Fathers in Central Florida, listen up! The Orlando Dads Podcast is just for you.

The co-organizers of the Orlando Dads Group, one of the most active of the more than 40 City Dads Groups in North America, recently debuted a podcast. The show will feature talks from parenting experts on various subjects. The hosts will also discuss fatherhood, give tips, swap fatherhood stories and talk about some of the many family-friendly activities in the greater Orlando area.

The show will be hosted by the Orlando Dads Group’s three co-organizers: Nick Izzi, Flor Mercado and Nate Watson. It will be available on popular podcasting services:

• Apple
• Amazon
• iHeart
• Spotify

A video version is also available on the Orlando Dads YouTube channel.

The first episode of the Orlando Dads Podcast went live on Sept. 15. It kicks off with highlights from one of the group’s recent parenting webinars. This one features Jason Johnson, a parenting coach, who breaks down the different “types” of fathers. He also talks about different types and uses of therapy for children and parents, and the importance of recharging one’s own batteries to be a better parent. The three hosts then chat for a while, sharing their experiences of the recent Kids and Family Expo 2024 and funny stories about our kids.

Future episodes are to be posted monthly. They will feature talks with experts and discussions among regular dads about moving past trauma, building community among fathers, and sharing the trials, tribulations, joys and heartbreaks of parenting,

Below is a 12-minute preview of the podcast series in which you meet and learn about the hosts, their City Dads chapter and what’s in store:

This blog post is part of the #NoDadAlone campaign. Fathering Together/City Dads Group, the National At-Home Dad Network, and Fathers Eve are joining forces to amplify messages that help dads recognize we are not alone! Follow #NoDadAlone on Instagram, and learn more at NoDadAlone.com.

Starting school was difficult for our family last year. Every morning for the first month my son Jake would seemingly break down when he got to the classroom, begging me not to leave. It broke my heart.

His teachers finally approached me and suggested he might do better if he had a consistent school-morning routine. At the time, we didn’t have one. Getting him ready for school was chaotic. So I developed a plan. He would wake up and go potty then have breakfast, get dressed and watch TV for a bit while we waited to walk out the door. Surely it would work.

It did for a while. Soon it turned back into chaos. Unfortunately, as a person with Tourette syndrome, I easily get frustrated. When facing an unexpected challenge, I can go from peaceful to rage in 2.4 seconds. And as always, frustration at home translated to a hard day at school for my son. I worried.

Finally, my wife reminded me of the unique connection I share with my son. We feed off each other’s moods. If I push, he pushes harder. If I were to loosen up and not be so rigid with his school morning routine, things might change for the better. Remain firm, yet flexible.

She was right. When I loosened the reins I found mornings became easier. When my son insisted on watching TV instead of getting dressed and having breakfast, I struck a bargain with him. Instead of forcing him into his room to get dressed before TV time, he could watch TV if he cooperates and gets dressed at the same time.

It also helped me to enter the school morning routine aware that he is not even yet 4 years old. It’s his job to push my buttons and I have to make sure he doesn’t get me riled up. His day at school depends on mornings with me being calm and peaceful. Now I know. And knowing is half the battle.

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This blog post is part of the #NoDadAlone campaign. Fathering Together/City Dads Group, the National At-Home Dad Network, and Fathers Eve are joining forces to amplify messages that help dads recognize we are not alone! Follow #NoDadAlone on Instagram, and learn more at NoDadAlone.com.

Photo: © Sidekick / Adobe Stock. This post first appeared on the NYC Dads Group blog in 2014.

The end of summer vacation is looming for us parents and our kids. And, as the start of the school year draws closer, I have begun my annual tradition: the daily nagging of my children to complete the summer homework mandated by their schools. 

I am sure that I am annoying them.

And, of course, they are annoying me. 

Their procrastination and “ho-hum” attitude when thinking about picking up their books and laptops again is driving me nuts. Just as it does every summer. 

To help quell some of the household friction resulting from the impending assignments – from my 8-year-old reading a book and drawing a picture of the setting, to my 10-year-old’s storyboard of a book he’s read, to my high schoolers having two 300-page books each to read in the next 10 days – I started to devise a schedule to get the work completed by the first week of school. 

