Three inexpensive holiday gifts for your son that will endure for years
Dec 03, 2019
Perhaps this sounds familiar: You’re a Dad with a son who has everything he needs and most of what he wants and you’re a bit helpless as the Christmas frenzy escalates. As the father of three boys, I know exactly how you feel.
That’s why, one December when reaching this frustration point I decided it was time for a major-league change. Forget the gifts that bring a sugar-high joy but are discarded in a month. I was going to give them items that had staying power.
What I didn’t know is that these thoughtful, inexpensive gifts would endure for years, right up to today. And here they are:
The Year in Review
Every kid produces a record. And by that I mean: schoolwork, art drawings (yes, from when they were four-years old), photos from the last soccer season and winter swim meets and the family vacation; a program from the college football game that he insists on keeping; the Earth Day report with glued leaves and twigs; test papers and report cards and the certificate from the Science Fair and the community newspaper article with his name in it. I could go on but I imagine you get it. Like many parents, I’ve held onto it all.
The day after Thanksgiving, I rummaged around throughout the house, basement, and attic, gathered up all this kid flotsam and then carefully sorted it, making a stack for each kid. Photos and other docs that were on my computer – I printed them all out.
Then, I painstakingly placed the items in plastic sheet protectors and to each added a whimsical note. All was inserted in a three-ring binder for each kid, on which the front was written, “The Year in Review.” Yeah, a scrapbook, with the items chosen for maximum joy and inspiration and laughs.
The binders were the hit of our Christmas. This wasn’t a material thing – it was an entire year of page-by-page good memories and surprisingly, they were pored over throughout the year by the boys.
In fact, “The Year in Review” has been going now been going for 16 years. It’s easy and rewarding to put together - I make a point throughout the year of keeping every document and photo related to each son.
Indeed, the “Year” provided all three sons with a priceless glimpse of their achievements and happy times. As they got older, one year set the bar for the next, and they kept raising the bar. The accomplishments became more important, the events more momentous, the memories stronger, the stakes higher. The Year was a constant and colorful reminder of what they had achieved.
When the eldest kid, out of college, was at home packing his gear for a Naval deployment in the Far East, I offhandedly asked him what he was taking, “Volume two.” he said simply. “If I get homesick, I can pull it out.”
The Saturday Bleacher Report
Most Dads know it takes effort to spend unrushed and undistracted time with your son. You’re grinding at work all week, your kid is at school, there are after-school activities, he’s got homework, it’s now 8 p.m. and you’re already thinking about tomorrow. It’s the iron grip of the Schedule.
After yet another year of this perpetual motion machine, I decided to get a grip on this madness and take control. I sat them all down one weekend morning in December and said, “Guys, we’ve been all over the map this year and it’s no good. Next year is going to be different and you’ll see what I mean on Christmas Day.” From the web, I downloaded three copies of a blank office calendar for the next year and performed some primitive artwork on each with colored pencils.
On Christmas Day, I distributed a calendar to each kid. “Ok, you’re wondering, what’s the deal here? We’re going into a hard routine, gents. You will notice that each Saturday as marked on your calendar, one of you lucky guys – just one - leaves with me at 9 and will be home by noon. If you have a game, it’s gonna be Sunday. There’s only one requirement for each Saturday: Be prepared to run and to talk.”
Over time, this became known as the Saturday Morning Bleacher Report. I and the designated son would grab some breakfast at a local diner and then go to the fields at the local high school, which on any given Saturday morning is one of the most peaceful places on the planet. We’d throw around a football or lacrosse ball or a baseball for an hour and afterwards, sprawl across several rows of bleacher benches and just talk. It was simple – I’d think up some topics to draw him out and then we’d slide into the rundown: How’d the week go? Name one big success, one big fail; ok, here’s what happened during my week. What’s coming up that makes you nervous, confident? There were zero distractions; the phones were left in car, there were no brothers to interrupt - just the fields stretching before us as we graduated from everyday stuff to serious stuff.
This routine never varied. As the years went on, the conversations became more important inasmuch as the boys were wrestling with academics and sports and friends and the college matters.
The Bleacher Report never ended. My youngest kid was home from college over this past Thanksgiving and I’ll let you guess where Saturday found us.
3. My book – Four Lessons from My Three Sons: How You Can Raise Resilient Kids.
Ok, any easy pitch. This gem is only 60-pages long, a 45-minute read, hard and fast and funny. It tells the story of how I raised my kids and propelled them to the U.S. Naval Academy, Williams College, and West Point. It’s a step-by-step guide on how to develop boys who are steadfast in conduct, character, and ambition.
There you are - three simple, inexpensive gifts that could fundamentally change how you interact with and motivate your son. Indeed, three Christmas presents with a shelf life not for a month, but for years to come.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Every Dad in America wants to raise a resilient kid.
Four Lessons from My Three Sons charts the course.
Written by a good-natured but unyielding father, this slim volume describes how his off-beat and yet powerful forms of encouragement helped his sons obtain the assurance, strength and integrity needed to achieve personal success and satisfaction. This book isn't 300 pages of pop child psychology or a fatherhood "journey" filled with jargon and equivocation. It's tough and hard and fast. It’s about how three boys made their way to the U.S. Naval Academy, Williams, and West Point – and beyond.
"The day of days,,,"
Prepare your kid for the path, not the path for the kid.
"Don't ever be like that jackass."
