Daddit - Parenting for Dads

Hi Dads,

I made a post over in [email protected] about possibly consolidating the many dad groups down to just one (at least for now) to encourage activity.

The general consensus was that we focus discussion over at [email protected] because, among some other reasons, it’s the only community that seems to have an active mod.

I hope you’ll join me in posting over there!

Just that. Can be accidental pregnancy. Can be that your partner wanted to have kids, but it has to be why YOU made the decision.

Hey dads, my wife and I got an email from the school district this morning saying that someone had emailed threats of violence to a lot of schools in my county.

They said there will be a police presence at all schools, and they don't think the threats are serious.

My wife and I are keeping our son (6) at home today because we're just not willing to take that risk. Are we being overly cautious given what the police say? What would you do?

Edit: Here's an article about the threat that I just saw. Seems like it really was a stupid hoax.

I’ve read that you can teach a child perfect pitch (how to recognize the key of a tone without reference to the sound of a known key) before the age of 4.

What other skill windows exist that I can take advantage of to teach my kid before the window closes?

We got lucky.

My 2-year old is a climber, which I’ve happily encouraged. We went to a new park over the weekend. He naturally gravitated to the biggest play structure with a tall slide and a rope net to get up to the landing of the slide. The landing was about 10-12 feet high.

Youngster climbed up the rope net onto the landing and slid down once, twice… but on time #3 he slipped while swinging his foot onto the landing.

I had prepped myself to catch him if he fell backwards but to my horror he bounced off a rope and then fell through the rope net under the structure the whole 10-12 foot height. With the rope net in between us, there was no way to get to him in time. He landed on his back on the wood chips of the playground.

And in that moment I was scared out of my goddamn mind.

But. Fortunately. We got lucky.

I say we got lucky because:

• his landing was perfect. His lower back took the contact and then transferred the momentum to his upper back and neck, in the way martial artists train to fall.
• the ground was a thick bed of wood chips that clearly absorbed enough of the energy
• the impact on him caused him to bite his tongue and……that’s it. He cried, of course, and bled a bit from that small wound, but after 20 minutes or so had normalized and was ready to try the rope net again. I let him, holding on to him lightly this time, in support of him moving past the creation of a deeper trauma response than what he already had just gone through. And he did the route 2 more times.

It’s been two days since then. A healthcare professional checked up on him yesterday and gave a thumbs up. Youngster has gone on with life like nothing happened. I’m the one still processing the fear and horror. 😂 so it goes.

I will say my reflex blind spots have humbled me a bit. I’ll still encourage adventure but I’ll be making a bigger effort to figure out how I can reduce risk and catch what I might be missing.

For those who haven't tried it. Gingerbread houses are both a lot easier to make, and great fun. My 4 year old and I had a wonderful evening together baking, building and decorating ours.

Has anyone else tried making one this year?

Is this sub still active?

I have been really enjoying the podcast and thought it would be a good place to let other people know about it.

How Other Dad's Dad

Hamish hosts and brings on another dad (typically) as a guest. He interviews them about their dadding practice/philosophy. It's pretty light hearted and silly, but has some real gems.

Edit: Fixing link

Just wondering what you do when the kids always want one parent over another?

Both of my kids are always about daddy (me). Even when mom spends time with them (2 and 5), they’re still asking about daddy all the time and it’s driving her crazy because they always want time with me rather than her.

I absolutely adore spending time with both of them. I’ll bathe them, put one of them to bed (mom gets the other one and we alternate), I help them get dressed in the morning, drive them to school and pick them up about half the time, change diapers and everything.

I’m very aware that you get 4 or 5 years with your kids then they’re not your little kids anymore and that part of all of your lives is gone forever.

Getting my kids (2 and 5) out the door in the morning can be a challenge (you know it) so I decided to try and take something mundane and make it special. The “bumpy shortcut”.

Really it’s just a back laneway to my youngest’s childcare and a slight detour for kindergarten drop off, each with a set of speed bumps. But it’s different and had a name they can latch onto.

And so…. Everyone has had breakfast and got their shoes on, so we have time for the bumpy shortcut today!

Or (looks like we’re not focused enough today to get out the door on time, guess we can’t take the bumpy shortcut).

When I do the “shortcut” I make a game out of who gets the big bumps at speed and who gets a “little bump”.

They both love it. Try and take something every day and make it special for them!

So, inspired by Bluey, I started playing a new water-based game with my son and daughter, for the past few months, who absolutely love it.

Welcome to "Crocodile" (it's inspired by Australia, after all!)

