[00:00:00.00] - Speaker 1
Hello, everybody. Happy Thursday. This is our Achieving Unity podcast. Glad you're all here. Welcome to the weekly process of Achieving Unity. We have a new guest each week, and today you're going to have just an awesome time. What we're going to be bringing forward. Love to see what we're going to do and working with you in the process. This is Creating Solutions, One Reality at a Time. This is a copy of my website, the first page of my website. Love to go out and visit it. We can make this happen all working together by creating solutions, one reality at a time. This is Achieving Unity Weekly podcast, as I mentioned. Right now, it is on every Thursday through the end of 2024, if it is not a US holiday, which means next week we are not going to have a live broadcast because it is Thanksgiving in the US. We will skip this one week. Then starting in January of 2025, we're moving to Wednesdays. It'll be at the same time, 1:00 PM Pacific, 4:00 PM Eastern, but we're going to start our course on Thursdays in 2025. All right, we talked about the weekly podcast.
[00:01:13.23] - Speaker 1
We're not going to have one on Thanksgiving. We will go forward. What we have is reality-focused dynamics to success-focused solutions we create. Please contact us today for more information on Using Agile and lean outside of software. The philosophy can be used in every discipline, every vertical, including our homes. Agile is the ability to create and respond to change, enabling success in an uncertain and possibly struggling environment by emphasizing adaptability through better collaboration and communication. I've worked for NASA and with Boeing and with all the rocket ships. It works there, but it also works in the home. We're doing the same issues in struggling environments. We can How to make that work. Then Lean is a methodology focused on maximizing value by minimizing waste and optimizing your processes through continuous improvement, effectiveness, and efficiency. If you connect with me, I'll show you how to break all products and services, personally and professionally, down from the most complex business projects, the basic steps of training our teenagers. Think of busy mornings at a family breakfast. Everyone has somewhere to from work to school to many other locations. What you can do is have a family standup meeting each evening where everyone shares their task for the next day.
[00:02:40.06] - Speaker 1
Use sticky notes with chores and responsibilities placed on the refrigerator where each person can move their note from to-do to done. You can create a breakfast station with pre-portioning ingredients and a weekly meal plan. That minimize decision fatigue and reduce time spent searching for items can help everyone join to find in on a smoother and more efficient process. It's all about achieving unity through encouragement, inspiration, and inclusion. Encouragement is the powerful force that lies at the heart of empowerment, empowering each other. Unity makes us a successful team, inspiring each other to reach every goal. Together, we can overcome challenges to inclusion and celebrate every victory, both personally and professionally. Are you facing relationship challenges or parenting difficulties? Are you, or someone you know, struggling with relationship issues? Are parenting time issues as a divorced or divorcing parent? Transform frustration into understanding with what the frustration. Where is the value in our actions? Learn that anger holds no value. Anger is just actions not gaining effective results. From personal relationships to prenuptial agreements, the nuptial is not required. Many people are in agreements, but they're not getting married. A prenuptial agreement can be non-nuptual because life happens.
[00:04:17.05] - Speaker 1
Let's learn to embrace and enjoy every moment and every challenge together. If you'd like, go to my website. Here are my QR codes. Go on the left, takes you to the website home. Go on the right, takes you to my contact page. It also gives away if you could join in for our newsletter or ask questions. Our Achieving Unity upcoming podcast. Next week, as I mentioned, there will be no live podcast. The following week, Black Awareness, Abolition of Slavery: What are the next steps to come alive in 2025? We'll be talking about that on December fifth. Human Rights Day, it's international. A UNESCO That's on 12:12. Then Happy Holidays, a time for all through kindness. Jill Lublin will help us on that day and be our guest. That'll be on 12:19, December 19th. Then, The Big Day. December 26. Closing yesterday, 2024. Building tomorrow, 2025. It'll be our last podcast of the year. Hope you all join. Invite your friends, invite your neighbors, invite your coworkers, invite your family. Love to have you all there. Now, today, the excitement. The person I was just talking with this morning intrigued me with his ability. Keith Schumacher, Executive Director of the National Alliance for Father-Friendly Schools.
[00:05:51.29] - Speaker 1
We welcome Keith as he brings his strong family engagement to our schools with 15 plus years of experience. He has worked hundreds of school administrators and parent leaders across the United States in leading them to engage families. Father friendly schools create an inclusive environment by actively inviting fathers and father figures, such as grandfathers, uncles, and mentors, into the school community. These schools often use nationally recognized programs to engage that male role model in the student's lives by opportunities for involvement year round. The goal is to break down those stereotypes, encourage male participation, ensure that fathers have the support they need to be active in their children's education. These programs are open to all students, including those without fathers, and can include mentoring or other father engagement initiatives. See the bottom right, you'll see that the website is fatherfriendlyschools. Org. Just a second. Let me start my Zoom back up. Got the screen share off. Go to the big screen for me. Here we have Mr. Keith Schumacher. Keith, how are you?
