Happy Memorial Day!

Taken from the National Fatherhood Initiative, remember, this holiday is not about barbecuing and the start of summer. Its about remembering all those who have fought and died in the name of freedom so we can live in this great nation, the freest country the world has ever known. We need to pass this on to our children.

Use your day off to teach your kids these important values as you celebrate Memorial Day. Tim Red, our Director of Military Programming and a former service member, has some great ideas for teaching your children life lessons around Memorial Day.

Teach Sacrifice and Service. Don't just talk about it - get out there and serve! Put a care package together with your children, or make cards for service members. You can even sign up to welcome troops home from deployment. For more ideas and opportunities, visit United Service Organizations (USO).

Talk with a service member. If there is a family member who has served our country, have your children visit with him/her to hear his/her stories. You can also visit service members in your community, via your local VFW or American Legion, to hear their stories. They'll love the captive audience and will appreciate an in-person thank you.

Attend a community event, parade, or memorial. Most communities have a Memorial Day parade, an event to salute local service members, or a memorial you can visit. Take your kids to these events and memorials - it's a great way to spark conversation and talk to them about courage, sacrifice, and freedom. You can find a listing of special services in your community here.

Fly the American flag. Buy an American flag and fly it outside of your home during Memorial Day weekend.

While you're enjoying your long weekend, remember our service members and teach your kids the importance of their service, as well as values like courage and sacrifice. Don't miss this great opportunity to teach important life lessons!

Super Natural Adventures

A cool website for parents wanting to raise their kids outdoors. Super Natural Adventures follows Maggie Jacobus and her three sons living in the jungles of Costa Rica. Definitely an inspiring story, and fun for you and your kids.

Montana Years

I have a new article up at The Outdoor Parent

When I was three, my family moved to Montana to start a business and ended up with next to nothing. There were times where all we could afford for groceries was milk, eggs, flour and sugar. My mom made donuts and my brother and I thought it was the coolest thing ever. I still love donuts. We lived in a sixteen-foot-long travel trailer parked inside a shop building, rode hand-me-down bikes, and didn’t even own a TV (wait, we did have a 5-inch black and white). My brother and I thought we had everything....

Read the rest here at The Outdoor Parent

Father Knows Least

They say that people who are experts at any particular activity are not necessarily the best teachers. I try very hard not to listen to “they” because often “they” are wrong. While I don’t consider myself an expert skier, I am an experienced ski patroller at a little ski area in southeastern Indiana. I know a thing or two about turns. I have skied for nearly 25 years and patrolled for 8 years. I’ve stolen as much winter from southern Indiana and Ohio as humanly possible.

Barreling down a powdery steep carving huge GS turns is more than an experience. It’s an emotion akin to raw joy. Like many parents who ski, I wanted to pass my passion on to my children. I decided I would teach my kids to ski. I was self taught. Under my direction, I’d have them ripping turns in no time. I’ve seen the little ski whizzes buzzing down the black diamonds, no problem…

Read the rest here.

Open Eyes-Surfing after Kids

From The Outdoor Parent

Jurassic Five blasts out of my alarm at 6:00 in the morning. I’m out of bed before the second note, rushing to turn the alarm off before it wakes up Laura and Levi sleeping next to me. If Levi wakes up, it’s going to take a lot longer to get things together. First things first — start the coffee. Then, a quick yoga session in a feeble attempt to loosen shoulders tightened up by a week of hunching over a keyboard.

Read the rest here...

The Outdoor Parent

Today I am happy to announce the launch on a new website that I have the pleasure to be involved in in a small way. The Outdoor Parent was the idea of Fitz Cahall of the Dirtbag Diaries, where those who've been reading the Dirtbag Dad Diaries know allowed me to shamelessly use and alter the name for this site.

The Outdoor Parent is in our own words...

The Outdoor Parent is a collection of surfers, climbers and skiers who have embarked the greatest adventure -- parenthood -- and lived to tell about it. Stories, perspective and reflections on parenting, children and the outdoor lifestyle.

