child rearing - Dad of Divas

Being an Advocate for your child

April 20, 2010 by dadofdivas 3 Comments

J-Mom and I over the past 6 months have been fighting to get some testing for Diva-J to identify some behavioral issues that have become more and more concerning. When we started the process it seemed like it would work out fine. My employer provides a very good health plan and due to this, when Diva-J’s pediatrician recommended some testing for Diva-J, we thought, sure, it should be covered, so why not. This was the start of a huge journey in advocacy and fighting back and forth between our insurance company and the places where we wan to take our child.

At first, our insurance company made it seem like we would be able to go to the place where the pediatrician recommended. Once J-Mom had put together all of the paperwork for the office, we came to find out that in fact, they would not cover this location. Instead, our insurance company gave us a list of a number of other places to try and see if they worked with children. After taking a ton of time doing this, we found that none of the locations worked with children or they were not taking new patients. So the insurance company gave us a few more names and we went through the same process. The challenge was that each of these calls would end up taking a very long time due to the fact that J-Mom was retelling the story over and over to each office that she called.

Finally, we found a place that would take Diva-J and help us better understand what we can do to assist with the behavioral issues that we are dealing with. The biggest challenge that J-Mom and I found in this process is how much we had to push our insurance company and the doctor’s offices to get the service that we needed for our daughter… we truly had to become an advocate for Diva-J as we knew that she could not be an advocate for herself. I think this was the first main experience where we both felt that we were parents intervening for the betterment of our daughter.

So right now we are in the midst of having Diva-J go through some testing, so we are waiting to see what comes out of all of this. Wish us luck!

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Another Year Older!

April 7, 2010 by dadofdivas 5 Comments

Well, today is my birthday…yes, another year older! Do I feel it, you might say so, as last week I ended up having to have surgery on my knee because of a torn meniscus. I would not have thought that being as young as I am that I would already have to be dealing with this type of procedure, but alas, I did. So I am still using crutches, but I am bouncing back pretty well thus far.

Since I have become a parent, I tell people that I can definitely see time moving forward, and it moves by fast! The reason I see this on a daily basis is because of my girls and how much they are growing each day. Diva-PJ is talking more and more daily and Diva-J is learning so much in school. I look at them and am floored by the progress that they make. Watching this I realize how much they are growing which then means that I too am growing older as well. So even though I do see some grey in my hair (they say it looks distinguished on a man), my girls are the mirror through which I see my age progressing, not the static mirror that I look into each morning.

So as I grow another year older, am I upset or concerned about this…no, not really… but ask me a few years down the road and we’ll see if the answer remains the same (it probably will with my optimistic nature!).

Book Review – Kids, Parents and Technology. An Instruction Manual for Young Families

March 3, 2010 by dadofdivas Leave a Comment

About the Book
With the recent data from the Kaiser Family Foundation, which showed that kids 8-18 years old are consuming an average of over 7 hours of media a day, and the launch of the iPad, youth media consumption is an extremely relevant topic and it is more important that ever that parents take an active role in how much media their children are consuming.

“Younger and younger children are now in charge of how they consume media, and they are mostly consuming junk,” explains Dr. Eitan Schwarz MD DLFAPA FAACAP, author of Kids, Parents, and Technology: An Instruction Manual for Young Families and Child Psychiatrist. “Excessive consumption can cause emotional difficulties, as well as result from existing ones. Children need the thoughtful, active and positive guidance of their parents in this amazing Wild-West tech environment. Merely restricting access is just not enough.”

Dr. Schwarz offers the following tips for parents of infants through eight-year-olds worried about their children’s current and future uses of these technologies:

Take Charge – Have confidence and take charge. You can manage this important area of your kids’ lives. Many parents too readily take a back seat and let kids take the lead. In what other important area of life would they let that happen?
Media are Appliances – Start thinking of media as family appliances that must have positive values. Kids treat media as toys, but they are in fact adult tools with enormous power. Would you let your unsupervised young child use the telephone or oven? Only devices with proven benefits belong in children’s hands.
Technology is Healthy – From infancy onwards, teach kids to appreciate technology as a healthy and routine part of family life. Starting young, children will learn that using technology is collaborative and social — and not an isolating solitary activity.
Include the Whole Family – Create a new environment around the online family computer and other media to promote mutuality, fun, respect, and development for the entire family. Moving the home computer away from the wall and arranging seating all around it will make it a popular center for family life.
Make Media a Positive Learning Tool – Just as you already shop for healthy food, harvest the positive opportunities offered by media. For example, for every age group there are wonderful Internet sites that offer a world of learning entertainment experiences.
Create Healthy Media Rules – Tailor healthy media diets into daily menus for each child to provide development opportunities. For example, regularly require enough online time on sites that enhance good values and education enrichment.

