The Fun Husband

I have some great advice for new parents about pacifiers.  Keep them away from your baby.  As parents, we are quick to shove a pacifier in the baby’s mouth to stop the crying and get them to sleep.  Babies are going to cry, get used to it.  The best thing is to just let them learn to get over it while they are young and learn to go to sleep without a pacifier. 

That is far better than having them be eight years old and still asked for their pacifier in the middle of the night.  Plus, speach therapy gets expensive for older children that cant speak well because of the pacifier stunting their speach development.

Advice for Parents trying to take away the Pacifier Here.
The Binky Fairy Here 
Practical advice Here

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written by Fun Husband

I found a great article on Best Life Magazine talking about the High Deductible Health Plans and Health Savings Accounts (HSA).   This is the best insurance product to come along in a while.  It the easiest way to cut your health insurance premium in half and keep you and your family covered by a credible insurance policy. 

Read the Article HERE

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written by Fun Husband

I found another good parenting article from Best Life Magazine called “Raise a Comeback Kid.” I subscribe to this magazine for a number of reasons, but the most important is the articles on how to raise kids.  The most recent line that caught my eye was, “The most important life skill you can teach a child is resilience.” 

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The 10 worst fatherhood role models

It is often said that Athletes make the worst role models.  I have always argued against this.  Some of them are horrible role models, but the majority of them have gotten where they are because they have dedication and a tremendous work ethic.  In this recent article from Best Life Magazine, it gives me the impression that hollywood types are the worst role models. 

Here is another insteresting article from I believe is the best magazine for people like me. 

10 The Superbreeder
Competitive kickball? Sure. Competi-tive eating? Okay. Competitive impregnation? Hmm. At last count, a man in the United Arab Emirates had fathered 78 children by 15 women, and was aiming to hit 100 offspring by 2015. The 60-year-old supports his family with a military pension and help from the government. The best part? His name is Daad Mohammed Murad Abdul Rahman. 

9 Michael Lohan
Remember when Abigail Breslin’s dad was thrown out of Le Cirque? Or Dakota Fanning’s mom flashed the paparazzi? No? That’s the way it should be…because those things never happened. But Michael Lohan, father of Lindsay and the now-pupating Ali, didn’t get the memo. The ex-con turned Christian counselor has thrust himself into the limelight through secret-daughter rumors, custody battles, talk-show appearances, and tabloid tell-alls. But he does deserve the attention—he is famous, after all. For being a leech on his daughters’ careers.

8 David Hasselhoff
Having an alcohol problem and dealing with it: honorable. Getting your kid intimately involved in the process: creepy. But that didn’t stop the Hoff from supposedly asking his then 16-year-old daughter, Taylor-Ann, to videotape him next time he fell off the wagon, in order to scare himself straight. The result is the legendary sloppy, shirtless, hamburger-eating fiasco that went viral last year. Between Taylor-Ann, the Hoff, and the idolizing nation of Germany, we’re not sure for whom we feel most sorry.

7 William Ligue Jr.
A ball game with Dad: peanuts, popcorn, and assault and battery. A few years ago, 34-year-old Ligue and his 15-year-old son jumped out of the stands at Chicago’s Comiskey Park and infamously beat the crap out of Kansas City Royals coach Tom Gamboa. “It felt like a football team had hit me from behind,” remarked the stunned coach.

6 Eliot Spitzer
You thought you’d mortally embarrassed your daughter when you wore socks and sandals to the mall. Imagine her shock if you were caught with a Girls Gone Wild alumna now gone high-profile hooker. It’ll take a lot of Hannah Montana tickets to make up for that one.

5 Johnny Eric Marlowe
Being a father means you’ve just gotta wing it now and then. Sometimes that means making a rash decision in the ninth inning of a Little League championship or doing some MacGyver magic at midnight on the upstairs toilet. Johnny Eric Marlowe took this fact of life to the extreme when, in 2005 and 2006, he circumcised his two sons with a utility knife.

4 Woody Allen
We can’t fault an older guy for liking younger ladies—it’s biological (we tell ourselves). But in 1992, when Woody Allen went for Soon-Yi Previn—the adopted daughter of his long-time girlfriend Mia Farrow and 35 years his junior—stepfathers around the world gasped. The worst part? Farrow discovered the affair when she found nude pictures of her daughter in Allen’s apartment. Knowing Woody, they probably weren’t as funny as his earlier work.

