While stuck in typical Los Angeles traffic the other day, I wondered if my kids would ever learn to drive.

Then I thought, “Maybe I should ask, ‘Will my kids ever need to drive?'”

I know several people who never learned to drive and will never need to. In certain cities, such as New York with its extensive mass transportation system, it’s not a big deal. In other cities, such as my Los Angeles, it is absolutely necessary (as the song goes, nobody walks in L.A.). But technology has been advancing at such a rapid pace that in 10 years instead of getting a driver’s license or having a casual conversation with the Uber or Lyft driver, my boys will probably call an automated car through an AI device installed in everyone’s house. If they ever own a car, it will probably be self-driving.

This past summer, a group of us dads spent some time at a friend’s cabin. We all had different technology with us — smartphones, laptops, gaming consoles and more — and it became a game exchanging and playing with new equipment. Then our host said something I find myself thinking about a lot.

“Do you remember who was at your sixth birthday party?” he asked,

I replied, “No way, that was like 40 years ago!”

“Any pictures from any of your birthdays?” he asked.

“A few I suppose.”

He put his virtual reality (VR) goggles on me and said, “This is how our kids are going to remember their birthdays.”

There it was – his 6-year-old daughter’s birthday party in full immersive virtual reality.

What will technology be like in another 40 years, I constantly wonder. What about in another 20 years … even another five?

My kids will have plenty of pictures and videos from their childhood, thanks to our ever-present smartphones. I wonder what their own kids will say about being able to experience, not just hear about, those days and years before they were born. The sheer difference is mind-boggling.

But at what point does technology surpass science fiction and imagination, consuming all our time and focus? Or has that happened already?

Since one of the things I dislike most is driving, I am fascinated by all these new options for getting around. Technology is where dreams can arise from. But it’s also where nightmares can come from. I am both excited and scared for my kids’ future.

Regardless of what comes, I still believe driving a stick shift is a good life skill so I’ll be imparting my old-school ways on them.

I can just hear me now, “In my day …”.

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This blog post, which first ran on our L.A. Dads Group blog in 2017 and has since been updated, 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 Pixabay via Pexels.

One of the ongoing debates among parents is how to regulate a child’s screen time, often with moms, dads and “experts” lending their ideas on what restrictions to set. This gets evermore tricky with the increasing number of available devices (televisions, computers, tablets, cell phones) and their mobility allowing them to be viewed not only at home but almost everywhere at any time.

The American Academy of Pediatrics discourages most screen time for children under age 6 and, after that, it calls for encouraging “healthy habits” that include limits on when and where screens can be used. The problem is, as The Mayo Clinic notes, “As your child grows, a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work as well. You’ll need to decide how much media to let your child use each day and what’s appropriate.”

Clearly, no right or wrong answer exists. Parents must do what they feel is best for their child in a given circumstance. In our house we’ve adopted a perspective that somewhat goes against the norm: We have no restrictions on our children’s screen time.

Our reasons for unlimited screen time

Here are some of the main reasons we use this approach, and some of our personal results:

1. We believe rationing a child’s screen time leads to dependency, even a sort of addiction. Living in a state of constant fear or anxiety that something we enjoy could be taken away often leads to an all-consuming obsession with that thing whenever we have it.
2. We don’t put devices on a pedestal. As they’re constantly and readily available for our children, our kids don’t view devices as anything special. More often than not, our two children will choose to play with toys, color or read a book over using their tablets. Since they’ve grown accustomed to them always being there, there’s never been a need to have them at all times.
3. We don’t allow an entirely free range of use when it comes to devices. Both our children’s tablets are governed by parental controls (they’re Android, and we utilize the Family Link app). We also moderate the content they’re allowed to watch so that anything they might see has already been pre-approved.

Admittedly, this approach hasn’t been entirely without issues. However, in talking to multiple other parents with a more “traditional” approach, I realized our family has had fewer arguments and complaints about devices and those we have had have been much less severe.

This approach has also allowed us to effectively “steer into the skid” in terms of how technology is being used for educational purposes. Our son is in kindergarten and like many kids, his school assigned him an iPad for classwork. Utilizing technology will become more and more prevalent as the years go by, and as parents, we want to make sure we’ve done everything possible to nurture a positive and healthy relationship between our children and their devices.

No restrictions on screen time photo: © Brocreative / Adobe Stock.

Whenever possible, I try to make any family vacation into a family road trip. Typically, the threshold of cost versus time savings I use usually equates to roughly 12 to 14 hours of driving time. Anything longer than that, I look hard into flying or even taking the train. 

I make some exceptions to that rule. For example, my family will be taking a one-week vacation to Myrtle Beach over the summer. The drive itself will be close to 20 hours; however, the cost savings of renting a car and driving from Kansas City rather than flying made me look hard at the possibility of driving. 