I'm am going to be a contributing writer on the site, as well as Steve Bohrer, and other fathers and mothers of like mind who are doing what we can to raise our children with a love of, and respect for, the natural world and all life has to offer outside of our "modern" bubbles.

It Takes a Village

While I think the saying "It takes a village" is off base family-wise, at least as a blanket statement used in a semi-recent book. It is a great metaphor in instances like like this. I believe that it takes parents to raise a child, but community has a lesser but important role in shaping a child's sense of social awareness. This is a great little story and one similar to what I hope to be writing as Levi gets older.

Found on The Cleanest Line

During spring break last week, my son, Owen, and I joined up with five different families and friends in Hueco Tanks, Texas to enjoy a week of bouldering, camping and a refreshing dose of community-style living. I am a big believer in the saying, "It takes a village to raise a child." I grew up in a large family (seven kids) and we lived in a neighborhood full of kids of all ages. Since our street formed the last cul-de-sac in a suburban neighborhood of Southern California...

Read the rest of the story here.

5-Year Old Surfing/Skating

I searched "Grom" and "surfing" on Youtube and got this. There's another cool video of a 3-year-old surfing here, but imbedding is disabled on that one... I can't wait for Levi to be old enough for me to take him out! Its kinda funny I get just as stoked off of the prospect of teaching my son to surf as I do about surfing myself!

Walkabout

Not exactly a hike, but just getting out for a walk around the neighborhood with Levi feels good, like I'm doing something right to get him outside. Just throw him in the carrier and go. He seems to like it as no matter how cold it is he is quiet and just soaks everything around him up the entire time. Ehow.com has this list for the question "How to Get Kids Outside?"...

Step1

Set up a swing set or play equipment for younger children.

Step2

Put up a basketball goal, volleyball net or skate ramp for older children. Kids will be more likely to go outside if they can engage in an activity they enjoy.

Step3

Take family bicycle rides or walks together. Encourage outdoor activities by setting a good example.

Step4

Plan a scavenger hunt for your children and their friends. Send them around the neighborhood looking for various outdoor things.

Step5

Sign your kids up for a camp where they can explore the outdoors and participate in outside activities. This introduction may foster an appreciation for being outside.

Step6

Limit the amount of time they are allowed to spend watching television or playing video games. Without these distractions, they will want to get outside to play.

I've decided to simplify it for people like me with short attention spans. Here's my list...

Step1. Turn off the TV and go outside.

That's it. Not, send the kids outside, go outside yourself. I'm going to be making a conscious effort to habitually be outside. Working in the yard, playing walking anything, just being a family that gets out of the house and having children outside from an early age will make a world of difference 5, 10, and 20 years from now.

Beenie Man

Social Websites

Just more proof that children need to be living life and growing up in the real world, not the virtual world. Its all to easy to substitute the seemingly risk-free online life for what we were designed for.


Social networking websites are causing alarming changes in the brains of young users, an eminent scientist has warned.

Sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo are said to shorten attention spans, encourage instant gratification and make young people more self-centred.

The claims from neuroscientist Susan Greenfield will make disturbing reading for the millions whose social lives depend on logging on to their favourite websites each day...

Read the rest here...

Fatherhood

One thing I'm realizing about fatherhood, and desiring to raise your children with a love for the outdoors. The issue that we run into after the fact is not just raising them outside, but getting outside ourselves.

Between family and baby and mortgages and car payments, its really hard to get time to get out to the water or up to the mountains. What we once took for granted now feels like to slipping away. I got a comment from a new father that he had an 18 week-old baby boy and was totally stoked, but hadn't been in the water in weeks and was about to go insane! I know exactly how you feel. Surfing is different than many other outdoor activities in that its more of a spiritual and emotional pursuit than other sports for most participants so being high and dry for long periods of time (days for some people, weeks for others) really has a negative effect on our psyche.

