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.

+ + +

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.

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

Your child swearing is funny and cute when it starts. 

When your 4-year-old repeats an errant “What the hell?” or “Holy crap!” in the perfect context, it is hard not to laugh. Even funnier — a full-blown “f-bomb” in front of other kids at the playground or daycare.

I’m joking.

But, come on, it’s adorable. 

Until it isn’t. 

I am beginning to pass the discretionary line of cute-to-cringy when it comes to curse words being used by my elementary schoolers right now. And I’m unsure how to handle it. 

My two youngest children, ages 7 and 10, are not really swearing. They are just “soft swearing.” Using words like “crap,” “pissed,” “BS,” “shh,” and “freaking.” Their usage of these marginal curse words started with a few fleeting, innocent uses to emphasize a feeling. Now, they are thrown around casually and far too frequently for my tastes. During a recent week at church summer camp, my daughter was reprimanded for yelling “Oh, my God” to exude excitement.    

Who is to blame for the swearing tendencies in my youngest kids? I want to mostly blame my teens for gradually getting loose with their cursing around their younger siblings, but, honestly, I am also to blame. I am far too frequently using an “f-bomb” or “BS” to illustrate emphatic points. 

My rules for my child swearing

Should I be concerned with my kids using foul language?

Can/should rules be black and white about children cursing and using bad words?

Should similar rules apply to their parents?

Denying your child is swearing, or ever will, is crazy. So, from that reality, I believe there to be three versions of kid-cursing:

1. Swears I choose to allow (or not allow) in my house.
2. Words not permissible to use in the presence of other adults.
3. Foul language used socially with friends, teammates and/or classmates. 

Each, I gather, requires different rules from me. And, if I can be clear about those differences with my kids, my innate hypocrisy is covered. They will, no doubt, try to call me out when they slip up in using a word they have been able to use at soccer games, but not around their grandparents.

The first two versions – about a child swearing in the house and in front of other adults – are easy to manage. To me, kids routinely cursing to make a point before the college years is a no-no. While not judging other houses for letting kids throw down an “MF’er” during a heated conversation, I would prefer my kids to get into the practice of emphasizing points without swearing. The words my kids use reflect the way I speak – which, too often for me, involves colorful language I should have left out. I especially need to watch my mouth as I interact with my friends in front of my kids more. Our adult-to-adult conversations can get gnarly. All that said, to me, my children should not be swearing to or in the presence of adults, in my house or outside.

Teaching kids about cursing that happens around them socially, with their friends or at school, is much more difficult.

Over the past year, I’ve heard children at my kids’ elementary school use every bad word in the book – from those I’d consider marginal to the soap-in-your-mouth ones. My kids have watched in horror when I’ve called these potty-mouthed kids out: “Hey, watch your mouth around the school!” I find younger kids to quickly apologize for their lapse in linguistic judgment. Teens, meanwhile, flash a condescending-but-mildly-embarrassed type of look in my direction before quickly scurrying off. 

Cursing in the heat of competition

When the competitive juices are flowing on the fields of play, holding kids accountable for using foul language is much tougher. If you have a teenager, they are either talking or taking “trash” consistently – on the field, court, track, backstage, everywhere. 

I attempt to hold the line in teaching my kids to take the high road using clean language. However, certain times require some escalated, even bad, words.  Disciplining a kid for swearing during competition is far more subjective. 

If a “sh*t” comes out as a natural reaction after my son makes a bone-headed turnover, so be it. There just cannot be a rule here. Kids must learn through experience or, in this case, by making mistakes in the presence of adults whose definition of appropriate times to swear is different than mine. 

And that’s what makes this issue drip with variability. Every parent not only handles their child cursing differently, but the treatment of each instance also varies wildly by context, not just the time and place but the child’s age and level of vulgarity. For example, some parents are okay with the “s” word, but the “f” word is worthy of punishment.

This stuff is hard. 

We’re all in this together, I guess. I find comfort in the shared hypocrisy of my scolding our 15-year-old for swearing from the passenger seat when a car rolls through a stop sign in front of us while I laugh at our toddler who repeats the same curse from his car seat a few moments later.     

The are no swearing rules, after all. 

So, f*ck it. I’ll do the best that I can.  

Child swearing photo: © nicoletaionescu / Adobe Stock.

February is Black History Month, the perfect time to add to your kids’ knowledge about the contributions and experiences of Black Americans through some great children’s books. You might even learn a few things in the process.