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written by Fun Husband

Will Ferrell is one of the funniest people of our generation. It turns out that Saturday Night Light was holding him back.  Like me, he has two young boys and struggles to figure out the best way to raise them. It is important that we share ideas and advice and learn from each other. 

I found some parenting tips that he is dishing out.

• “don’t let them play in abandoned refrigerators,”
• When traveling, make sure you “travel as a family.” If you’re flying with your children, it’s better to book them on the same flight as you and not on a separate one just so they can have more leg room or something.
• Talk to your children, at least once a week. If you’ve got time, do it two or three times a week. But otherwise, I find the times where I let weeks and weeks go by without talking to my children, that adds up.

Other Parenting Advice can be found on this blog in the parenting catagory

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written by Fun Husband

We are working through the potty training nightmare with the worlds most stubborn kid.  The wife and I are prepared to send him to college with diapers and hope for an understanding college roommate.

Here is a fairly basic potty training article I found on Keep Kids Healthy.  I have to say that nothing here is really news to us, but it is nice to see it in writing.  I hope someone else might be going through this nightmare and find some information in this article that makes them feel better.  

 The article is HERE

Potty training isn’t always easy, but some parents make it a little more difficult than it needs to be by making some all too common mistakes, especially starting the whole potty training process before their child is ready.

Other common potty training mistakes include:

• starting potty training during a stressful time in your child’s life, such as a move or around the arrival of a new baby in the house
• quickly moving your child to regular underwear as soon as you begin potty training, even before your child shows signs of staying dry for long periods of time or regularly using the potty
• continuing to push potty training when your child obviously isn’t interested
• punishing your child for having accidents while you are potty training
• expecting potty training to be a quick process and being able to finish in a few days or a weekend
• expecting your child to complete all aspects of potty training at the same time, such as potty training in public, having bowel movements on the potty, or using the potty each and every time he has to go
• relying on the same potty training method for each of your kids, which unfortunately, may not work if your kids have very different temperaments
• not realizing that your child may continue to wet the bed at night, even after he has finished potty training, since bed wetting is not usually related to potty training

The root of most of these mistakes are parents who have unrealistic expectations about potty training, which usually include that they should start at a certain age or that they should be finished by a certain age. Although some people now talk about potty training their infants, most parents will find that their kids aren’t ready to begin potty training until they are about 18 to 24 months or older and that the whole potty training process can take a good 6 months or more to complete.

Not surprisingly, the older your child is when he begins potty training, the quicker the training typically is. So while a 2 year old might take 6 or 9 months to finish potty training, a 3 year old might just take 3 or 4 weeks.

And keep in mind that 3 is not a magic age when all kids are potty trained. About 25 percent of kids finish potty training after they are 3 years old.

Read the rest of the article HERE

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written by Fun Husband

I was looking at this blog this morning and discovered that one of the categories that I wanted to blog about was not seeing much action.  In fact, the most important one was not seeing action.  “Parenting” is the most important thing we do, and continuing to learn about parenting is very important.  I want to take this opportunity to read some parenting information and then pass along the stuff I feel is important.

The only other parenting post I had was a really good good one.  Read it HERE.

This morning, I found what could be a great new site called Keep Kids Healthy. There probably couldn’t be any more important thing we could do in life.  I found a great article this morning. I agree with nine out of the ten rules posted below.  Spanking is a consequence to actions.  Discipline is the most important thing I can give my children.

Top Ten Common-Sense Rules for Fathers -    by Mark Brandenburg MA, CPCC
Rule #1 Expect A Great Deal From Your Kids
If your kids know that you expect a lot from them, they’ll rise to the occasion. Everything from saying please and thank-you, to efforts in school or on the athletic field, if expectations are made clear in a loving atmosphere your kids will know that you think a lot of them. When they know this, they’ll respond.

Rule #2 Always Be Willing To Be the Problem
When you’re convinced that someone in your family is causing “the problem” and you’re blaming them for it, realize that this problem won’t get better until you accept that you’re making it worse by blaming them. It may briefly feel good to blame, but it never improves anything. Loving and accepting that person will make a positive difference.

Rule #3 Know Your Child’s Life Intimately
Get to know all that you can about your kids. Know what their favorite toys and colors are, who their best friends are, who their heroes are, etc. By showing interest, you’re showing you love them. By not asking, you show that they’re not that important to you.

Rule #4 Say No To Your Kids
There’s an awful lot of stuff out there for kids these days…and of course they want to have it all. Kids who get almost everything they want typically don’t turn out to be very happy kids. Kids learn discipline, self-control, and how to delay gratification when they are told “no” by their parents. It may be a difficult struggle, but saying “no” and meaning it will help you to have happy, healthy, and cooperative kids.

