Sands Hetherington's Blog, page 13

What Traveling With My Son Taught Me About Being a Parent

[This post originally appeared on The Good Men Project]

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As a children’s author, I’ve been asked many times, by friends, colleagues, and readers, what is the best piece of of advice I have for parents raising their children today. To tell you the truth, I don’t always know if I have an answer for them. What we pass down to our children—morals, values, passions—is a monumental thing. So here is what I say instead:

I don’t know if this is the best piece of parenting advice out there, but if you don’t travel with your children, you’re missing out on what made up the best memories I have of my son’s childhood.

My son John is a traveler. It all took place from the time he was three, ’til he was six and his mother moved to Cleveland, ’til he went to Germany for his junior year in high school, ’til he left for the University of Edinburgh and never really came back. Has since lived in London, Germany, Russia, Spain, Belgium, and Vietnam, and has traveled to many, many other places.

What we did together as father and son was collect waterfalls. I’m sure we saw every worthwhile one in North Carolina where we lived and saw most of the warhorses in the contiguous U.S. I took him to the Canadian Rockies and the bottom half of Alaska, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. We drove about 500,000 miles, rode planes and buses, and wore out three cars. Our red Mazda RX-7 Turbo was a real hot rod for its day and was central to our peregrinations.

Looking back, I think we missed Hawaii, Florida, Delaware, and Rhode Island. That was it. We carried baseball gloves to play catch with at the ends of days. We went through a huge number of books on tape in the cars.

This isn’t to say that our travels were all idyllic.

Once we blew a tire in Kansas in the middle of nowhere; blew it all to pieces. We put on the donut spare and limped into the nearest town right after the tire store closed, and we had to spend the night. I can tell you that Kansas is a very dull prospect (Dorothy was right.)

Another time I picked 6-year-old John up from his mother’s Cleveland house for a three-day adventure to Canada to see Niagara Falls—but it didn’t occur to me to take passports, other ID for John, or court orders. We got stopped at the border, taken into an interrogation room, and I was immediately under suspicion of being a non-custodial father trying to kidnap his son by crossing the border. The fact that I talked my way out of that one, and we still got to see the falls, is a miracle I can’t understand.

There is memory after memory; the times we got sick of each other and the times we clung closer together. Traveling with your children certainly helps them to discover the world, but it also helps you as a parent to see the world again from their perspective—exciting, big, beautiful, and just downright cool.

So what’s my advice to any of you fathers out there? Hop in the car. Don’t forget maps and a GPS. Let your son or daughter hop into the passenger seat next to you.

Go! Go somewhere, anywhere, and make the kind of memories you’ll fall asleep dreaming about when you’re a much older man.

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The Benefits of Growing Up with a Dog

It happens the second you pass by the window of that pet shop, you’re holding your kid’s hand, rushing them ahead before they can look into the eyes of the puppy barking at you to stop, but before you can do anything they’re looking up at you with bright, sad eyes.

“Dad, can we get a puppy?”

Before you say no, thinking about the vet visits, dog food prices, holes being dug in your backyard, I want you to take some time to consider the benefits to you and your child if you say yes, and let that puppy steal your family’s hearts. As someone who has bred St. Bernard’s, and someone who raised my son with a puppy sibling, I truly believe that these benefits could be worth your while.

Dogs can teach your children responsibility. I know, I know. Your child offers to take care of the dog, but you know the majority of the responsibility is going to be on you. But this doesn’t have to be the case. While you will have to be responsible for taking the dog to the vet, and double-checking that it is fed, groomed, and walked regularly, these tasks can be assigned as chores to your child as an agreement upon getting the dog. Your child will learn responsibility in taking care of another life, and will teach them the importance of keeping their word. Whenever they want to skip out on a walk or are going to be late to their friends house if they have to pick up after the dog, you can remind them of the agreement they made.

Dogs can be loyal companions to only children, children with disabilities, or any child struggling with loneliness or fitting in. Petting and interacting with dogs has been proven as a stress-reliever, and will provide comfort to children no matter their circumstances.

