Posted under DADvocate, Parenting by metzgerbusiness on Saturday 27 February 2010 at 9:49 am
As I mentioned in my post The DADvocate Project Branding Contest – Win a free Twitter Background! I wanted to open up this branding process to the DADvocate community at large and and gain some feedback. Admittedly I also want to give my designer some exposure since I think she is AWESOME. So please leave some comments about your thoughts and you’ll have the opportunity to win a free twitter background designed by Havana. Check out her web site Kokographix.com
One of neatest things about this process was her introduction of children into the design during her creative process. It was something I would never have thought of but I really like how she worked it in. What do you think?
Posted under DADvocate by metzgerbusiness on Thursday 25 February 2010 at 9:35 pm
Last weeks contest came to you from my friend Deb Ingino at My Wired Style. She offered to give away her My Wired Style E-Kit on parenting and communication in the household. I recorded this video about the product back in November. I am now an affiliate for this product. Last week I was unaware that she was offering an affiliate program.
This is a great product to help you learn how to communicate as a family based on your different personality types. I believe it is a valuable course to complete even if you feel you have great communication within your family because of the insight it provides about who you, your spouse and your children are. Strategies for communication are much easier once you understand how all the personalities in your household perceive what the others are saying.
The winner of the My Wired Style E-Kit is Nathan Greenberg from ProActiveDads.com Is a great blog that focuses on the value of being a dad and is a great resource for dads.
One of the questions we like to ask our dads at The DADvocate Project is what is your parenting philosophy? Nathan Shared his: “I’m suddenly finding it difficult to summarize my approach. Hard to briefly explain raising a future adult for 18 years. I suppose it could be this: Teach the value of respect, the importance of discipline, the necessity of curiousity, and the benefits of determination. Due all of that teaching with love and you should reap the rewards of a wonderful child. ”
I love how Nathan expresses his philosophy even if he did find it “difficult to summarize.” Congratulations Nathan on winning the My Wired Style E-Kit. I hope you enjoy the benefits.
Posted under DADvocate by metzgerbusiness on Tuesday 23 February 2010 at 11:04 pm
It feels like there is never enough time to spend with your kids. I imagine that’s true even for stay at home dads, but I know it’s true for most working fathers. We work hard to provide for the family, go to work, do our best to do a great job, and then come home and enjoy the kids for a few hours before we sit down and go back to work for the night, play on the internet, exercise, watch tv or hang out with the wife or even all the above. The weeks fly by and the weekends are even faster. As you can see from the above data we by a large majority are spending 1 -3 hours or less on weekdays with our kids, but it looks like we try to do our best to make up for it on the weekends.
Despite what these numbers indicate I still think we are tying to find ways to be more engaged with our children during the week. I know I try to be diligent about spend time with each of the kids at night, talk about there day and be present. I also try to find some fun game to play like hide and seek or something of that nature. What do you do during the week to deepen your involvement with your kids?
Have you taken the DADvocate survey yet? If not click here and participate now!
WOW! things are going fast now. Today we received the layout of Haley’s new book and I’m very excited to see it come to press soon. We already sent back our edits. Hopefully Publish America will make the changes tomorrow and we’ll go to printing this week. I’ll keep you posted.
We had a number of users take the DADvocate survey this week too. I hope to get all their answers into the spreadsheet I use to build the data tomorrow so I can get more current statistics. The drawing for the MyWiredStyle.com will be held tomorrow.
Finally we had more people take the survey this week than we have yet. The numbers are beginning to excellerate and I’m very excited.
Here is a quick video interview I did with Haley about her book.
Posted under DADvocate by metzgerbusiness on Saturday 20 February 2010 at 3:50 pm
This is the first in a series of videos that I’ll be posting. This video is of Havana interviewing me on the DADvocate project so she could get an idea of what I’m looking to do with the DADvocate projects for design purposes. I’m looking for feedback from the folks who read this blog. This particular contest is open to both men and women. All you have to do is leave feedback on the video’s and you’ll be entered to win a Twitter background designed by Havana.
I hope you enjoy this series of videos. This is the first video a second one will be posted tomorrow. There will be at least one additional video probably scheduled next week.
Posted under DADvocate by metzgerbusiness on Thursday 18 February 2010 at 11:00 pm
Arcadian Rhythms
I’m writing this post at 1:15 AM on Friday Morning February 19, 2010. I fell asleep on the couch around 9:00 PM and just woke up. I’m frustrated because I was hoping I would only sleep for an hour and then I could get up and run but that didn’t work out so well. I’m going to have to try and run tomorrow morning as a last ditch effort to prep for my first 5k ever on Saturday. I’ve been running a lot lately at least for me. I think however that the arch in my left foot is beginning to fall. I’m not quite sure what I’m supposed to do about that, I guess I should talk with a doc.
Panties and Business
Panties and business is the title of an article I wrote over at Dad-o-matic this week and it seem to have gotten a lot of attention. I know why and it has little to do with the article, go check it out I promise you’ll enjoy it. I almost forgot to mention Abby is completely potty trained now. She got the hang of it by Saturday evening. It’s been a few days since I wrote the post over at DAD-o-Matic so I’m not sure if I mention it there.