[00:07:27.16] - Speaker 2
I'm doing great, Mark. I'm glad to hear doing well today. I listened to you reading that, and it's like, I know I wrote that, but it's interesting when I hear it back, and it's been a little bit of time since I wrote that. It's interesting. I thank you for including me today. I'm looking forward to it.
[00:07:46.29] - Speaker 1
Oh, you bet. This is excellent. I'm so glad you're here. It's a process, as we talked this morning, of building a teamwork and achieving that unity so we all can come together and help each other, that we're all going in that same direction. As we're talking, I'm trying to get this into the multi-speaker mode. Oh, it's not going to. It'll have more than five people. That's why it's not working. My apologies. Let's just go into speaker I think they'll come back and forth with us in the recording. But as long as we have it going, so everybody gets a chance to see you, know you, and build upon what we've worked on and talked about today. I would like to start off. Keith, you've done Like I said, more than 15 years. Can you tell us about you, what you're doing, and how you got into this?
[00:08:38.23] - Speaker 2
Awesome. Well, I appreciate the opportunity, Mark. I've had the blessed opportunity to be able to do this work for actually over 15 years. It all started, I didn't come into education as a teacher or as a principal or an administrator or anything like that. I'm a dad. My background is in emergency services. I am retired from the city of Atlanta Fire Department. I spent 28 years with them. But what I found was that when my oldest daughter, who is now 25, when she was in kindergarten, I was volunteering at the school because I had a work schedule that allowed me to do some volunteering. It was actually one of the parapro or teacher assistants that mentioned to me that it's just different when I'm there. I didn't know if it was a compliment or a cut, so I challenged her on it. Of course, my wife was on staff at the school. She's a teacher. I knew I was familiar with everybody. But I just said, What is it that's different? She said, Well, when you're the parent volunteer in the room, the boys seem to sit a little straighter, the girls just seem to be a little more attentive.
[00:09:51.07] - Speaker 2
It's just a different air in the room. I said, Really? I said, Is it just me or is it like that when the other dads are in the room? She said, We don't have any other dads. We We never have a dad volunteering in this school. At that school at that time, I started looking around and realized that the only male on staff was a part-time PE coach. Even the custodian was a female at that school at that time. I started to do what any guy would do, try to recruit other guys, try to network, try to form a daddy's club or something along that line. It never materialized. I was never able to get anything going. Even trying to reach out to the PTA, that really didn't work out very well. It wasn't until almost a couple of years later that I saw a story on the national news about a group of guys in Olathe, Kansas, that were volunteering and being a part of the school, and they were part of a program known as Watch Dogs. The dogs stands for Dads of Great Students. I later I learned that it- Dads of Great Students.
[00:11:04.05] - Speaker 2
Yes.
[00:11:04.22] - Speaker 1
What a great acronym.
[00:11:06.09] - Speaker 2
It is. Originally, when they started that program back in 1998 at George Elementary School in Springdale, Arkansas, it was just Dads of George students was the original acronym. But when the idea caught on and it started to grow and to catch fire and to spread, then they quickly changed it to Dads of Great Students. That program has now touched over 9,000 schools across the country. I would say probably about 2,500 of those schools are still running programs. Part of what we do through the alliance is to support them as well. I wound up bringing that program to that school. Like any school volunteer that has a passion and commitment to do anything, the next thing you know, I was the county leader, then I was the state leader. Then in 2011, I was hired on board and I was on national staff with Watchdogs for 10 years. I stayed there. It was my side hustle when I was at the fire department. I actually traveled nationwide with them, training people across the country about inclusive engagement of getting fathers and father figures in the building. Then when I retired from the fire department, I was looking for a full-time role, and they didn't They didn't have a position for me, unfortunately.
[00:12:32.07] - Speaker 2
But we worked very closely with another organization called All Pro Dad, which is based in Tampa. That program was actually started about almost 30 years ago by NFL coach, Tony Dungey.
[00:12:44.21] - Speaker 1
Who was in Tampa at the time.