As I worked on this, I realized why my kids don’t care about this mandated summer school work. This feels like A LOT of work for little (or no) return. For both of us.

I cannot blame them. Most of their friends don’t bother with it. Why? Because they’ve never had a teacher ask them to turn in their summer homework. The simple nature of this work indicates its lack of importance.

From my teenagers’ point of view, we are the only parents who give a crap about completing summer homework. While I’ll discount their claim of being the “only kids that have to do this,” their lethargy has been taught by past years of little or no value credit given by teachers for students who had completed their summer assignments by the first day of class. If there’s no reward for the work, why do it? 

Summer homework or busy work?

For my younger kids, they see the “read a book and draw a picture” nature of their summer homework assignments and laugh at their simplicity. They feel intellectually patronized by a garbage assignment that wastes their time. Unlike my teens, though, their friends are participating (and complaining about the same BS work being asked). 

What do parents do? 

Do we stand with the schools and demand our kids complete the remedial work they have been assigned? 

Do we ignore these inconsequential assignments that only seem to increase our household tension over these next few weeks? 

I have decided to do the latter. 

There will be no more laying out study schedules. No more checking daily reading logs. No more demanding that my teens prove they have been reading through selfies sent during my working hours. And, mercifully, no more watching my kids scramble at the last minute to complete an assignment that has awarded them little more than a pat on the head. 

Enough. 

Drawing the line on summer reading assignments

It is time, I think, to stop the practice of piling homework on kids during the few months of the year they have time to decompress. Summer homework is not only meaningless, but it also unnecessarily cuts into a remarkedly short few months away from the classroom. 

What is wrong with kids (and parents) just chilling out?

Nothing.

Will reading that book and drawing its setting help my rising third grader springboard into a new school year?

No. 

Is summer homework a function of needy parents who need the credibility associated with “your school requires this” behind them to get their kids off their phones?

I think so.

Unlike past years, my kids’ summer school work will not be done when they charge into their next classroom in a few weeks.

Maybe that puts them a bit behind but maybe it doesn’t. 

No matter, it ensures that I will be spending the next few weeks helping them enjoy their fleeting freedom instead of annoying them with the structure that can certainly wait until the attendance bell rings. 

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This blog post is part of the #NoDadAlone campaign. Fathering Together/City Dads Group, the National At-Home Dad Network, and Fathers Eve are joining forces to amplify messages that help dads recognize we are not alone! Follow #NoDadAlone on Instagram, and learn more at NoDadAlone.com.

Photo by Oleksandr P via Pexels.

Science and religion are on a collision course in my household.

Religion. Science. Are they independent or intertwined? How exactly do you explain the confluence of the two subjects to three children under age 6, especially when they’re the ones who bring it up?

Naturally, I explained the evolution/creation issue as well as I could, thoroughly confusing my kids in the process. The screenplay goes thusly:

Scene: A father and his three kids are driving to a park in a late-model SUV

SIX-YEAR-OLD: Hey Dad, I have a question. Who were the first people?

DAD: Well, that’s a good question, babe. So, if you read the Bible, it says that the first two people were a man named Adam and a woman named Eve. God made them first.

But, if you talk to a scientist, he or she might tell you that the first people came from monkeys. That’s known as evolution.

FOUR-YEAR-OLD: Wait. Monkeys are people?!

DAD: No, but long, long, long ago, monkeys started to kind of change into people.

FOUR-YEAR-OLD: So when I was born I was a monkey?! Cool!

SIX-YEAR-OLD: Ugh. You were never a monkey.

FOUR-YEAR-OLD: Dad just said …

DAD: Well, bud, that’s not exactly what I said. See, with evolution there’s this thing called genetic mutation and it takes years and years and years to happen …

FOUR-YEAR-OLD: [Confidently] The sun is old.

DAD: Yes, the sun is old. So, kind of like as many years old as the sun. It takes thousands and thousands and millions of years. Imagine if a monkey had a baby and that baby had a baby and that baby had a baby…after that happens for years and years, monkeys could become people.

Now, some people say that just the Bible is right and others say that just science is right about evolution.

SIX-YEAR-OLD: I think it’s probably the Bible. Right, Dad?