Here are some recommendations for those with pre-schoolers to tweens:

Henry’s Freedom Box: A True Story from the Underground Railroad may have only been published in 2007, but it is already considered a classic. The tale, about a young slave boy who gains freedom by mailing himself in a crate to Philadelphia, has won numerous awards and praise. Its words, by Elaine Levine, and illustrations, by Coretta Scott King Award-winning artist Kadir Nelson, pack an emotional punch. It introduces young children to the cruelty and hardships of slavery without causing bedtime nightmares. (For ages 4 through 9.)

We’ve been big fans of prolific best-selling author Brad Metzler for years. His “Ordinary People Change The World” series of inspiring and fun biographies, while not focused on Black History Month subjects, offers several children’s books that are perfect to share this February or any time of the year. These are I Am Jackie Robinson, I Am Rosa Parks, I Am Martin Luther King Jr., I Am Harriet Tubman, I Am Oprah Winfrey, I Am Muhammad Ali and I Am John Lewis. (For ages 5 through 8.)

Like Metzler’s books, the “A Biography Book for New Readers” series aims to introduce children to inspiring people. Several volumes in this 40-plus book series focus on Black Americans. Yes, you’ll find long-revered civil rights figures such as King, Underground Railroad “conductor” Harriett Tubman and school integration pioneer Ruby Bridges. However, you’ll also find more contemporary heroes such as gymnast Simone Biles, ballerina Misty Copeland, singer Ella Fitzgerald and NASA scientist Katherine Johnson. (For ages 6 through 9.)

So Tall Within: Sojourner Truth’s Long Walk Toward Freedom may be classified as a “picture book” but its beautiful art by painter/illustrator Daniel Minter and lyrical words by Newbery-winning author Gary D. Schmidt will inspire you and your child. It tells the story of Truth, born into slavery to later be freed and become an important fighter not only for abolition and the rights of Black Americans but also for women’s rights. (For ages 4 through 8.)

The 1619 Project: Born on the Water uses the framing of a school assignment about tracing one’s family roots to go back in time to show African life before enslavers robbed people of their freedom. Co-authors Nikole Hannah-Jones, the journalist who wrote the Pulitzer Prize-winning Black history articles for The New York Times Magazine that inform this tale, and Newbery honor-winning author Renée Watson take readers through the generational struggles against slavery, for civil rights and finally, for respect and justice. (For ages 7 through 10)

A two-day massacre in Tulsa, Okla., in 1921 destroyed one of the wealthiest Black communities in the United States. But this horrific episode garnered little notice in history until the late 20th century.

Unspeakable: The Tulsa Race Massacre may be a short picture book but it is powerful. Using verse, authors Carole Boston Weatherford and Floyd Cooper expose readers to a Black community filled with pride taken down in terrifying tragedy. Their 2021 work won many accolades and honors including the 2022 Coretta Scott King Book Awards for Author and Illustrator. (Ages 8 through 12.)

With our pandemic world finally moving toward a post-pandemic one, Barnard Center for Toddler Development Director Dr. Tovah P. Klein says it’s the perfect time for parents of young children to make needed changes in their children’s lives, such as reducing screen time.

“Children will be fine on a new routines. Any time you switch routines is a great time to say, ‘New rule,'” she says on the latest episode of The Modern Dads Podcast, themed as “What Toddlers Need Now.” While this change may meet some initial resistance, she notes how adaptive children and parents can be, with the pandemic shift in how we learn and live being perfect examples.

Klein, who wrote the parenting classic How Toddlers Thrive, talks about what our children have gained during these difficult times, dispels the theory of “learning loss” during the pandemic, and offers help on how we can thoughtfully help our kids return to camp and school with minimal separation issues.

+ Listen to ‘What Toddlers Need Now’ podcast +

Klein, who is also an adjunct associate professor at Barnard, teaches a year-long course on toddler development there. Her work focuses on young children’s social and emotional development, parental influences on early development, and parents’ experiences raising young children, including the challenges of combining work and family.

Dr. Klein served as a developmental advisor for Sesame Street and HBO films for children. She is on the advisory boards for Room to Grow, Ubuntu Education Fund, Rwanda Educational Assistance Project, LearnNow.org and Children’s Museum of Manhattan. She appears regularly on Good Morning America and her advice has appeared in The New York Times, Redbook, Parents, Slate.com, Huffington Post and countless other social media and print publications.

