How To Look & Feel Your Best As A Father
When you put yourself first you’ll be a better person and caretaker for your efforts.
How to Protect Your Health and Wellbeing as a New Parent
Of all the milestone moments that we experience in life, becoming a parent has to be the biggest.
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Your Kids Are Watching: Prepare Them For The World
Every time you do something you need to think about what you are doing.
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How To Cope As a Single Parent
Being a single parent is never going to be an easy task.
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Tips For Being A Good Role Model For Your Kids
You have the ability to shape their lives positively and set an example for them to follow.
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Practical Strategies To Reduce Parenting Stress
Sometimes, the burden of parenting becomes so heavy that you start wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into.
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5 Ways you can Help Your Child to be More Successful
One thing you will quickly learn about parenting is there is no manual for it.
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Simple Ways To Be A Better Dad
Children who have an involved father, step-father, or another father figure in their lives tend to be happier, healthier, and more successful.
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6 Life Skills To Teach Your Children
It is never too early for you to start teaching your child different skills. In fact, simply holding them shows them love and reinforces their safety, allowing them to feel calm and content…
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Dealing With Lack Of Sleep As A New Parent
Sleep deprivation increases stress levels, lowers our immune system, reduces memory recall and can slow wound healing.
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12 Ways To Have More Fun At Home With Your Children
Being at home bored and with nothing to do is not ideal when you have children. Children get bored easily, and when they do, they feel irritated, trapped, and restless.
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4 Ways Parents Can Cause Issues For Their Kids In Later Life
As a parent, you have a duty to your children. That’s why you try to teach them the life lessons they require to be successful in later life
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3 Tips to Help You Stay Connected with Your Kids as a Single Dad
As a single dad, watching your kids grow gives you utmost joy, especially when you provide a comfortable life, are there for them, and have a healthy relationship.
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How to Keep Your Kids Safe in the Car
When you drive with your kids in the car, you put them at risk every day. It only takes one patch of ice, one faulty brake, or one distracted truck driver for a serious accident to occur.
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8 Fun Ways To Spend Time With Your Children
Things may not have gone back to normal, but this time is great for quality time with family including your children. Besides watching a movie or TV together, here are some fun and creative ways to spend time with your kid.
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3 Tips For Supporting Your Children Throughout Life
As a father, it’s your job to help your child navigate the waters of life. While you want them to reach independence as they grow older, they can’t get there without your help
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Involved Fathers: How Can You Spend More Time With Your Kids?
Parenting has changed; despite the fact that mothers do still tend to be the primary caregivers to children, dads now spend three times as much time with them as in previous generations.
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5 Tips For Adjusting To Life As A New Parent
You can get through the first few days on pure excitement and adrenaline. After a couple of weeks though, reality starts to sink in. You may wonder if you’re ever going to get a decent night of sleep again, or to even have a single moment to yourself. There is a light at the end of the tunnel though.
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Protecting The Kids: 5 Things Every Parent Should Do
Becoming a parent changes your life forever. And while feelings of happiness are the overwhelming factor, you will naturally have a few concerns about your child’s well-being. As such, it’s vital that you learn to take responsibility by doing all that you can protect them.
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Steps to Create a Family Emergency Plan
Whether you have children or not, having an emergency plan in place is so important for each and every household.
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Your Social Media Profile Can Make the Difference Between Being Accepted or Rejected to Harvard
According to Kaplan Test Prep’s most recent survey of college admissions officers, more than two-thirds of colleges (68 percent) say that it’s “fair game” for them to visit applicants’ social media profiles…
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Stay in the NOW – My Birthday Message
As yesterday I celebrated my birthday, I shared some advice I would have given to my younger self.
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A Father’s Day Epilogue It’s Time To Stop Thinking of Dads as the #2 Parent
Fatherhood is a blessing, a responsibility and something every man is 100% capable of doing – at least as well as any mom.
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10 Little Tricks To Learn To Love Being Alone
I thought I would hate traveling alone, but it’s fantastic. I go where I want, how I want, and stay where I want.
