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The Best Fatherhood Book of 2015*

12/31/2015

* According to the Smith Family and their friends! ;)

But experts like it too!

Ph.Ds, educators, authors, and parents are among those who endorse The Power of Dadhood", which celebrates fatherhood's continually understated importance and discusses fatherhood's unique and unending challenges. The rewards of being an involved and caring dad can make a man feel like he didn't do enough to deserve all the joy that being a dad brings.

Here are some of the experts on parenting and fatherhood (with links) who have read, reviewed, or endorsed The Power of Dadhood and/or my writings on the importance of fathers to the well-being of their children and society!

Ryan Sanders, The National Fatherhood Initiative
Dr. Sally Gafford, Family Therapist
Dr. James Sutton, Psychologist, "Changing Behavior Network"
Richard Eyre, Best-selling author of "The Turning" and "Teaching Your Children Values"
Wayne Parker, About.com's Fatherhood Expert
Seth Leibowitz, City Dads Group
Gooddads.com
Andy Kerckhoff, middle school teacher and author of "Critical Connection, A Practical Guide to Parenting Young Teens"

Please consider buying a copy for your son, husband, nephew, grandson, or yourself. Being a dad is the best thing a man could ever give of himself.

Happy 2016!
Michael Byron Smith

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A Resolution of Gratitude!

12/28/2015

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Me with my grandson and oldest granddaughter.

Here we are between Christmas and the New Year, 2016. If your year was like mine, there were plenty of ups and downs. Fortunately, my ups were higher and more frequent than the downs. It didn't always seem that way, but 99% of the time things aren't as bad as they seem to be at the moment. Patience and time solve a lot of problems.

My ups of 2015 include:

The birth of my fourth grandchild
The health of my family
Family times together
The release of my book
The Cardinals winning 100 games
A month in Italy
The growth of this blog
Meeting many wonderful people because of my book

My downs of 2015 include:

My son serving his second tour in Afghanistan
The realization that books are tough to market
Not exercising like I used to
The Cardinals losing to the Cubs in the playoffs

What I notice is the ups and downs often have little to do with anything we have done. It’s just life. We can, however, make our ups higher and more frequent while our downs can be shallower and less frequent by just thinking ahead and properly planning.

Of course, my ups and downs list don’t reveal all my secrets. There have been a couple of other downs that I have or will conquer. What isn’t a secret is that any up or down is magnified significantly when your family is involved. Something to think about when tough choices are necessary is, “How will this impact my family?”

This isn’t a question you ask about every decision. Sometimes the family has to take an occasional back seat. But long term decisions should always seriously consider the impact on your marriage, your happiness, and especially your kids.

So when you think about your New Year’s resolutions, go ahead and pretend that you will work out three times a week, eat less, read more books, volunteer for charities, get organized, or travel to Europe. But how about every year having a ‘long term’ resolution? For example:

Where do you want to be in five years?
What can you do to prepare your children for their next stage in life?
What are your retirement plans?
What will happiness look like if everything worked out like you want?

Short term plans frequently get in the way of having long term plans. My greatest successes come from long term planning. I would never have become a pilot or have written a book without long term planning. Striving for those things created a vacuum behind me dragging with it a military career, a good living, friends, and personal satisfaction.

But while we plan and look ahead, we are living now the life we hopefully devised in the past. So notice it! Notice the chubby cheeks of a baby, which disappear so quickly. Notice your son’s triple down the right field line. Be so happy that he is even on the field. Take photos of birthdays and graduations because they become more precious with time. If you allow the good things of now to sink in, you won’t regret missing them in the future.

I guess I just talked myself into my New Year’s resolution and my ‘long term’ resolution.

Short term (New Year’s) resolution: “Work out three times a week, eat less, read more books, volunteer for charities, get organized, and travel.”
Long-term resolution: “Do all I can each moment to never look back with regret.”

Resolutions aren’t easy! That’s why they are resolutions.

Happy New Year!

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The Three 'Wants' of the Christmas Season

12/21/2015

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What Do You Really “Want” for Christmas?

When you ask someone what they want for Christmas, you will get a myriad of answers. Most of these fall into one of three categories:

Sweet, hopeful, but ‘pie-in-the-sky’ wishes – “I want peace around the world.”
Unselfish hopes for loved ones – “I want my children and grandchildren to have every advantage.”
More self-centered wishes – “I want a Mercedes Benz.”

There is nothing wrong with any of these ‘wants’, no matter if it’s Christmas season or not. But what are you willing to do, to get what you want? That is the real question.

photo credit: www.ieampk.org

The First Want

We all (except for a few million loons) want peace in the world, love, and the end of poverty and suffering. But what can we do about it? Very few of us are influential on a worldly stage. And if we were, what would it take to make a dent in the quest for world peace? It’s wonderful to hope and pray for peace, but as the saying goes, “hope in one hand and ‘expel waste’ in the other”. Try if you can to change the entire world, but it might be more practical to focus on a smaller goal, one that will contribute to a better world.

