Most of what little kids do is pretty cute. Even when they are getting in trouble, they can make a face or give you a look that reminds you that they are still a tiny little mostly innocent person. You’ll see your kids do a lot of things, not all of them good, but almost all of them have an element of cuteness. I recently watched my four year-old son do something that, for the first time, was in no way cute. In fact, it was surprisingly unsettling. He pointed a toy gun at somebody.

That might seem like a fairly minor thing to be considered the most disturbing thing I’ve seen my son do. I’ve watched him touch the toilet seat in a porta potty for crying out loud. But there was something so un-childlike, un-cute, and un-innocent about it that was striking. I know his cuteness and innocence won’t last forever. He’ll be a moody teenager with a regrettable attempt at facial hair someday. But I refuse to believe that increased familiarity of weaponry is a normal part of growing up.

It is very odd to see a little child act that way, but different from the other kid-acting-like-a-grown-up type moments I’ve experienced. There was no sense of melancholy from watching a little kid do something more mature, as if passing some kind of growth milestone. This was not like watching him get dressed by himself without needing me to pick out his shirt. There was also no sense of fun about seeing a kid do a thing meant for adults. When he gets out his little toy lawn mower and follows me around the yard as I cut the grass, that is adorable. This wasn’t “awww”, this was “eewww.”

There is, or at least should be in my opinion, nothing normal about teaching children that a gun is anything other than a means to kill. It doesn’t matter if it shoots plastic darts, Nerf balls, or nothing at all. Turning a gun into a toy takes the lethality out of it, which in turn makes the real gun more dangerous. I understand that this is concept many adults can’t get their heads around, so how am I supposed to explain this to a little boy?

I know he already understood not just what a gun is, but what it does. He calls them “shoot guns.” Never just guns. Their action is built right into the name for him. A squirt gun squirts. A glue gun glues. A shoot gun shoots. Little guy might be smarter than he knows. So I know he knows that they are used to shoot, and I know he knows that shooting hurts. (Side note, if you ever want to spend an hour and half answering difficult questions, watch Pocahontas with small children.) On a few occasions he’s come home from pre-school and let me know that kids were being mean in school and playing “shoot guns.”

So he knows guns shoot. He knows shooting hurts. And he knows guns are used by bad guys in movies and mean kids in school. This combined with his still baby-faced cuteness is what made the sight of aiming a toy gun directly into a person’s face so off-putting. I told him no, that he shouldn’t point it at anybody, and that he wasn’t being safe. I didn’t tell him to put it down and not to play with it anymore, but perhaps that wouldn’t have been a bad idea. It seems my message didn’t completely sink in.

The other day were doing some yard work and he was “helping” me shovel some dirt. At one point he picked up his little toy shovel, pointed it at me, and said he was going to shoot me. He thought he was playing, I thought he was scary. Not because I thought he would actually turn violent with his plastic shovel, but because he so quickly absorbed and mimicked casual gun use. This time I didn’t just tell him no, I raised my voice and was pretty stern with him. I could tell it upset him, but hurting his feelings is well worth teaching him a lesson. And I get it, to some extent kids can turn just about anything into a weapon. Just today my son said his straightened out slap bracelet was a sword. Did I scold him about that? No. As far as I know there doesn’t seem to be a major issue of people getting ran through in this country, and I’m fairly certain my kids face no risk of random samurai related violence. But maybe I’ll check with the school district and see if they have a safety protocol should a school be raided by buccaneers.

Am I over-reacting? I don’t think so. How do I know? Because my wife independently came to the same conclusion. Completely unprompted, she told me how she thought it was upsetting to see her little boy wield a toy gun. Great minds, right. Or one great mind and my mind. Either way, I’m not on an island here.

If we were finally able to get cigarette companies to stop targeting kids, I’d like to think toy guns will go the way of Joe Camel, but I doubt it. Orange tips on toy guns is probably be the best we’ll get. Like how instead of banning candy cigarettes like they did in Canada and England, we said kid-friendly smokes were fine as long as the box they come in doesn’t say “cigarette.” Classic ‘murica.

I’m not going to raise my kids in a bubble or anything. Couldn’t if I wanted. They are already aware of why their school has lock-down drills. Sometimes at dinner we talk about our day by playing “Peach and the Pit”, where our “peach” is the best part of our day and our “pit” is the worst part. Whenever they have one, my daughter says the lock-down drill is her pit. Mine too. For her it’s because she doesn’t like having to be crammed in her classroom’s little bathroom. For me it’s because she lives in a world where lock-down drills are a normal part of school. Just as normal as little boys playing with toy guns.