We have prepared ourselves for a road trip of this length. We have traveled from Kansas City to Denver which is nine hours and “survived.” Not that having kids in tow didn’t make it difficult at times. Children have unexpected bathroom needs. They get bored looking out the window. They don’t like your choice in music. And they constantly ask, “Are we there yet?”

Whether it’s been one hour or nine, here are some tips that have helped us get by and make the most of the time on the road together. 

Plan your breaks for your family road trip

The first two tips for surviving your family road trip go hand in hand. Before heading out the door, have an idea of where you will be stopping along the way. Plan your big breaks, such as lunch and dinner, along with some of the sites that you want to see before reaching your ultimate destination. This allows you to be able to tell your family how far from a specific stop you are. It can also help avoid many of the small bathroom breaks when you can tell your kids that you will be stopping in 15 or 30 minutes. 

Expect to stop more often than planned

Going into a family road trip with a plan of where to stop is always ideal. However, understand there likely will be unplanned, and often necessary, breaks. Acknowledging this will ease your stress level when it happens. It will also make it easier to accept you won’t beat the original ETA your GPS gave you when you left the house. 

Bring many snacks, drinks

Bringing a cooler of favorite snacks will help your kids survive the family road trip. Make sure to pack some healthy items so they aren’t eating junk food the entire time. Bring your own water bottles and fill them up whenever you do stop to save on the cost of drinks.

As the main driver for many of our trips, I like to sneak a few of my favorites under my seat. Whether it is Australian licorice, a bag of beef jerky or some cracked pepper sunflower seeds, I’m ready when hunger hits.

Forget screen time limits

The family road trip is one time when screen time becomes almost unlimited. It may appear that the motive behind this is only so we aren’t being constantly bothered by a bored child. Yes, it helps the time pass for them but it also helps us as a family stay on the road longer and get to our destination sooner with minimal breaks. 

There is a caveat though. We do make them take breaks every couple of hours from the screens. There is nothing worse than a kid getting car sick from playing video games the entire time on the road. I speak from experience. 

Make a game out of your family road trip

When the kids are not on their screens, play some old-school games on your family road trip. Try “I spy,” which can always be interesting when you are playing with younger kids. Make bingo cards ahead of time with various states so you can play the license plate game. Get creative!

Good headphones for the passengers

When we leave on any family road trip, the one thing we will turn around for is headphones. There is nothing more distracting than hearing one of your kids playing on their Nintendo Switch in the back seat while you are listening to a baseball game or a podcast on the radio. Their electronic devices are a way to keep them occupied but, as the driver, the only thing keeping you entertained is the car radio. Make sure that you can hear it and listen to what you want.

A version of this previous appeared on The Rookie Dad. Photo: ©Yakobchuk Olena / Adobe Stock.

These are the words every father must say at some point in his life. “Don’t worry about your schoolwork. This is more important.”

My 12-year-old puts aside his math and follows me into the living room. I sit on the couch and hand him the second player game controller. He smiles. Game on, bitches.

“OK, Dad. Where are you at?” he asks, a touch of superiority in his voice. I don’t like him to see me in a moment of weakness, and I have to remind myself that there is no shame in showing emotion.

“It’s the cave, son. I can’t get past the cave.”

“On it.” And like that, we jump into one of his video games.

During the quarantine, I have found myself with some extra free time. As a result, I have taken up one of the video games I gave him years ago. Some of you may have heard of it, ARK: Survival Evolved. A ferocious game with dinosaurs, and I think laser weapons. Although I’m not too sure about that last part. I’m pretty low level.

If I could only get past the cave, then maybe I could get some freaking lasers up in here. This is what my goal is while on lockdown. Lasers. I want freaking lasers. We begin to play together. He chaperones me into his world.

“You got to move faster, dad,” he says. Like that’s an easy thing for an old man such as me.

“I’m going fast!”

“Not fast enough.”

My character dies.

‘I am a child of Zelda!’

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

“I know what I’m doing!” Kind of.

“It’s nothing more than dungeon crawling. Do you know what that is?” he asks.

“I am a child of Zelda! I was born into the 8-bit world of dungeons before you were even a thought!”

“Then you should be good at it.”

I die again. My character respawns. We’ve barely gone 10 feet inside the cave. That’s OK, I’m just finding my groove.

“You go first this time,” I tell him. I’m a strategist. Tactics are left for the foot soldiers. I command better from the rear. He races in on his finely tuned dinosaur beast and destroys everything. He motions me forward. A quick head nod. I follow.

