How many days do you get with your children?

By Mike Davisson, Executive Director/Olathe Regional Director/Board Member for Father’s Club

How many days do you get with your children?

If you assume you get to be a part of your KID’S lives every day for the first 18 years of your life, then you would be looking at about 6,574 days. Or 936 weeks. Or a total of 940 Saturdays. That seems like a lot of days. However, when you break it down, it’s scary how many of these days we take for granted.

If you assume you’re part of every birthday, holiday, first day of school, school concert, etc. for all 18 years of their life, this will equate to less than 365 of those 6,574 available days. That represents about 5% of your child’s life.

What are you doing with the other days?

The question then becomes, what are you doing with all the other days? Many of us will go to our child’s ballgames, dance recitals, cheer competitions, musicals, lake weekends, vacations and more. Yet, even if that represented one day per week, every week of the year, from age 5 to 18, you would still only add an additional 10% of time with your KIDS.

I know these are somewhat arbitrary numbers, but they’re meant to highlight that we have a limited amount of time with our KIDS, yet many of us could do a better job of being intentional with the quality and quantity of time we have with them.

I often ask DADS, if you were diagnosed with 2 months to live, what would you immediately begin doing differently? My follow up question is, why wait?

Middle Schools

It is with these thoughts and questions in mind that Father’s Club has pivoted from being solely in high school chapters to launching into middle schools as well. We have done so with 4 middle schools in Olathe and have seen great success. We’ve been welcomed with open arms from administration and students alike. Beginning in the next school year, we’ve taken steps to add additional Olathe middle schools while taking initial steps to also launch a few more chapters in Blue Valley and North Kansas City middle schools.

We are also increasing the number of high schools in the Kansas City Metro area as well. Also, we are in discussions to move beyond the KC Metro this coming year or next.

Statistics tell us that involved DADS make a difference. KIDS tell us that they want their DADS to show up. Wives, administrators, and teachers tell us that they wish more DADS would step up.

It is time for us as DADS to look at our priorities as if we only had 2 months to live and start living accordingly. Please join us in the lives of our KIDS in middle schools and high schools by simply being present every day possible. We have a limited number of days and we don’t want to have any regrets with how we used them.

Ready to step up?

First, join so that you can start hearing more about what is going on. Next, get involved with an existing Father’s Club chapter. If you don’t see your high school or middle school listed, please contact me to discuss the opportunity to start one at your school.

This isn’t about looking to the past with a guilty conscience – it’s about looking forward to the opportunities in front of us right now.

Right here. Right now. YOU matter.