The Second Want

The second ‘want’--unselfish hopes for loved ones--is getting much closer to a place where you can make a significant difference. But how can you best help them to succeed?

What you as a parent really want, are children that will seize every opportunity that comes their way--that is, children that work to create and recognize opportunities and know what to do with them. Therefore, don’t give your kids and/or grandkids the advantages of easy access. Give them the advantages of a value system and good work ethic which will create opportunities that will give them an advantage they deserve and can use.

The Third Want

The last ‘want’ may sound selfish, but there is nothing wrong with working hard and rewarding yourself. After all, if everyone were capable and successful in taking care of themselves and their own needs, they wouldn’t need the help of others. We would then be free to focus on ourselves and our own prosperity. If that pipe dream were to come true, the world would be an even more, wonderful place for us all.

That’s the goal! To erase the need for Wants #1 and #2. To minimize the necessity of helping others and to share our blessings for the sheer joy of it. But there will always be those who need help because of a variety of disadvantages.

Summary

Personally, I am comfortable with satisfying Wants #2 and #3. Therefore, what I want for Christmas might fall in the category of Want #1: The talent and the ability for each of us to help those with disadvantages to minimize the influence of those disadvantages by giving them tools to fight them. That is why I wrote a book for families and fathers, as a small contribution to the greater goal of a better world. I wish I had more influence. In conclusion;

Want #1 will be a little closer to coming true when those who want peace and love in the world realize it comes about in small acts by many people.
Want #2 could become a reality when we help family and friends do the smart things, not by providing the things that take away their desire to fight.
Want #3 would no longer be considered a self-centered act if others could do for themselves, thanks to deeds of Wants #1 and #2.

Merry Christmas! I want you all to have all your wants! (Yep, this falls into a category #1 Want!)

Mike

#powerofdadhood

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Christmas Magic Always Returns

12/17/2015

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Grankids on Christmas Eve 2013

I’ve rediscovered the magic of Christmas, again! Or should I say my grandchildren have found it for me.

The first magical Christmas I recall is a faint memory of when I may have been four or five. I remember a two-story metal gas station/garage with miniature cars that my aunt had bought for me. I’m not sure how I knew that she bought it since I totally believed in Santa Claus. But that is the first present I remember ever getting.

Each year, thereafter, had a common thread of memories. The slow march of days in anticipation of the big reveal. Then the day finally arrived, with all my brothers and sisters waking early on Christmas morning tearing through presents placed under an often scrawny tree tricked out in tinsel, then the emotional crash soon afterwards realizing that the magic was over--and it wasn’t even noon yet.

My mother with her grandchildren, Christmas 1990.

However, I was usually happy with my presents. One year I got a “Johnny OMA”. It was a replica of an Army bazooka. OMA was short for “One Man Army”. My brother and I got into a fight one day soon after Christmas because my brother wouldn’t give me my Johnny OMA. I was eight and my brother was six. I chased him into our bedroom and from his advantage on top of the bed, he smacked it over my head. Pretend guns don’t hurt brothers, brothers hurt brothers.

I was big into cowboy stuff. My favorite, when I was ten years old, was a set of toy pistols (cap guns, I believe) in a double holster. I loved practicing my quick draw. Somehow I managed not to become touched in the head by those innocent endorsements of handguns and army weapons. It is difficult to explain to parents these days how exciting it was to play ‘Army’ or ‘Cowboys and Indians’. We never thought of those games as violent. Today parents are criticized for buying their children toy guns-if you can even find them. Yet video games, that are violent beyond anything we could have ever imagined, are common!

My mother usually managed a good Christmas even though we had next to nothing in money. When you have five siblings, the number of presents piled under the tree looks impressive. Often it was my grandmother or an uncle that helped. Sometimes it was the local church.

My first grandchild on her first Christmas

Between my late teens and becoming a parent, Christmas is kind of a blur. Some of that has to do with a memory so bad that I forget to take the pills that help my memory. But mostly it is because no small children were there to forge a memorable impression.

That all changed when my wife and I became parents. Again we got into the wonder of Rudolph, Santa, and his elves. The kids picked up on Christmas like they were born with a knowledge of its story and all its traditions. We were excited about them being excited and looked forward to Christmas morning almost as much as they did.

I confess that I never really liked wrapping presents nor did I like putting up Christmas lights that never seemed to work. Worse yet, they worked off and on. I would try to fix them when they went off, eventually getting into a terrible mood when it took up half my day. But all the preparation and work was worth it on Christmas morning, watching our kids open presents which, by the way, came with rules. My wife insisted the kids take turns opening their presents, one at a time. That never happened when I was a kid.