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When I Realized It Was Okay to Be a Dad and Stopped Trying to Be a Mom
When I Realized It Was Okay to Be a Dad and Stopped Trying to Be a Mom It was 1997 and it was time for me to figure out how to take charge of this unimaginable situation I was in. I was the primary – correction, sole and […]
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10 Tips To Help You Learn To Love Being Alone
Here are the 10 things that I did that helped me love being alone and became a key to my happiness and relationship success
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My Daughter Just Graduated and Why I think She Needs a Powerful Personal Brand
Job seeking has changed a lot over the past few years. Gone are the days of waiting for the Sunday newspaper to scour the job section for new opportunities.
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E2: Parents: Dealing with the Mixed Emotions of Your Son or Daughter’s Graduation – Sunday Night Live w/ Matt Sweetwood
Parents: Dealing with the Mixed Emotions of Your Son or Daughter’s Graduation – Sunday Night Live w/ Matt Sweetwood
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You’re Invited to My New Show: “Sunday Night Live”
I hope to share with you what I have learned about how to have a happier, more successful and more rewarding life – what I call a BIG life – a life worth living.
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E1: What should you do when there’s no Mom and it’s Mother’s Day? – Sunday Night Live w/ Matt Sweetwood
What should you do when there’s no Mom and it’s Mother’s Day? – Sunday Night Live w/ Matt Sweetwood
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Fatherhood stories live from the Dad 2.0 Summit, San Diego
A fun live discussion with GetConnectDAD at the 2017 Dad2Summit from San Diego.
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Matt Sweetwood talks with HGTV’s Josh Temple at Dad 2.0 Summit, San Diego
Actor, Josh Temple talks with Matt about fatherhood, how dads can get support during hard times, the spiritual journey Matt went through to raise his 5 kids as a single dad, and the heating system.
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The Man-Up Project Episode 13: How to enjoy the Holidays as as single parent?
The Man-Up Project Episode 13: How to enjoy the Holidays as as single parent? In this podcast I share with you how I turned around my mood around the holiday season as a single Dad. Because we all can enjoy a meaningful and merry a holiday time.
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3 Tips for Single Parents to Find Happiness During the Holiday Season
A dad who has “been there” gives single parents some important tips on surviving the holidays.
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The Man-Up Project Episode 9: You Can be a Great Dad while fighting PTSD!
In this podcast, we have a dad calling in who is suffering from PTSD while going through a divorce. Not an easy scenario, but can he get full custody and keep a good relationship with his kids?
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The Man-Up Project Episode 8: How to be a Good Father when Your Kids Challenge You?
In this podcast, I am talking with a dad who is going through some rough time. We talk about how to stay – can we stay? – A good father when our kids challenge us greatly. And what’s the take home message? The love of a child by a father can transcend everything.
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How do I Mourn the Death of a Dad I Wasn’t Close to?
I can remember back to when I was 5 years old and I would sit with my mom and 7 year older brother in front of the big living room window looking out into the night. Sometimes we would watch the lightning storms, counting the seconds to the next thunder clap.
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To Err is Human and Sometimes Gorillas Die
It’s every parent’s nightmare. You turn your attention away from your child and something terrible happens. Michelle Gregg and Deonne Dickerson, parents of a 4 year old boy, had one of those dreaded moments this past Memorial Day weekend at the Cincinnati Zoo.
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10 Tips for Men to Survive a Divorce
So you are thinking about getting divorced or maybe you are going through one right now? What you will likely discover is that divorce for a man, is as painful as childbirth is for a women – except the excruciating pain of divorce can last for years, decades or a lifetime.
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I’m a Man Who Likes Taking Selfies
Over the past few years I have taken hundreds of selfies and posted them all over my social media. The discussion about the narcissistic nature of folks who take selfies has made its way out of the psychiatric community and is now somewhat commonplace. And therefore, I have been called…
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What You Can Assume About That Divorced Dad
Going through a divorce can be one of the most traumatic experiences anyone can have. For men in particular, there is little support available and many men feel emasculated if they seek help. I had no one that I could ask for guidance, and I didn’t even know where to look.