Kids say funny stuff. The darnedest things some might say. At any given moment whatever thought bouncing around in their head could bounce our of their mouths. Sometimes on purpose, and sometimes not. The accidental statements are funny. Always entertaining when a kid says something funnier or cuter when they don’t realize what they are saying. But more interesting are the things they say that you can tell they’ve really but some thought into it. Not necessarily because of the thing itself that they said, but because it gives you a window into their thought process.

Multiple times over the last few weeks my four year-old son has informed me that he doesn’t want to go to heaven. What could possibly be going on in that little noggin of his?

The first time he brought it up was shortly after Easter, so I get it. Life, death, Heaven was all very top of mind. Though, if after hearing the Easter story and learning all about resurrection and eternal life and his reaction was – nah, I’ll pass. I’m not sure how much he was paying attention. Full understanding or not, something about talking about heaven has seemed to stick with him, and seemingly not in a positive way. Every time he has brought it up, he is quite adamant that he does not want to go to heaven.

The first couple of times I asked him why, he gave an understandable answer – he likes it here. I get that. His mom is here, his Matchbox cars are here, his sisters are here, his dad is here. Also, in case you are wondering, that is his actual prioritized order for things he wouldn’t want to leave. And I get that. Everything he he knows is here. Heck, 90% of what he knows is in a 5 mile radius around his bedroom. The unknown of the cosmos is scary for adults, let alone for a kid who is scared of the unknown the basement when the lights are off down there.

I let him know that there are people he’ll know in heaven, and they will have stuff to do there to. Not sure he believed me, but I think he got the point that he wouldn’t be alone up there. I assume he pictured being heaven as just sitting on a cloud alone or something. Staring down at all the alive kids happily playing with Hot Wheels. It also dawned on me that when he pictures himself going to heaven, he is picturing his current self there. Not as a future version of himself who has reached a ripe old age. I suppose that kind of projecting is beyond the mental capacity of a four year-old, which makes his not wanting to go heaven more understandable. He still has a whole life to live and he doesn’t want to give that up.

The most recent time he brought it up, once again completely unprompted, he gave a different reason. Heaven will be boring. I didn’t really know what to say to that one. Are there toy cars in heaven? A swimming pool? Disney+? Who’s to say? Granted, I’ve not read the whole thing, but I’m fairly certain there is nothing mentioned in the Bible about everlasting life including bike rides to the park. Does heaven even have a slide? I realize now that these were the questions I should have asked in my grade school religion class.

After he questioned the entertainment and leisure activities available in the great hereafter, he added another reason. A more substantial one. He said he doesn’t want to go to the cross. Clearly he’s still connecting some Easter dots. Dying on a cross = getting to heaven. Apparently he’s really taking the whole “what would Jesus do?” thing to heart. Again, some heady concepts for the mind of a boy still mastering going to the bathroom without assistance. Not sure if it’s worth explaining the concept of crucifixion and salvation at this point, so I think I’ll just keep trying to sell the assumed entertainment value of the afterlife. Maybe I’ll tell him heaven has a Disney World.

But does he really think that the only way to go to heaven is to die on a cross? I mean, he knows that people have died, but he hasn’t known anyone who has died. In his world, people die from off-screen cartoon animal attacks and brutal government sanctioned violence. At least I know he doesn’t think he’s a cartoon. But he does live in a world where crucifixion is more real than cancer, which in a way, I’ll take as a positive.

Real or imagined, clearly death is on his mind. Specifically the terrible suffering of an ancient Roman capital punishment. Say what you want about organized religion, but they’ve really nailed instilling fear of eternal damnation and the guilt of not living in fear of eternal damnation. Anyway, the little guy is clearly working through some heavy concepts, and his reaction is just take a hard pass on all of it. If it is unknown, it’s scary. If its a horrific way to die, it’s scary. If it’s scary, its not for him. Applicable to both roller coasters and and the afterlife.

So beyond being a hype man for what heaven may have to offer, my bigger job is figuring out how to breakdown big time concepts into kid sized (and kid appropriate) chunks. A tall order to be sure. Maybe we’ll start by watching the Lion King. Solid age appropriate death exposure there. Also might want to find a way to explain that crucifixion is no longer the custom. Library might have a book on that. (Note to self about million dollar idea: write children’s book explaining execution.)

Slightly more practically, I should answer his questions and honestly as possible. The rest will come with time. I’m closing in on 40 and just in the last few years have come to begin to understand life, death, and what might happen after. Fingers crossed heaven does have a Disney World, but just in case it doesn’t I’ll help the little guy figure out the meaning of life as we go. And people say this parenting stuff is hard.