DAD: Well, what if they’re both right? The Bible says God took six days to make the Earth. But who knows how long a day in God’s mind is? I don’t. And I can’t act like I have a clue about that. Maybe a day for God is like a day for us. Or maybe a day for God is like a million years for us. I have no idea. But I think it’s possible that God set in motion the science that made monkeys become people over a very long period of time.

SIX-YEAR-OLD: [Semi-satisfied grunt of approval.]

FOUR-YEAR-OLD: Hmm … [10 seconds pass by] … Yeah, but why doesn’t Curious George have a tail?

DAD: I think we’ve had enough hard truths for one day. I’ll explain how PBS and the publishing industry lie to you another time.

About the author

Matt Norman, an at-home dad of three, is a former organizer of our Austin Dads Group chapter. A version of “Debating Evolution, Creation” first appeared on his blog, And So It Has Come To This, and then here in 2018.

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This blog post is part of the #NoDadAlone campaign. Fathering Together/City Dads Group, the National At-Home Dad Network, and Fathers Eve are joining forces to amplify messages that help dads recognize we are not alone! Follow #NoDadAlone on Instagram, and learn more at NoDadAlone.com.

Photo by Lewis Roberts on Unsplash

My son’s impending entry into kindergarten this fall is causing problems in my life. Not the least of which will be his eventual ability to read the channel guide as I try to quickly scroll past the names of his garbage programs.

I need to make all sorts of schedules now. Schedules mean planning, and I don’t like planning. I’m supposed to know what I’m doing six months in advance? I don’t even know what I did two days ago, and that was two days! Ago! (I went on a bar crawl, so what did you expect? I’m surprised I’m awake right now.)

But I’m a parent. Of a soon-to-be kindergartener. Planning has become an unavoidable part of my life. I mean, it’s even part of “planning” an escape.

It’s like I’m being mocked.

Unfortunately, planning and scheduling and budgeting are a major part of being a parent. It’s totally lame. But planning is what separates man from the animals. It’s what makes you an adult. It’s when you are forced to constantly look ahead and consider the future. And not just the future of your own life, but the future of other people’s lives. Endless potential trajectories require countless contingencies. Once you start factoring other people into your life, it becomes a logistical nightmare – times infinity when you have kids!

I have enough stress without having to try to predict it.

His schedule is my schedule — ripoff!

Over-planned parenthood is your everyday reality when you become a parent. In the early years, it was not such a big deal. When your kids aren’t yet in school, they don’t have tons of extracurricular activities unless you count doctor’s visits and the occasional play date. They are still pretty easy, relatively speaking. That changes fast.

So right now, let’s focus on the most important thing: vacation!

We won’t find out what school he’ll be attending for another few weeks, but already we’re faced with planning our summer and our fall. We want to go somewhere, but since the kid will be in the real deal school system in September, we are beholden to that system’s calendar. This means planning is a lot more difficult. It’s no longer about getting time off of work; it’s also about making sure the kid doesn’t miss learning about consonants and vowels or whatever the hell goes on in kindergarten these days.

(He’s been in preschool since the past September but that hardly counts; we’ve never worried about pulling him out of preschool if need be. But kindergarten is the real deal. Kindergarten is important. Kindergarten has a German name! You don’t fuck with kindergarten.)

It’s also about making sure we don’t get screwed.

Kindergarten has an actual schedule to adhere to so we have to take our vacations at the same time as everyone else. If we don’t book something now (read: two months ago), we’ll be paying through the nose for the world’s last remaining hotel room. Which means we have to plan ahead. By the time we’re done, I’m going to need a vacation just from planning my vacation.

I certainly never planned for this! I just wanted the tax break.

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A version of this first appeared on Dad and Buried.

This blog post is part of the #NoDadAlone campaign. Fathering Together/City Dads Group, the National At-Home Dad Network, and Fathers Eve are joining forces to amplify messages that help dads recognize we are not alone! Follow #NoDadAlone on Instagram, and learn more at NoDadAlone.com.

“Ohhhh, turn it up! It’s Graduation Week!”

That was my message to my 4-year-old who was about to finish pre-kindergarten and to my 10-year-old who was graduating 5th grade. Yup, two in the same week!