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Owning a dog can lead to a more active, healthier lifestyle for your child. Dogs require getting out of the house for walks every day, running around playing ball, and overall getting up and outside rather than sitting and playing video games all afternoon. The Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne even claims that owning a pet leads to lower levels of obesity, lower risks for cardiovascular diseases, and fewer minor illnesses and complaints than those without pets.

Overall, owning a dog will lead to general happiness in your child’s life. They’ll always have a happy animal to cheer them up when they’re in a bad mood, give them the feeling of being needed and wanted, and for the rest of their lives they will have memories of the furriest member of their family. I know my son will forever cherish his memories with our St. Bernard, and I will always cherish my memories of the two of them together.

So my recommendation, take a moment to look into the shop window. Go visit your local animal shelter. Maybe just do a trial run with taking care of a friend’s dog for the day. However you go about it, don’t say no to the idea of owning a dog just yet.

Did you grow up with a dog when you were a child? Is it something you’d recommend? Let me know in the comments!

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How Much is Too Much When it Comes to Encouraging Your Children?

I never thought that title was something I would have to write—nevermind something I would actually have to question. But with different articles coming out against what one author refers to as “shake it off” parenting (read here) in which parents dismiss their children’s losses, pain, and embarrassments, I think we have entered a time where the balance between teaching our children to be independent and coddling them is becoming more difficult to find.

The main complaint people have about millennials is that they are entitled from too many years of their parents coddling them. Whether or not this is true, I can see how that would happen. Children do need to learn to work, to pick themselves up when they’ve been taken down, and to eventually be independent from their parents.

In the article linked above, the writer uses the example of dangerous “shake it off” parenting as when a child gets hurt on the soccer field, and instead of being allowed to come be reassured by his mother, he’s yelled at to get back out there—to “shake it off.” While I agree that a hurt six-year-old shouldn’t have to endure the embarrassment of believing his pain doesn’t matter, what if the child was repeatedly allowed to step off the field for reassurance each time he got a scrape on the knee? This could eventually lead to a destructive pattern that stops him from learning how to care and reassure himself as he grows older.

The problem with all of this is, as far as I can see it, that to be the most effective parents we can be we need to employ pieces of both empathetic and “shake it off” parenting styles.

Where I think the writer hits her best point is when she states, “‘Shake it off’ parenting seems to be gaining steam as parents try every trick in the book to avoid being labeled the dreaded ‘helicopter parent.’ No one wants to be depicted as the neurotic hovering parent who refuses to let the child fail, so they pull a razor sharp U-turn and throw empathy to the wind, even when their kids need it.”

The trick we parents need to learn is the difference between our kids needing our reassurance and encouragement, versus giving it every single time something less than rosy happens to them.

So how much is too much encouragement? I don’t think there needs to be a limit. What we can do instead of coldly yelling at them to “shake it off,” is gently remind our kids how capable they are of picking themselves back up.

What are your thoughts on “shake it off” parenting? Let me know in the comments below!

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When Your Dad Goes Viral

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Our children are growing up in a world where just about anyone can achieve their “fifteen minutes of fame”—we call it going viral. Just this week I posted a viral story to my Facebook, a father writing his son a statement of rejection for his plead to borrow $20 for a toy. And this one post was my biggest social media hit yet. On top of random viral news stories like this, we also have parents who post videos of their children online that reach millions of views, parents whose entire occupation is filming “vlogs” of their children’s lives in hopes of getting to two, three, four million subscribers on YouTube.

Achieving viral fame with our children seems relatively easy, and common. But what will our children have to say about it?

Sure, kids are cute. Of course, nobody is going to hold something they did against them when they were in an age they likely won’t even remember. But where stage mom and dads used to be looked down on, getting their children into show business for money before they could decide for themselves if it’s something they wanted, now it seems like parents everywhere have no problem with putting their children in front of an Internet audience before they are old enough to realize what’s going on.

