Parenting Interview

Despite the fact that Guy Kawasaki had been interviewed so many times before, this is a rare gift. Why? Because previous interviews were more on business, marketing, and blogging. But in this exclusive interview, Guy reveals his life as a father of four children and shares his insights on parenting.

In case you’ve not heard of Guy Kawasaki, he is a well known venture capitalist, author of many books such as The Art of the Start and Rules For Revolutionaries, and the former chief evangelist of Apple. He recently launched a new website called Truemors.com.

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It’s our great pleasure to have Dave Taylor featured in this interview. Dave is the owner of a wildly popular attachment parenting blog, APparenting. Apart from this, he’s also a business and technology blogger for The Intuitive Life and Ask Dave Taylor respectively. The father of three has authored numerous books, mainly on technical subjects.

In this interview, Dave is going to share with you his views on attachment parenting. Enjoy!

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What Darren Rowse is famous for is blogging but this article is none about that.

In this interview, we get up close and personal with the guy who founded one of the world’s Top 100 blogs – Problogger.net – on being a stay at home dad, his toddler son, and family life. According to Technorati, Darren’s blog is currently at the 24th spot. Besides Problogger, the Australian is also the co-founder of b5media, a network of more than 100 blogs.

Enjoy the interview!

1) You work from home and many parents want to be stay at home dads too. Would you encourage them to do so and what advice do you offer them?

I have found working at home to be a rich and wonderful experience in my first year of fatherhood – however I suspect that it wouldn’t be for everyone because at times it can be challenging also.

The challenges come on two fronts:

a. The temptation not to work. When your wonderful little boy is in the next room doing things for the first time (smiling, rolling over, crawling, walking and talking) it’s very tempting to abandon work and spend a lot of time with your family.

b. The temptation to ignore family. On the other hand, when a crisis hits at work the temptation is to immerse yourself in that at the expense of family.

I guess the advice would be to think carefully about boundaries and how you communicate them to your family. I’ve developed a bit of a signal system for my wife to signal that I’m at work and can’t be interrupted (unless it’s really important), when I’m working and it’s OK to interrupt etc. It’s taken us a while to find our rhythm on this but it seems to work.

2) What’s your biggest parenting mistake and what did you do to rectify it?

I’m not sure yet. I’m sure I’ve made some – but there’s not been anything too major yet.

3) How do you balance between your work and family and how much time do you spend with your family? Also what are your favorite family activities?

I try to set aside time every day to spend time with my son and wife. It’s not always easy for this to be extended time – but one of the things I’ve tried to do more and more is go for walks. Sometimes we go as a whole family and other times it’s just me and my son. We tend to go to the park or a local cafe. I also block out significantly longer times on the weekend and then take longer week long breaks throughout the year for holidays.

4) What’s the best way to teach children about business and money?

My son’s probably a little too young for this but looking back at my own experience as a child my parents gave us pocket money and gave us incentive to earn more by doing jobs. I remember from a young age saving money, keeping a ledger to help budget and working towards goals. This is the type of thing we hope to do with our family.

5) The biggest problem you ever faced as a father and how did you overcome it?

So far it’s probably been the work life balances. Before becoming a Dad I was a real workaholic. These days I’m much more balanced, however the temptation is always there to work stupidly long hours. The best way to combat this so far is to allow friends and family to keep me accountable to not working such long hours.

6) You have a one year old son. What’s your advice for new parents?

We worked hard at getting ourselves into a routine in the early days of his life. We had a fairly structured sleeping and feeding plan that worked very well for us and got him sleeping through the night after just a month or two. This enabled us all to be well rested and able to cope with the extra pressures of life. I’m sure this is partly good luck but we did work hard in those early days to get him settled into this routine on the advice of friends.

7) If there’s only one thing, what would be the best gift you give to your child?

Probably time. I was fortunate to have a father who worked close to home (and at home for periods of time). While he was a busy man he was very actively involved in our lives growing up and I appreciated this and this has been one of the main reasons that I’ve tried to structure my life similarly.