What does it mean to raise a child? To successfully keep them alive until they reach a certain age that we feel comfortable saying they are on their own? Yes, keeping them alive is crucially important. You definitely shouldn’t skip that part of parenting. But that is also the baseline expectation, so assuming I strive to be more than the least amount of effective that a parent can be – what does successfully raising a child look like? Well, perhaps it doesn’t look like raising a child at all. It looks like raising an adult.

I recently heard a pastor that you aren’t raising children, you’re raising adults. The focus being on the long game, not just getting to 18 without major catastrophe. A parent’s job isn’t just to get a very tiny person to the point they are a full-sized person. A parent’s job is to make sure by the time their tiny person gets older, they are full-sized person with the skills and abilities (mental, emotional, and physical) to be a good, kind, and successful human being.

When I put it that way, this parenting stuff sounds pretty important. And really freaking hard.

The pastor took it a step further. That we aren’t just raising children, we are raising children raisers. How’s that for a long game? I’m not just turning small people into large, well-adjusted people, I’m prepping my kids to have the kind of grandchildren I want to put out into the world. Crazy to think about the kind of influence a parent can really have over the future generations. Good and bad.

Financially, poverty and wealth are both largely generational. But the same is true for moral wealth and poverty. Spiritual wealth and poverty. Philanthropic wealth and poverty. Any good thing, bad thing, or seemingly benign thing is passed down from one generation to the next, whether we try or not. They key is to try. If you don’t try to pass along the good on purpose, its too easy to pass along the bad by accident.

So I’m raising child raisers. I suppose it begs the question, can you teach a maternal or paternal instinct? I don’t know if teach is the right word, but I do think the situations you put your kids in can greatly influence their interest in if and how they a care for others. Part of it is the natural occurrence of birth order. From the day we brought home our second child, our oldest daughter has been our family’s little mommy. Sometimes it is very helpful. Sometimes she needs to be very clearly reminded that she is not actually the mother in our family. But in a way, we taught her that. We asked her for help with the baby, we put her in charge of a few things, we gave her stuffed animals that she should could be the mommy for.

You can’t have an older child without having a younger. Just the other day our younger daughter asked us if she had to have kids when she grew up. We told her no, she didn’t have to if she didn’t want to. She’s 6, so we also assured her that she has lots of time to figure that out. Lots. Then she brought it up a few days later, this time flat out saying that she didn’t want to have kids. Clearly this rattling around in her mind. Now that she is getting older, and is starting to take on more responsibility (she also asked about starting to get an allowance), has she realized how much work raising a little person to be a successful larger person is? And she has already decided she wants none of it.

On one hand, I have to say it made me a little sad to think she doesn’t want to make me a Pop Pop. But on the other hand, it is very on brand for her. She desires to live a pampered life, so the fact that she does not not want to have Pampers in her life makes total sense.

Our kids are still very young, and have no idea (I don’t think?) about where babies actually come from. So I take any decision they claim to make about it now with a very large amount of salt. Either way, it can’t change my approach to parenting them. I still need to model the behavior I want them to adopt. I still need to keep the long game in mind. I still need to avoid turning my small children in to fully grown children. I am raising women and a man.

On something of a side note, the concept of raising a man has seemed to come easier to me. My wife has always said that I’m harder on our son than I am on our daughters, and I’ll tell her that I’m raising him to be a man. That is not to say that being stricter on a kid will make them a man, or a woman for that matter, but it does get out of trap of babying your kids too much. The gendered flip-side to that coin is that my wife is unquestionably harder on our daughters, and our son is her sweet little baby.

Maybe that’s the strategy. She’ll raise women, I’ll raise man, and we’ll end up with adult children who are both fully equipped to raise children of their own and have deeply seeded mommy and/or daddy issues. A flawed plan to be sure, but Pop Pop gets his well behaved grand babies that way, so….

Perhaps this is a good time to remember that despite the power a parent yields to have generational influence, it is not about me. It is about my kids, and for them it will be about theirs. Expanding the circle more, it is about putting high quality individuals out into society in hopes that they shape it and not the other way around. I mean, have you looked around society much? Seems a lot of people have raised a lot of kids.

The decision to take out 7 year-old daughter to see a therapist was a lot easier than I guess I thought I would be. Several months ago, my wife brought up the idea and I questioned whether she really needed it or not. She got a recommendation but we didn’t do anything about it. A few weeks ago the idea came up again and I questioned how quickly we could get on the schedule.

