Parenting the Way I Preach: Father's Day Thoughts and A Tribute to the Fathers in My Life

When considering the approaching Father's Day, I had some thoughts bubbling around in my mind. They are notes to myself about how I can encourage good fathering. I know I have much to improve on, but I hope I am improving. I am interested to hear other mothers' thoughts on how we can encourage the best out of our kids' dads. I am interested to hear if anyone else has learned similar things as me or what they have to add to it. Nonetheless, I felt compelled to write it all out before those thought bubbles just burst.

Benefit of the doubt-

When the father of your children has an off day or a moment of "ok, so this was not a great idea..", cut him some slack, try to see his perspective, realize that he probably feels worse about it than you do, and give him a hug and ask if he would like a break. This goes back to the crisis cycle. There is a time to offer tips or ask for more details and there is a time to say no more and just simply take over with the kids and allow your husband a cool down. I learned this the hard way once. I came home from work or something and my husband had just had a terrible evening with our daughter and I made the terrible mistake of asking for more specifics on what went wrong and trying to problem solve about what could be done better. This made my husband feel even more like a failure and escalated things a bit. And, really, what I should have said was, "oh, no! I'm sorry it was a rough time. Here, go take a break, I will put her to bed."

Praise Praise Praise

When we specifically tell our partners how we appreciated the way he handled something or admire the way he connects with our kids or when he had your back on a disciplining situation, they know specifically what they are succeeding at. I am sure most husbands feel the same, but Andrew likes to exceed my expectations and so when I set too many expectations that doesn't leave much room for exceeding. Andrew and I kind of have this unspoken agreement that we keep our expectations low and then are very pleasantly surprised when those expectations are exceeded. If I ask Andrew to give the girls a bath, he often does it "fun dad style"- big bubbles with glow in the dark bracelets or pink water. That totally exceeds the girls' and my expectations and his pride is pumped. If you're like me, you might have trouble making your compliments sound sincere when you say them out loud. Sometimes it sounds like, "I have to give you a compliment, so here it is." Or worse:."I'm complimenting you! Did you hear me?!" If this is the case, there are better ways: a note on the bathroom mirror or in his wallet, a text, a Facebook post brag, a show-and-tell to a family member or friend who visits of what your husband did, a compliment over the phone when talking to your mom, etc. And never forget to compliment him in front of your kids! "Dad is good at that, huh?" "He makes the best waffles!" "Look how handsome your dad is!"

Censor Your Daily Reports

I am a girl and I love to talk. I love to tell about just about everything and I love to share it with my best friend. The trouble with that is, a story that I think is a bit humorous, he might view as frustrating and assume that I had a bad day and now we have extra drama to deal with. I am not saying that we should keep secrets from our spouses or not share our deepest feelings with them, but I think we definitely need to save the most crucial highlights of the day for him and weed out the unnecessary little dramas or inconveniences that, in the long run, don't really shake you. Also, with what you tell, it may help to have a foreword: I need your advice..or I need a listening ear...or the reason I am telling you this is because I learned something from it that I think you'll appreciate. We give them a goal at the beginning so they don't have to read our minds and think, "why is she telling me this?.What does she want from me?"

Ask, don't whine or make comparisons- even in your head.

This comes from a friend of mine. When your husband isn't seeming to do the little things (or big things) that you think dads should do, instead of comparing them to men who do do those things, give him a chance to do it. The least you can do is ask and encourage. Maybe the thought hadn't even occurred to him because that's not what his dad did but maybe you kind of expected it because that's what your dad did growing up and that's what's important to you. He can't read your mind, usually. Ask him if he will do it. But ask nicely, without whining or complaining or comparing, or bribing.

Play to his strengths.

After I just mentioned that sometimes we may be able to help our spouses stretch a bit, like we would want then to encourage us to do, I think it is also important to note that they do have their boundaries,just like us. Maybe he is not as comfortable in crowds and it stresses him out too much to take the kids to a carnival. If I knew this but kept insisting that we do it every two times a year just to keep a tradition, I think the value will be lost. I don't think it would be fair of me to ask him to do something that makes him feel way uncomfortable. Maybe there is something that will still serve the same purpose of quality family time, without the extra stress. Let him choose the activity he is more comfortable with.

