Don’t know what that is?  Don’t worry… I didn’t know either, until I recently had the pleasure of touring it myself.

The Observation Area is designed for young inquiring minds to explore and learn.  For example, did you know that the airport has 26,000 employees… two of which are dogs?  Fun facts like these are abundant at the Observation Area kiosks.

Here are a few things you’ll find for the kids (and the kid inside of you) there:

1. A model of the Airport and island (Sea Island) that the airport is situated on.  You can press different buttons to make the runways light up!
2. A cool flight simulator that allows you to fly over B.C. and land in different communities.  You can watch videos and learn about each community that you land in.
3. Kiosks with fun facts and info – Like a “follow your bag” video; jobs at YVR; facts quizzes; airport art; listen to a recording of air traffic control; and the past, present and future of the area.
4. Mini-telescopes that allow you to view the airplanes along the runways as the take-off and land.

The airport observation area at YVR opened this past July after much demand from the community.  Now is the perfect time to go there and get a change of scenery on a rainy day.  The kids will love it, and there is lots of room for them to run around and explore.

The observation area also ran a pilot school program from September to November, where school groups came in and learned about the airport, how to pack their bags when they travel (e.g. what you can and can’t put in your carry-on luggage), and other fun and practical facts and tips.  With any luck, this program will continue, and open up to more schools to enjoy.

On the lower level, just under the observation area, there is a food court with a play area for the kids to climb and tumble around while you take a break and have a coffee.  And if you’re in the mood, there are some shops right there as well, including a Vancouver Aquarium souvenir shop and some Olympic souvenir shops.

One thing I liked about this area is that it is a little bit away from the high-traffic areas of the airport, so you don’t have to worry about your kids wandering off or getting lost in crowds of people walking by.  They would have to wander pretty far to get to the higher traffic areas – giving you enough time to catch them before they get there.

Getting there is also easy – the new Canada Line Skytrain goes straight there.  Just take the Canada Line in the direction of YVR Airport and get off at the very last stop, which is the airport terminal.  Head towards the Domestic Terminal and you are practically there.  Just follow the signs to the Airport Observation area, or ask one of the info people on the ground.  This is my recommended option for getting there… the Skytrain is fun for kids, and you don’t have to worry about fighting traffic or finding parking once you’re there.

So get on out there and make a day, or morning, or afternoon out of it.  It’s fun and exciting for kids, and something completely different than the usual rainy day outings.  You and the kids will learn a lot too!  Click here to visit their website for more info.

Take care for now and Merry Christmas!

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home

These books are great, and the timing is great too, since we are starting to think about teaching our son to write now, and he is starting to show a lot of interest in writing.

Each book is huge, weighing in at over 300 pages each, with nice, solid, quality paper.  The pages are colourful too, with cool colour pictures throughout.  My son really enjoys the drawings in these books.  Each tome has a detailed table of contents, and all the exercises have an answer key as well, which I thought were two nice touches.

The Grade K book starts out with writing the letters of the alphabet.  The letters are shown nice and big, so they are easy to trace, and lots of opportunities to trace each letter are given.  A space to write the letters freehand is also given for each letter.  The book then moves on to fun exercises about consonant sounds, vowel sounds, rhyming, colours, stories, and more.

The first grade book covers Reading, Spelling and Vocabulary skills.  It goes through a tonne of topics, from compound words, syllables and plurals, to spelling all kinds of words, to expanding vocabulary in the areas of days, months, time, food, animals, and more.

The second grade book is also divided into Reading, Spelling and Vocabulary skill building sections, but at a more advanced level than the first grade book.  The topic areas have fun names like, “Final ‘E’ – Finally!” , “Oo, Goo, Good” and “‘Aw’-some!”  The Vocabulary section includes nature, parts of the body, people, people actions, family, bugs, and more.

In general, the books are laid out really nicely, with plenty of room to write, and big fonts so that they are easy to read.  The topics are written in a fun way, with fun titles and pictures to keep things interesting and fun for your child (after all, if your child is going to do extra learning and practice, it ought to be fun, right?).

