Welcome to Fathergood Coaching!

I am so glad that you reached out. I believe that change, and especially personal change, 

takes a lot of courage. It’s so much easier to keep doing life the same way and hope that 

things will get better. I know from personal experience that, normally, that is not the case.

 As men, our egos can be so closely tied to our decisions and our actions. In general, we 

are not very good at asking for help. Only after everything has started melting down 

around us do we reach out.  By then, some of the damage isn’t repairable. It’s not all our 

fault. We’ve been sold this narrative from the movies and tv shows we grew up with and 

from the dads who tried to raise us.

So congratulations. Thank you for having the thoughtfulness, introspection, and courage 

to reach out. One of the most masculine things we can do as men is to see the reality on

 the ground and ask for support. It means we respect ourselves and care deeply about the

 people who are most important to us.

I am excited to start this journey with you. I don’t have all the answers. I do have some 

tools and perspectives that can help. I will walk alongside you and give you my 

undivided attention, and honesty and hold a safe space for you so that you can do the 

work to get you where you want to be.

Sincerely,

Sam Leach 

Fathergood Coaching

Immovable

The freshly painted grey walls stared back at me. All of the memories had been painted over. Last summer while we were staying in a rental house, my son asked me why our house didn’t have an echo in it. The little North Portland bungalow we had spent the past 16 years in — now seemed to have a very loud echo. The hardwood floors echoed where our kids had slid across on their round tummies and then taken their first steps. The large bay window that looked out onto our front yard echoed where the labradoodle used to lay and watchfully guard her lair. The newly remodeled basement that used to be cement and studs still seemed to reverberate where years of band practices had taken place… until our evenings were gradually transformed from rocking out in the dimly lit downtown bars to gently rocking our babies to sleep and back to sleep… and back to sleep in their dimly lit bedrooms down the hall. Although the little house was empty of furniture it was completely full of memories.

When you are a kid, it’s hard to move away from the only place you’ve ever lived. This has been especially true for our twelve year old daughter. When her private school went online during the pandemic, most of her friends left for publicly funded online schools. Later many moved to neighborhoods with better high schools. For her, at the end of a year filled with crushing transition and loss, moving was just the cherry on top.

When I was little my father’s career with the USDA took off and we moved from Florida to Missouri to Indiana and then to Wyoming. All in the span of three and a half years. It was difficult to say the least and what made it worse was my dad’s insistence that there was no “Bellyaching” as he called it. No complaining. Only positive comments were allowed.

I shared this story with my daughter. I explained that for our family the rules are different. Moving is stressful and exciting — a mixture of good and bad and we will embrace it all. All comments and feelings are allowed. We will walk through the excitement, uncertainty, weirdness and fear together. I explained that in all of this change there are still things that will never change. In all the moving there are things that are immovable. The love that her mother and I share isn’t going to change. The love we have for her little brother and sister isn’t changing either. I tell her that my love for her will never change. I know that in a few short years she will be packing boxes and off to her own life. Although she will move away… the love her mother and I have for her is immovable.

Published under the title Not All is Lost in Moving in the Gillette News Record July 12, 2021

Re-Socializing Our Kids

 

Two things happened this weekend. My 7-year-old daughter hopped on her scooter to try and have a playdate with some neighbors down the street. Coming back in tears she said her friend was already playing with another neighbor and she was told she couldn’t play today, maybe tomorrow. To be fair I don’t know exactly what the situation was. I felt terrible that I suggested she go knock on their door only to be rejected. I should have texted the parents beforehand. Through the anger and tears, I reminded her that she has other friends who live just a few blocks away that would love to play with her. In a few minutes, a white SUV pulled up at our house and out bounced one of her friends.

My nine-year-old son had a friend come over as well. He had complained earlier to me that his friend always got to make all of the choices about what they were going to play. My son is pretty easygoing - having a younger and older sister he is a real peacemaker. Regardless, he was frustrated that his buddy always dictated what they would play. I explained that he could make choices as well. He could tell his friend that he was going to do (whatever activity or game he wanted to do) and invite him to join him and then go do it with or without him. I told my son, “you watch, in a few minutes your buddy will join you.” I listened at the door while my son explained that he wanted to go outside and shoot baskets. The friend said no and my son said, “Ok well, you are welcome to join me but I’m going to be out there for probably 30 minutes.’’ It wasn’t more than 5 seconds and his friend was following him down the stairs.

These two experiences reminded me that our kids have been isolated for the past two years. There haven’t been many playdates happening at our house. Society has had a scarcity mindset from everything from flour to toilet paper. For our kids, the insecurity is playing out in their friendships. Making and keeping friends has always been hard, but over the past few years our kids have become increasingly de-socialized.  They’ve had to keep their faces covered, be “socially distant” from others while they “learn at a distance”.  They have spent more time with screens than with friends.  We have had to fundamentally change the natural way that they interact with others and although some of these measures have kept them safer from getting the coronavirus it has has come at a heavy cost to some of their natural social development . They have lost some of those critical social skills of negotiation, compromise, inclusion empathy, and even kindness. Now more than ever our kids need us to lean in and help them navigate their friendships. 

Our world feels very broken right now. It’s our children who will be putting it back together. Let’s make sure we are giving them the tools and guidance to grow into the people we know they are meant to be and that our world desperately needs.

- Fathergood Coaching

Different Times Call For Different Dads