Welcome to A Father’s Voice for October 2007. Remembering to Smell the Roses is a reminder that despite our best intentions to help our children achieve the goals we have for them (and even for themselves), we can’t afford to forget to enjoy the journey getting there.

This was a big month. This month marks the first time North State Parent, a northern California parenting magazine, will be publishing A Father’s Voice. Next month A Father’s Voice will begin being published regularly in a south Florida parenting magazine. This week, though, I’m excited to report that A Father’s Voice appears for the first time in an online magazine called, The Father Life. There is also a wonderful article/interview of me by Ben Martin, the editor of The Father Life. Please take a moment to support The Father Life and check it out. I also was quoted in a very interesting Education.com article about Raising A Sensitive Child that includes tips based on my suggestions. “The reality is that sensitive children have a gift,” I explained, instead of a weakness like most people believe. As if that wasn’t enough, a major parenting web site has asked me to write the father’s perspective for their weekly pregnancy e-newsletter. By next month, I’ll be able to tell you more about that.

A Father’s Voice is my chance to share my voice with you about the challenges and rewards I experience trying to be a very involved father while having to work full-time away from our home. I write during the only disposable time of my day – my train ride to and from home. I hope you will subscribe to A Father’s Voice by visiting www.AFathersVoice.net.

Remembering to Smell the Roses

By Jeremy G. Schneider, MFT

Sometimes it is too easy to forget why we’re trying to get our children to do certain things, to get so wrapped up in the goal that we forget we want them to do it because we care and love for them so much. I’m just going through another of those moments right now. The enjoyment of the process has turned something that seemed like it would be a chore, something I wasn’t sure we could do, to something I have begun to look forward to every night.

My 4.5 (okay, four and three-quarter) year old little girl has decided she doesn’t want to wear diapers at night anymore. Over the past couple of months we have begun the push to get our twins out of diapers while they sleep. We decreased the amount of water in their sippy cups they kept on their night tables. Then we stopped the water at night altogether. We’ve even tried to encourage them to get up when they need to go to the bathroom and come to our room and we’ll help them to the bathroom. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out so well. Changing two sets of sheets at 3:30 in the morning was not a fun way to start the day – for any of us. Fortunately, Jordyn refused to give up. Much like her Daddy I am proud to say, once my little girl makes up her mind, she makes a commitment to achieving her goal. She has decided she only wants to wear underpants at night and she is doing whatever it takes to make that happen.

And so am I.

We decided, after talking to our pediatrician, that we should wake her up before we went to bed and take her to the bathroom. I took that responsibility on and for the past three nights I have woken my little girl up at 11:00 or so at night and taken her to the bathroom.

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