Graduation Day will make any dad proud and, since my dad never made it to any of my graduations, it means even more to me. My dad never made it because he had to work. How many other parents are in that same situation? I understand some people can’t make it, but if you can make up for a lost day of wages and still choose your work or other things over an hour or two of showing love — that’s no bueno.

Kids can only graduate from a grade once, so missing it when you could be there is lame. It’s a proud moment that doesn’t happen every week, and you should never miss an event at which your child is the star. Pictures of this special day are cool, but being there is priceless.

Have fun with graduation

Graduation is supposed to be for the kids, but you know dads like me still have to have our own fun with it. We wake up every day and make sure our kids get to school, so we deserve this day as much as they do.

I found a deal for $5 “big heads” on Groupon and jumped on the opportunity. It was a simple and cheap process that brought us tons of fun and memories.

The look on my kids’ faces when they saw themselves as huge cardboard heads was insane. All their friends and parents smiled while asking where we got them from.

I’m a sucker for making my kids feel like stars and making sure I had fun with it helped big time.

Take lots of photos

We have all encountered rude parents who block your view and photo ops at graduation. Often they are so excited they don’t even know they are doing it. It is what it is.

If you have to get in someone’s way to take pics of your kids, do so but don’t be rude. Don’t just barrel people over. Think about what you are doing.

Whenever my kids got called for an award or even their diploma, I weaved my way to the front to take a picture. If you’re a little shy like me, you do need to get over it. If you don’t, you will end up with some wack photos.

I abide by the rule of asking for forgiveness later, not asking for permission to capture the moment. however, always make sure you don’t mess it up for someone else. Get out of the way once you have your shot.

In conclusion, graduations are special for everyone involved. Childhood goes by way too fast and you never get a replay of moments like these. Do all you can to be there, take dope pictures and have fun. You will thank yourself when you see how proud your kids are and the smiles on their faces when you hug them. That feeling is the best.

A version of this first appeared on Cool4Dads. It first ran here in 2019 and has since been updated. Photos: James Lopez family.

A teachable moment for children doesn’t always come along on the drive to school. However, emergencies present themselves when you least expect them. It’s how I taught my kids about getting help by calling 911.

It was a good morning. We had plenty of time to get to school. We were about six blocks away and then … I drove by a man, sitting in the street, a hysterical woman by his side.

I looked at the time and pulled over. I turned on my hazards and walked over to the man. He had just been hit by a car, and the woman was the driver. I assessed the situation, asked him several important questions before I called 911.

The man was in good spirits even though I think his arm was broken. The driver, on the other hand, was having a full-on panic attack. She had gone back into her car, and I tried to comfort her while having her teenage daughter, who had been in her car with her, stand guard to make sure the man didn’t fall or get hit by another car.

Soon a fire engine arrived and I told the crew that it should send someone to look at the driver since she was in pretty bad shape. I wished the man good luck and headed off to school.

I told my kids what I did, and that the man was OK and safe now. The underlying lesson was this: If someone needs your help and you can provide that help, you should.

And then I explained to them what 911 is and how it works.

And we still got to school before the doors closed.

When should your child call 911?

Teach your child to call 911 when police, fire and/or medical personnel are needed quickly because of an emergency or immediate danger or threat. Remember that it is always “9-1-1” not “9-11” so younger children unfamiliar with making calls don’t look for an 11 button.

Your child should call 911 in case of emergencies, such as:

• a fire that’s out of control
• a crime, such as a break-in, mugging or shooting
• a serious car accident
• someone is seriously hurt, bleeding or unconscious
• someone choking or having trouble breathing

Reassure your children that the 911 operator and emergency personnel he or she sends are the “good guys.” They are trained to ask important questions and gather information as well as calm, reassure and instruct the caller. Children should try to be cool, clear and concise as possible when talking to them.

Questions 911 will often ask in emergencies

• What is your emergency?
• Where are you calling from (town, county, address, cross streets)?
• Is the victim male or female?
• What is the victim’s age?
• Is the victim breathing?
• Is there any bleeding?
• Is the person responsive (awake/alert) or unconscious?
• What is your phone number? (Needed so 911 can call back if you get disconnected.)

