Dear Friends and Colleagues:
Happy Father's Day to all the involved dads and father figures out there! We hope this month's DCG Newsletter finds you and your families in good health. Thank you again for spending a little of your time with us this month. If you missed earlier editions of the newsletter, you can find them all HERE.
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May Events & Social Media Recap
ARMOR DOWN'S MINDFUL MEMORIAL DAY
Armor Down and the Mindful Memorial Day Foundation hosted a Mindful Memorial Day. This year's event was held virtually, and members of the public were encouraged to offer a mindful moment for a fallen warrior or warriors online via the Foundation's website. Every one of the 7,000 post-9/11 fallen warriors was individually honored by name. Founded in 2014, this annual event is where EXIT12 Dance Company premiered its Daddy Appleseed Fund-commissioned dance For My Father – A Call to Arms in 2019. DCG's Allan Shedlin has volunteered at the event for the past five years.
ICYMI: TOP SOCIAL POSTS OF THE MONTH
- Your favorite DADDYING FRIDAY FUNNY brought working parents a new kid perspective:
SEND US YOUR ACTIVITY IDEAS!
Don't forget, every TUESDAY, we want to share indoor/outdoor "things to do" with the DCG parenting community, and we welcome your input! So, please send us photos, videos, or links to ideas you've discovered that have helped you and your kids stay creative/active while under coronavirus lockdown. If sharing via Twitter, please include #DaddyingInAPandemic!
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New This Month
ARMOR DOWN/DADDY UP!TM 2.0
Our Armor Down/Daddy Up!TM workshops continue via Zoom with Warrior Dads and Warrior Kids. We've dubbed this new phase of the program AD/DU! 2.0. It was created for those Warrior Dads who wanted to "go deeper" on some of the issues raised in the AD/DU! basic sessions. The AD/DU! 2.0 sessions include details about the science behind mindfulness, discussions about interacting with one's temper, naming emotions/feelings, and strategies for discussing them with their children. They also delve into the dynamic social context of daddying. The 2nd AD/DU! 2.0 session takes place on 6/16 and will include the Warrior Dad's partners/significant others.
The original Richmond, VA-based AD/DU! cohort now meets monthly via Zoom, as we continue to build our "Band of Warrior Dads." In the group's next meeting on 6/24, facilitators will use Allan's The Freedom of Limits as the focus because, during his more than two decades of qualitative research and interviews with dads and kids, the setting and testing of limits was the parenting "clashpoint" mentioned most often.
Planning continues for our Armor Down/Mommy Up!TM program in August. These new sessions will include our DCG partner and the program's first female facilitator, Nancy DeSantis of Horses for Heroes. Nancy has joined the team in our AD/DU! 2.0 sessions, as well.
Nancy and Allan meeting to discuss AD/DU! at Crossed Arrows Ranch pre-pandemic
As you may remember, DCG and Armor Down co-created the original AD/DU! program for fathers/father figures and children to help returning veterans make the best possible transition from their roles as warriors to their roles as daddies.
NEW FEATURE: DADVISOR PROFILE – BEN KING
This month we begin featuring DCG's DADvisory teammates. Our first featured DADvisor is Armor Down and Mindful Memorial Day founder, Daddying blog contributor, and co-creator of AD/DU! Ben King. Ben is a veteran and a proud daddy of two daughters with a story to tell. He is also a teacher, public speaker, and community organizer.
Developing a yoga and mindfulness practice helped Ben adjust to civilian life after returning from war in Iraq, and he now uses mindfulness professionally to help other veterans thrive as civilians. Through Armor Down, Ben started Mindful Memorial Day to help visitors mindfully honor the sacrifice of the fallen. He also consults for The Women in Military Service for America Memorial. Ben's other clients include veteran service organizations, civilians, and schools. Ben has a master’s degree in Public Anthropology and left the military as an Army Sergeant and Psychological Operations Specialist. You can find him on Facebook and Twitter.
 Ben with daughters Allegra, 6, and Lilliana, 4
PROUD DADDYING MOMENT OF THE MONTH
In honor of Father's Day, we recommend every father, grandfather, father figure, mentor, and child nominate themself by remembering a moment of pride they had at any time during the past month – something you did together, something you wrote, something you said that brought joy to your heart or someone else's.
Allan and granddaughter Jesse on weekend trip to Cape Cod - photo taken by his other granddaughter Casey
#DaddyingDuringLockdown
Do you know of a deserving kid or dad and want to nominate them for a PROUD DADDYING MOMENT? If so, please contact us through the DCG website, Twitter, or Facebook and mention "PROUD DADDYING MOMENT" somewhere in your message.