[00:12:47.27] - Speaker 2
I worked with them for about five years. Then a year ago this week, actually a year ago yesterday, I stepped away and formed the National Alliance Father friendly schools for the purpose of being an independent clearinghouse, more to speak. I don't know if clearinghouse would be the best word, but an independent, objective resource for schools, for parents, for anyone that is interested in engaging families beyond the moms that normally are there doing all the work around the school, but to be an independent an objective resource for schools and for principals, administrators, school counselors, family engagement folks, and really to find out what it is that they're looking for, what are the goals of their school and being able to direct them toward which program is the best fit for them. We brought several fatherhood programs on board with us. One of our goals is to get people to understand that there is a very significant difference between a fatherhood program, a mentoring program, and a school-based father engagement program because there's a lot of confusion, a lot of mix. We have schools that are trying to use fatherhood programs for their family engagement. It doesn't work.
[00:14:15.19] - Speaker 2
We're trying to have people that are looking at father engagement programs and thinking they're mentoring programs, which they're not. That's part of the training that we do is getting people to understand, number one, why is it that it is difficult for schools to engage the dads? Why does our American culture put that separation there? We've got to just change some mindset. That mindset of any communication that comes from the school, regardless of what it is, regardless of who it is addressed to, unless it's specifically addressed to dad, is that the intent is that that is for mom. Of course, in some families, it's grandma or some families, it's aunt or somewhere. Most of the time, it's a maternal figure because they have been seen since people have been people. It's the women that are burying the children and raising the children and is seen as the nurtureers. What we want to get people to understand is that in our culture, we have done a lot in the last five decades in inclusion and moving forward and getting people to be able to to have the ability for the resources and the opportunities that they wouldn't have had in the past in our older culture.
[00:15:39.29] - Speaker 2
But what we really want to get people to understand is that when we're talking specifically about father engagement in education, the situation is completely the polar opposite. It's the men that have not been there. It's the men that over the last 40 to 50 years have not been engaged. Honestly, the guys, we're not innocent in this. We feel like we're not welcome in most schools, and that is not intentional. I don't say that there's any malice intent on anybody's part. It's just our culture. If we can just change, be open-minded, in your words, Mark, create some unity, and be able to allow that engagement without it being either creepy or cute and find a good middle ground, and we'll see exactly what I saw here. I'm in Brunswick County, North Carolina, just south of Wilmington. What we saw just this past Tuesday night, the school said, Yeah, we might get a couple of guys show up. We might get one or two dads, maybe three or four dads, the normal folks that we see, the guys that show up, and we hand them a box to do some manual labor if they show up at the school because we don't know what to do with them.
[00:17:01.04] - Speaker 2
Mark, I'll tell you, 200 men walked into that school on a community night and said, Sign me up. I'm willing to volunteer to be here at this school. It's really important to make this opportunity.
[00:17:16.09] - Speaker 1
Two hundred.
[00:17:18.03] - Speaker 2
Absolutely. We see it. One of our most challenged schools that everybody said, Oh, we are a significant number of our families here. They don't speak English. They won't understand. They're not going to show up. They're not engaged with the school. One of our most challenged schools here in the county had 300 show up, Mark.
[00:17:42.06] - Speaker 1
Three hundred others. Wow.
[00:17:45.23] - Speaker 2
Absolutely. It's just a matter of changing our language just a little bit, being open-minded, being inclusive of that population that some people tell us we can't invite because they feel it's not inclusive to use the word dad or father in a school setting because they make the assumption that so many students don't have dads. What we're seeing is not only are they willing to connect with somebody to come in, to be a part of that, to fill that gap as that role model, but the dads that do show up, show up to support those kids as well. The programs have been doing this for 25 years, Mark. This isn't something really new. I've had the blessing to be able to this for the last 15 years, and my kids are grown and gone. But I love to be able to do this. What makes it so special is when I'm standing in that school cafeteria and I look over at the principal and I see that look of shock, awe, and amazement on their face like, I had no idea. I call it the principal jaw drop moment. I love it and it's what I have to do.
[00:18:58.15] - Speaker 2
When I walk up to a dad, when I When I see a little face looking up and saying, My daddy is in the school. This is where I spend all my time and my daddy is here. It really makes a big difference. We're not short-changing what the moms do or what they've done or what they continue to do. We're just adding to that. We're enhancing that family experience. I get on a run. I love what I do.
[00:19:24.02] - Speaker 1
It sounds like it. I love your passion. I wish more of us could pick up more of that because I can remember as you're talking, Keith, when I was going through school, I don't remember my dad, I'm thinking as I'm talking, ever coming to the school for a school event. That was just not an accepted practice at the time, even today. I know when my kids were growing up and I would go, I would be one of the few dads there. It was fun I enjoyed going. I wanted to be there with my kids. But so many of the male counterparts in that process, and I can't say I haven't been through it, it's like, Well, what do I do? The other question there is, what do you not do? It's okay to pick up a crayon. Man can color.
