Dads in the Limelight ( #limelightdads )-Henry Herz ( @Nimpentoad ) #dadchat

I’m a married father of two sons. By day, I’m a management consultant. As a Lean Six Sigma black belt, I help companies become more competitive by reducing wasteful activities and shortening the time it takes to produce their product or service. By night, I’m a caped crime-fighter! Actually, by night, I am a children’s book author.

I’m in the limelight because I help my two sons run small web-based businesses. Our latest collaboration has been co-authoring children’s books!

My wife Julie and I have been married for 15 years. We have two sons, Josh, 13, and Harrison, 11. They both enjoy playing video games, going to Comic-Con, and watching The Lord of the Rings movie. Josh likes LEGO, and Harrison likes pellet gun shooting. On the sports front, Josh enjoys doing parkour (look it up), and Harrison loves playing competitive basketball.

One big challenge of being a father is balancing my commitments. I have to work, of course, to provide for my family. Consulting and authoring could easily take up all of a person’s time. But it is also very important to me to spend time with my wife and boys. So, being a very organized person, I explicitly schedule “dates” with my wife, and time to spend with each son individually. I do that to avoid the possibility of sibling rivalry during the outing. Each son gets my full attention for that time.

Choose your battles. It is not healthy (and in reality, you cannot) make all of your kids’ decisions for them. Teach them safety and your values, and then reinforce the critical things. So, (at the younger ages) there is no flexibility about being allowed to run across a street without holding a parent’s hand. But it’s OK if they get to make choices, like what to eat at a restaurant. Giving them the opportunity to choose helps their self-esteem and independence.

You are their parent first, and friend second. While it would be great fun to always do fun stuff with your kids, and let them eat all the sweets they want, that pleasure will have to wait until you are a grandparent. 🙂 A loving father protects, provides for, and teaches his kids to be good people and successful in life. Those responsibilities are paramount. By all means, have fun doing things with your kids. But as the parent, it is your job to set reasonable limits. My sons have a set time to go to bed in the evening. But on New Year’s they can stay up as late as they want (later than us parents, this last New Year’s). My sons can have dessert, but only after eating their entree and vegetables. They can play video games (for a fixed amount of time), but only after they’ve finished their homework.

I discovered that helping my sons run their small businesses affords us opportunities to spend time together, enables me to pursue writing children’s books, and also gives me a chance to teach them life lessons about responsibility, handling money, perseverance, and even public speaking.

Small web-based businesses we’ve run include:

• J&H LEGO – custom-designed LEGO vehicles for gifts & party favors
• J&H Bases & Terrain – custom cast bases for the fantasy and science fiction tabletop miniatures game Warhammer
• YardCritters – custom cast and painted concrete animals for your yard
• Nimpentoad – fantasy early chapter book (www.nimpentoad.com)
• Finstin – science fiction picture book. This is our latest endeavor, and we are currently running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the book’s artwork. Those interested in promoting reading, writing, and entrepreneurship by kids, please consider helping us at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/henryherz/finstin-science-fiction-picture-book-for-little-ge

Of course, most of the parenting values I hold dear I learned from my father. While he was a better man than I, I know he was proud of how his grandsons are turning out. And being self-employed affords me the flexibility to spend more time with my sons than he did with me. Investing your time builds both the relationship with your kids and great memories.

I think it is critical to lead by example. If you don’t want your kids using curse words, don’t curse (at least not in front of them). If you want them to be honest, always be honest with them. If you want them to be openminded, show them you will try new things.

Co-authoring a book with your kids is just a terrific way to spend time with them and to teach them all kinds of life lessons. They are now comfortable speaking in public, making change (when someone buys a book), being interviewed, and having the discipline to attend a book signing, when they’d rather be playing video games. I love that I can step away from our booth and then watch them handle themselves as competent and responsible young adults. I am so proud that our first book Nimpentoad has been featured in Young Entrepreneur and Wired GeekDad, and that it has earned 82 Amazon 5-star ratings to date.

We think it is very important to broaden our kids’ perspective by traveling overseas. Fortunately, my sons are comfortable flying, and are very openminded about trying new foods. So, we are gradually building a great collection of memories from all the interesting destinations. Since my sons like fantasy, they really enjoy visiting real-life castles. The first time Josh played the video game Assassin’s Creed, he realized that the story takes place in Florence because he recognized the building style from having walked the streets himself!

Another great experience we’ve had has been meeting many fellow authors and illustrators. At the San Diego Public Library 46th Annual Local Author’s Exhibit, my sons asked for autographs from Chris Ryall (head of IDW Publishing) and graphic novelist Eric Shanower. Both of these gentlemen then graciously asked for my boys’ autographs. First class!

At the La Mesa Centennial Readers & Writers Festival, we shared a booth with Ron Noble, animator of Rugrats, Rocket Power, and Wild Thornberry’s. He was very kind, and my boys left that day with personalized Wild Thornberry sketches. First class!

I’m looking forward some day to seeing my sons read the books they helped write, Nimpentoad and Finstin, to my grandkids. 🙂