision, with little visual acuity, and seeing mostly in black and white. After six months, their sight should naturally sharpen, and they should have better hand-eye coordination.

At this point, you should take your child for their first eye exam. After this, an eye exam should happen from the age of three onwards every year.

A simple, well-proven surgery can restore sight to millions, and something even simpler, a pair of glasses, can make millions more see.

Thulasiraj Ravilla

Signs of Poor EyeSight
- Constantly sitting too close to the television or holding a book close to their face
- Squinting to see clearly
- High sensitivity to light and shielding the eyes
- Avoiding certain things like close activities (reading, coloring), or distant activities (playing with a ball or tag).
- Frequent rubbing of the eyes
- Complaining of a headache or tiredness in the eyes
- Watery eyes
It never gets old watching someone receive their first pair of glasses and regain their vision and their life.

Neil Blumenthal

What’s Wrong?

The typical problems that young children experience are:

Farsightedness

Common with kids and can lead to crossed eyes. This can easily be corrected in the early years by wearing glasses or contact lenses.

In very rare cases, surgery is needed. However, left untreated, crossed-eyedness or strabismus can lead to permanent and irreversible vision loss.

Nearsightedness

It is also called myopia and means that children can’t see the blackboard and other faraway objects.

Astigmatism

This is when your child has blurred or distorted vision at all distances. In most cases, these common conditions can be treated with correctly prescribed glasses or contact lenses.

The Immovable Mountain

Your child may be as stubborn as a mule and refuse to wear glasses (let alone contact lenses). If you run into opposition, try some of these methods:
- Let them select their own glasses.
- Explain the advantages of wearing glasses. Like you will be able to play sports now, or you will be able to see the computer better to play video games.
- Some children are worried they will be teased or feel different with glasses. Calm their worries by giving them an example of a superhero, cartoon character, or famous person with glasses who they can look up to.
- Don’t visit the optometrist to select glasses when they are grumpy, sick, or hungry.
- Make sure that the glasses fit correctly and are comfortable for them.
12% of people with glasses wear them as an attempt to see better. 88% of people with glasses wear them as an attempt to appear smarter.

Mokokoma Mokhonoana
January 17, 2020
Balancing Your Time: Household Chores and Time with the Kids

I suspect most parents feel guilty about not spending enough time with their kids. There are just so many other demands like household chores.

Time is a precious commodity, but it may be possible to free up some of it by looking closely at your schedule. Here are a few suggestions for how you can improve the balance between household chores and spending time with your kids.

Choose the Right Cleaning Supplies

Purchasing the right cleaning supplies can mean you waste less time on household chores.

For example, things like a carpet cleaner can be an essential cleaning tool. It is much easier to use something designed for the task than trying to use something that falls short.

It doesn’t cost a lot of money to have a well-stocked cabinet of cleaning supplies and gadgets, and it can be worth it if it saves you time.

We personally could not live without our robot vacuums.

It is amazing how quickly the kids learn the operation of the DVD, yet are unable to understand the vacuum cleaner.

Etienne Marchal

Encourage Your Children to Help You with Household Chores

You can spend time with your kids and do household chores at the same time by allowing them to join in.

Even young children can participate if you turn it into a bit of a game. The secret to making this work is to choose the right tasks for your child – otherwise, you could end up making more work for yourself.

It can also be a good idea to give children some regular household chores (i.e. cleaning their room) because it can be beneficial for their development. It will provide them with some responsibility and prepare them for when daddy and mommy aren’t there picking up after them.

The cruel irony of housework: people only notice when you don’t do it.

Danielle Raine

Create a Schedule for Household Chores

The advantage of a schedule is that it allows you to stay on top of what needs to be done. It makes it possible for you to think more carefully about when you do these tasks, so you are more in control of your time.

Maybe do certain chores on certain days. Or, when you are waiting for something to cook, do some speed cleaning. Doing a little bit here and there really does add up.

Don’t cook. Don’t clean. No man will ever make love to a woman because she waxed the linoleum – “My God, the floor’s immaculate. Lie down, you hot bitch.”

Joan Rivers

Understand That Quality is Just as Important Quantity

The quality of the time you spend with your kids is just as important as the quantity of time. There are only so many hours in the day, and all you can do is your best.

It is always nice to spend more time with your kids, but it is better to make the most of the time you have.

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing. —Phyllis Diller

January 17, 2020