[00:20:24.19] - Speaker 2
The thing is, when the moms show up and we do a lot of work PTAs, PTOs, PT, whatever. But when a mom shows up- Is the parent teacher. When a mom shows up at the school, they're used to finding things to do. They like to find things to do or whatever. Guys aren't that way. When we walk in the door, it's like, You tell me what you want, I'll do it, and I'll be done, and I'll be happy. That is where we find our success is when the schools are able to to say, Okay, here's a list of things. You're going to go into six classrooms. You're going to be there these times. You're going to work in the lunchroom. You're going to help with Carlyne. That's when guys feel like they've accomplished something. If a guy is going to take a day off from work. Sitting in the office all day long or sitting in the gym even all day long or the library is not going to endear them to come back. But when they sit there across the table from a second grader who's struggling to understand a concept, and they are the one that can put the message across to them and see what I call the light bulb moment when you're working with a student and you see that look on their face when they finally grasp that concept that they've been struggling with, that really seals the deal, not only for the dad, but the dad understands that the important work that the teachers do and how important it is to support those teachers.
[00:22:03.07] - Speaker 2
That really is one thing that is really important in what we do. Now, another program, I mentioned that All Pro Dad Chapters program. That's even a more simple program. All that as is coming in once a month for breakfast with your kid and getting a good character message. These are amazing programs. They're very well thought out, very well vetted. For someone that has never heard about these programs, they've been around for a very, very long time.
[00:22:29.22] - Speaker 1
There have I have. It's amazing that it's not out more, Keith, because even in Colorado, back in... My divorce started in 1989. When I first started looking around, I didn't see anything. But then as time went on, more and more people are coming out. Today, there are more dads and father organizations than I think people even imagined just a few years ago. I think that ability for us to reach out and understand that we are all beneficial in a child's life.
[00:23:06.18] - Speaker 2
Absolutely.
[00:23:07.02] - Speaker 1
We know how some of our previous fathers haven't been maybe there as much. And some of the divorce struggles. I think as we talked earlier, sometimes in the corporate environment, it's not as supportive as much. Oh, you don't need to go. Let your spouse go. Corporate environment, instead We ask, Well, okay, it's not something I do. Then we carry that culture forward. It's a situation that that's got to stop. We need to do as you're doing. We have the multiple organizations. What can we do to start talking more to even our political parties? What can we do more to start bringing both parents out, all parents out to the events? So it doesn't have to be, well, only the fathers do this, or the mothers But we do that through, as I call it, achieving unity. You're harnessing that power.
[00:24:08.19] - Speaker 2
We discussed this real briefly this morning, Mark, and I mentioned to you, my mentor, Eric Snow, who is one of the founders a Watchdogs's organization. The one thing that he used to say all the time that I loved is like, this isn't a red or blue issue. This is an issue of we want to make sure that our students have role models that they are able to connect with their fathers and father figures. It doesn't matter red, blue, what side of the line, it doesn't matter. It's either religious issues, race issues. Dads just want to be good dads. They want to be leaders and role models. Obviously, you're going to have a few that don't fall into that, but they're very few. The Census Bureau tells us that 80% of of men in the United States that are within the age that they would have a child between the age of zero and 18 are involved with their kids. Even though our culture is telling us that that's not true, that dads are running away, that there's so many children that don't have dads. We're actually seeing the numbers that are changing. The other thing that we're seeing, Mark, is these programs, the fatherhood programs and the father engagement programs, are having more and more dads that are reaching out to them now than ever before that say, Hey, I'm a dad.
[00:25:38.12] - Speaker 2
I want to be a good dad, but I don't know how because I didn't have a dad. For those to be able to support those guys in building that new culture with their children that they missed out on is huge. It's a great way to move forward.
[00:25:56.23] - Speaker 1
I think you're so right. Like you're saying, the red or the blue, the the Democrat, it's got to get out of politics. They've got to put that aside and be a parent. This goes for all parents, grandparents. Put the political issues aside. Let's come together. Let's all come. Let's go fly a kite together. Let's go do something with it. Let's go to the ball game. Let's go to the chess match. It could be Tiddly Wings. I don't know. But let's all come together and be there for our children and work with them on where they're expanding. If we can all be there for the football game, baseball game, basketball game, tiddly wings, chest checkers, whatever they're taking part in to be there as parents will help our kids. As I was talking to one of the organizations today, it was just on the email side. But how much that the children with both parents, especially the ones that are not fighting all the time, not finding wrong, are the children that the companies want to hire. They're the ones that are more solid. They're the more, maybe possibly more learned individuals. So they don't have that fear that's been developed for a lot of us and watching the news.