1. Dad is at one end of the water with one of the child's toys sitting next to him on the edge of tub or pool.
2. Child magically turns dad into an animal (Crocodile was the first one), so dad magically turns into a very sleepy crocodile protecting his "treasure" with his eyes closed.
3. Child has to sneak past to retrieve their toy from the crocodile, who sleeps rather restlessly, and occasionally flexes/snaps it's jaws (dads arms) as noise and ripples disturb it's otherwise tranquil slumber.

Of course I give them a few "scares", then let them grab the toy, to the tune of much giggling.

We've also done

• jellyfish (fingers floating lazily on the water), no stinging, but these jellies tickle!
• hippo (snoozing with mouth under water, breathing through nose blowing bubbles)
• ducky (two fingers clicking together), not super scary.
• and monkey (mostly just noise).

Anyway, as usual, thanks to Bluey for getting dad thinking outside the box to play with his kids even more.

Son: Can we get Subway? Daughter: No! We need to save money for our vacation. I brought snacks!

Me: 😄

I explained the pedal on the right is the accelerator, it makes the car go. The one on the left is the brake, it makes the car stop.

That satisfied them for a while, until my daughter piped up, "what happens if you push both at the same time?"

Before I could answer, she said, "Oh I know, then it takes a screenshot!"

How make body and brain go when no energy ever ever again? how wake up at 6am when so so tired? how get energy when no energy? Big big love but small empty battery. Please? 15m2w

Help me out Dads. My 4 year old boy has an annoying habit of repeating something indefinitely until someone acknowledges what he said. For instance, we're watching Groot videos and I called him "little guy" and my kid said "he gets big though" like 20 times before I ended it by saying "yep totally". I usually don't let him go so long but I wanted to see if he'd give it up.

Is this a thing with kids? Do they grow out of it?

Hey Daddit

I'm about to be the father in just a couple more months. My own father, mostly absent, was a raging alcoholic who, in recent years, has made the switch to meth. I have absolutely no concept of being a good dad outside of TV and short interactions with a few of my friends' dad's (though, to be honest, most of my friends have shit fathers as well).

So I'll outsource the question - when do you feel like you're doing better than your own parents? Is it hard when you don't have a good blueprint? Any advice?

After seemingly endless days sulking around the Fediverse, looking for something interesting, I thought I'd check sub.rehab to see if Daddit had made the shift, and you/they/we have!

It's been a lonely few weeks...

In the interests of growing the community here, here's a thread to toss out suggestions.

I'll start with a handful of my own:

I'd like to propose expanding to a handful of moderators so there's no single point of failure, to lighten the load, and to grow the community through their connections (any ex-reddit daddit mods here? they would be my first nominations.)

We should probably have our community description updated with a blurb and a short list of rules.

It also seems like magazines can have logos. Perhaps people could reply below with potentials and the mod(s) could choose one?

Just needed to vocalize to get it out to avoid passing the feelings on to the fam.

Starting a road trip with two young ones. Kind of stressed about it - we're doing 30+hrs total car-time over the next couple of weeks.

Have lots of contingencies for the car ride, planned lots of stops, have lots of snacks and some new distractions for the kids.

Trying to tell myself over and over it's not about getting there, it's about making a day out of the drives. It's a very different approach to how I've always traveled - usually my wife and I would just power thru and get there. With a potty trainer and a new walker I'm still coming to terms with expecting to stop every 30m. Idk that my heads totally there yet and wanted to share, even if just to put my thoughts on "paper".

How have other dad's out there had success with young ones on long trips? Any tips or ideas are welcome :)

Hey all! I've been struggling with my 3 1/2 year old daughter. She is prone to tantrums and will lose her mind over the smallest things. I know this is typical behavior at her age, but I wanted to see if you all had any advice. Any recommendations for helping a toddler remain more consistently calm?

#Daddit

Not really looking for advice, not really venting.. just wanted to share my experiences.

Our 3 year old is relatively potty trained at home, but at school is hit-or-miss. She's slipping back a bit in regression at home, but not having to change diapers anymore is so worth it!

One of my favorite subreddits, It makes me so happy to see the community here too. I look forward to reading everyone's stories and providing my own as we help each other navigate our roles as Dad.

This photo gives me so many feels. My son wants to do everything I do, this particular moment (like so many times) he was looking for dad's tools. He knows there's some in the shed and was in the process of convincing me he had a good use for them while playing with the latch.

A day behind but only just discovered https://kbin.social/m/Daddit

Hope everyone had a good day!