In her 2014 book, How Toddlers Thrive, Klein distills decades of research and experience with parents and children ages 2 to5 into a book that gives you the tools to easily navigate everyday challenges and struggles, have fewer battles and enjoy your interactions with your child and the toddler years more by seeing the world through your young child’s eyes.

A former clinical fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital with a doctorate in psychology from Duke University, Klein previously appeared on The Modern Dads Podcast in 2014.

Back-to-school tips: we need them now more than ever, right?

COVID-19 concerns. Distance learning struggles. Hybrid-learning model hiccups. Screen time worries. Balancing working from home with a child schooling from home. It all adds up to more pressure on you and your family.

To help with some of these issues you may be encountering, City Dads Group has been working with longtime partner Dove Men+Care to create a series of “how to” videos to deal with various parenting issues. The videos are all part of the grooming products company’s 2020 “Dads Care” campaign.

Here’s some back-to-school tips you may find helpful — or at least entertaining — so your child and you can have a good time while learning during this new normal.

Reading is vital to learning. However, with electronic distractions and pandemic worries all around it can be difficult to get your children focused and into a reading routine especially at back-to-school time. Drew Bennett of our Boston Dads Group explains how he helped his kids become voracious lovers of the written word:

James Lopez of our NYC Dads Group demonstrates the fun way he has been helping his young son learn his numbers, thanks to a positive attitude and some colorful chalk:

Beating stress during back-to-school time is as important for your kids as it is for you. In this video, Devon Bandison of our NYC Dads Group helps you and your child learn how to meditate:

Healthy body, healthy mind, as they say. So while school work is important, don’t forget to let your child get away from the books from time to time to go outside for some fun and physical activity. Jason Greene of our NYC Dads Group offers some helpful tips:

Education shouldn’t be all facts and figures. For younger children especially, arts and crafts can provide fun while learning about colors, shapes, textures and much more. Graphic designer Brent Almond of our Baltimore Dads Group teach you how to get crafty with your children:

Back-to-school tips photo: © Evgeniy Kalinovskiy  / Adobe Stock.

My two oldest kids didn’t have kindergarten graduation but I’ve noticed it’s that time of year again and several schools around us are doing so. This curious ceremony has eluded me my entire life. So what exactly goes on at a kindergarten graduation?

Are there actual caps and gowns? Or just kids wandering around wearing ball caps and dresses?

Do the kids write things atop their graduation hats like high school and college graduates do? Things like, “The real world starts now,” “Party time!” or “NAPS ARE DEAD TO ME!”

Is there a valedictorian? Is this the one specific 5-year-old who mastered the “word wall”? Or is it the kid who can do two-digit addition in her head? Did this child write an admission letter and get scholarship money to attend the elementary school of his dreams? Or is he or she going on a dodgeball or freeze tag scholarship?

Is there a commencement speaker? Somebody who can speak about what life is like after kindergarten. Someone who’s been out of kindergarten and into the real world for a while. Maybe a really mature third-grader can talk about mind-blowing things, like learning cursive!

After the ceremony do all the kids hug and cry because they feel they will never see one another again … until summer vacation is over?

This is the kind of stuff that keeps me up at night. I’m not joking.

Since my kids didn’t get a kindergarten graduation I guess they’ll have to wait until the end of fifth grade (gasp!) for them to go through a graduation ceremony.

A version of this first appeared on Indy’s Child. Photo by USAG Yongsan on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-SA

Over the summer we received a letter from my future kindergartner’s school saying ALL kindergartener would be using iPads as part of the regular school day. These “device days” would take place throughout the school year and kids would be encouraged to bring their own tablet from home. They even had an acronym for it: BYOD – Bring Your Own Device.

My acronym for BYOD was WTF, but I calmed down a bit and settled on OMG.

Why would my kindergartner need to take an iPad to school? All I see her use it for at home is watching YouTube videos of other people opening toys (the pros call it unboxing … have you seen this nonsense?) or watching other kids and creepy adults act out scenes with Barbie dolls. To say I was skeptical with the whole BYOD thing would be a definite understatement.

Just last year my son was a kindergartener at the very same school. There was no talk of device days. There was no need for kids to take devices to school. They sounded out letters together as a class, they looked through books together, they learned just like every other kid on the damn planet has learned to read since the beginning of time … all without the help of an iPad.

I emailed the principal and told her I didn’t think my daughter needed screens every day and I sure as hell didn’t think my daughter needed to bring an iPad to school every day. She understood my frustration. She also informed me, “This was the direction the district was taking.” I could tell this wasn’t the first time she’d had to use that line with a parent.