An article published on The Guardian (which you can read here) goes into more depth about the issue of consent with children’s lives being posted on the Internet (specifically, Facebook). It recognizes that while pretty much everyone will post something about their children, we might need to be more selective about what we put out there, and what kind of privacy settings we use when posting. Images of our precious babies without clothes, throwing tantrums, or in any other way shedding a negative light on them could follow them for the entirety of their lives. Or it might not—but do you want to take the risk?

The article also mentions other purely safety reasons to be cautious about what we post of our children. Giving away identity information, location, or likewise could put them as well as ourselves at risk.

When it comes down to it, I challenge us all to not strive to be parents that “go viral,” but to be parents who think of our children’s futures before we hit that “post” button. You don’t want your kids to grow up one day and think, “I wish my dad hadn’t gone viral.”

What are your thoughts on posting pictures/videos of your children to the Internet? Are there any precautions you take? Let me know in the comments!

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Is Stress Getting in the Way of You Being the Best Parent You Can Be? Not With These Tips!

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I’m not the first, and won’t be the last, to say this, but I think any of us who have gone through the extremely rewarding process of growing our children into happy adults can be very, very difficult. Whether you’re going through it with a partner or you’re raising your children on your own, parenting is a taxing occupation that reaps the greatest rewards.

But despite the challenges you might face—stressful days, nanny’s who cancel at the wrong times, tantrums, you name it—there are some ways to turn a difficult parenting day into a happy one. Here are some tips I’ve found that work:

Make time to connect with your child. Often, when our children are acting out, they are doing so to attract your attention. An easy way to avoid this is to give them enough attention in the first place. Wake yourself and them up a little earlier to have a sit-down breakfast together. Eat around a table at night instead of in front of a TV. Keep up a conversation with them during carpool. The more your child feels content with your attention on them, the less they’ll feel the need to stress you out by acting out for it.

Stop yourself from yelling. Yes, there are times when it feels like the only way to get through to your children. Yes, you have days when you’re just really frustrated and stressed. No, yelling will not solve the problem. By finding other ways to communicate your disapproval with your child, you’ll not only have a calmer environment in your home, but you’ll also teach your children more appropriate ways to handle their emotions with others.

Prioritize your commitments. You are not Super-Parent. Nobody is Super-Parent. While you might want to volunteer in your child’s class, bake cupcakes for the bake sale, be the carpool every day, and coach their sports team, you can only do so much. It is important to spend time with your children, not to smother them with your presence. It is important to spend time with your children, not to the extent of burning yourself out.

Take care of yourself—without the guilt. Sometimes you need to go for that massage, go out to dinner, see your friends, or go on that date night. It does not make you a bad or neglectful parent to need some time to invest in and rejuvenate yourself. In fact, it’s going to make you a better parent to your children overall. When you’re not stressed out and you’re taken care of, you’ll be in a better position to take care of them.

What do you do when stress gets the best of you? Do you have any tips to add for not letting stress affect the happiness of your children? Let me know in the comments!

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The Role Empathy Plays in Parenting (And How You Can Gain More of It)

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A recent article from steamboattoday.com claimed that one of the most important, vital characteristics of a good parent is empathy.

The article makes a good case; a parent who can know and understand what their children are feeling are better prepared to help them when they are hurting, find joy with them in their highs, and bond with them on a deeper level. An empathetic parent won’t have their children grow up to say, “My parents just never understood me.”

Many parents have the tendency to be annoyed by their children’s many observations of the world around them. After all, what is new to a child has been seen and understood a thousand times by his parent. But rather than rolling our eyes or sweeping past the tears of a heartbroken ten-year-old, or fallen and hurt toddler, an empathetic parent will take these moments to acknowledge, understand, and heal their child so they are better prepared to handle themselves in the future.

I found this article and this idea particularly interesting, because as many studies have revealed, one of the best ways to learn empathy is through reading literature.

Books and stories help to put in the shoes of someone entirely different than ourselves, see the world from a new perspective, learn things and feel things we hadn’t ever come face-to-face with in our own lives. So what better way to incorporate more empathy into your parenting than to read children’s books? These books can help those of us who may feel long-past our youthful days to see the world from a child’s perspective again, and therefore better understand and empathize with our children. We might not remember what it’s like to be abandoned by our friends at the lunch table, or be bullied by a group of popular kids, or to have a crush write us a note during recess. But children’s books can help us to understand those feelings again.