Rule #5 Hitting or Spanking Your Kids Doesn’t Work
There are plenty of studies showing that kids who are spanked have lower self-esteem. Spanking your kids will also be likely to increase the very kinds of behaviors that you are spanking them for. As a father, do you really want your child to be afraid of you?

Rule #6 Treat Your Wife Extremely Well
This is where your kids get their most important information about relationships between men and women. Make a great effort not to fight in front of the kids. Remember to be kind more often than trying to be right.

Law #7 Actions Speak Louder Than Words
Many parents spend time threatening their children when their kids aren’t cooperating. But if you don’t follow through on the consequences, you can threaten till the cows come home. Your children will learn to ignore the threats. They’ll understand action. If certain privileges are taken away because of their lack of cooperation, they’ll learn very quickly that you mean business.

Try your best to align the consequences with the action. ( If you don’t clean your room in time, you won’t have time for stories before bed.)

Rule #8 “Really” Listen to Your Kids
Don’t just hear their words, but learn to understand the meaning behind what they say as well. “I’m picking my own clothes!” might mean that your child wants more responsibility or independence. Be able to reflect back what your child says to you. If you want your child to listen to you, you absolutely must listen to her/him.

Rule #9 Give Your Kids Responsibility as They Grow Older
When your kids are very young, maybe they just help make their beds in the morning and keep their rooms clean. As they get older, add things to their list. Tell them that this is how a family works…everybody has certain things that they do. If you do it when they’re young it’s more likely they’ll do it when they’re older. Don’t reward them for things that should be expected of them.

Rule #10 Tell Your Kids They’re Great…All the Time
It is especially important to tell them this when they’re not at their best. It’s easy to tell them when things are going well. Make it a point to tell them specifically what you think is great about them. This will be more meaningful than generalized praise.

Read the Article HERE

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written by Fun Husband

A while back, I was surfing the web one day and found a great article. 

Actually, I liked to read the online site for the Mens Health magazine, but because I am in my mid thirties, I am not the real target market.  Men’s Health magazine will have a couple of good articles, but then ten more about climbing a mountain, biking through a foreign country, or having wild sex with a twenty-year old sex kitten.  Those days are gone, those articles do not apply to me. 

I did however find another magazine site that was targeted more towards my demographic.  The guy who wants his wife to act like the twenty-year old sex kitten, but still has to manage his 401k and properly raise his kids.   I found two great articles with great advice that prompted me for the first time ever to order an actual subscription to a magazine.  It was a production from the same people as Men’s Health, but it is named Best Life.  Ironically, the two articles I really liked both dealt with parenting issues.  Keep in mind, it does have excercise, eating, 401k advice mixed in with some ideas to get the wife closer to the sex kitten fantasy.

Here is a sample with links from the two great articles:

1) The Parking Lot Rules
In a world inhabited by cars the size of small houses, the parking lot can be an incredibly dangerous place. The drivers of these SUVs are in another world: watching their own children, talking on their cell phones, or listening to the radio. The last thing they are looking for is your brood. Teach your children that they need to be right next to you whenever you are in a parking lot. There is to be no trailing behind and no racing ahead. The moment you near a parking lot, call out “Parking lot rules,” and your children will know that they absolutely must be by your side. This rule can also apply to any time you perceive a danger that your children have missed: perhaps raised voices or the sound of broken glass or a stranger acting erratically. It beats yelling, “Look out for the crazy guy!”

Read it Here

2) What I Learned From a Bully

When I first learned my 8-year-old son was being bullied, I thought instantly of the guy truism that a bully will back down if his victim stands up. But after a few minutes of backyard boxing lessons, it occurred to me that my good-hearted son was a lover, not a fighter, and that maybe the Ali Shuffle wasn’t the answer.

He shouldn’t have to deal with this, went my Dad self-talk.

So I came up with a strategy that solved the problem upstream. It was, simply put, as effective as anything I have ever done in my life. Try it. It worked for me.
……..

Bottom line: Once some other adults had a reason to care about my boy’s problem, the problem disappeared. They just needed some skin in the game.

READ THE ARTICLE HERE

I havn’t encountered this problem yet, but I can not imagine any better advice or attitude if the situation does arise.  

I successfully use the parking lot rules advice every day.  With tons of other articles in the family and fatherhood section, the advice in Best Life should give me the tools to be a better father.

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written by Fun Husband