If you are looking for some good, fun, learning books for your child, I definitely recommend the Sylvan Learning series.  Although I am reviewing the Language Arts Success series from Grade K to 2 here, there are many other similar books from Sylvan Learning for older grades and on other subjects, such as good ol’ Math.  You can also get books specifically dedicated to Spelling or Reading or Vocabulary.  Check them out!

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home

So…. being the green beans that we are …. I was happy to say “Yes” when I was contacted to try out the new Green Works(TM) line of cleaning products from Clorox(R).  We have already been using several brands of biodegradable and natural cleaning products, so trying out a new one was a delight.

We tried out the Green Works laundry detergent, and the All-Purpose Cleaner.  I’ll let you know how well they cleaned and how we liked them in a sec.

First, I’ll tell you a little bit about why anyone would want to clean with this stuff in the first place.

Think of it this way – when you use a cleaning product that is full of unnatural and poisonous chemicals, you are basically dumping those chemicals into the water while you rinse.  Imagine standing by the water system and dumping chemicals and bleach into it.  It’s not the type of thing you would typically do on a Saturday afternoon – but you are doing it every time you clean with harsh chemicals.  Using cleaning products that are natural and biodegradable helps you sleep easy, knowing that what you are rinsing into the water supply is natural and will biodegrade.

That brings me to Green Works… what I think is the first mainstream natural and biodegradable cleaning product on the market.  It is really about time that a big company brought something like this out.  Before, you had to go to specialty stores to get these types of products, and usually they were produced only in a small scale.  So I’m happy to see Green Works on the market, and hope that its presence will encourage more people to go green and use green cleaning products.

Green Works natural cleaners are made with at least 95% natural plant and mineral-based biodegradable cleaning ingredients derived from coconuts and essential oils.  They are packaged in recyclable bottles, and are not tested on animals.  The only thing I would like to see in the Green Works future, in terms of packaging, is a low-plastic “refill” package – so that customers can re-use the big bottles and just refill them to reduce waste.

Now comes the big question… will it clean the crayon marks from the wall?  Will it clean the pureed carrots from the floor?  What about the vomit on the shoulder of my best shirt?  And how does it smell (the cleaner, not the vomit)?

According to Green Works(TM): “in lab tests, Green Works hard surface cleaners clean as well as many traditional cleaners on many soils.”

So what does that mean in practice?

Well, we used it to successfully clean a lot of marks on our walls, without any degradation of the paint.  We used it to clean our stainless steel appliances, and other appliances and fixtures, and it worked well there too.  We have been using the laundry detergent regularly, and it gets the clothes nice and clean and smelling good too.  Compared to other natural and biodegradable laundry detergents we have used, Green Works leaves the clothes smelling best overall.  We will definitely continue to use the laundry detergent from now on, and the all purpose cleaner too.

But don’t take my word for it… try it out yourself.  I have some coupons for a free bottle of the laundry detergent.  (Not buy one get one free… just simply, give the coupon at the cash register and get one free).  If you’d like a coupon, and you live in Canada, just leave a comment here and I’ll contact you by email to get your address, and I’ll send you one of the coupons in the mail.  I’ll send coupons to the first five people that leave comments here.  Just use the coupon to get your free bottle.  I hope trying it out will convert you to, or at least get you thinking about, using green cleaning products.  If you like Green Works after you’ve tried it, come back again and leave another comment to let us know!

P.S. If you’d like to fill out an online survey giving feedback on Green Works, you can do so here.  For every survey that is completed, a $2 donation will be made to the Redwood Family Support Shelter.

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home

I took a trip to Science World in Vancouver with the family today (Telus World of Science I should say – and a great place to go with the kids at that), and made the obligatory gift shop stop.  While there, I happily learned that holders of yearly admission passes get a fifteen percent discount on everything in the shop.  With this new found knowledge, I couldn’t leave empty handed.  Come on, how can you pass up 15% off (even if everything in the store is 25% more expensive than any other store, because of the tourist-attraction-factor)?  Lets think of it as an early Christmas present.