[00:27:19.03] - Speaker 1
But the people that have a parent to talk to, two parents to talk to, and find out about, Well, this newscast said this. This newscast said How do you feel about that? For us to ask our children the same before or after that sporting event or helping them with their homework. Exactly.
[00:27:44.18] - Speaker 2
I did some work with Dr. Linda Nielsen, and I mentioned her just about every time I present because she did some really great work. She's retired right now, but she's at Wake Forest University, and she did some very impactful studies on specialization Specifically on father-daughter relationships. One of the things that she told me was that she did a study among college-age women that she had access to. The question was, at what point in your life do you feel that your daddy figure in your life began to fade or disappear? A lot of people are surprised when they hear the answer. Usually, that answer overwhelmingly in this study that she did was that it was about the level of middle school. You're looking at that pre-teen, that adolescent time that is really a pivotal time in the child's life. But she said then the reason why when she dug into it a little bit more was that as a young lady is developing, and these are her words, not mine, that when that young lady starts to look good in a bikini, dad starts to step away, starts to feel a little creepy with, a hugging or the normal things that you would do with a child and steps away a little bit.
[00:29:11.21] - Speaker 2
Then at about the same time as when mom steps in because she's becoming a woman and there are things that mom will understand that dad wouldn't understand and blocks. Getting that understanding in that dynamic and saying, Okay, if we understand that, we can get past it. That's why I think probably I love that these programs are very easy to launch in elementary schools, but it's a little more challenging in middle schools and somewhat challenging in high schools as well. I just love that we're able to do that and to be able to help make those connections to get people to understand that. Because we've seen over the years in a lot of studies is that when those, in our case, I'm a dad of daughters. When those girls start to look out at who it is that they're going to partner with for the rest of their life, hopefully, let it be someone that they... Let them have had an example in their life that they're looking for somebody that is going to respect them because they've seen that father figure respect them, respect their mother, respect other women in that manner. That's one of the things that I love when we're able to engage the fathers and father figures at the middle and high school level, plus the fact that then we're looking into career, I don't always say college and career development, but what's past graduation?
[00:30:48.16] - Speaker 2
I didn't go to college. I went straight to work. I love that we are now acknowledging those kids that are going to be going that route and putting in places where they're going to be most successful and connecting them with folks as well. I enjoy doing that.
[00:31:06.16] - Speaker 1
That's awesome. You do that and you just made some excellent points to Keith. Just about there are some kids that will go on the university type training. There's some or not. There's so much in technology today that a full degree is not required. Sometimes it is if you're going to be looking at that corporate ladder and running companies. But there are a lot of high paying positions that are working just off of certifications that they don't have to go to... College is not required. The certification, the training, that's still required, but there's different paths. I think, like I'm hearing what you're saying, to have that dual parent ability, to have the mother that's pretty much been the default, that culture, but then for that father to stay involved. So it is still a two parent process, it gives a lot more strength, I think, for the kids. And I think now, as we look at our court system, I think they're seeing it more now than they did 20 years ago, 30 years ago, some of the damage that may have been caused by that. But with people like yourself, organizations that we work with, I think that's opening up a lot more doors so that we can understand better and our children can understand better.
[00:32:36.19] - Speaker 2
What we've seen is that even in non-custodial situations where the parents are not in a married situation anymore or maybe never have been in some cases, but at least partnering in unity to support the child, regardless of what their living situation is. We have seen that. I had one guy, He told me, he said, Well, I went in. He said, There's no more supervised visitation than having 1,400 eyes on you all day long. When you're volunteering at the school or coming in for a visit, in advance of the school. Even in that situation, they were still able to make those connections.
[00:33:23.20] - Speaker 1
Since you mentioned that, I'm going to pick up on that word that you just used, visitation. Back in 1992, we made that change in Colorado. The legal system still kept it in there because of some past issues that to take visitation out would make some free laws difficult to manage, so they left it in their parentheses. But we turned the term visitation to parenting time because I'm not a visitor in my own child's life. No one is. They are parents. So are grandparents. Grandparents are important to the kids' lives as well. But we've got to take our terminology and reframe it to a positive form of unity. Instead of, Oh, that's a visitor, that is an outside-fenced area. Back to, no, we are parents. If you want me to be a parent, give me the credit of being a parent. Neither to say that feel passed without a problem. But there are still a lot of states that use that term visitation. How do you, anyone feel about being called a visitor in your own child's life. We've got to truly work together, not all of us, with all of our organizations that we do work with.
