Give your best advice to an expecting father - Page 21

I had an interesting conversation over the weekend at a chess tournament with a couple of parents. the discussion started over whether you should teach your kid to give up when he sees that a game is lost, or to fight it out till the end. one guy was saying that as long as you keep fighting, the opponent could make a mistake and you could tie or maybe even win. once you give up you have lost. a woman was saying that she taught her son to concede, and save strength for the next game.

so we ended up talking about this for a while, and I said how I thought teaching my kids to be tough was one of the most important things for me. that other things were secondary, that I really didn't care about chess, I thought it was good to teach my kids to focus and to push through to win (now, to clarify, I am not pushing my son to be a grand master, just to do as well as he can, but I have high standards in terms of working, focusing and being disciplined). anyway, she felt that I was overly "confrontational" in my life view. so she told me that her field was conflict resolution, that she had a PhD from a top business school in conflict resolution, and that was what she did, and that was why she felt I was overly confrontational and she taught her kids that they should work according to a more "cooperative" model.

but then we talk some more and it turns out that she is teaching MBA students business writing , that the school didn't give her a job in her field, so she is teaching something that a TA usually teaches. it took pretty much all my willpower not to make a snarky comment on that.

Oh, and thanks all for the trip advice.

I'm kinda proud of you for giving up the open shot like that.

...

I don't have much good advice here since we came about our children differently, but I will say that once my son entered the school system, we have had a lot of work on our hands in terms of establishing and reinforcing expectations and accountability - both in terms of our son AND his teachers. Sometimes I wonder if I can put a teacher in detention for a few hours or so.

+1000 on all these. I would add the following:

- Sleep when the babies sleep, if you can.

- If someone offers to help you out (i.e., do grocery shopping for you, etc), stow your pride and take them up on the offer. You're going to be more tired than you can imagine.

- Don't be afraid to ask for help once the babies are there.

- If your wife wants you to see to the babies during the night, and they don't need feeding, do it.

- If you think you've been tired before, you ain't seen nothin' yet. Nothing can compare to the bone-grinding exhaustion of looking after a baby. But, you will find that you have the strength to get through it. Mother nature provides, even to fathers.

- This is for later, but this is also important: Babies develop at their own pace. You can't force them to walk, talk, or reach any other developmental milestone before they are ready to do so. If you try to push them, you're in for a world of frustration.

And the most important one:

Your life is about to change completely, but it will be so much fuller. You will have an opportunity to become an even better man than you were before.

another twin issue - I find that one of my twins is much better at pretty much everything physical than the other one right now. frankly, I think that she is a little smarter, too. not a hell of a lot I can do with it, now. again, you have to suck it up and wait it out.

Other than Angry Birds, Let's Golf,Thomas the Train, and Air Hockey, my kids (2&4) like this app called "Talking Carl". The kids talk into it and "Carl" the red monster, repeats it in a silly voice.

They crack themselves up with this thing.
They usually lose interest after 5 minutes which is good b/c after that it can get a little annoying.

^ lol... good one gdl!

it seems the author has been spying on our family bedtime routine

first kid due in 3 weeks. woot!

My daughter's first word was "shoes!!!"

(she takes after me, I guess.)

my son didn't say anything for a while. then, one day we visited the US (before we lived here) and we are walking in a park, he sees some ducks (he had never seen a live duck before) points at it and says "duck" . my wife and I jsut cracked up