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Did You Miss Us? We’ve Been Licking Lemon Ant Butts! Cast of Dads Podcast #57

by Michael Sheehan on May 8, 2013

in Audio, Cast of Dads, Family, General, Humor, Opinion, Parenting, PodCast

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Yep, we’re baaaack! Have you ever tried to organize the lives of 5 busy dads who are dispersed across the country and time zones? The image of herding cats comes to mind. The desire to record our Cast of Dads podcast is there, the free time, however, is not. Yeah, excuses, excuses. We did manage to all get on a call about a week ago and chat through a variety of topics though, and were able to record Cast of Dads Podcast #57, “Lemon Flavored Ant Butts.”

Cast of Dads Podcast - Episode #57

I always feel that half an hour is simply not enough time to catch up and talk about the various parenting and life topics that are on our minds. In fact, Jeff and I would like to think that a little, profanity-filled, private video that we filmed together and shared with the other Cast of Dads members when he was visiting the town where I live was the impetus for us FINALLY getting back together to discuss our life activities. Perhaps if we have time, we will clean up the video and share it with y’all. However, until then, you just have to listen in on our latest podcast!

By listening, you might think that we are all a bunch of ADHD-plagued dads (well some of us are incredibly distracted, myself included). Just take a look at the topics we covered below, from light hearted parenting questions to the horror that occurred at the Boston Marathon to those “first times” at summer camp.

The Topics

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Remember the Evil. Embrace the Good. Talk with your Kids.

by Michael Sheehan on April 17, 2013

in Family, General, Opinion, Parenting

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Take a bucket full of water. Pour some oil into it, not too much, but enough so that is forms a small blob floating on the surface. Now find a large rock and drop it into the water and oil. What happens? Obviously there is a splash. And if you look down in the bucket, you see lots of smaller blobs of oil. Now sit back and wait. Eventually, the blobs will all coalesce into one big blob again.

Water Splash

This week, society was once again marred by evil at the Boston Marathon. As of this writing, we do not know if it was the evil acts of one individual or many. A big rock was dropped into a bucket of oil and water. A single, violent, tragic event tore apart the calm. But watch, in the horror, stories of survival and heroics emerge. And society joins together to condemn these evil acts, prays for those effected and strengthens as a whole to become better.

Is the World Evil?

When I talked to my oldest daughter about the events in Boston, she was shocked. Hearing the bombs go off on the radio gave us both chills and prickly goose bumps. I really wasn’t sure what to say. One never really does. As a parent, our duty in life is to protect, nurture, educate and love. It is difficult yet incredibly rewarding. But when that rock is thrown and the water is splashed and the oil separated, how do you talk about this with your children.

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Social Media Policy for Families

by Michael Sheehan on April 10, 2013

in Family, General, Opinion, Parenting, Social Media, Social Networking

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Quite a few years ago, I came up with some Social Media Guidelines, primarily geared towards businesses. I realized I also seem to write a lot of tips and recommendations for parents on how they can help their kids with social media. That got me thinking. Perhaps, I should come up with a social media policy for families (kids and their parents).

Social Media Policy for Families

Social Media Policy for Families

Below are some ideas, rules and discussion points that you might want to implement with your children as they embark down the path of social media. Of course, you can and should pick the ones that are the most appropriate for you and craft some that are specific to your family values (e.g., “you will not do social media at all until you have your own job and even then, I will be watching”).

These “policies,” guidelines and promises are divided between parents and children. There is some overlap. And honestly, I feel sometimes the best way to approach this is with some humor!

Social Media Policy & Guidelines for Families

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Reacting To and Remembering the Tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary – Cast of Dads Podcast #55

by Michael Sheehan on December 21, 2012

in Audio, Cast of Dads, Family, General, Opinion, Parenting, PodCast, Safety, Security

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A week ago today, innocent children, students and educators were horrifically gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I don’t believe that anyone will fully understand the “why” but all of us have been struggling to comprehend it as well as be able to talk about this event with other adults as well as our children. The Sunday after this tragedy struck, the Cast of Dads got together to discuss this horrible event. Originally, this was to be our “holiday” episode, unfortunately, we only were able to talk about the joy of the holidays at the end of the show.

Cast_of_Dads_episode_55

The event was pretty fresh in our heads but I believe we all had some pretty firm ideas about Sandy Hook. And since we are all dads, this hit pretty close to home .

The Topics

Here are some of the topics we covered in Episode #55: [click to continue…]

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The Loss of Innocence

December 14, 2012
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Innocence was lost today, not just in Connecticut but across the world. Our future was tragically and horrifically gunned down in yet another act of senseless violence. After 9/11, our nation changed. We became paranoid, more careful and we thought, safer. Today’s events prove otherwise. Violence can come from anywhere, from strangers or from people [...]

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Get Your Game On with the PlayMG, an Android-based Gaming Device (#Giveaway Too!)

November 12, 2012
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I would be surprised to find a kid that doesn’t play games on some sort of an hand-held device. They are either borrowing their parents smartphones or tablets and playing game apps there, have their own smartphone or hand-held gaming device devoted purely to gaming, or using some sort of other gaming outlet like a [...]

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Why It’s Important to Teach your Kids How to Cook and Use Social Media

September 19, 2012
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A recent post of mine which focused on an informal and potentially dangerous marriage between Instagram and Kik Messenger seems to have gotten quite a bit of attention lately. I’m always excited when I can share my ideas, opinions, insights and personal recommendations when it comes to educating kids about the evolution of social media [...]

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How to Use Olympic Gymnastics Scoring to Get Your Kids to do their Chores

July 13, 2012
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There is a lot of excitement in my house with the coming 2012 Olympics in London, mainly because my 10-year-old daughter is a competitive gymnast. We watched the women’s gymnastics trials a few weeks ago, and my daughter has some clear favorites and has been critiquing how each of the gymnasts are doing. But as [...]

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