[00:34:52.25] - Speaker 1
I was a call out coordinator for the Children's Rights Council. We'll make sure that the children were thought of first in the process. It was too many times the child was forgotten and the parental rights, the parental control was thought of first. But we brought it back so that the children have rights. And late Dave Levy was just a tremendous leader in those efforts, but he has passed now, and there's a lot of people that have taken over. But we have got to come together so that we are all speaking the same language, and State A is not calling it one thing, and state B is not calling another thing, and then our US government is just as lost as it can be in many ways. We've truly got to come together on parenting and realize that it's the same in every state. Everywhere we go, it takes two parents, including grandparents, to raise a child and to build that foundation, that structure that we can all walk on it in a solid foundation to carry us going forward, right?
[00:36:08.04] - Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely.
[00:36:10.13] - Speaker 1
What can we do next? We've got about 20 more minutes. We talked about this morning, we've got unity, we've got encouragement, we've got inspiration, we've got inclusion. When I talk about unity, as you mentioned earlier, with the father's groups, I want to work with the mother's groups as well, and I am, the group activities, involve multiple families, such as community picnics. We mentioned earlier, sports days, group games, something to foster that sense of community and make sure, again, that all parents are welcome, the mothers and the fathers. I think you're doing some of this now?
[00:36:54.03] - Speaker 2
Absolutely. I know that one of the things that we Sometimes we get some pushback that says, Oh, we can't use this term dad. We can't use the term father because it's going to make some students feel bad because they don't have that role in their life. But one of the things, and I was actually meeting with a school earlier today, and I said, When you are going to be talking about bringing a father-friendly program to your school, from the get-go, from the very first time that you mentioned this thing, you need to be very clear that this program is for every student in the school, regardless of what your family status is. In order to do that, you've got to think inclusively and get past the stereotypes that dads are too busy, that dads are not interested, that dads are absent. When we get past those stereotypes and say, You know what? Let's just throw the invitation out there and see who shows up. Then you have 200 guys show That's amazing. That is just that little bit of culture, that barrier, that minor barrier, is a barrier to engagement. One of the things that I talk about, and I'm trying to think of a better way to come up with this, but a lot of times dads will show up at a school and they do get a chance to spend some time in the lunchroom or whatever.
[00:38:25.28] - Speaker 2
This is a school that doesn't have an official father-friendly program. You'll hear people, Oh, aren't you sweet? Aren't you cute? Those comments are in no way meaning to be belittling, but as a guy, sometimes we receive it that way. It's all well intentioned, but sometimes that's discouraging. If we can monitor those things and understand those things, and we're not trying to reframe and police what people are saying in schools and front offices and things like that. But just getting people to understand the difference between being just a school or even being an inclusive school, if they want to call it that, but being a father friendly inclusive school. It is a balance that needs to be maintained. When you do that, you see some amazing results.
[00:39:22.22] - Speaker 1
I think you're right. Like you're saying, it's difficult. I know when I started my organization, my Achieving Unity, I I went with caring and helping, but that wasn't reaching because it was, again, too soft. I said, Oh, that's sweet. Oh, that's cute. That wasn't grabbing. It wasn't receiving the strength that it needed. And that's why I went with achieving unity by harnessing the power. Because that grabs a lot of people because they are able to harness the power of caring, of helping, even they don't want to use caring or helping. They don't want to hear sweet and cute. But to harness that power of encouraging, inspiring, and including others, which is my logo. That's what we have to work with.
[00:40:18.08] - Speaker 2
Exactly. On that same note, that's exactly why I named this the National Alliance for Father-Friendly Schools. Because we've had, years ago, we used the term male involvement or male engagement, and there's always that discussion about what's the difference between involved and engaged. Then you'll see father involvement, father engagement. When we see that, we start to get that pushback of, Oh, we can't use these terminologies. But if we say father friendly, it catches people off guard. They're like, Well, what do you mean? Father friendly? Does that mean we're not father friendly? I always say, I don't think any school is anti-dad. But I can say that we don't do our best in the majority of the 100 and some thousand schools across the US at being father friendly. We know that we're currently through the two main programs that we deal with. We're probably touching about 2,500 schools out of 100,000. Then I know that we do have one other program that we're working with that is specifically in Missouri that has about 100 schools. But there's a lot of work to do out there. There's a lot of just changing minds and getting people to be a little open-minded and just stop saying, dads don't show up.
[00:41:43.05] - Speaker 2
We've tried. I'm on a lot of social media groups with PTAs and school counselors, and they're always like, How can we get more men involved? How can we get dads to show up? Whatever. Then they keep doing the same old things over over again expecting different results.
