The 3 Unexpected Things I Learned

Hey oh, Dynasty Dad here. We giving you those good smells at the end of the Ikea maze. The dadding newsletter that you deserve after making it through the maze of fatherhood each week.

This week’s vibe: The 3 Unexpected Things I Learned From A 3 hr Ikea Bed Assembly

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The 3 Unexpected Things I Learned From A 3 hr Ikea Bed Assembly

What a 3 hour Ikea assembly taught me about fatherhood

After the Zelda-level adventure through the maze of Ikea, you are then faced with the epic task of slaying the Ganon (pig-like final boss of Zelda) of furniture assembly.

Our son got a new bed…our Ganon.

His old one was a hasty Amazon purchase that didn’t hold up.

The new bed sat in a box in our garage for a few days.

Henryk, our son, was getting anxious to put it together.

He began to nag us.

I decided to use his momentum and point it at the task.

I told him for it to get put together, he needed to disassemble the old bed.

With an allen wrench in hand, he spent an hour or so deconstructing.

With his room clear of the cheaply-made bed, he was ready to get the new bed assembled.

Again, I performed what felt like some serious parenting aikido.

I used his momentum for our benefit.

I suggested that he put it together.

I would be there to answer questions…of course.

So after 3 hours, the bed was complete and he couldn’t have been happier.

There were 3 unexpected things I learned from this experience about fatherhood:

1/ *Batteries patience not include

A task that shouldn’t have taken more than an hour and a half took twice as long.

I had to be patient and resist doing it for him.

By being patient, he learned to do it himself.

He also learned; “righty tighty” and “lefty loosey”, how to read instructions (working on his alphabet and numbers), and how to use an allen wrench to tighten it to “dad tight”.

2\ Ownership = perseverance, confidence & pride

By owning the task, he overcame the tough parts, and completed the project (mostly on his own), and it built his confidence and pride in the outcome.

If only I could find a way to do the same for his other tasks around the house, especially cleaning up after Hurricane Henryk.

3/ Connection included

If your child is like mine, connecting can be difficult. He would rather be playing over his friends' house or tormenting his sisters.

Spending 3 hours in the same 10x12 room gave us ample time to connect about random topics.

He particularly wanted to know if I had assembled anything like this at the age of 5.

Out of fairness to my dad and me Ikea and “assemble-by-numbers” didn’t exist when I was 5.

But I did tell him that his grandpa didn’t have the patience to let me assemble something like furniture.

He would have snatched the Allen wrench out of my hand at the first sign of struggle or if I was moving too slow and say, “let me do that.”

He was a firefighter, so everything had the urgency of putting out a fire. The quicker you do it, the more lives and collateral are saved.

What have you found most motivates your kids to do things you didn’t think possible?

This Week's Interesting Thing:

Ever go to a funeral and

Tell the loved one of the deceased:

“stop crying, you’ll be ok” (dismissive)

or

“you’ll find someone else. You still have a good 20 years.” (optimistic)

or

“look around your next partner might be in the room.” (solving)

“Damn it sucks so bad, my dog just died and I feel like crying with you.” (pitty party)

These are definitely not the way to talk to someone going through some heavy emotions.

But for some reason, I sometimes talk to my kids this way.

I’m reading a book called “How to talk so your kids will listen & how to listen so your kids will talk” recommended to me by fellow devoted dad and friend Anoop.

And it was really an eye-opener.

I’m only a couple of chapters in and it got me thinking about how I often talk to my kids in a way I would never talk to my wife, friends or co-workers.

Now, I try not to say these things but it comes naturally when talking to my kids.

But why….

My takeaways so far:

1\ We were not taught how to listen or what to say (or not to say)

2\ It is a human approach.

This method isn’t just a kid approach it is a human approach. It is not only helping talk and listen better to my kids it is also helping me with my wife, co-workers, friends and neighbors.

3\ Tactics are simple but require a lot of practice.

The tactic is simple:

• Listen intently

• Acknowledge their feeling with active listening words (oh, mmm, I see).

• Give their feelings a name

It seems simple, but because it is not how most of us were raised (unnatural), it requires a lot of practice.

The great thing is our kids provide a lot of opportunities to practice and they are the most forgiving practice partners.

Let me know if you try it and see any change.

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