Better yet, why don’t we read these books with our children. That way, if your child finds something in the book particularly relatable, it will open up a discussion between the two of you. You will come to better understand your child, and you’ll still be learning more and more empathy along the way.

Do you feel that empathy is a valuable component of parenting? How do you demonstrate this to your children? Let me know in the comments!

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The 2016 New Year’s Resolution You and Your Child Need to Make

We are just a few days away from the start of the new year, and with that typically comes a reflection, or an assessment, of where we are at, what we’d like to improve in our lives, and what we’d like the coming year to look like. Some people do this in list form, forming a number of goals, or resolutions, for the upcoming year, others choose one word they’d like to theme the next year of their life. However you do it, I know that you’re looking to make some New Year’s resolutions, and for parents, resolutions tend to involve figuring out how to better their children’s lives instead of just their own.

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But what if I told you I had a resolution that would improve 2016 for both you and your child/children?

For regular readers of this blog, you know what a big advocate I am of parents and children taking the time to read together. And as such, I like to promote the campaign, Boys Who Read, which encourages the younger generation to fall in love with reading while taking advantage of all the benefits that come with it! (Read this article for a list of benefits reading has on child development.)

So as 2016 is rolling in, I am going to challenge any of you parents out there to make a New Year’s resolution of spending at least ten minutes a day reading a book, or short story, or poem with your child. It will not only help them in the numerous ways listed in the article above, but it wall also help you to strengthen your parent/child bond, and maybe even encourage you to remember why reading books can be so much fun!

If you take my challenge, reach out and tell me via Twitter or Facebook using the hashtag #BoysWhoRead, or send me a picture of what you and your child are going to read together this year! I’d also love to hear if any of you are going to start out the challenge with a Night Buddies book!

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Wishing you all the best New Year. Thank you for yet another amazing year on this blog, on social media, and at all of the book signings and events I met you at this year.

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Top 5 Christmas Cheesecake Recipes!

The holidays are just around the corner, and you know what that means…desserts on desserts! And here at the Night Buddies Headquarters, we believe there is only ever one dessert worth having…CHEESECAKE! So I scoured the Internet looking for the best way to combine my favorite holiday with Crosley’s favorite dessert, and these are the best holiday cheesecake recipes out there!

Festive New York Style Cheesecake

(Recipe: http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/festive-new-york-style-cheesecake)

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Topped with Christmas candies and chocolate syrup, this delicious cheesecake will have everyone at the table going back for seconds!

 

Cranberry Celebration Cheesecake

(Recipe: http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/cr...)

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Cranberries are all the rage during the holidays. You can use them to decorate your garland, make a delicious cranberry sauce, or to spice up your classic cheesecake recipe. This is definitely a favorite!

 

Christmas Cheesecake with Soaked Fruits

(Recipe: http://www.womanandhome.com/recipes/5...)

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This cheesecake has it all—cinnamon, almonds, nutmeg, the holiday works! When you want that classic Christmas flavor, this is definitely the cheesecake to go for.

 

Christmas Cheesecake with English Toffee Filling

(Recipe: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/foo...)

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This cheesecake is rich and candy-filled…with just enough chocolate to make it a delectable holiday treat.

 

Crushed Peppermint Cheesecake

(Recipe: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/crush...)

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Last, but certainly not least, you can’t let the holidays pass without turning everything into a peppermint treat—and this recipe is one of the best! Not only do you top it with delicious crushed candy canes, but it has an Oreo crust you’ll dream about through the rest of next year.

 

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Give The Ultimate Night Buddies Gift Package This Holiday Season!

Hello all! I want to start by saying a massive thank you to those who made it out to Scuppernong Books this past Saturday for my Night Buddies reading. It was a blast!