We noticed that Smarty Pants was holding a liquid timer, and was totally mesmerized by it.  He had been staring intently at it for the past ten minutes, flipping it over and over, hypnotized.  “Gotta get it!” was the first thought that popped into my noggin.  (Anything that keeps the kids occupied for more than 10 minutes is pretty much a mandatory purchase in my view).

To be brutally honest, we didn’t just buy the liquid timer because Smarty Pants was hypnotized by it.  We were thinking of all the cool applications.  Here are just some ideas, to help get your creative juices (and timer liquid) flowing:

1) Sharing: Picture this – two kids arguing over a toy (I know, it rarely happens, but just play along with me here), you hop in on the scene, armed with your liquid timer, and hand it to one of the kids.  You explain that one of them can watch the timer while the other one plays with the toy… when the timer runs out, they trade toy for timer, flip the timer over, and repeat.  The liquid timer is so mesmerizing, that the kids will be more than happy to comply.  This is much more fun than watching the hands on a clock, or the digital numbers on a digital timer.

2)  Time-outs: Time-outs need not be filled with boredom or screaming any longer.  Hand your kid a liquid timer and tell them that when the liquid runs all the way down, the time-out is over.  The liquid timer is so interesting, that it will break their pattern (from the screaming, or naughtiness, or whatever they were doing), and make the time-out more bearable, for you and the child.  You should also make sure, before the time-out is over, that your child is ready to get back in action again, of course.

3) Brushing Teeth: When your child brushes her teeth, does she do it for about 2.5 seconds before throwing the toothbrush into the sink and declaring victory?  Tonight we sat the liquid timer on the counter and said, “Watch the timer… brush your teeth until the timer runs out.”  Smarty Pants was more than happy to stand there, brushing his teeth, whilst watching the timer go.  It was amazing.

4) Countdowns: Ever find yourself saying, “5 more minutes” or “1 more minute” or “Right Now!!”?  Well, a timer is a great way to make this process a bit less subjective.  A liquid timer is a way to make it fun to boot.  Next time you want the kids to stop playing and come to the table for dinner (or anything of the like), set the timer down, and explain that when the timer runs out, it is time for them to come.  They may get so enthralled with the timer that they’ll forget the reason why they didn’t want to come in the first place.

5) Something fun to watch, and a lesson in science: Our kids are just happy to hold the liquid timer, watch it go, play around with it, and experiment with it.  It is the ultimate toy that isn’t a toy, and it really holds their attention.  I am sure there is some good scientific explanation on the Net about how it works too.  Once I look that up, I’ll have a great lesson in science to share with the kids the next time we pull the timer out.

So there you have it.  Our liquid timer is really our best friend forever.  It provides all the timer functionality we need, and does it in a way that is interesting to the kids.  So far we’ve had a lot of success with it, and our bedtime tonight ran really smoothly with it!  Looking forward to using it more tomorrow!

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home

This post was paid for by the International Society for the Promotion of Liquid Timers.   Just kidding.

No liquid timers were harmed in the making of this post.

When our kids see what we do (she does) to take care of the Earth and others, they want to do the same (you know, kids always want to be like their parents – until they reach puberty at least – which is why it is good to start when they’re young!).

For example, if our son, Smarty Pants, sees a bottle, or piece of paper or plastic on the ground in the park, he picks it up and throws it in a garbage can.  Without even thinking about it.  It is truly amazing to see.  Sometimes I have to stop him from picking up things that look too dirty or like they shouldn’t be touched!  If only that were the most difficult aspect of parenting!

