Posts Tagged ‘good dad’

Thursday Thinkers: The Ever-Learning Dad, 1

Fatherhood can have many strange side effects, not the least of which seems to be the inclination to suddenly learn all those little things one has been putting off. When the realization final hits home that there is a little mind to shape — and speaking here completely from anecdotal experience only — the (apparently) bigger mind in one’s own skull is suddenly awash in feelings of inadequacy and ineptitude. All those things a dad is supposed to know — and until we’re teenagers it seems as though dad’s are nothing short of omniscient beings who know just about everything — don’t seem to be as easily accessible in the memory as my gut-feeling implies should be. By this point in my life I am perfectly aware that we fathers are mere humans, but that knowledge hardly eases the impression that I should have been trying to learn just a little bit more over the past thirty-some years. So, in the spare moments that fatherhood allows, what’s a guy to learn?

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Full text from October 9, 2008 by Brad
Filed as: Critical Thought Toolkit, Reasoned Education, Skepdad thoughts

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“Is reading aloud even optional?” Part 1

I’ve been trying to dig up some real research on the topic of reading aloud to kids, positive or negative. Other than a few vague correlational analysis there does not seem to be much scientific literature online about this either way. (Perhaps a reader could point me in the right direction. I thought I was adept at searching, but I’m stumped on this one.) Alas…

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Full text from February 11, 2008 by Brad
Filed as: Encounters of the Mind, Reasoned Education

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I just wanna be…

… the dad who can lay back on the summer grass with his starry-eyed kid and not just answer her questions about the planets, galaxies, and random mysteries of quantum physics, but who can also inspire an persistent and probing curiosity about the universe in a young mind.

… the dad who knows why bugs have six legs and spiders have eight, and encourages his kids to come home with a jar full of crawlies so he can explain the local ecosystem and why we need to set the bugs free when we’re done.

… the dad who can build a mean snow fort.

… the dad who doesn’t buy his kids ’stuff’ to make-up, replace, or apologize for anything, but rather comes home with a sheath of paper and a rainbow of coloured pencils to spend a Saturday afternoon side-by-side laying on the living room floor tracing random shapes and abstract arts onto a hundred sheets of paper.

… the dad who avoids the easy-route of plugging in a head-rest DVD, and instead sings ridiculous songs in the car, negotiates the countryside with observational narratives, and carves away hours with dozens of meandering games that point out the colour of the passing vehicles or silly words extracted from the letters of license plates.

… the dad who knows the lyrics to all the crazy kid’s songs.

… the dad who can invent elaborate and entertaining fictions from the lives of his kids, mixing, blending, and extrapolating elements of their personalities and realities into playful narratives to be enjoyed under the safety of their blankets and explored as they drift off to sleep.

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Full text from February 5, 2008 by Brad
Filed as: Skepdad thoughts

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