Photo by Ash H via Pexels.

My dad has always been the type to give unique gifts for Christmas. For as long as I can remember, a personalized gift from him would be under the tree for every family member. It was his thing, and he enjoyed everyone’s reaction to what was in their special gift bag.

Last year, he gave me a photo album. He filled it with photos of me when I was a boy and some newspaper clippings of my various academic and athletic achievements during my teenage years. While I had seen most of the pictures, I appreciated having them in one location to look at whenever I felt nostalgic.

One of the photos I’ve always treasured is me on my very first day of school. That picture of a young lad back in 1987 is the only recollection I have of that rainy day. But every time I see it, I’m reminded of how far I’ve come in life and lets me know that time waits for no one. It certainly hasn’t for me.

So nearly 36 years later, I recently came back to that photo again. I came back to it because my son, Emory, was getting ready to start his journey in “big school.” While technically he’s “only” starting Pre-K, he will be in a regular school setting with kids all the way up through eighth grade. And here I was looking at that picture, representing the past and present of life. Things were coming full circle.

This dad journey I’ve been on since 2018 has been filled with an ongoing series of “firsts.” New experiences for both parent and child. That’s one of the really cool things about fatherhood. You get to share these exciting moments with your kids. Many of these bring you back to when you experienced them at their age – like the first day of school.

I have to admit I was probably way more excited than my son was leading up to and on his first day. With that excitement also came nerves and uncertainty. Had we picked the right school? Are the teachers good? Will Emory make friends? I realized that the root of my anxiousness and worry was just the desire I had for him to be able to create memories, make friends, and enjoy the experience of school like I did. While that photo of my first day of school is the only memory I have from that day, I do have other vivid memories of kindergarten. I remember my teacher, my classmates and nap time. I can still visualize the playground at the school.

As a dad, my hope is that I’m doing enough to prepare my kids for what they will face when they head out into the real world. Sure, it can be frustrating at times and you question yourself often, but the reward is seeing your children thrive when they step out from underneath your shadow.

For me, that moment came when I dropped my son off on Day Two of school. I watched him, in all his 4-year-old glory, walk confidently up the steps into his school, not even stopping once to turn back around and look.

It was a picture worth a thousand words.

First day of school photo by Jerry Wang on Unsplash

Kids are back at school soon, and – duh – they all need brain-dead stuff like a backpack, notebooks and pencils. But my kid is special, see. My kid is a snowflake. He’s got pencils, but he needs pizzazz.

So naturally, I’ve compiled a list of the top five things (there are more, dudes, but … attention span) my special little snowflake needs for back-to-school time. Your kid probably doesn’t need them because I’ve seen your kid. He’s OK, but he’s all boogery. I can tell from the look in his eye that he’s not a go-getter. You want a go-getter? Dude, you can’t handle a go-getter if you even hesitated to answer for a fraction of a second. This list isn’t for you, Mr. Mediocre.

My one-of-a-kind bag of awesome isn’t settling for the middle road. So here’s just some of the stuff I’ve got on his back-to-school wish list:

Back-to-School Need 1. Kid Uber / Kid Lyft

Because, bro, I’ve got my own awesome adventures to be on. I can’t be bothered to drive him to school AND pick him up. That’s an EVERY. DAY. THING. if you know me, you know I have a religious exemption from doing the same thing twice a week. My life is exciting, dynamic, Instagrammable and Pinteresting. Now, it’ll be weird for a different person to pick him up every day, but I’ve kicked down a couple of extra credits to make sure they have a sign with his name on it. That way, his school will be all “oh, that’s first-class right there.” S**t, yeah, it is. Thanks for noticing.

Need 2. A Kindergarten Registry

College dorm registries are a thing. And that’s cool, but it’s getting into registering too late in the game. I’ve been pounding pavement this week trying to get retailers to give me a kindergarten registry hub. There, my son can poke around their fine virtual establishments and add items without me standing next to him in a big-box retailer asking “How about THIS backpack? How about THIS one?” And dude, like I want to discuss with my son whether his favorite color this week is red or black or green. And shoes? Get out of here.