For the next 30 minutes, we go into places that even Homer wouldn’t write about. The dark recesses of the video game world where monstrous creatures loom. I manage not to get my digital head ripped off.

“Where are you going?” he asks me when we get lost.

“I’m going to wander around a bit and find the way to the treasure,” I tell him.

“It’s an artifact, not a treasure. Shouldn’t we make a plan?”

“Whatever, Indiana Jones,” I say. “Wandering has worked well in my youth and it is going to work now. Have you ever played a game called E.T.?”

“That was a game?”

“We don’t talk about it, but yes. Trust me, I’m great at wandering around for hours.”

Arcade or living room — video games bind

We push on with him doing most of the work. Slowly, I start to help, and he yells encouraging things at me. Helpful statements such as, “Good job not getting eaten!” It sounds condescending until I look at him and can tell he really means it.

He knows he’s better than me at this game. I know it. But I also know something he doesn’t, which is bigger than the giant spider thing that almost eats my face.

I played video games with my dad growing up. Not a whole lot, but it’s a memory that sticks in my head. Galaga, the old faithful from my youth in the early ’80s. My dad took me to the arcade and would give me five dollars, which was a fortune to us back then. We would go round and round on that game. My father isn’t with me anymore, but that is the memory that I cling to the most when I think of him. His laugh and his smile. His high five when I had a good game or the feel of his hand on my shoulder. Sometimes games are more than just games. That is what us old school dungeon crawlers know.

We make it to the final room and the onslaught is epic. Battle music plays in the background. A giant snake comes at us. We flank and eat it with our beasts of war. Spiders, bats and then something hidden in water jumps at us. We scream and fight on. My son is out of his seat, jumping up and down. His face fierce with concentration. I watch him as much as I watch the game.

And then we have it. The treasure, the artifact, the thing we were after. Heroes, we exit the cave. Every digital step of the way, we relive the battle. My daughter walks through the room and my son tells her our epic story like a bard singing the hero’s tale.

We finish and collapse on the couch. Exhausted but triumphant.

“I gotta go do my math now, dad,” he says.

“All right.”

Then we stand, and he hugs me. A full-on hug. Not that half-hearted bro thing he’s been doing lately.

And there it is. That’s the treasure that I really wanted all along. That memory. Not just for me, but for him as well. He turns to walk away.

“Next cave is tomorrow,” I tell him.

“You bet!” he says, actually excited.

In my own head, I feel a hand on my shoulder and smile.

Video games photo: © Scott Griessel / Adobe Stock.

For many of us, Angry Birds was the first game we played on an iPhone. It got us hooked. And subsequently, it got our kids hooked on gaming on iPhones and iPads.

Toys, movies and dozens of upgrades later, Angry Birds has become part of the fabric of our lives. That is why I was so excited to learned the New York Hall of Science was going to have an Angry Birds exhibit.

I was a little skeptical, though, but they had me at life-sized slingshots you could use to destroy structures and knock down pigs. No actual pigs were harmed in this exhibit, they are just large green vinyl pillows. We went early in the afternoon and the exhibit was not very full. Which was good.

The highlight of the exhibit is the slingshot area. You have to build a structure, place your “pigs” and then fire Angry Bird kickballs at them. You could hear squeals of delight and laughter as kids and grownups alike played. The staff keeps it safe by being very firm with the rules about when you could fire. Since there were very few people there, we were able to go back in line over and over. During busy times, there may be a wait.

But there is more. There are stations where you can play the classic version of the game. It is actually behind a beautiful display of the Angry Birds, with descriptions of the characters. There are stations where you can draw, compose music, design scenes on the computer and even make short animations.

One of my favorite parts is the interactive pulley display. There are three birds that say they weigh 25kg and you can try to pull them up by a rope. The secret is each of the pulleys attached to the birds makes it easier or harder to lift the bird. My son insisted that one of the birds was heavier. Then I explained the pulleys and he saw why one seemed much heavier than the others.

On weekends this exhibit will be really crowded (especially at first) but take the opportunity to see some of the other great exhibits. My personal favorite is Connected Worlds, which is basically a virtual waterfall room. It is beautiful and relaxing and simply amazing.

Whenever and wherever you are the New York Hall of Science, you should interact with the staff. They are all very enthusiastic, great with kids and love sharing their love of science. The staff that developed the Angry Birds Universe exhibit, are very clever as they snuck in a lot of science in the fun. Just don’t tell the kids they are learning.

The exhibit runs through August 27, and is free with museum admission. The New York Hall of Science is located at 47-01 111th St, Corona, NY 11368.

Many of us had lives before parenthood enveloped us in her whimsical blanket of chaos.

Some played sports regularly. Others immersed themselves in a hobby. Some would even meet up with the guys for a good old-fashioned jam session.