THE DADDYING BLOG
Published every Thursday, Daddying provides commentary, research, personal narratives, and other creative expressions from a diverse group of parenting colleagues & experts, including our DADvisory Team members, to help raise awareness and promote the benefits of lifelong dad involvement. Here are the Daddying blog posts published since our May newsletter:
 Sometimes the Heart Will Not Be Bullied (5/14)
by Allan Shedlin, Founder, DCG
 How Mindfulness Can Help Us Honor What's Important This Memorial Day (5/21)
by Ben King, Founder, Armor Down
 Your Helping Hand Is the Antidote to COVID-19 Fear (5/28)
by Anthony Fleg, MD
 I Am Not My Father's Daughter – Wait, Yes I Am (6/4)
by Monica Zamora, Chief Judge, NM Court of Appeals (retired)
 Daddying Helps Navigate Shifting Landscapes of Work and Masculinity (6/11)
by Elizabeth F. Fideler, EdD, Author of Men Still At Work
Interested in guest blogging for Daddying? Please check out our guest blogger submission guidelines to find out how to propose and submit a post.
CHILDREN'S COMFORT JOURNALTM FIELD TEST
You may remember that in April, Allan coordinated his first "Comfort Reunion" via Zoom as a unique way to stay connected with his former students in NY City and to supplement his ongoing parenting research. He conceived the virtual event as a way for people to share memories of things, activities, or people that comforted and soothed them during their childhood years. By revisiting those memories, Allan hoped adults, particularly parents, might derive some sense of remembered comfort as well as acquire needed tools to use during times of crisis with their own children or the children of others in their orbit.
In a related development, Allan is working to create and field-test a Children's Comfort JournalTM. He sees this Children's Comfort Journal as a tool to help 6- to 12-year-olds guide themselves through this pandemic and other crises and gain a self-awareness that will help them get to the “other side.” He adds, "When we get to that 'other side' – and we will – kids will emerge with an appreciation of their strengths and grit as well as an appreciation of what is fundamentally important to them." We'll have more details on this unique project in upcoming editions of the newsletter. If you have children or grandchildren in the targeted age range and would like to help field-test the Journal, please contact us.
On the Daddying Horizon
TBD (Memorial Day Tour Postponed)
LAYING GROUNDWORK FOR EXIT12 TOUR OF "FOR MY FATHER" IN NEW MEXICO
Allan continues planning for a week-long, EXIT12 Dance Company tour in the state in 2021. While the original plan for a Memorial Day 2020 tour was postponed due to coronavirus outbreak concerns, DCG already has helped raise half the needed $20K for the pending tour. If you are interested in making a contribution to match the Daddy Appleseed Fund's challenge grant of $5K, please CONTACT US so we can provide tax-deductible information.
From World-Premiere performance at Arlington National Cemetery
May 27, 2019
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SHOP THE DADVOCACY STORE
LAST-MINUTE FATHER'S DAY GIFTS!
FREE SHIPPING ON ALL ORDERS!
During this time of canceled school and "social/physical distancing"
Enjoy 25% OFF These TWO items:
The Freedom of Limits & Daddying Stress Balls
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Daddying Closing Thoughts From Allan
In addition to thinking about my children and grandchildren as I wrote my upcoming Father’s Day post for the Daddying blog, I was thinking about Gianna Floyd, George Floyd’s six-year-old daughter who exclaimed “Daddy changed the world!”
Each dad has the opportunity to change his child’s world by what he does – and is – for his child. I hope this Father's Day, all dads (and father figures) take time to think about how they want their children to describe them as a father, five, 10, 20 years from now. Once figuring that out, they can dedicate themselves to becoming the dad they want to be.
Being a dad is more than who you are, it’s what you do. So, what kind of dad do you want to be? What will you do today to be that dad for your kids? For your community.
From my post the DCG Facebook page on June 1: "As I continue to process the murder of George Floyd, sometimes words can't be found. And sometimes when they are, they feel inadequate. Friend, poet, and Daddying guest blogger E. Ethelbert Miller's poem (posted here with his permission) comes as close as imaginable to expressing the horror, injustice, and anguish. It originally was written in 2017 after Eric Garner used those exact words – I can't breathe – as he too was murdered before our eyes."
Reach out to us with your Daddying activity suggestions on Facebook or Twitter and use the hashtag #DaddyingInAPandemic. And if you haven't already, please subscribe to the Daddying blog, leave a comment, and share our posts!
Daddy on, and may your EVERY day feel like Father's Day.
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