Share the burden

This last one is one I am still trying to figure out. As the provider and protector of our family, I am sure he feels a huge burden. He worries about things way before it even crosses my mind. That is his personality type. Some good things have resulted from this: we have never been homeless, we have never been starving, and we have never been terribly injured. There are some things I have begun to take for granted for this. For example, I sometimes take the glass-half-full perspective of "oh, nothing bad has ever happened. We will be fine. Relax." And his response is, "Why do you think nothing bad has ever happened? Because I made sure it didn't." I had a lightbulb moment when putting our trampoline net on together. He put the door of the net on the concrete side and I thought, "that's funny, I would have thought he would want it on the grass side." But I didn't say anything because I thought he knew best and I would just be slowing things down. Well, as he watched the kids play on the trampoline, he observed the placement of the door and went back and changed it to the grass side. If I had said something when it first crossed my mind, not only would it save us time from redoing the whole thing, but it would have shown him that he is not the only one who thinks of these things. That brings me to my next point. Act like an adult. Bring my purse containing keys, wallet, and phone when we go places together. Don't forget the hotel key and just assume he has it because he has pockets and my dress doesn't have pockets. Don't wait until the last minute to put gas in your car. Don't create situations where he always has to come to your rescue or parent you. I am pretty sure guys find girls more attractive if they've "got their crap together.".(Andrew quote) Another one I love to hear: "Look at you, thinking things through!" Show gratitude. Acknowledge that he works hard and provides well and fulfills his father duties. Be happy. He told me recently that even though work sucks right now, it makes it easier on him knowing he has provided a good life for me and the kids. So, I am striving to make the most of it and enjoy my days and work hard and play hard and not complain about the house or things. Just make the best with what we've got and be happy. If you are a stay-at-home mom like me and your husband provides for that, don't ever discount the value of being at home. If I were working, we probably would be more stressed, and eating out more, and the house would be more messy, and the kids would be more unruly and/unhappy. So, make the household run smoothly, cook meals as much as you can, teach your kids, and play with them and do those awesome fun mom things that make strong families.

This is a good look for him, right?

Family Cat Selfie!

Here are some things I learned about parenting from Andrew:

If you want kids to enjoy working near you, these three things help make that a reality:

1. Fun music

2. Random treats just because you are together. (Not because they earned it.)

3. Tools their size that they can have ownership over. Andrew has a tool bag in the garage that Ari can use anytime.

Take advantage of moments in the day to teach.

Example 1: You really can train your three year old to not be deathly afraid of bugs!

Example 2: Explaining to your 7 year old that nothing terrible really happens if you ate some food you didn't like.

Playing with your kids is priceless. Teaches them to be a little more tough, a little more tolerant, and more resistant to bullying (we hope).

Andrew playing on our little trampoline with Lily one morning

Family movie night, eating cotton candy!

He totally bought a T-Rex costume for Halloween and wore it while taking his "princesses" trick-or-treating!

A week after we returned from our Hawaii trip, we realized Ari had a school oral presentation on China that we didn't prepare for. Andrew stayed up and worked on it with her and she did amazing! He even helped her come up with simple directions for how to remember to draw the Chinese character for "friend" and teach it to her class.

Here is the rock climbing wall Andrew built in our playroom! So fun!

One-on-one quality time with each kid on a regular basis is priceless. Ari and Andrew call their time "Daddy-Bug Dates." Isn't that adorable?

Here Andrew is teaching Ari to read music by using our steps outside and chalk. :)

He's an adorable dad. He takes the time to curl their hair occasionally. (In fact, I think he has actually done that for them more times than I have done that for them. He is more patient than me.)

One of the "Daddy-dos"

Here is one of my favorite quotes from the girls about their dad: It has a little story. The girls were snuggling in bed with Dad one Sunday morning and I wanted them to start getting ready for church. I knew taking them away from Dad would be a challenge so I came prepared with incentives.

Me: "Ok, girls, if you get dressed right now and make your beds, you can have a candy cane."

Lily (I think, maybe it was Ari): "Daddy is better than candy canes."

Some things I admire my own dad for:

My dad always said, "It takes two to tango." He taught me to be a peacemaker. I don't remember him raising his voice or slamming a door. He probably had a lot of moments when he wanted to but he either did it out of sight and ear shot of his children or just restrained himself. I am thankful I didn't have an angry dad or scary dad. My dad wasn't the type to say, "I told you so." He didn't lecture me when I ran my car completely out of gas (I think I did that a few times as a teenager even.) I remember one specific time was when we were on our way to my dance recital and he ran all the way to the gas station and back to bring me some gas for my car so I wouldn't be late for my recital! He came to my rescue! He also was there at every dance recital to tell me how proud he was of me. I loved how he showed up consistently for the important things. He took us on some adventures. He took us on a hike once and I remember a few of us kids were whining because we got muddy but it didn't rattle him. My dad repaired a lot of things himself to save us money. He had a lot of skills. He helped me fix up and pay for my first car, a white, I think '85, Chevy Celebrity. He read us books and his mother's poetry and he has the most beautiful voice and I loved it when he would sing. He renovated and opened a movie theater in our small town, which we all helped run for about six years. He got the entire family involved and taught us about excellence in customer service among other skills. He is a really fun grandpa to my kids- I love watching him get on the floor and play with them and talk to them so naturally.

My dad, Thane Sandberg, with my sister, Rachel, at my grandpa's funeral in April 2018. My dad is so handsome.

Some things I admire my father-in-law for:

He saw potential in Andrew that others might not have and he nurtured it. He put Andrew to work at a young age helping him with car repairs and told him how helpful his small hands were. And he continued that relationship as Andrew grew and taught him many skills. I am sure it is because of him that Andrew has become the engineer and family car repairman and window-installer that he is- among other things. Andrew even mentioned his dad giving their family cats their vaccination shots to save money instead of going to the vet. Unpleasant things like that which help the family overall are sacrifices good dads make. My father-in-law taught Andrew to be self-sufficient. He is very respectful to people and is a good judge of character.