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Interviews with other personalities and authors

It’s our pleasure to feature Asha Dornfest of Parent Hacks, a highly popular blog for parents looking for smart parenting tips, in this exclusive interview. She touched on how she started ParentHacks.com, her biggest parenting challenge, and her advice to new parents.

If you haven’t already visited her website, do it, not now, but after reading this interview. Many tips found there are submitted by parents like you.

1) Where did you get the idea for the ever popular Parent Hacks? What’s your biggest hurdle you faced in creating this site and how did you promote it?

The idea had two sources of inspiration. First, my husband, Rael, was one of the series editors for the O’Reilly Hacks series of books, so the notion of quick, unconventional solutions to problems had been spinning around our house for quite some time. Second, it occurred to me that the best advice I’d ever gotten wasn’t found in books, but shared with other parents. Boom! Parent Hacks was born. It’s the site I wish I could have read when my first child was born.

Biggest hurdle: none, really, unless you count sleep deprivation. I’m also one of the lucky few whose site got picked up early on by a few prominent bloggers, and just took off from there. I’ve done very little promotion.

2) What are the top three hacks you like the most on Parent Hacks?

Impossible to choose! I can point you to readers’ choices for the top ten Parent Hacks of last year though: Top 10 Parent Hacks of 2006

3) You’re a mother of two kids. What’s your biggest parenting challenge so far and how did you overcome it?

My biggest challenge has been to learn to trust myself. My tendency is to run around searching for answers, because someone must feel less clueless than I. Turns out that being “right” as a parent is less important than doing your best with love and humility. I’ve learned to overcome it with time and practice.

4) If there’s only one thing, what would be the best gift you can give to your children?

Unconditional acceptance and love.

5) Every parent wants a happy, confident and successful kid. What’s the best way to achieve this?

My kids are 7 and 4, so I’m not really qualified to answer that question (is anyone, really?). Besides, the answer is different for every kid. But my plan and hope is to give my kids enough encouragement to let them know I believe in them, and enough challenge for them to learn to believe in themselves.

6) What’s your advice for new parents?

Forget perfection, remember to get babysitters so you can go on dates (even if that means an hour at Starbucks between nursing sessions), and know that it will all be okay.

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Interviews with other personalities and authors

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I was intrigued when I first came to know about Mark Borowski. He seems to have the magic of combining two totally different topics together: poker and parenting, in his book Big Slick Daddy: Poker Strategies for Parenting Success.

Yes, he is a poker player. In this interview, however, we’re not going to talk about poker. We’re going to talk about fatherhood, parenting and raising happy kids instead.

Here are the 15 good parenting tips from Mark. Enjoy!

1. How do you come up with the idea of linking poker to parenting as what you did in your book “Big Slick Daddy: Poker Strategies for Parenting Success”?

I attended a writing workshop for the Wisconsin Professional Speakers Association in September 2004. The workshop facilitator had us do an exercise where we listed all of our hobbies and interests on one half of a sheet of paper and all of the phrases and ideas for our book topic on the other half of the paper. Since I listed poker as one of my hobbies I made the connection to parenting and began writing with poker as the metaphor for parenting.

2. Gambling is bad. What if your children had the tendency and interest to dabble in gambling, would you allow them?

If they were still actually children, no I would not allow it. If they were young adults, I would probably allow them to make their own decision. But by that time, we would have had many conversations about the negative affects of various addictions, so as to discourage gambling.

3. If there’s only one thing, what would be the best gift you can give to your children?

Love! Show them and communicate your love to them as much as possible.

4. What’s your parenting style (eg: authoritarian, permissive, etc)? Are you happy with your style?

I believe I am Authoritative, although I have not taken an assessment. Yes, I am happy with my style since it appears to be the most effective style. I can always improve my parenting but I am satisfied with my style.