My daughter feels her feelings. Deeply. She also expresses them. Loudly. The positive and the negative. She can get overcome and out of control with joy, and overwhelmed and slowed up by anger. Sometimes it’s a toss up on which one is harder to deal with. I don’t know how many times she’s been happy and silly and running around and we’ve told her, “Calm down or somebody is going to get hurt.” It’s not always fun to be right when you’re a parent. The anger is another issue. Eventually something can pull her back from her other emotional peaks, but her anger seems to feed into itself. I wouldn’t say she’s a mean girl, but when it comes to her anger, the limit does not exist.

For not the first time, and certainly not last (just wait until puberty), I realize I am ill-equipped to handle this myself. I find the best way to deal with your feelings and emotions is not have them in the first place. I am the yin to my daughter’s yang in this sense. Perhaps our complimentary styles is why she very clearly prefers me over my wife. A parent can’t have a favorite kid, but it does not work the other way around. I read most of the bedtime stories, get sat next to most on the couch, and attempt to do most of the reasoning when she’s overcome with emotion. But as parents, safe to say that neither me or my wife are well-suited to handle her heightened emotional states. I lack the emotional understanding to understand why she doesn’t just calm down, and my wife lacks the patience for her behavior when she gets out of control.

That is probably the most frustrating thing. That we couldn’t take care of our daughter’s needs ourselves. No shame in needing professional help, but it would be much more convenient (and economical) if I could do it myself. Therapists and plumbers. Same-same. Perhaps instead of a communications degree I should have gotten a psychology degree and a plumbers license. Really be able to help people deal with their shit.

A major help in the decision process was my daughter herself. When the idea was first brought up, I wasn’t sure how to tell her what it was or how she’d respond. But after one of her extended outbursts, she wrote a note to my wife and I apologizing and asking for help. It’s a weird feeling to see our kids already more advanced than you at something, but I was very proud. So we made the appointment and told her she was going to go to a feelings doctor for a check-up.

My wife went with her to her first appointment. When they came home, my daughter had a few forms to fill out with questions about what makes her mad, how she feels when she gets man, stuff like that. One of the forms asked her to draw a picture of what it feels like when she gets angry. She struggled drawing a volcano, which angered her, and set her off on a spiral of anger that ended with a screaming fit and an early trip to bed. While it was disappointing that exactly none of what she just spend an hour talking about sunk in, I absolutely appreciated the irony of the situation.

I went with her to her next appointment, and I was curious to see how it would go. Turns out I’d go as far as the lobby. She told me she wanted to go in by herself this time. So while I got no insight into what she talked about other than a new set of worksheets, I did see the same behavior repeated afterward. Another therapy session, another meltdown. I understand there is a process to trust here, but could she at least wait 24 hours after her therapist visit to be uncontrollably upset? When she finally did calm down, I asked her if there was something she talked about with the feelings doctor about what just happened. She said no, not that exact example. If we are waiting until the doctor brings up every possible scenario in which my daughter could be upset, she’ll at least be out of the college I won’t be able to afford to send her to because I spent what would have been her college money on feelings doctor appointments until the possible situations are covered. That’s one hell of a process not covered by insurance to trust.

On my end, I don’t know if I’m supposed to have any expectations yet. So far when I’ve tried to counter her emotional spikes by referencing something from one of the worksheets she brings home or ask her what she talked about with the doctor, it just seems to make her more upset. My hope is that it’s making her upset because she realizes that, yes, she did talk about it, and her frustration with herself for not applying it is being redirected to me. If that is the case, what am I to do? Just let it slide and let her vent her anger while she learns? Or hold her to the same behavioral expectations that her younger brother and sister are held to? If the younger kids see that mom and dad let her throw tantrums, how am I supposed to correct them when they don’t behave?

I don’t want to punish her having emotions, but I still need to punish the inappropriate behavior that they create. If I can barely get my mind around how to walk that line, how can I expect my kids to understand the difference?

The silver lining here is, my daughter likes to go. Rather than skip her appointment that would be missed for spring break, she wanted to try to reschedule. There is no stigma, no shame, and she knows she isn’t broken or anything. She also knows she isn’t the only kid her class that goes to the feelings doctor. When I was in second grade I bonded with my friends by talking about our WWF action figures. Perhaps my daughter will bond by talking about the best ways to recognize and react to her emotions in various social settings. Evolution in a generation.

With the launch of enrichment provider Brains & Motion Education (BAM!), I now have a great idea on how to keep my kids entertained this summer. BAM! is a tech-enabled company unlocking the potential of students year-round, through not only after-school and structured recess, but summer camps too. With STEM, arts, and sports programs, they provide a much better alternative for my kids than rewatching the same episode of Spidey and His Amazing Friends for the hundredth time. As the only nationwide provider with a focus on whole-child development, BAM! aims to stimulate young minds while keeping growing bodies joyfully active. And joyfully occupied while I’m working from home and they aren’t at school.

