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They Are Still Just Kids

2017-08-07 by dadgoesround Leave a Comment

Image of a doll in a swing

Life at eight years old

Lately I have found myself increasingly thinking about my eight year old self and comparing my memories of that time to my eight year old daughter and her life. Next month my eight year old will be nine and starting grade four.

When I was that age my parents separated, my dad moved to his parents house in one city. My mum, brother and I moved to another city where my mum worked. I started grade four at a new school in a new city.

That was a challenging year for me. I didn’t like my teachers and I don’t think I did that well in school that year. I got in fights at school. Once I got in trouble for writing swear words in chalk on the school walls and sidewalks. My punishment was to clean the chalk off the walls, but as it turned out it had rained the night before and everything had washed away. In spite of the challenge adjusting to a new school, city, home and life, I made new friends and adapted. Grade five was a better year for me.

My memories of myself at that age are simultaneously of a kid old enough to know what I was doing in the world and of being just a kid. My eight year old acts the same way.

I can have conversations with her in which I forget she is eight. I watch her look after her little sister and lead her older and younger sisters in creative play and activities. She can be mature and committed to what she is doing. She can also have blow out temper tantrums that make me wonder if she is in fact three.

This eight year old of mine consumes a lot of thinking time. I think about her future more than her sisters’ future. This is primarily because she is the smart, stubborn kid who make me work harder as a dad. She is the child who pushes my buttons and frequently engages in power struggles with me. She challenges me in many ways to be a better dad.

I think about ways to help her channel her frustrations and stubbornness in productive ways. I know that these characteristics that make her challenging to parent will serve her well in the future.

Then there are times when I remember – she is only eight. She loves to play with dolls – she and her older sister would spend all day at the park playing with their dolls if they didn’t also need to eat and pee.

I love listening to the stories and adventures that they craft during their play. They build off of each other and take on different roles. Sometimes they speak for the dolls and sometimes they speak for themselves as the mothers, aunts, doctors and teachers of their doll children.

Their play is not so different from the hours I would spend with my friends playing GI Joe, Star Wars or Transformers when I was their age. We acted out the parts of each figure and spent a lot of time getting everything set up for whatever action was going to take place.

These moments help me to remember that in spite of all my thoughts about the future, impending adolescent years and efforts to stop them yelling at each other, my girls are after all, still just kids.

Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: childhood, Dad, family, Fatherhood, kids, Parenting

Six Reasons Parents Love Spring

2016-04-18 by dadgoesround 1 Comment

6 Reasons Parents Love Spring

The snow has finally gone, except for a few piles here and there hiding in the shady corners of backyards. and the temperatures are going up so I think it is mostly safe to declare that spring has arrived and that we are done with winter. The change of seasons brings all kinds of shifts in family life. It makes it easier to get out the door in the morning because kids don’t need to have 18 layers of clothes. With the warmer air we can just kick the kids outside to play and they don’t come back five minutes later complaining about the cold. The sun is out and parents everywhere are happy.

Six Reasons Parents Love Spring

No More SnowPants!

Image of Muddy Pants and Shoes

Yay… Now I just need to do a weeks’ worth of laundry every day to deal with the mud…

Spring Flowers

Garbage

So far our flowers look like garbage. On the upside we don’t have a dog so at least we only have to pick up the garbage as it emerges from the melting snow.

 

No More Clumps of Snow in the Front Hall to Step On (or puddles of melted snow)

Image of muddy footprints on the floor

Yup, more mud.

Barbeque Season!

Image of a BBQ covered by a tarp frozen to the ground.

Or at least it will be just as soon as I can get the BBQ out of the ice…

An End to Slush and Soaking Wet Snowpants

Image of sand pouring out of a boot

And the start to resupplying our sandbox with sand found in boots and shoes from the school yard.

 

Sticks!

Image of sticks on the ground

Seriously how many sticks does a kid need? My daughters collect every stick that they walk past. Most get used as walking sticks or for generally whacking things (and sisters) on the way home. Once at home they are used for stirring mud mixtures, making bows and arrows and for leaving on the front steps for daddy to trip over when he leaves the house in the morning. At least in the winter most of the them are buried or frozen to the ground.

 

What does spring mean to you?

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Filed Under: Parenting Tagged With: childhood, kids, mud, play, spring

Finding Humility

2016-04-15 by dadgoesround Leave a Comment

Image of a girl jumping in an Aikido class

When Last We Met I Was the Master

In my teen years I studied Ninjutsu for four years, and while I am sure that I griped about going from time to time – I was a teenager after all – it was a formative experience for me. As I advanced in my training I also took on a teaching role with the kids classes. I was a mediocre student and I was a good teacher. [Read more…]

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Filed Under: Health, Parenting Tagged With: Aikido, childhood, DadBloggers, Excercise, Humility, Martial Arts

Snow Tunnel Safety Rules

2016-01-03 by dadgoesround 1 Comment

Image of two kids digging a snow tunnel with text "Snow Tunnel Safety Rules"

We have finally got some snow around here and my kids have already been hard at work digging their first tunnel through the snow piles for the year, which means it is time for some snow tunnel safety rules.

As a kid I spent a lot of time with my fellow kid gang members digging tunnels and forts in the piles of snow that resulted from clearing the common driveway and parking spaces in our townhouse complex. Due to the size of the snow mounds we were able to build some impressive snow complexes. At the time we didn’t think too much about the risks of what we were doing. Fortunately we only experienced a few tunnel collapses when someone was inside and none of them resulted in any significant consequences. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Kids, Parenting Tagged With: childhood, family, Fatherhood, kids, Parenting, Snow, Snow Tunnel Safety Rules

Raise a Voter

2015-09-18 by dadgoesround Leave a Comment

Image of election campaign signs with text "raising voters"

Labour Day has come and gone. School has started and the federal election campaigns are ramping up. If your kids are like mine after a couple of days sitting at desks, they are both exhausted and high energy bouncing off the walls in need of some activity. Fortunately the Federal Election presents an opportunity for education, exercise and time together.

Election campaigns run on volunteer power. They require volunteers to make phone calls and knock on doors to identify potential supportive voters and then on election day to ensure those supporters get out to the polls to vote. Those volunteers are people like you and me. They are fellow residents and community members who have decided they want to help a particular candidate or party win in their riding.

Read the rest of this post on Kids in the Capital where it originally appeared.

Filed Under: Politics, Public Service Tagged With: childhood, Federal election 2015, kids, Politics

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Chris Farley Ratcliffe is dad to three girls and writes about fatherhood, kids and current affairs. His superpowers include removing loose teeth on request and carrying more than one kid at a time. Read More…

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Skating in the woods!
Skating in the woods!

Doing some #tool and #workshop organizing as I get
Doing some #tool and #workshop organizing as I get set up in my new shop. #stillnottherightsize #allenkeys

The #snowbirds swing by and circled around our pla
The #snowbirds swing by and circled around our place a couple of times today. #ottawa

I talked to #mothernature through frozen lips this
I talked to #mothernature through frozen lips this morning. She says she would really like us to stay home. #quarantine #physicaldistancing #ottawa #plankthecurve #flattenthecurve #bendthecurve

I’m sorry #ottawa. I left my snow tires on speci
I’m sorry #ottawa. I left my snow tires on specifically to avoid anymore of this nonsense. Yesterday I had a conversation about the prospect of taking them off. Now I have to leave them on until July.

#physicaldistancing games. A proper tree swing is
#physicaldistancing games. A proper tree swing is the the works - pending arrival of the straps.


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