As you all know, the holidays are coming up, and whatever you celebrate, gifts are likely to be involved. As a father and the starter of the Boys Who Read campaign, I’m a huge advocate for turning books into gifts for our children (you can read my 2015 recommendations here), however I am very aware that what most kids are expecting to receive are toys, toys, toys! But that doesn’t mean you have to pick one or the other—here are some of my recommendations for turning the Night Buddies books into a full-on gift package!

First, you’ll need the books. Give one, or give the whole set, but this is going to be what the entire package is based on. You can purchase the books from either Amazon or Barnes and Noble—the links for each are on the book pages of this website!

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Next, I recommend buying your child’s very own Crosley—or Crenwinkle! You can find all kinds of toy crocodiles online, but here’s my favorite. He’s red, just like Crosley!

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One of the most important components of the adventures Crosley and John go on in these books is the Far Out Flying Machine. While a Night Buddies-specific version is yet to be created, you can find all sorts of toy blimps out there, and most of them even fly! This is a great site with many different options, ranging from $13 to $250.

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And last but not least, the thing no Night Buddies fan can go without, you’ll want to get include in your gift a set of Whatchamacallits. I’d recommend getting a toy tool belt (this is a handy, cheap, and stylish one), and filling it with whatchamacallits that make easy DIY projects! I have a blog post explaining how best to make some of Crosley’s favorites and most-used whatchamacallits here.

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And that gives you a pretty complete gift, filled with Night Buddies fun! Be sure to let me know and send me pictures via Facebook or Twitter (@Night_Buddies) if you choose to give a Night Buddies gift to your child this holiday season!

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Top 5 Books to Buy Your Children This Holiday Season

Chances are, your kids’ Christmas/holiday gift lists consist of toys and technology (iPads seem to be one of the biggest hits), but what about putting a relatively cheap, simple, and thoughtful gift under the tree that your children can cherish their entire lives? Giving books as presents will help your kids to see books as fun rather than as associated with boring schoolwork, and the stories they fall in love with at young ages can turn them into lifelong readers. The trick to all of this is just picking the right book! Here are my top 5 favorite children’s books that will make wonderful stocking stuffers this season!

The Adventures of Beekle: The Unimaginary Friend, by Dan Santat. This children’s book is for younger readers (it features illustrations, but is broken up into chapters), and it made the American Library Association’s list of Notable Books for 2015! The short description is as follows: “In four delightful chapters, Beekle, an imaginary friend, undergoes an emotional journey looking for his human. Vibrant illustrations add to the fun.” Definitely a fun story that will stick with your children throughout their lives…and it’s a fun one to read together with your kids as well.

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Beautiful Moon…A Child’s Prayer, by Tanya Bolden. This is a great one for the holiday season when you’re trying to teach your kids about gratitude and helping others. It follows the prayers of a boy thinking about the homeless, the hungry, those at war, and his family in a beautiful, touching way that is still accessible to children. It is another on the American Library Association’s List of Notable Books for 2015, and I’d say it’s placement is well earned!

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The Boys Book of Survival (How to Survive Anything, Anywhere), by Guy Campbell. This one is a sillier book for a bit older children, ages 8-12. The Amazon summary says, “Lost in the desert? Stuck in quicksand? Confronted by a man-eating tiger? Trapped at a school dance? Fear not, brave reader! With this essential survival guide, you’ll find a way to get yourself out of every imaginable predicament, whether it’s an avalanche or a zombie invasion!” It’s a fun, easy read that kids don’t have to devour all at once—the perfect gift for guys and girls looking for a fun, mostly practical, and interesting read.

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The Chocolate Touch, by Margot Apple. This book is a spin-off of the classic King Midas and the Golden Touch story, but features a greedy chocolate lover who might end up finally tiring of his favorite food. It’s silly, it’s cute, and it’s a fun read. Plus, I’m always a fan of spin-off books—let’s keep those old classic tales alive!

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And of course, I can’t help but recommend the Night Buddies series! These books are easy enough reads that any child can find themselves getting sucked into the stories, but feature a broad enough vocabulary and interesting slang that will help them become better readers. I always incorporate a theme of friendship and teamwork into each book, which make them great reads for the holiday season!

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Were you ever given a book as a gift? Let me know in the comments!

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