Grandkids on Christmas last year.

My wife and I really enjoyed our family Christmases! But eventually they grow up and the magic that come with little children disappears. No eyes the size of saucers, no screaming or jumping up and down. No little girls in brand new pajamas with missing teeth, or little boys wearing new cowboy boots in their underwear. It becomes a nice, but relatively unexciting, day of controlled present unwrapping and polite thankyou’s when only adults are involved.

Then come the grandchildren! The excitement returns! They want to help you with your decorations, which triples the time it takes, and afterwards, they want to play with them. Hiding presents becomes necessary once more. Wondering what they might want and buying too much is a given.

Family Christmas Eve at the Farmhouse.

I still don’t like wrapping presents and putting up lights! My wife doesn’t like the Grinch in me. But we do have new traditions along with the old ones. For instance, cookie day is a must for my wife, daughters and kids. I help as a taste tester and bowl licker. My main responsibility comes on Christmas Eve when the extended family gets together for dinner and fun at our family farmhouse. In the days prior I look for inexpensive gifts, mostly from the Dollar Store, and wrap them as prizes for the kids who win rounds of Christmas Bingo. The first one who gets five elves, or sleigh bells, or wreaths, in a row, wins and gets a present to open. The older kids help the younger kids and they get such a kick sharing the excitement with younger siblings and cousins.

Granddaughter and nieces on Christmas Eve

Christmas has always been a mixture of emotions, changing with the circumstances of your life. One constant has been the absolute joy of kids and Christmas morning. Of course, the birth of Jesus is why Christmas exists at all, and the holiday has certainly become too commercialized. But the joy of Christmas includes the smiles of children around the world. Certainly their smiles would make Jesus smile also.

#powerofdadhood

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Families! The Only True Solution

12/14/2015

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It happens way too often. A young black man is shot and killed in Chicago or any metropolitan area. The young man has most often placed himself in a dangerous situation which has resulted in his death. That is not to say he deserved to die. Sometimes he is killed for reasons of hate or revenge, a mistake, or even the misconduct of authorities.

No doubt it is true that, sometimes, authorities act irresponsibly or even criminally in the process of performing their duties. I have, however, nothing but respect for the vast majority of our first responders and believe in their trustworthiness and sincerity to protect us all. The dangers they face and the complexities of their work are not something most of us ever have to deal with or understand. But there are bad apples and ineffective personnel in any group. The police are not immune.

I would like to address this issue from another direction. Let’s forget, for a moment, who is directly responsible for the death of a young black male. Let’s think about the circumstances and environment that exists around them when they die. A father of one of these men who was tragically killed said his son was the face of all young black men who have the “same black skin, same poverty, same social and economic injustice that is put upon them, but with different names and different ages." In a way, this father was saying it isn’t their fault because they are doomed to this fate more than others. I agree! But why?

There is another commonality with these young men. They, almost exclusively, come from homes without fathers that are effectively involved in their lives. More of these young men, who get caught up in questionable and often very dangerous behavior, are black because black fathers are absent at a rate hardly comprehensible. Most live in poverty for the same reason. The injustice they face, when and if it happens, is never justified. But neither are the circumstances in which they were raised.

I do know, however, real crime and real injustices would be minimized if young black men had the advantages a real home with two responsible parents. These young men cause great harm to our society, not just by what they do illegally, but by bringing into the world more children who will not have a proper upbringing and will, therefore, have a high probability of being further involved in inappropriate activities.

The situations that troubled and troubling young men find themselves in are preventable. They are preventable by themselves, but that will not happen without good parenting and mentorship. With mentoring and caring, they will have proper values, they will be less likely to be angry with the world, and they will have loved ones they will want to protect, impress, and to be proud of them. Of course, it's not just the African-American community, the focus of so many recent controversies, where tragedies occur. It's any society that has family and fatherhood issues.

From The Power of Dadhood: Become the Father Your Child Needs:

“In any society you will find:

Child abuse
Education issues
Poverty
Crime
Emotional and behavioral problems
Inappropriate sexual activity involving minors

But in a society where few fathers are engaged with their children, these issues explode.”

Therefore, have all the drug programs you want. Build as many jails as you can. Help the poor by giving them what they don’t have. Help single mothers in every aspect of bringing up children as possible. Send troubled kids to high priced counselors for free if you can. Do all of these things and give praise to those who do them, as I give them praise.

But you will never truly fix these problems at their core until families are fixed; until most fathers want to be dads and mothers want them there to help co-parent. Not until we have families that are healthy will we raise men and women who will know how to have healthy families themselves. “Defeated mothers and absent fathers create future defeated mothers and absent fathers.” Thankfully, the opposite is also true!