Here are just a few examples of things my wife does regularly that have had big impact on our kids, on other people, and on the earth.  I hope this list gives you a few ideas of your own:

• If we are going out somewhere for a walk and we know we will pass by homeless people on the way, my wife packs a few extra fruits, like bananas, to give to them to them as we go by.  How great is it for our kids to see us giving food to the less fortunate?  Very good!
• Recycling everything possible… including food composting.  When we moved to Vancouver, we could not sleep until we found an organic garbage bin in our neighbourhood!
• Using cloth diapers and going diaper free.  I never would have had the guts to do these things on my own, but Love Buns showed me the way, and it has saved us a ton of cash, and a landfill a ton of diapers.
• Using rechargeable batteries.  Before I met my wife, the only thing I recharged was myself by sleeping a lot.  Now I recharge batteries and don’t recharge myself nearly enough.
• Using environmentally friendly dishwasher and laundry detergents.  I don’t even know if they can be classified as detergents.  In any case, they are chlorine and phosphate free and are biodegradable.  I am really glad we don’t dump all that crap into our water system anymore, and hope that others follow suit.
• Keeping the parks and streets clean.  Like I hinted at before, if we pass by a piece of garbage that some miscreant has littered the earth with, and it looks okay to touch, my wife and son will do the right thing and put it in the nearest trash can (or recycling bin, if it is something recyclable, of course).

Doing things like this is especially important when you have kids, for two reasons:

1. because we want the Earth to still be in good shape for our kids and grandkids and
2. because we want to set an example for our kids, and hope that by doing so, they will adopt the same habits into their adulthood, and teach their kids the same.

If you are ever in doubt, just remember the old but timeless proverb, “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.”

If you have any other tips or ideas, or comments, I’d be happy to hear them here.

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home

To Force Participation in hobbies, or not to force?

by Keith Wilcox of almightydad.com

Each of my two boys has particular skills that make them good at certain hobbies. My youngest, Alan, is an excellent story teller; his imagination is off the charts, and he’s witty. Someday he could probably be a comedian or an actor if he worked at it.

My older boy, Neil, is a gifted athlete. He walked when he was 7 months old, hit a pitched baseball before he was two, and is currently the youngest person in his pre-team gymnastics class.

These are particular skills that my two kids happen to posses. All parents see abilities in their kids and hope that those abilities will grow into something bigger that will help their kids later in life. It’s parental responsibility to recognize skills and guide children into utilizing them. The question is not whether it’s right to encourage these talents; we’re all supposed to be encouraging. But, what do we do if a talent is obvious yet our kids don’t follow through? Should we force them to use their God given abilities for their own good? Or, should we step back and see what happens and see where they decide to go in life? Who knows? We might have been wrong about their skills all along. They might end up excelling in something completely unexpected. My philosophy on the matter lies somewhere in between being a coach and being a cheerleader. 

(Head Jammer’s note:  just one thing to keep in mind when answering these very valid questions… Roberto Luongo, goalie of the Vancouver Canucks, just signed a contract for $64 million over 12 years… just sayin’).

Flighty and Indecisive

My boy, the gymnast, has in his short life, decided that he wants to be an artist, tennis player, astronaut, writer and a whole bunch of other stuff that I can’t remember. I think all that is great. I also think that once he decides to do something that he needs to see it through, to give it a fair shot. My job is to pay for all the activities he wants to do and to give him exposure. It is also my job to make sure that he sticks with something long enough to at least get my money’s worth out of it.

He chose to do gymnastics; he begged me to do gymnastics. I said, “Fine, you can do gymnastics. But, you’re going to take it for a year and you aren’t going to complain when it gets hard.” Sure enough, he was in the class a week when he decided that doing a handstand was way above his capabilities. He wanted to quit. Well, that’s too bad for him because I wouldn’t let him. It’s been just over a year; and, after roughly two months of complaining, he accepted that I wasn’t letting him out of it. He still can’t do an excellent handstand, but he can do the splits and a hand-spring and some other stuff that I don’t know the names of.

Kids are naturally flighty. They choose some activity and then they quit because they discover it’s difficult. They’ll demand a skate board because they saw Tony Hawk on TV and thought learning would be as easy as the video game. They’ll beg for guitar lessons because they want to be a real life guitar hero. Oops! It takes years to learn? Oh, well, forget it then. Kids will jump into an activity, and when it gets hard, say they don’t enjoy it anymore. What they’re really saying is they think they stink at it and it’s too hard. That’s when it’s our job to prove that it can be done and the reward is worth the effort.

