Know Your Kids

  by Andrew Wolgemuth

If there are dads that deserve salutes (and there are), there are also dads that deserve the opposite:

 

Ouch…the number of simple questions about their kids these guys answer incorrectly is just painful.

And—if I’m going to be completely honest—it’s also a little convicting. I’ve got birthdays down so Jimmy’s team on the street wouldn’t trip me up on those, but it’s not hard for me to imagine questions about my kids that I would trip on. 

And, really, I want to know my kids way beyond just their teachers’ names and who their best friends are…I want to actually know those friends and understand why they’re important in my kids’ lives.

Some of your kid’s facts and favorites likely change with great frequency (favorite colors seem to have a life span of just a week or two in our household), and keeping track of such is likely impossible. But the aim of aspiring to know them…of being curious about the little people in your home and seeking to uncover more of their personality and quirks and traits, that’s a wonderful, worthwhile, life-long quest that’s at the heart of dadcraft.

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There are lots of avenues to getting to know our kids better. Solo time with them is often key (whether it comes via running errands or otherwise) and certainly being present while we’re with them is a non-negotiable. 

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