She gave me a bit of hope that this was something that would be beneficial for the kids. And, at the end of the day, I guess it doesn’t really matter what I think about it. If helps my kid learn then that’s what’s most important.

At the beginning of the school year, the administration sent a reassurance letter to parents talking about when devices would be used, what they would be used for (and not used for), etc. We were given printouts of apps we could download, apps they would be using in the classroom, usernames, and passwords for these apps.

Usernames and passwords. Ugh. It kind of felt like they were turning my 5-year-old into an adult. Man, do I fear for the future of a generation that has to start memorizing usernames and passwords at the age of 5.

But, I must say, after only a month into the school year, her reading has improved tremendously. We still work with her at home quite bit, the old-fashioned way, using books. (Books are things that have covers, spines and pages you touch. They also don’t have to be plugged in or charged ahead of time.)

Apps may not be my favorite learn-to-read method, but my daughter is really excited about them. Our kids receive screen time on the weekends at home and recently our daughter has asked to use her reading apps on the weekends instead of watching those toy videos on YouTube. So I guess that’s a bonus.

Overall, my feelings about devices are pretty mixed. On one hand, it’s working. I should be happy about it. But on the other hand, there didn’t seem to be anything wrong with the old way either. I guess it’s just the start of me, now that I’m 40, being an old curmudgeon that talks about the “good ol’ days”.

Next, I’ll start talking about the days of having to look up books. In the library. Using a card catalog.

Anyway, I suppose that’s another post for another time.

A version of this first appeared on Indy’s Child.

To Whom It May Concern At My Son’s Middle School:

If you do not find my son’s name on your sixth-grade class list, it’s not for lack of trying. I attempted to register him at least two and a half times. And in two languages.

When the forms arrived in our mail this spring, I diligently verified the home address and phone numbers printed on them as instructed. They were correct. According to the phone book. That’s where I needed to check since I received the forms for someone else’s boy at a different school.

In all fairness, the school also sent me a form with the right information for my son. It was in Spanish. But that’s why we have Google Translate.

In May, I brought the requisite multiple forms of proof of residency and my sworn allegiance to the Common Core Standards to school registration day. However, I was turned away because I didn’t have his doctor-approved physical exam and immunization records yet.

“But the insurance company wouldn’t let me schedule his checkup until August,” I told the school nurse, who quickly gave me a copy of August dates when I could register him at city hall. Only two dates listed weren’t when our family was on vacation.

Months passed. The physical came and went well, outside of the pediatrician’s reminder to my son that “you don’t have to like vegetables, you just have to eat them.” On the appointed day I drove to city hall with his medical records, bilingual contact form and necessary DNA cheek swabs.

But not my driver’s license. I realized this halfway there.

After a vaguely legal U-turn and another 20 minutes, I arrived at a school registration traffic jam inside the government center lobby. It contained one set of frustrated people waiting to register their incoming kindergartners and a second, unaffiliated set of frustrated people wanting to get upstairs to testify before the zoning board against a local development plan. The air felt thick with enough negative energy to resurrect the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from “Ghostbusters.”

At risk of strangulation from those vacantly staring parents waiting for the number on their index cards to be called, I sidled up to a table and asked what I should do.

“Oh, middle school? Just give me your child’s medical information and someone will call you tomorrow,” the worker said.

“You don’t need my driver’s license? Property tax bill? I can quickly acquire blood samples, too.”

Nope, just the medical forms, she said.

I left, confused but relieved. A day passed, and then most of another before my cell phone rang.

Could I bring all the necessary ID forms to city hall tomorrow? “But we’re leaving for vacation early tomorrow. We’re not back until the day before school starts,” I said.

After nixing other options (“No, my wife can’t bring them. She is going on vacation with us, too. So is our dog.”), the official said my sister could submit the paperwork provided she brought a copy of my driver’s license. I felt confident about this because my sister is reliable. She also took enough college Spanish to translate my son’s forms.

Not to my surprise, while partaking in a late afternoon gimlet upon the beach house deck, my sister called my cell phone to say the person she turned the school registration forms into now couldn’t find any of my son’s medical information. At least the burning acid sensation rising up my gullet had a nice limey edge.

So, dear middle school officials, that’s why my son may not be on your list. However, if you don’t find him on the premises at all, he probably just took the wrong bus and instead ended up at one of the local high schools. His sister already set that precedent a few years ago.

A version of this first appeared on Always Home and Uncool.