Welcome to this episode of, I don't know Jack, about parenting, where today I'm going to talk about the number one excuse parents have that I hear as to why they can't engage with their kids more.

Hey, welcome back to this episode of I don't know Jack about parenting, where today I'm going to call some parents out on their excuses reasons, justifications. Now, you may have guessed that I'm a pretty involved father. That is by choice. I have sacrificed some other things in my life so that I can be fully present with my children and be there for them because I believe based on my own experiences and other experiences, the more I researched this, um, the role of a parent is to be present into shower, their children with love. Now I didn't say baby them. I didn't say do everything for them. I said shower them with love and the way that children spell the word love in my experience is t I, m e, the more time, not even time, the quality of time you spend with your children is very important.

She'd spend dedicated time with me

How do I know this? Because my earliest memories of my most fond memories of my mom is when she was spending dedicated time with me, empowering me, talking to me on a daily basis. She typically because she worked long hours. This would happen in the evening time again in my book. That'd be the dad you wish you had. I have what's called daddy talk time. I believe I got it from my mom. She'd spend dedicated time with me every single evening and I spend dedicated time with my children every single evening. Um, obviously there are exceptions to that from traveling, something super important to happening. Um, but I also engage at my children's school. I'm capable of doing that again by design. So when people say, hey man, you're really lucky that you're able to do that. Just know that it's by design now. Not saying anybody needs to do what I do. I don't think everybody wants to be a coach or empower dads. That's not your thing. That's fine. But I can tell you this. Every mom and dad can spend dedicated time with their children if they choose to do it.

Because the time, excuse really doesn't exist. And I talked about it in an earlier podcast where if the head coach of an NFL football team that won super bowls and he was the head coach for 15 years, had three girls growing up in those 15 years that all played competitive basketball in high school and I believe they all went on to play in college. If he could not miss, if he didn't miss one basketball game for three different girls over probably a six, seven, eight year span while he was coaching in the NFL football team, you and I really don't have an excuse because that is a time demand on a coach managing a multi-billion dollar franchise.

It takes 15 minutes

So would that kind of responsibility if he could make it to every single one of his kids stuff, what's my excuse and ask yourself what's your excuse? So the number one reason, I'll pause again. The number one, it's not the number one. One of the things I do at my son's school is, this is a program that I run called FBI dads, fathers being involved and and I had this program and one of the things we have dads do is come in three times a year and read to the classrooms. There's 60 classrooms and I get 60 days to show up three times a year and read a book to the classroom. It takes 15 minutes, three times a year. The other thing we do that coincides with those three days is we have six dad's breakfast where they come and have breakfast with their kids.

When I started signing dads up to do this or I explained the program to them at the beginning of the year, even towards the middle of the year, if I get them face to face, I say, hey dads, we have a great program here in the school to get dad's, uh, to impact the school in a positive way. Male involvement on the school campus is proven to raise test scores, to raise morale, to raise self esteem. And that's what you want for your kids. This is what we do. We have three reader days and we have six breakfast. Those breakfasts or sponsor by a local business and all you have to do is come in, have breakfast, and there's an interactive presentation for you to have a great conversation with your child and get to know them a little bit better. Would you like to sign up without fail? The number one response from most adds to my face are, yeah, I'd really like to do that, but I work.

I'm going to be a little bit late

To that response I usually say I work too, but my children are important to me and I think if you were to run by your boss or your place of work with ample notice, Hey, I'm going to be a little bit late to the office maybe 10 or 15 minutes today or tomorrow or on this particular date and the reason I'm going to be late is because I'm going to have breakfast with my child at their school and it's not because I'm going to be late because I'm out of there by 8:00 in the morning is because I may hit traffic. I just wanted to give you a heads up that I may be a little bit late.

If you tell your boss in advance that this is the reason you're going to be late. Anybody with a heart is going to say, hey, take your time. Just get here safely. Enjoy Breakfast with your kid. But without hesitation or pause. The first rebuttal is, and I'd love to do that, but I work. What message is it sending to your child that it's always work? Listen, I know you need to put food on the table. Dads, moms, some of you are in the same scenario, but I question if you're a performer at school, sorry. If your performance at work is stellar, you show up and do your job and you do it well because that's what you're expecting of your kids. Right? To show up to school and do their thing. Well, I'm going to challenge you.

I see children that their face lights up

Can you not ask your boss to be late or even take the morning off two or three times a year so you could spend that love... see I through that in there that time with your child because when you show up to their school or when I watched these dads show up and I watched them connect with their kids, you know what I see? I see children that their face lights up like you would not believe because one, I'm important enough that dad is willing to be late to work. His Dad's never late to work. I'm important enough that he wants to spend time with me and I'm important enough that we get to have this really cool conversation because when I run this, I create an environment for them to truly engage.

Just no that I worked to dad's mom know that I worked to. You may be saying, yeah, but your work is empowering dads or other parents and that's why you could focus on this stuff. It's shifted towards that simply because I have a passion for it and I was doing these things in addition to my coaching business and I still do it in addition to my coaching business. Stop using excuses reasons. You could justify or you could just do what's right. You could have results in the form of really great kids or you could have reasons, but I'm going to tell you this. You can't have both reasons and results because the two are polar opposites of each other.

So when you're thinking about going to a school dance with your daughter, or you're thinking about going to a mother, son warrior competition, or you're thinking about going to one of these breakfast or thinking about going to a PTA meeting that may help you engage with the other parents and some teachers so that you have an environment for your child to excel. Think about how important it is for you to just show up in your child's life regardless of the other things in your life. Show them every once in awhile how important they are to you, not just by providing meals and shelter over their head. We'll see you in the next episode.