On the flip side. We're dads now. Being a dad is the second most important job I'll ever have on this earth, #1 being a husband. Family comes first in everything. I've read in my any surf magazines, articles, etc speaking on the effect and power of surfing in someones life, and read something along the lines of "marriages have failed because of the powerful pull of the ocean..." or some such nonsense. When I sit back and look at the big picture, one day a week in the water when the waves aren't even good, with a happy, close, and loving family is a lot more important than catching it every time the swell comes up.

Now that contentment with my new lot is setting in, my biggest concern really is what I'm going to be able to do when my son is old enough to join me. Will I even be in good enough paddling shape to show him how to duck dive a 10ft wave? Will he be able to look up to me and see something he wants to be athletically? I was watching On Surfari a few episodes back and Shayne (the father) was surfing a longboard while holding Banyan, his son. Am I going to be confident enough in my abilities to do that with my boy? I was a while ago, not so much now.

When I sit back and look at the big picture, its easy to know what the right decision and attitude is for the moment, but there's always that nagging in the back of your head when you look at the surf report and know its going to be good, yet know you're not going to be in the water for it. I'm sure its the same for many other activities as well. When its a lifestyle, not a hobby, its difficult to let it go at all, but that's what fatherhood brings you, a dramatic shift in priorities, that are more than worth any sacrifice.

"Toxic" Web Generation

"Youngsters are shunning books and outdoor games to spend up to six hours a day in front of a screen, a survey has revealed.

Children as young as five are turning their bedrooms into multi-media 'hubs' with TVs, computers, games consoles, MP3 players and mobile phones all within easy reach.

The trend triggered warnings that the next generation will struggle to compete in the adult world because they lack reading and writing skills.

At the same time their mastery of technology is not widely appreciated by their parents.

The market research involving 1,800 children aged five to 16 found that they spend an average of 2.7 hours a day watching TV, 1.5 on the internet and 1.3 playing on games consoles, although in some cases these activities are simultaneous, such as watching TV while playing on a console.

In contrast, youngsters spend just over half an hour reading books...."

Read the Rest at The Daily Mail

I Need to Loosen Up

A few days ago Laura (my wife), Levi and I were driving down the road past one of the few empty lots on Southern California and were shocked to see a group of kids playing on the hillside there. My immediate reaction was surprise at being shocked! I'm an outdoorzy rough-and-tumble kinda guy, not overprotective at all right? After thinking about it, I realized I cannot remember the last time I saw children playing outdoors, short of skating down the street towards the Etnies skatepark. Part of my reaction I'm sure was because of that, but what I noticed most is the fact that my first thought was "Is the hillside safe for kids to play on?"

If you've read any previous posts you may remember this one talking about parents limiting their kids activities like tag because they might get hurt being physical. I obviously look down on this attitude and was taken aback by my own proclivity to react in a similar way to those over-protective parents. I rant and rave about kids not being allowed to act like kids, yet when I see that my first reaction is exactly what I don't want it to be?

I'll choose to ignore my hypocrisy and instead focus on how society did this to me, thus removing any personal responsibility from the equation. Living in the concrete-covered land of opportunity and wealth that is Orange County California, it's now the norm for kids to spend their non-school time in the comfort of their rooms as they all have their own computers, tv, Playstation, X-Box, Wii, etc etc. After a while we just expect that and lower our own school of thought to the societal norms (kind of like many other aspects of American life). Instead of seeing something detrimental and wanting to change it, we gradually accept it in a "when in Rome..." attitude. As a new father I'm trying my best to re-learn and focus on what experiences my son will be able to look back on when he's older, and what shapes his personal ethic, what he sees and reads about on a computer screen, or what he experiences with his own senses?

I want my son to grow up knowing what the world is like outside the front door. Whether its in the local mountains or on the local beaches, or China, Australia, or Iceland. There is a slim chance of that happening if I'm going to get all wobbly-legged at the sight of him playing on a hillside. That's where most of us are. We all could use some loosening up.