[00:42:02.11] - Speaker 1
Exactly. Definition of insanity.
[00:42:05.15] - Speaker 2
I tell them, I said, When I'm talking to a school principal and they say, Well, we had a donuts with dad. So at least they made that effort to be a little bit inclusive But what happens is if a school... You got to understand the difference between events versus programs. If a school has an event, they have donuts with dad, they get 300 guys show up, and then they never hear from them again. They can't understand Why? Well, the reason why is because they haven't created consistent opportunities across the whole school year. They've created one event, they had a blowout, they had a bunch of guys show up, but they didn't give them anything else to any other opportunities specifically to be committed to. What I tell them is, if Donuts with Dad, if you're only offering Donuts as your family engagement, your engagement will last exactly as long as the donut does, because when the donut's gone, so are they. These opportunities, either these all pro-ed chapter meetings or the opportunities to volunteer throughout the school year are really what makes the difference. Mark, I do say we were supposed to be talking about play with your dad Play With Your Dad Day.
[00:43:15.20] - Speaker 2
I'm trying to remember exactly the term. What we see is that these dads, when they're out there and they're volunteering into school, when they go out at lunch and they wind up on the playground, they wind up being the playground and they have a great time, and they show their great role models, and they're there for the kids. Let's tie that into the Play With Your Dad Day as a part of our conversation today.
[00:43:43.05] - Speaker 1
I think that's true because that's one of the issues that we have is the learning. And back to our culture, there's too much of the culture from before, that National Play Day with Dad, which, again, somebody else came up with. That wasn't even mine. But that ability to have a National Playday with Dad, we want to make sure, just as we were talking about earlier, Keith, back when I talk about achieving unity by harnessing the power of encouraging, inspiring, and including others, even Playday with Dad, I'm hoping I can get more and more people to grab into that. And when they say play, they have an open mind. It could be basketball, football, soccer, whatever else, but it could be also For fishing, it could be going to have dinner and listening, because parental listening is one of the most intriguing, but yet lost arts in what we have. And the parent that listens more, gains more. Same thing for leadership. The leader that listens more is able to achieve more. That's what we need to turn our drive back to our as we mentioned this morning, back to our corporate environments that say good leaders are good parents, too.
[00:45:08.27] - Speaker 1
Again, I work a lot with the word parents instead of dad or instead of mom, because I work on it takes both of them. It takes both of us to be that community that succeeds. But we also, as you're talking about, when we talk about the National Play Day with Dad, we know that there's been a At least a generation of dads that weren't necessarily welcome in some ways. But then you'll get the people to say, Well, they were welcome. They just didn't show up.
[00:45:42.15] - Speaker 2
But back to what you said. They were welcome, they just didn't know it.
[00:45:44.26] - Speaker 1
Well, they didn't know they were welcome.
[00:45:47.21] - Speaker 2
Yes.
[00:45:48.14] - Speaker 1
That's one of the biggest issues because that's the same for me. Luckily, she could probably tell I'm not as shy as some people. So I would walk up and talk to her. I would walk up and talk to moms. It was not a to chit chat. If they're talking about something that maybe was something mostly that women do, I didn't mind. I'd nod my head, Oh, that's cool. What color? I'm easy to grasp. One of that Some people are not male or female. But that's one of the troubles that I think we've had with the fathers, with that male figures you're talking about. That could be uncles, that could be grandparents, grandfathers. But that learning that we have cup. For example, it's something as simple as, where do you keep your cups? What cabinet do you keep your cups in? It's your house. What if somebody comes in one day and moves your cup somewhere else and puts large bowls into that cabinet? For a while, you're going to be a little bit upset. No, this is where the cups go. This is the cup cabinet. That's the same thing with our lives. Where is our child cabinet?
[00:46:54.23] - Speaker 1
We need to find out where that cabinet is and start using it. We need to be able to go in there and grab that cup, fill it up with joy for our children. That's what we've got to grow to, and it's going to be taking people and thank you for what you're doing. Thank you also for your service with the fire department. That's awesome. You deserve a huge compliment. It's like our servicemen and women, thank you for that service. But as we bring us back together, that we can reach out to anyone, and we can even say sometimes just that shyness of people. That could be male or female, mother or father, man or woman. But to get the parents out into those events, let's eliminate that shyness. Let's open up to be able to make mistakes there, too. I work with that. If you're not accomplishing things, you're not making enough mistakes. That happens in parenting as well. Right?
[00:47:56.01] - Speaker 2
Yeah.