Well Intentioned Jerk

Some parents take being a coach and motivator too far. We’ve all seen it before. There are the football dads, the hockey dads, the spelling bee parents, and the piano moms, who take competition to a whole new level. The stories of abusive parents pushing their kids too hard are difficult to hear. These are parents who can’t accept failure.

It’s bad enough that kids get mistreated, but when all their passion for competition is sucked out of them by over zealous parents, that’s just terrible. My youngest boy might have the talent to act; he does have it. If I put him in an acting class, and then push him too hard, I run the risk of squashing whatever love he might develop for his skill. By trying to make him into Laurence Olivier at age 5 I could actually end up making him into Larry the Cable Guy instead. I

might have all the good intentions in the world when I intend to develop my children’s natural talents, but that doesn’t mean I have the right to get pushy or be a jerk about it.

The Best We can do

The best we can do as parents is to teach our kids the value of hard work, and to teach them that quitting prematurely is no way to go through life. Patience is absolutely necessary. The road to success is built on sweat and hard work. But, it’s all worth it. I’m going to facilitate my kids’ activities, and I’ll push them to pursue what they start and to give their opportunities fair try. Beyond that, I have to let them be. Pushing too hard can lead to a broken kid who doesn’t want to do anything at all.

Too many activities and too much pressure isn’t good for adults, and it’s terrible for kids. My boy might turn out to be a great athlete because I recognized that talent and helped him find what he loves. He will never be great if he thinks his main goal in life is to please me. He’s gotta be proud of himself first.

Putting on pyjamas – after a long day, I was struggling to get Smarty Pants to put his pyjamas on after his bedtime bath.  He insisted that he wanted to put shorts on.  I had no idea why, but I was flabbergasted.  No matter how much I insisted that he put his pyjamas on, he refused.  He absolutely wanted to wear shorts.  He wouldn’t tell me why.  Then I looked at myself. I was wearing shorts.  He simply wanted to wear shorts like me.  Can’t blame the kid for wanting to be like his father .  So I went and put on some pyjamas.  When I came back to put his pyjamas on, he put them on right away without any fuss or muss.  I said a little Hallelujiah.

Eating certain foods – one fine morning, I asked Smarty Pants what he wanted for breakfast.  “Bagels” he replied.  Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but we were in Vienna at the time, where bagels aren’t as easy to come by.  “We don’t have bagels,”  I responded.  Still, he insisted on having bagels.  The more I told him that we didn’t have bagels, the more he insisted on having one.  After growing a couple of grey hairs with the exchange we were having, I simply took out a banana and started eating it.  “I want a banana too!” he quickly exclaimed.  So I gave him a banana.  Then I made some breakfast for myself and, you guessed it, he wanted to have what I was having.  The bagels were long forgotten.  Why I bothered asking him what he wanted for breakfast in the first place, and didn’t just start making breakfast for myself, is beyond me.  I learned my lesson though.

There are a few other examples I could give you, but I think you get the point.  If your child sees you doing something, they are more likely to do it themselves.  Try to use this little nugget of knowledge to your advantage whenever you can.

If you have an example of your own, please leave a comment and share your story!

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home

Have you come home after a tough day at work and taken your stresses and frustrations out on your spouse?  Sure you have.  We all have.  Not intentionally, of course, it just happens.  But it happens because we let it happen, and if we can stop it, we can be one step closer to a long-lasting, happy, marriage.  You may think this will be harder than threading a camel through the eye of a needle, but stick with me here and lets give it a shot.

I know what you’re thinking – how is this going to save my marriage, Mr. Head Jammer?

The answer is this:  It’s all about associations.  Our brain makes associations all the time.

Ever wonder why the smell of a steak on the barbecue reminds you of summertime?  It’s because you usually barbecue in the summer, and your brain has associated the smell of barbecuing with summer.  It’s the same reason why the smell of Tequila makes you nauseous (if you’re anything like me and had some bad Tequila experiences in college).

So when you get home from work and you are stressed, or in a bad mood, and the first thing you see when you walk in the door is your spouse’s face, you start to make an association between your negative feelings about work, and your spouse’s face.  Do this repeatedly, and the association will stick in your brain like Richard Simmons on the oldies.  You’ll get to a point where, you can even be in a good mood coming home one day, and you’ll see your spouse and suddenly feel stressed or in a bad mood, without even knowing why.