I’d rather let the kid just register for his supplies, and let grandma and grandpa take it up with Target and Amazon directly. Since my son can’t technically read, I’m going to have to ask the teacher to make the back-to-school supplies list all pictures. Just use clip art and sight words in Comic Sans if you have to. And email it to him directly, please and thanks.

Back-to-School Need 3. A Completely Digital Ink Education

Look, maybe you want your kids (and spoiler alert, you do) to trudge to yesteryear’s drum writing in notebooks, finger-painting and looking at globes, but not me. Honestly, finger-painting? Your kid comes home with some amateur rendition of a shark (and paint on his shirt) and you’ve got to keep it on the fridge until he comes home with another terrible rendition of something else. Give us all a break. Save it to your Camera Roll and let that be that. No more Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper and 22 Pee-Chee folders rotting away in a backpack. No more pencil lead, crayon wax, paints and markers all over him. My son’s soft, immaculately porcelain skin should not be defiled with such sloppy “art.”

And notebooks? You’re going to make my child write something on a non-indexable, non-searchable, non-categorizable, non-editable sheet of paper? And then what? Go searching for the information later by flipping through pages? Nope. Do you know what’s indexable, searchable and forward-thinking? Tablets. I don’t even care if it’s an iPad or a Microsoft Surface or a Samsung Galaxy Tab. Just give my kid an app into which he can dictate notes, another app for art, and another to see real-time maps of the world with traffic, weather conditions and polar vortex overlays available.

Globes? Are you serious? Don’t waste my time and I won’t waste yours.

Need 4. A Domain

You (and you and you) clearly want your kids to grow up without an identity. Or worse, you want their identity to be mystupidkid2023, because that’s the last email name that’s going to be available when you finally come around. But not my son. Oh, no. I want him domained-up right now. I want school emails going to it. Tuition stuff should be going there. He should be managing his financial and socio-online reputation NOW so that when he’s a teenager, he won’t be worrying about starting from scratch – or worse, from whatever boner legacy I’ve left him. Terrible.

My son needs a domain, a Stackable newsletter, and a few accounts on social platforms, and he needs it now. Your kids are busy doing the hokey-pokey and turning themselves around, and my son’s surging ahead of the pack polishing off his curriculum vitae complete with an email address hailing from his own domain. God, your kids look like rookies. Honestly, it’s embarrassing.

Back-to-School Need 5. Online Major University-Accredited Kindergarten Courses

It’s the first week of being back to school and my son is already over your kids. Like, for real. Their problems are so petty. Joey’s got nut allergies. Jon can’t use scissors. Melinda has a weak bladder. Ugh. It’s s**t like this that slows down the educational process. So let’s step it up here and offer some major university-accredited kindergarten courses.

If my son’s got to learn how to tell time, you’d better believe I want that applied to his hard sciences general education requirements. And ain’t nobody handwriting anymore, so if he’s got to learn how to do it, he’d better be getting his official transfer-ready propers. And look, instead of dealing with Joey, Jon and Melinda, my son would rather just check in with the kindergarten teacher’s office hours once a week and do courses from his home office. Nothing personal. Actually, it is.

Editor’s Note: A version of this first appeared on 8 Bit Dad. Photo: © chas53 / Adobe Stock.

When my niece asked me to help her apply to colleges, I gladly volunteered not knowing the process itself is one of the biggest challenges. Understanding the college application process, I learned, is like looking at one of those funky pictures to test if you’re colorblind. You know a number is hiding somewhere in that dotted thing, but since you can’t see blue or green, it all comes out as splotchy mush.

Grades, extracurriculars, personality, essays — they all have their place in the college admissions crucible. But it’s no longer just about filling out an application and waiting by the mailbox. It’s a code, and those who can crack it have a higher chance of being accepted. Seriously, the process is so convoluted these days that there are actual professionals whose only job is to help you navigate it.

But she’s my niece, and I am awesome. This was a quest, and if a lifetime of playing video games has taught me anything, I rock at quests. If there is a dragon to fight then I’m your guy.

Don’t let your Common App be common

The first thing you realize on this quest is that you are not fighting just one dragon in a dark cave. Instead, there is the one dragon you know about and another 20 lurking in the darkness. If you didn’t swear before, now you will learn how.