Well, rocker dads – it’s time to take back the power.

Realta Entertainment Group will release BandFuse: Rock Legends for the PS3 and X360 this fall. This music video game differs from the plastic button-mashing guitars of Rock Band and such in that users can use their real guitars and basses.

That’s right, plug into the included adapter, and in minutes you can be practicing your chromatic scales and finger-tapping again.

I recently attended a closed-door BandFuse demo hosted by associate game designer and critically acclaimed heavy metal guitarist Marcus Henderson, whose resume includes extensive work on the hit music game Guitar Hero. It took Henderson about a year to come up with the ultimate set list of songs for the game, ranging from Alanis Morissette to Living Colour to Blue Oyster Cult to a plethora of modern-day metal hits from groups such as Dream Theater.

Unlike previous music video games, you don’t need to play well to unlock new content in BandFuse. All 50 tracks are available when you open the box. An additional 40+ tracks will be available via download.

BandFuse also avoids “pass/fail” critiquing and instead focuses on real-world tablature. Animated tablature simplifies the music for beginnings, showing them exactly where to put their fingers and when to strum. For advanced guitarists, the opportunity to rip the solo in Pearl Jam’s “Alive” note for note is there for the taking.

“The purpose of the game is to make you a better player, to learn and enjoy playing guitar at your own pace,” said Henderson, who proceeded to rip through a quick demo of Rush’s “Limelight” (on hard level).

In addition to guitars, users can plug in a bass guitar and a microphone to become the next great three-piece rock band.

Some exciting BandFuse features enable you to add your own authentic amp and pedal effects. For example, if you wanted to put a little oompf into Blind Melon’s shiny happy hit “No Rain,” you can add some distortion and make it sound way more rocking.

One of Henderson’s favorite options is “Shred U.” This feature is chock-full of lessons and interviews with some of the musicians who contributed original content to the game, such as Slash, Bootsy Collins and Zakk Wylde.

The “Lick Lab” section enables users to focus on any part of a song, giving them total control in mastering every bit of even the most technical tunes. Henderson painstakingly broke down every song in the game’s catalog to provide this feature.

When I had my shot to test BandFuse, I went with the modern-day metal tune “The Bleeding” by Five Finger Death Punch. Since my real guitar skills pale greatly to my air-guitar skills, I opted for the beginning level. As I can read music and know the strings and location of the frets, I did pretty well on my first go.

In addition to following the notes, a music video and the lyrics accompany every song which makes it that much more interactive and fun.

While Henderson (a father as well might I add) is greatly influenced by heavy metal (his top three guitarists at the time of questioning were Denis “Piggy” D’Amour from Voivod, Chuck Schuldiner from Death, and Kirk Hammett from the mighty Metallica), his love of music is wide. His music catalog ranged from The Black Crowes to Black Flag to Art Garfunkel. His love and passion for music is reflected in this game as a gift to those who just want to enjoy playing guitar.

“The purpose of this game is not to sell guitars. It’s to have fun playing,” Henderson said as I excitedly pointed out he had Nekrogoblikon in his iTunes catalog.

While it’s difficult to “get the band back together,” BandFuse creates the opportunity to strap on your axe again and rock out … between diaper changes, that is.

“Yes”, says mother of two, Marla Jo Fisher. At 18 months, I am not fighting the video game battle with my son yet, but I know it is just a matter of time. I grew up, spending several hours everyday playing Pitfall or Space Invaders on the Atari 2600…so many hours my thumb would be numb from gripping the controllers. Then, graduated to Intellivision. Then, to the Sony Playstation – Hockey 95! After college, I fell out of love with video games. So, no X-Box or Wii to speak of on my end. My wife would probably throw it out the window anyway as she detests video games. As a parent, I can understand why there is a need to limit the amount of hours our children play video games – mentally, socially, and physically. This is why I found the NY Post article, Wii’re Turning Kids to Zombies, written by mommy blogger Marla Jo Fisher, so darn refreshing. Here is a mother that fantasized about having her kids’ friends over often, having them “crowded around the kitchen counter demanding pizza nuggets”, and being known as the “fun house.” However, since they are the only house in the hood with no video games and considered “freakish aliens from space”, their house is usually empty of kids.

I really enjoyed when Fisher rants on about “what are kids who play Grand Theft Auto learning?” – how to be carjackers, how to be pursued by police.” So true, but the game is extremely popular with both kids and adults.

Parents- What is your stance on allowing kids to play video games? Are you so extreme where it is not allowed in your house at all, like Fisher in the article? Is it allowed, but with controlled limits? Do you still play video games? If so, do you end up with your child as a bowling opponent in Wii…or is o.k. for dad to play, but not for kids?