The superhuman skills dads really need

You’re a dad, your job’s pretty straight forward right? Fix stuff that’s broken, hug little people that are broken and show off your muscles when opening the lemonade bottle! Done deal.

WRONG.

When it comes to being a father in the true sense of the term, there are so many skills that dads really need.

Some days you need to be superhuman so here are the superhero skills you should master to ensure you are the best dad for your little ones.

Go Batman on healthy eating
Superhuman Detective Skills and superhuman strength of will 

These are exactly the skills you will need when trying to get your batboys and batgirls to (def)eat the universal baddie Dr Cabbage!

Here are some secret weapons for your amour:

  • Chop vegetables into minuscule pieces and hide it
  • Make it into a dinosaur shape
  • Pretend it is the best thing you have ever tasted
  • Keep adding veg to the plate everyday, even if it’s rejected. Exposure is a good thing.
  • Explain it makes them run faster/ jump higher or look cooler

Never negotiate! Never plead, beg or cry. Weakness has no place in Batman or at the dinner table!

spidey-dad-son

Go Ironman on creative projects 
Tony Stark is a genius and he invents sophisticated devices, plus he has a keen business mind!

Stand by your cereal boxes! Kids will ask you to make the most weird and wonderful things. ‘What’s that, World? Sorry I can’t help I am building Sodor Island!’

From stick ‘lightsabers’ to blanket dens, without question dads are expected to be able to make things and find their inner Tony Stark.

Go Antman on sleeping
Ant-Man had the power to shrink himself (and other people and objects along with himself) to the size of an ant and return to normal.

Men aren’t world renowned for their ability to wake up during the night when the kids are up. In fact, dads usually sleep through even the noisiest midnight tantrums (even those from mum)

Inevitably you will share your bed with a little starfish, who insists on taking up half the bed and probably a partner who is too shattered to fight them back into their caves.

Your job in this situation is to shrink small enough to make sure everyone gets a good night’s rest. Here’s how to manage this Antman style

  • Sleep on your side, facing away from the starfish (less chance of arms or legs catching valuable parts of you)
  • Place your hand in front of you to stop ‘tipage’
  • Stick out your legs a little, creating yourself a V style formation and thus gaining valuable inches on your side of the bed.
  • Never complain!
  • Never ever complain (worth mentioning twice)
  • If all else fails, shrink super small, secretly slide out of bed and go and sleep in the child’s bed. This act alone will gain you massive mummy points! Everyone’s a winner.

superhero-father-and-son

Go Captain America on competition
Captain America has agility, strength, speed, endurance, and reaction time superior to any Olympic athlete.

Be it the dads race on sports day, or teaching some football skills to your little ones friends, dads are known to be slightly competitive (it’s true and yet they hide it so well, really…).

Kids love it when dad shows his skills. They love it even more when dad teaches them those skills.

Take some time to literally pass on your knowledge of all things physical, race with them (let them win sometimes too!) and play.

And finally … Go Thor on the morning after
Thor possesses physical powers, immunity to conventional diseases, enhanced endurance (Thor’s Asgardian metabolism is far greater than a human and  superhuman strength.

We’ve all been there, well most of us anyway. You’ve enjoyed a rare night out while someone else looks after the kids for the evening and because it’s a relatively rare occasion, you may well have ‘gone for it’ and had one or two (or more) too many Asgardian ales.

Come the following morning, though, you need to be back in the ‘dad zone,’ although it probably feels more like the ‘dead zone.’

Here’s how to attack this:

  • TV is your wing man.
  • Train tracks are your distracter.
  • Snuggly book time (you read to me sweetheart) is your saviour
  • Bacon is your friend!

To all dads, no matter what child related challenges await you, have a fun filled time with your little ones this Father’s Day.

Happy Father’s Day

Watching football when you have children!

The Euro’s are here!  Football fans across the country will be settling down tonight to watch the first game – France v. Romania, but of course for us Brits the real interest starts on Saturday evening with England v. Russia and Wales v. Slovakia.

As a parent, being able to actually sit down and enjoy a game for the full 90 minutes may seem impossible. Actually, being able to sit down for 90 minutes period seems impossible, but I digress…

So from the experts in children’s play, 360 play give you:

5 top tips for watching Euro 2016 with young children.

1 – Keep them in the room!

Anything that keeps them in the same space as you means you don’t have to keep moving to check on them! We think bowls of snacks, train tracks to build and artwork to doodle should do the trick!

2- Get Active

Before the game and at half time, take your mini’s into the back garden and have a kick around, pretending to be Rooney or Harry Kane makes it even more fun!

3 – Blanket snuggles

Watching evening football games with children means they are more tired and irritable, so snuggle them under a blanket and use the quiet time to explain the rules of the game you’re watching (and hopefully they will fall asleep next to you – two birds, one stone)

4 – Board games

Get out a game that you can play and keep an eye on the TV. We recommend Monopoly, snakes and ladders or a jigsaw puzzle.

5 – Let them eat cake!

Cakes with icing in the colours of different teams might be fun and again would be something everyone can get involved with, making them on a Saturday afternoon and enjoying hem through the game.

With older children you can make two cakes, one for each team playing. Then they can have a small piece of the cake when that teams scores. They’ll soon be cheering them on! (Just make sure you monitor what a ‘small piece means’ for some unknown reason, kids don’t seem to understand this!)

There are, of course, a host of ideas to be had via the internet and one site we particularly like is www.activityvillage.co.uk , a fabulous website for kids with lots of great ideas. Among their free items are a host of colouring printables, many of which are football related, so the children can get into the football mood.

However you plan to ‘tackle’ Euro 2016, we hope you have a ball!