Before we begin, a book recommendation: The Price You Pay for College: An Entirely New Road Map for the Biggest Financial Decision Your Family Will Ever Make by Ron Leiber. This is your quest map, and you’ll refer to it often.

Everything starts (kind of) with the Common App. This is the generic application many universities use. But not all of them. Some only use parts of it. Some universities also have their own application process that is separate (or in addition to) the Common App. See, even the beginning is complicated.

There are questions and essays in this app, which brings me back to the only things I remember about my own experience. An essay! I can write an essay! No, you can’t. Your kid has to write the essay. But as dads, we get to help. And in this case, one of my fellow Kansas City Dads Group members had the expertise I was looking for.

Andy Arends has worked in admissions for years. He told me, “The Common App makes it easy to blanket apply to many different colleges, but take the extra step and tweak each application. Relate your lived experience to your academic interest, and then take it one step further. Explain how you will use that college experience to change the world.”

That’s solid advice. Now we begin to get some behind-the-scenes action steps. I love knowing so many dads. This is the power of our community.

“Avoid being vague,” Andy told me. “Stay away from superficial discussions of a college or major. Show deep knowledge or a very specific experience.”

What to look for in a college: good fit, rentention

But there’s more to getting into college than looking good on paper.

One of the best pieces of advice I received from many dads who have been through this, and also from Lieber’s book, is that picking a college is about looking at its overall value. You should consider how will the college fit with your life, not how you fit with theirs.

“You need to start with retention rates,” said another college admissions expert. (Note: Many asked me not to use their names in this article, which you know means they are giving us the good stuff.)

The retention rate is the percentage of a college’s first-time, first-year undergraduate students who return the next year. Retention rate, she said, tells you more about a community and the people who go there than many other factors. It shows the commitment of the student body. The more comfortable you feel, the better your chances of finding your community. For my niece, this was a big factor. She wanted a college where diversity mattered.

Second, several people recommended your child develop a relationship with the college recruiters. Basic networking matters even here. It won’t guarantee that you’ll get into the school of your choice, but it can’t hurt to have your name front and center.

Apply when and to how many colleges?

But still, one of my biggest questions was when to apply.

“Early. The sooner the better,” said another college admissions expert who works for a D1 school. His point: the college application process is competitive. When you apply early, you will have less competition for a limited number of spots.

Also, the earlier you are accepted, the better your chances at getting more financial aid. All the college admissions people I talked to and Lieber’s book backed this up. (Paying for college — that’s a whole other process that seems separate from this rigmarole. That will take a whole other article.) But know that almost no one pays the full sticker price for college. Even the wealthy work the system. But what you can do is play financial offers off each other. At that point, it’s a negotiation.

This means your kid needs to apply to more than one school.

“Reach for two dream schools,” I was told. “Then two you feel confident about, and two that you are sure that you can get into.” This is exactly what my niece did.

Big choices after college application process success

My niece and I followed all that advice throughout the fall semester of her senior year. She wrote an amazing essay. She applied early, sending applications to at least six colleges. And the result was better than we hoped. She got into her dream school.

But now the challenge really starts. She received a full ride to a different school and numerous other generous financial aid packages from others. This is where the fun really starts because, again, it all comes down to the value question.

It’s not only where she will fit in the best and graduate. Now it comes down to how much she wants to invest in that future. Will the degree or program from her dream college give her a leg up in the world, or will it not matter? I can’t answer that question because the value here is her choice. Lieber’s book goes into this a great deal, and here with the college application process over, I still find myself reading those sections over and over.

The biggest truth, though, is that this isn’t my success. I was merely playing the role of Gandalf through this whole thing. This victory belongs to my niece. She put in the work, filled out the applications, and wrote an amazing essay. I was her hype man. At this stage in all of our children’s lives, I feel like that matters as much as anything else. But that doesn’t mean that my heart does swell with pride.

Our next step is to go through the financial side of how to pay for everything. I’ve written about how college costs have skyrocketed. It’s another quest, with more dragons, but I have no doubt my badass niece is up for the challenge. I’ll be her bard when she needs it.

College application process photo: © terovesalainen/ Adobe Stock.