Leave it to the eminent psychologist Ron “Jaws” Jaworski, B.A., Youngstown State, 1973, to define the essence of a confident worldview: “Facemask up!” It was his signature comment when talking about a pro quarterback leaving the pocket and instead of keeping his eyes up field to find the open receiver, was looking down at his feet as he ran. It’s a plain tale in a cluttered age and the meaning is simple: Be alert. Pay attention. Take in your surroundings. Examine and understand the landscape in front of you. Here’s one for the modern-age kid: Get your eyes off the glowing rectangle and absorb the world. The more one absorbs the world, the more confident one becomes. Because I have spent many years as an operative in the political realm, I’ve become skilled at helping principals navigate through individuals - five, fifty, five hundred - and I was keen on situational awareness. “SA” as the boys and I called it means eyes and ears focused; it’s about getting a feel for the dynamics of the people whom you are around, and the places in which you find yourself. I wanted them to have active minds that eschewed taking anything at face value, minds that really tried to understand the behavior and temperaments of their peers and the converse, total strangers. I wanted them to know how to handle themselves in the real world, in routine and unfamiliar circumstances. Here’s how the instruction began: When they were young – the eldest only nine-years old, the four of us were in a crowded department store where I had gone to buy a blazer. Standing here amidst the press of people, looking for a salesman, I told them in a whisper, which got their immediate attention, “Guys, I want you to watch this closely.” I carefully walked by several salespeople in the men’s clothing area, glancing back at the boys each time, then circled back past the fourth to a third guy. I got the answer and I help needed from him and came back to the boys. “OK boys, tell me what you saw.” They talked over each other about my walking around and passing by different clerks and then the middle kid spoke for all. “Why did you go to that guy? He wasn’t even next to the jackets.” “Here’s why, and pay attention. Everywhere you go, in every situation, you gotta look at people and figure them out fast.” Blank stares. I doggedly continued: “If you need some-thing, like I needed this blazer, you need to decide who is the best person to help you. I looked at the four sales guys – their clothes, the way they were standing, if they looked nice and smart, if they were smiling. Then I made my decision and chose that one man because I thought he would help me the most. Gents, you gotta read the crowd.” There was a faint glimmer of understanding, but there was a ways to go. How did I drive it home? Simple. I made them do it. Not long after, we were in the corridors of a big indoor mall. I took three $5 bills out of my wallet and handed one to each kid. “Here’s the deal. I want each of you to go into one of the stores along here and get change for the fiver. This isn’t a race. You have to go alone and then come back tell me about what you did.” Of course, I had their total attention. This was action on their part and they were excited. Yeah, I kept an eye on them, the youngest being five. Each one took off, navigating through shoppers, going into various stores, two striking out and coming back out and into other stores. They were overjoyed, to share their stories when they got back. We did this change-the-five deal often. There were other stunts. I’d have the 9-year-old go into a convenience store with cash – and some of these were rough-and-tumble places - to get beef jerky and Doritos. I’d pull into the parking lot of a carry-out restaurant and instruct the 8-year-old take our order, memorize it, and then go into the place and get it and pay for it. At airports, I put the eldest, then later the middle kid, in charge of getting boarding passes, either from a kiosk or handling everything with an agent while the rest of us stood by. At ages 11 and 10. All three sons soon became accustomed to this independence. They’d become totally engaged in these “tests” and after they’d be thrilled, as only young boys can be, to talk about their treks. By making it a game, I immediately won the boys’ participation. Fast forward: The eldest at age 15 is at big train station in New Jersey, confused about schedules and noise and surging people. He gets himself calmed down and starts looking around him and sees a kid carrying an orange duffle bag emblazoned with “McDonogh School Athletics.” My son has played against this school and thus feels comfortable in introducing himself to the kid and asking advice. It turns out the guy knows all about schedules and points s my son to the right train. The middle kid, not quite eight-years-old, is at a bowling alley and an arcade machine eats his money. He doesn’t lose his cool, loiters around, waits for the same thing to happen to an older kid and then discovers, by watching the older kid, who the attendant is in charge of fiddling with the machine and refunding the money. Virtually everywhere we went, from the most pedestrian places to the most exciting, we’d play the game. What do you see? Who is doing what? Who is hot and who is not? “Take in all the folks around you, measure them. Which one would you trust? Who is sketchy?” You need to impress upon your son these opportunities in the arena all around us. The youngest son, six-years old, is at a kids’ party at a big shopping mall, with a pair of hopelessly disorganized parents who drift away with a group of youngsters, leaving my boy and two other kids in the midst of a huge food court. You’re a Dad - you can only imagine the initial panic the kids felt when they realized they were alone. But aha, Nelligan Junior knows what to do. He recalls what I told him and his brothers once when we were in the surging crowds at a local college football stadium. “You guys are small so if you get lost somewhere in a bunch of people, look for that guy with a stripe running down their pants. That’s a policeman or a soldier and they’ll help out.” At the mall, my kid tells that to the two other kids and they stand for a few minutes, intently staring at passing legs.They see a mall security officer, who eventually links them up with the irresponsible parents. Self-assurance just doesn’t happen, it’s gained through encounters of all kinds. Whether it’s a group of four or a mob of several hundred, get them reading the crowd. Here’s a challenge to parents: Undertake one of the examples noted above – gently push your kid into a situation where he or she has to be alert and think on their feet in this everyday world around us all. You’ll be giving your child an inestimable lesson on the independence that creates a resilient kid.
"For goodness sake, I don't want the heel. "
"Yeah, it's the end of the world."
Prepare your kid for the path, not the path for your kid.
"Just get the ball to Louie!"
"I'll be waiting outside."
"If you're five minutes early, you're late!"