5. What’s the biggest problem you ever faced so far as a father and how did you overcome it?

My oldest daughter, Ashley, was diagnosed with diabetes at the tender age of 2 years-old. I overcame that obstacle by learning all I could about how to properly care for her. My wife and I also try to focus on the positive effects of the disease. For example, Ashley has learned discipline and self-control because she can’t follow her impulses to eat whatever she wants, whenever she wants. She has also learned to eat healthy and on a regular schedule. There are other benefits too.

6. Apart from being an author, you do carry other roles like trainer, speaker, and poker player. How much time do you spend with your kids and how do you balance work and family out of your busy schedule?

I started my own training business 8 years ago so I could be home 2-3 days a week with my kids. So I balance work and family by having a flexible work schedule that revolves around my family. I’m the primary caregiver in our family so I am usually the one who makes meals, packs lunches, drops off and picks up kids from school or daycare, etc. But parenting is definitely a two person job and my wife does a lot of the parenting responsibilities too.

7. What do you think are the top three mistakes most parents make when it comes to raising kids?

They make the same mistakes their parents made because they don’t consciously choose to change or improve how they were raised.

They don’t set clear limits and boundaries and hold their kids accountable.

They don’t spend enough time with them.

8. Every parent wants a happy, confident and successful kid. What’s the best way to achieve this?

To have a confident and successful kid, a parent must consistently give feedback to him, especially positive feedback. A parent must also set limits on their behavior and have high (but realistic) expectations that they communicate to him. Build a child’s self-esteem, don’t tear it down.

9. Who is your role model in being a good father and what’s the best thing you learned from him?

Honestly, I don’t think I really have a father role model. My father was a role model to a certain degree, although growing up we didn’t always have a close relationship. Probably the best thing I learned from him was the importance of discipline.

10. Every child has his own emotions and can be in bad mood once in a while. How to handle a child who is upset, misbehave and refuses to listen to you?

Giving a child a timeout often works. I also try to stay calm and talk to them, trying to find out what is wrong. If you consistently handle the same situation in the same way, I have found that eventually the child responds.

11. When is the right time to teach our kids about money and how?

It seems that kids start to learn about money when they are about 3-4 years old, which is a good time to teach them that they can not have everything they ask for in a store, etc. It helps to teach them that money is earned through work, which helps them to learn the value of something.

12. Should you reward your child when he does something good? If yes, how to do it right?

Yes, I believe rewards work well for the most part but they can be overdone. Praise and positive feedback can be rewarding enough for toddlers and sometimes for school-age children. Rewards such as money, candy, gifts/shopping, or special treats can be effective too but I would make sure they are appropriate for the behavior you are trying to reinforce and explain to your children that rewards are not given all the time.

13. What’s the best activity that you do with your kids as a father?

The best activity is probably just playing with them – but playing what they want to play, not what I want to play. It’s important to do what your kids enjoy doing and have a lot of fun doing it.

14. If your child wanted to be in a less than glamour profession (for example bus driver), would you encourage him to follow his passion or would you advise him to change course to a more glamorous and lucrative career?

I think one of the most important lessons to teach children is that they should follow their passions and be whatever they want to be. I would also help them by explaining the pros and cons of each choice but ultimately, it is their choice. As long as they are using their God-given talents to serve others, they have made a good choice, whatever it is.

15. What do you think is the best way to discover your child’s innate talents?

Two ways come to mind: 1) Be sure to involve them in different activities to help them discover what their talents are. 2) Pay attention to your children so you learn what they enjoy or are good at and talk to them about these activities.

Mark Borowski is a husband of 10 years and a father of two great kids, Ashley and Olivia. He started his own training business, The Learning Interface, when his first daughter was born so he could be more of an at-home dad and put family first. He just released a parenting book for fathers titled, “Big Slick Daddy: Poker Strategies for Parenting Success.” Learn more at his website, www.bigslickdaddy.com, or contact him at mark@bigslickdaddy.com.

See also:

Interviews with other personalities and authors