Sorry this is such a short post but I’m going to go and get some more sleep.
Oh one quick note, I spoke with Drew from benspark.com very briefly today and I’m excited to have conversation with him next week about the DADvocate project. We’ll be recording the conversation and posting for all to hear.
Posted under DADvocate by metzgerbusiness on Wednesday 17 February 2010 at 11:45 pm
Today I met with Havana, the designer that is doing my header for the DADvocate project. We videoed the interview and I’ll have it posted probably by Sunday. I’m very excited about what she is doing and look forward to working with Havana and this community to build the graphic for the header of the new TheDADvocateProject.com site. The video starts out with Havana asking some very insightful questions to better capture and understand the brand message. In one of the questions she asked about the audience who is taking the survey. I mentioned in my answer that I felt many of the people who have taken the survey are technology based. I decided to run the numbers and it turns out that approximately 30% of the survey participants work in the technology field. I suspect that the number may be higher but the way the question is worded could lead one to answer that they work in the Transportation sector even if their primary function is in the Technology field. I just thought this was some interesting data and wanted to share.
What questions would you like answered about The DADvocate Survey dads? Let me know.
Posted under DADvocate by metzgerbusiness on Tuesday 16 February 2010 at 11:53 pm
All DADvocate survey participants last week were entered into a drawing for a $10 Amazon gift card. We had about seven participants who entered with all the information correctly filled out and last night the winner was selected.
The winner of Last week’s DADvocate contest is Todd Jordan. Todd received the Amazon gift card via email today. I asked Todd last night if I could share his parenting philosophy with the readers of this blog and he agreed.
Todd what is your Parenting philosophy?
“Stern but try to find reasons to not say NO.
Prefer children to have a sense of work ethic, such as early to bed, early to rise, be on time.
No longer a believer in spanking but instead trying to understand.” – Todd
Todd thanks you for sharing and congratulations. If you would like to find out more about Todd you can read his blog The Broad Brush of follow Todd on Twitter at @tojosan
Posted under DADvocate by metzgerbusiness on Monday 15 February 2010 at 11:50 pm
This is awesome! Today Deb my friend from My Wired Style offered to give away her My Wired Style E-Kit on parenting and communication in the household. I recorded this video about the product back in November. I am not an affiliate of this product but I would be if she offered an affiliate program.
This is a great product to help you learn how to communicate as a family based on your different personality types. I believe it is a valuable course to complete even if you feel you have great communication within your family because of the insight it provides about who you, your spouse and your children are. Strategies for communication are much easier once you understand how all the personalities in your household perceive what the others are saying.
To win the My Wired Style E-Kit which sells for $79.95 all you have to do is complete The DADvocate Project Survey and provide your email address for the DADvocate mailing list at the end of the survey.
What is a DADvocate?
DADvocates are a new generation of dads and I don’t think we have a great definition but I’ve undertaken a project to help define who we are and I need your help to complete the project.
The DADvocate Project consists of three phases:
1. The Survey – this is an in-depth look at who you are and what you do. We discuss how much time you spend in the various areas of life including, family, finances, work, physical fitness and much more. We are publishing survey results as we go. You can read about the survey results in various posts on this blog.
2. Interviews – The interviews will be the second phase of the DADvocate project. Interviews will go in-depth with some of the participants of the DADvocate survey. We will talk about experiences growing up, College, and work. We will ask about the best moments you have had with your children and how you spend your time trying to be the best dad you can be.
3. Book – The final part of the DADvocate project will be a published book that tells the story of who we (dads) are and why we give all we give to being a parent, how that includes our work and our responsibilities to our wives and ourselves.
The DADvocate project could use your help. We need your input in the survey and interviews. We need participation from dads across the country and world. If you would like to help please come over to TheDADvocateProject.com and complete the survey. If you would like to learn more about the project feel free to email me at kevin [at] metzgerbusiness [dot] com.
Finally all survey participants are entered into a grand prize drawing to win and Apple iPad.
Posted under Parenting by metzgerbusiness on Thursday 11 February 2010 at 1:12 pm
I love the nighttime routine with my kids. It’s really the only time I get to spend with them during the week so it’s special. For some odd reason I’ve developed the habit of telling my kids I’m going to eat them up before I tickle or puckel – (Give Raspberries) them. Abby my younger daughter thinks is funny but doesn’t like the idea of being eaten up so she always tells me I can’t eat her up.
Abby does not like spicy food. She won’t even try anything anymore if she thinks it might be spicy. So when I told her I was going to eat her up the other night we had the following conversation:
Abby: “No! Don’t eat me up!”
Daddy: “Yep, Here I come I’m going to eat you up!”
Abby: “NO! I SPICY!”
Daddy: <Cracking up on the floor.> “But I like spicy.”
Abby: <Giggling> “I, spicy don’t eat me up”
Daddy: “Okay do you want a tickle”
Abby: <Laughing now> “YES!”