We desperately need to incentivize and encourage families to stay together rather have policies that tend to incentivize and make it easier for them to stay apart. If you look at cities and neighborhoods where single parent families prevail and then compare them to two parent family neighborhoods, you will see that the neighborhoods with very high crime always fall within, or come from, the single parent neighborhoods.

The more we focus on keeping families together, the less we will have to deal with almost any other social issue! Saving money, time, and lives!!

#powerofdadhood

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Random Thoughts of a Grandfather

12/10/2015

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I like to think I'm a little above average in intelligence, we all do. I do know I'm no genius. It takes a while for some truths in life to sink in. But now I'm in my sixties and I know that living life, more than being told is the real way of knowing your truth.

These are my truths.

Find some quiet time. Tension is much more exhausting and dangerous than physical activity.

Trying to get people to like you is a waste of time and anxiety.

Your biggest regrets will not be things you did, but those things you didn’t do.

People accept risks regarding their health more often than they accept risks for personal growth.

A few good friends trump a ton of acquaintances.

Don’t pretend to like kids. They can tell.

Be satisfied with where you are, but critical of where you are going.

Most people don’t understand risks. If they did, they wouldn’t play the lottery, they wouldn’t fear flying, and they would understand that their kids are more likely to be hurt inside their home than by a stranger outside their home.

Doing something for others doesn’t always help them as much as pushing them to do it themselves.

Doing something nice is not always the smartest thing to do. Think it through first.

When you get on your knees to talk to a kid, they know you’re serious.

When in doubt, hesitate and evaluate.

Don't assume older people don't know what they are talking about. They deserve to be heard and respected. (Because I am now one of them)

Giving always beats getting. Especially in a fist fight.

Emotional viewpoints are rarely a relevant consideration to anyone outside of your family.

Refuse, whenever possible, to be responsible for someone else’s affairs/estate.

Being on time is being respectful.

At the corner of effort and intelligence, you'll find luck.

Dogs show their love more than people because they are not afraid of being hurt.

Feeling guilty is one of the worst of all feelings. So accept the possible consequences of what you do, or don’t do it.

You always have a choice, but it's not always easy.

Your gut is often smarter than your brain.

Parenting a child is like painting a picture. Do your best work early before the paint dries. Mistakes are difficult to correct.

Your children mimic you more than they listen to you.

If you wait for life to be fair, you will be left behind!

If you want to be helped, help yourself first.

If you don’t like yourself, do something yourself will like.

Be open to others opinions, at least try.

No one is better than you. They may be better at something, but not better.

Never rest on your laurels. You will get a bedsore.

"Only [a caring and involved] father, with a good mother, can help society reduce violence, alleviate anger, ease anxiety, and promote the family—one child at a time.
- The Power of Dadhood

2015 michaelbyronsmith.com

#powerofdadhood

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Thoughts on Dadhood in Words and Pictures

12/7/2015

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Family, fun, and fotos!

I created a table top book with a collection of photos (with captions) that I have used on this blog (Helping Fathers to be Dads). It is entitled 'Thoughts on Dadhood in Words and Pictures". I created it for my family but since it requires no extra work to share it, other than this post, I decided to do so.

I actually like photography more than writing so I almost always add a photo of mine with each article. The book I wrote, "The Power of Dadhood" and this blog are part of my mission in retirement to share what I have learned as a child abandoned by his father and as a father who cherishes every aspect of his Dadhood! Taking photos is my escape!

I used MyPublisher to make this photo book months ago, therefore, more recent blog photos aren't included. The cover is an ocean shore with a seagull flying by. I'm not sure why I picked that photo. It doesn't portray 'Dadhood' at all. If I expand this book I will change the cover, possibly with the photo of my grandson in a creek (above).

If the link "Dadbook" doesn't work for you or you can't read it, send me an email at [email protected] and I will email the photo book to you, no charge, except the wish you might share it with other parents, especially dads!

Click on Dadbook, or the photo above and wait 5 seconds, it should pop up after MyPublisher's page.

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The Whisper of Fatherhood

12/3/2015

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How fortunate can you get? If you missed my article on my Helping Fathers to be Dads Facebook page, I repeat it here on my own blog so my worn out brain doesn’t have to write a second article this week. It is called The Whisper of Fatherhood.

But seriously, I’m fortunate to have the opportunity to write for an organization that supports fatherhood, that being GoodDads.com, based in Springfield, Missouri. They were kind enough to ask me to contribute to their blog and I wrote The Whisper of Fatherhood specifically for them. The essence of which talks about the importance of Dads regarding the emotional health of their children.

Please take a moment to read it below, or if you have read it, read it again. Thank you!

Click on the title:
The Whisper of Fatherhood

#powerofdadhood

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