[00:47:57.05] - Speaker 1
All right. So we've got about eight more minutes. What do you think is going to be, but a couple of closures here I could talk about, but what do you think it's going to take for us to be more encouraging for that positive reinforcement? We've got some support networks. You've talked about them. What about that inspiration? In this aura, this path, especially with fathers, what about that role model to help us all grow forward, and so that the mothers and the fathers, the men, the women, all of us work together going forward? What can we do in our process now to make this happen?
[00:48:47.27] - Speaker 2
I would say that for your listeners, for those of you that may not be familiar with any of the programs, our organization or any of programs that I've mentioned, I would say be open-minded. You go to our web page, fatherfriendlyschools. Org, learn about all of the father engagement and the fatherhood organizations that we partner with, and just take a look at them and see if you have children, reach out to your school and say, Hey, have you ever heard of these programs? Would you be interested in doing that? If somebody is so inclined to be able to say, I'll be willing to help get it started. One of the things when I talk to principals all the time is when you're trying to get someone on board to help with one of these programs, don't ask them to lead it, don't ask them to lead it. Don't ask them to captain it, don't ask them to facilitate or any word that gives them the idea that they're going to be overwhelmed. Just ask them for help. When you talk to a guy and you just ask for help, they're going to break out the toolbox and help you out.
[00:50:03.11] - Speaker 2
But if you ask them to do it for you, they're going to be like, I don't have time. I would say that take a look at the programs that we partner with. Go to fatherfriendlyschools. Org, and you can actually see, have links to all of the programs from our web page and then figure out what looks best for you, what looks the most interesting. Talk to your school principal, talk to the school counselor, talk to the family engagement person, talk to your school district and say, let's bring these programs in and allow an inclusive opportunity for dads to be engaged. I think that's probably from our perspective, the number one thing is just getting the word out. That's the hardest thing is people just can't grasp the concept of 200 dads walking into a school. But if you go to our web page, you have pictures of it, you'll see videos of it. You'll see It. Follow us on social media, Father friendly Schools on Facebook. We're getting ready to get on Instagram. We're not there yet.
[00:51:10.24] - Speaker 1
All this technology.
[00:51:13.16] - Speaker 2
Absolutely. We're putting stuff out there. We're putting the short videos, the reels. My intent is to be able to have messages. Okay, here's a message for dads, here's a message for moms, here's a message for principals, for school counselors, for family engagement people, for There's a whole myriad of people that we need to bring together in this unity that we're wanting to achieve. I think just having that mindset of being able to do that with the goal of supporting our students because they're going to be the ones that are making the decisions for us in the future. We want to make sure that they have a good solid background because we don't want them making making bad decisions when we're having to depend on those decisions.
[00:52:05.01] - Speaker 1
Well, that's one of those things, too. I appreciate what you're saying, Keith, and I agree. When we talk about bad decisions, we're all going to make those. We want to be able to say, If you make a bad decision, that's okay. We can recover and we can rebuild. But let's get together and start doing anything. Help me out here because by integrating these principles into anything from a National Play Day for dad, any event that we're putting together, we can create a meaningful and impactful event or events that strengthens family bonds, encourages those positive interactions, inspires that participation and includes everyone in the community. This approach will help make the day memorable and beneficial for all involved. The parents and the children. So one of the things we have to do, even for us, you and I, we're heavy into this and we're doing this a lot on the daily basis. You and I've got to continue working this. We've got to be able to make what we're doing today go into a better tomorrow. Again, can I have your website and the best way to get back in touch with you for the listeners involved?
[00:53:28.09] - Speaker 2
Absolutely. If the Our homepage is pretty simple. It's fatherfriendlyschools. Org. That's our web page. We are up on Facebook. If you want to give us a call, our phone number is 910-294. Com. 2940-0332. That's 910-2940-332. We're located in Oceanile Beach, North Carolina, but we work nationally. We will train school counselors, we'll train principals, family engagement folks. We do virtual training as well as in-person training. Obviously, there's going to be a cost for any travel there, but we are looking forward to serving school districts, schools, PTAs, other organizations, what have you. But we're out here to spread the word. We do a lot of virtual training, and we're just ready to help come to a school near you. But once again, that's fatherfriendlyschools. Org.
[00:54:35.04] - Speaker 1
Great. Thank you again, Keith. Thank you for all that you're doing. Thank you for your service and environment. Thank you for working with our children because they are our future. It's up to us, you, myself, the people listening, all of our friends and family around the world. It's up to us to make that family better. We can be achieving unity by harnessing that power of encouraging, inspiring, and including others, including everyone, personally and professionally. Keith, again, thank you so much. I hope we can be talking again early next week. Enjoy your day. And to the audience, thank you for joining. Hope to see you again next week. Thank you all.