I think formal education should inspire kids and prepare them for the future. Beyond learning basic skills like reading and writing, kids also need to build social and emotional skills, confidence, and subject matter expertise through a wide variety of hands-on, project-based activities. However, if you ask me (and my kids), too much of the school day is boring for students. This could be due to constraints caused by a perhaps overly structured system, school districts stressed out from teacher shortages, and teachers struggling to provide individualized instruction to large groups of students. Perhaps more importantly, more than 25 million students have no place to go after school and lack access to additional opportunities to develop skills outside of the school day. 

“Many schools would love to teach students how to play chess, program robots, develop computational thinking skills, create sophisticated digital artwork, become strong creative writers, and provide students with meaningful exposure to artificial intelligence systems through project-based learning,” said Bart Epstein, BAM!’s CEO. “There just isn’t enough time in the school day. These types of enrichment activities can and should be available to every student, regardless of their zip code.”

Epstein, like many successful people, credits much of his success in life to the teachers who sparked his curiosity and confidence. In his case, it was through an after-school aviation and rocketry enrichment program. Twenty years later, he became a commercial pilot and civilian test pilot for NASA, and then an educator and entrepreneur. I’m pretty sure my kids won’t fly for NASA (they can barely handle a rollercoaster), but they could absolutely benefit from the confidence gained in growing their skills in this kind of enrichment program.

The BAM! leadership team features other executives with letters in their job titles and extensive experience driving growth, scale, and successful implementations, including COO Kristopher Kasper, CMO Christina Yu, VP of Sales Lori Todd, VP of Product Jody Nova, and CFO Jennifer Thresher. Told you there’d be letters.

Due in part to the success of its after-school programs, BAM! Is getting tons of interest in its summer 2024 camp programs.  These include RoboKids, GameCraft, and MakersQuest which reflect new career exploration curriculum and new interdisciplinary STEAM programs, including animation, game design, creative writing, and machine learning. While my kids may never fly to space, my seven year-old daughter would absolutely love a creative writing program where she can write about space. Or probably more accurately, write about puppies.

Beyond summer break, I’d love to see these kinds of programs offered in my kids’ school district. I think high-quality enrichment that includes a mix of physical activity and hands-on learning addresses a variety of learning challenges in an easy, practical, and cost-effective way. “Providing our families with access to enrichment activities after 3 pm and during dedicated break times throughout the academic day helps us with some of the biggest problems in education at a fraction of the cost of formal education and at a small percentage more than basic after-care,” said Lesem Puerto, Community School Partnership Manager at the Children’s Institute. “Students who attend inspiring project-based enrichment programs during recess and lunch, and beyond, are more engaged during the school day. That’s something that we all love to see.”

The company currently has a presence in ten key regions – notably San Francisco, San Diego, New York, Chicago, Boston, Denver, and Seattle – and intends to scale its after-school, summer camp, and structured recess programs nationwide. 

BAM! is supported by institutional investors including New Markets Venture Partners, LearnStart, Sand Hill Angels, Women’s Venture Capital Fund, JFFVentures, and Entrepreneurs Roundtable Accelerator, whose collective investments in the venture now total more than $18 million.

The company’s Board includes Gerard Robinson (former Secretary of Education in Virginia and Commissioner of Education in Florida), Juan Zavala (New Markets Venture Partners), Mark Chernis (Princeton Review, SchoolNet, Pearson), and Rob Cohen (2U, Princeton Review, Oasis). No word yet on if I’ll be invited to the next board meeting, though I’ll offer to bring the donuts.

“We believe there is strong demand for BAM!’s products and are excited to support the company in driving improved academic outcomes and equitable access to enrichment beyond the school day for students across the country”, said Juan Zavala, Principal at New Markets Venture Partners, the lead investor in BAM!. “Bart and his leadership team have deep industry expertise and experience in scaling solutions for student success. Their mission is perfectly aligned with New Markets Venture Partners’ double-bottom line investment goals.”

“In after-school and summer programs, students are given the chance to discover their strengths, explore their interests, and connect the dots between disciplines in a safe, supportive, and fun environment,” said Gerard Robinson, now professor of practice at the UVA Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, and former Virginia Secretary of Education.

I know that summer should have time for kids to be kids, but I also want what is best for my kids in the long run. Will they thank me later for letting them drink right from the hose in the backyard? Maybe. Will they thank me if they find and develop their passion through one of BAM!’s programs? I sure hope so.