About The Author

EITAN D. SCHWARZ, M.D., D.L.F.A.P.A., F.A.A.C.A.P., is a distinguished psychiatrist, knows kids, parents, and technology. Dr. Schwarz is board certified in both general psychiatry as well as child and adolescent psychiatry. During his nearly 40 years of practice and teaching in a variety of public, private, and academic settings, Dr. Schwarz has been steadily examining the needs of children and families throughout their lives. Since medical school at Johns Hopkins, he has also been studying the uses of technology in health care and the practice of medicine. Currently on the faculty of Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, he has recently researched the use of digital media in play therapy with children.

My Take On The Book
Today children are inundated with technology and media. From an early age they have every little bit of technology at their fingertips. It is hard as a parent to hold them back from using or getting swept up in the hype of this, but we try never-the-less. This book provides readers with a collection of resources and tools that help to arm parents and other loved ones against the technology and media that may be causing issues within your family. The book works to help parents see that media can be used as a positive influence in a child’s life.

The book is practical and hands on and truly helps parents guide their children in using interactive media proactively so that they learn and continue to develop in a positive manner.

If you are a parent or a loved one that has a young child that you interact with, this book is something that will open your eyes and help to control the influence that media may have on your child, I highly recommend it.

If this book wounds like one that you would like in your own collection you can find it on Amazon!

All opinions expressed in this review are my own and not influenced in any way by the company. Any product claim, statistic, quote or other representation about a product or service should be verified with the manufacturer or provider. Please refer to this site’s Terms of Use for more information. I have been compensated or given a product free of charge, but that does not impact my views or opinions.

Soccer Dad

May 13, 2008 by dadofdivas 2 Comments

So Diva-J has always been a physical girl and has loved to be outside and has loved playing ball with Dad ever since she was able to walk. A few months ago we got her into a soccer class within the YMCA and she just loved it and thrived in the class. So a few weeks back the class went into a new term and we went from being inside to being outside.

Now Wisconsin, at least Northeastern Wisconsin is not know for having much of a spring. So the first week we are out at soccer clss it is in the upper 30’s and the kids are freezing. The second week it is in the upper 40’s and raining. So far this is not boding well for dad who is the one bringing Diva-J to the class.

Above and beyond the weather woes…I have always tended to wonder why the term Soccer Mom came to be known as such as I see many dads who are there with their children, and not just Moms. What about the term Soccer Dads? Does the term Soccer Mom refer again to the fact that American society tends to see Mom as the primary caregiver of children in families? I did a quick Google of this and found in a defintion in Wikipedia.

It states that:

The term has been traced to Ludlow, Massachusetts, where a report came out that a man absconded with $3,150 raised for the benefit of a local soccer league. It is unclear whether a newspaper story or a television news report was the first to use the term.[1] The term came into widespread use in the 1990s, notably during the 1992 and 1996 presidential campaigns and has been in use ever since.[citation needed]

In a literal definition, soccer moms have children who play soccer. The term has been extended in popular culture to include mothers anxiously running their children errands in oversized SUV vehicles while chatting on their cell phone. To some extent the phrase has begun taken on a negative stigma. Nissan, who had for several years courted the “soccer-mom” image, repositioned its Quest minivan as “stylish, sexy and desirable” [2].

Needless to say there was no wikipedia page for the term Soccer Dad…

Well… needless to say I a a Soccer Dad and spend my Saturday mornings thoroughly enjoying watching my eldest having fun on the soccer field with the other little kids… So power to the dads out there who like me are supporting there kids and are having fun in the meantime!