It goes without saying that if you start to associate your feelings about work or your boss with your spouse, totally without even knowing it, or totally unintentionally, you can be putting your marriage at risk for no good reason at all.

So my advice to you is this:  If you’ve had a rough day at work, or had a spat with your boss, and are feeling like you want to bang your head against a hard surface, take a few moments to change your state before you march through the door to your home.  Leave your work stresses and feelings about work behind you, and start fresh when you get home.  Try and put yourself in a good mood before you see your spouse.

How the heck do I do that, you ask?

There are many ways.  You can mediate, relax, focus on something other than work, or do some state-changing exercises (using anchoring, for example), if you know how (and if you’ve listened to Personal Power II, you’ll know how).  Have a beer if you have to.  Whatever it takes to get you feeling better.  Doesn’t matter what it is, listen to the wise words of Nike, and just do it.  You’ll thank yourself later.

That’s it really.  Just make sure you don’t associate your bad moods from work, your boss, your idiot colleagues, or that guy that cut you off on your way home, with your loved ones, and you’ll be on your way to a marriage that lives happily ever after.

Just my 200 Yen.  Let me know what you think.

Flickr photo courtesy of millzero.com

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home

This is an adaptation of an idea I got from reading The Parent’s Problem Solver, by Cathryn Tobin, which, by the way happens to be a great book.  You should read it if you haven’t read it already.  It offers a lot of great ideas to solve everyday problems that parents encounter with, well, parenting.

Before I go on, you need to know that our bedtime routine with our toddler, who I call Smarty Pants, is a multi-phased, well choreographed routine, of which the last two phases are a story (book), followed by a lullaby (song).  How my singing gets him to feel sleepy is beyond me, but that is besides the point.

So, now that you have the background, let me set the scene.

There we were, in his bedroom, him on his bed, telling me how badly he doesn’t want to go to sleep.  I was using the Parent’s Problem Solver approach of being persistent, and not focusing on telling him to go to bed, but to let him come to his own conclusion that it was time to go to bed.

Here’s how it went:

Smarty Pants:  “I don’t want to go to bed!”

Me:  “What book do you want to read?”

Smarty Pants:  “I don’t want to go to bed!”

Me:  “Pick out which book you want to read.”

Smarty Pants:  “No!”

Me:  “Which book do you want to read?”  (starting to sound a bit like my old Thriller album – i.e. a broken record for those of you who are a bit slow, or tired)

Smarty Pants:  “I don’t want to read a book!”

<okay, now pay attention… here is the real turning point in the story.  It is the point of the “pattern interrupt,” and the point where the dark clouds parted to let a small ray of sunshine through…>

Me:  “Okay, so then we’ll just sing a song.”  (matter-of-factly)

Smarty Pants:  (after a bit of a pause)… “No, I want to read a book too.” (caught him of guard there… did you notice?)

Me:  “Okay, which book do you want to read then?”

Smarty Pants:  “This one!”

Me:  “Okay, great, lets read it then!”

And we all lived happily ever after.  I read him his story, sang him his song, tucked him in, left the room, and shortly after, he was in dreamland.

I felt great after this little episode and found it to be a small victory that I had to share with all of you out there.  It was a combination of the persistent focus on reading the book, a great tip from the Parent’s Problem Solver, and a little “pattern-interrupt”  ala Tony Robbins.  It was my own idea to throw this little “pattern interrupt” in there.  I was inspired to do it because I have been listening to Tony Robbins‘ “Personal Power II” lately.  It worked marvelously, as you can see!

So there you have it… if your situation is similar to mine, you might be able to give something like this a try.  The trick is, be persistent, ask your child a question that helps her to come to her own conclusion about what needs to happen next, and if you find yourself in a repetitive argument, like the one above, interrupt the pattern.

Hope it works for you too!  And as Tony Robbins says, “Live with Passion!”

Return to Parenting – The Dad Jam Home