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Travel Back in Time… Here’s What I Would Change
Imagine if we could travel back in time. Thinking back to troubled periods in my life, I recall having daily thoughts of wanting to travel back in time. So let’s say I could go back in time and relive only one day. What day would it be and what would I do differently?
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The 8 Things I Want to Tell Every College Kid
I now realize the decisions I was making when I was in college would actually set in motion much of the course my life would take. I am desperate for my kids to make smarter decisions than I did and so I frequently give them fatherly advice about the decisions they are making…
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The NFL’s Steve Weatherford • Super Dad Role Model
We met at Steve’s New Jersey suburban home. It’s about 20 minutes from where the New York Giants play in East Rutherford, New Jersey. I got there when Steve was driving up with his wife and family in his big SUV. I immediately had a flashback to about 20 years ago…
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Choosing the Right College or No College
My 5 children are now all over 20 years old. All 5 have gone through the anxiety of applying to colleges and the apprehension of waiting to receive an acceptance and financial award. All 6 went to one of the best public schools in the country; known for its placement of students in top colleges.
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I’m an Empty Nester: Has My Role as a Dad Changed?
I remember looking at them back then and imagining a future when all of them had graduated from college. They would all be on their own, financially independent, married and with children. I thought of them scattered across the country…
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Why I Lead My Staff Like a Parent
I grew up in the New Jersey suburbs with typical boyish aspirations of being a football player, astronaut, fireman or Olympian. I didn’t consider growing up to be a leader. But it happened somehow… So here’s why I lead:
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My Ungranted Wish: I’m Glad It Didn’t Come True
It’s hard to believe that a whole year has passed since they were married last December in Israel. I recall sitting on the 10 hour flight reminiscing about what happened over the past 19 years of caring for her and her 4 siblings as a single and sole parent.
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A Dad’s 12 Wishes for the New Year
I have spent the last 19 years raising my kids by myself, which has taught me more than I could ever possibly write about what is really important. So in the holiday spirit, I share the 12 things I wish for this coming year.
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My Message to a Dad Who Taught His Son to Hate
If your son or daughter came to you, enraged at a group of people based on their ethnicities, ideologies, or religious beliefs and you sensed he or she might commit an act of violence – how would you try to calm him or her down?
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5 Scientific Ways to Live a Happier & Healthier Life
It was late 1996 and my marriage and family life I dreamt of was ending. My wife of 8 years and mother of our 5 small children was gone. The emotional strain of it all caused me to let myself go and I weighed on the wrong side of 300lbs. I felt undesirable, and I feared I may be alone forever.
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The Movie “The Intern”: Finally a Movie With Real Men
I went to see “The Intern” because of its star actors. Academy Award winner Anne Hathaway is a talented and versatile actress, who also happens to have gone to the same high school in NJ as my 5 children. Academy Award winner Robert De Niro, is simply one of the best actors of all-time.
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7 Things I Wish Someone Told Me About Being a Man
When I was little boy growing up in the New Jersey suburbs, my idea of a what it took to be a man was formed by the stereotypes I watched in the movies and on TV. I wanted to be a combination of Dirty Harry, James Bond (Sean Connery only) and the Fonz.
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Ricki and the Flash? Hollywood Tosses Dad Like Trash
I was hoping the movie would portray a single-dad positively and break the stereotype that men are unemotional, materialistic and unable to parent effectively by themselves. Unfortunately, the dad was portrayed as clueless and was so level-headed he seemed to be devoid of all emotion.
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4 Freedoms I Wish For This Independence Day
Give me liberty or give me a hot dog and a beer. It’s good to have an option. In the heat of roaring BBQ’s and deafening sounds and bright flashes from fireworks, it’s easy to forget what the 4th of July is all about – An independence hard fought and earned that started from a dream.
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What Fathers Really Want for Father’s Day
It’s that time of the year when my kids start their difficult process of figuring out what to buy me for Father’s Day. They get together and discuss if I have said anything that might give them an idea or if I have hinted at anything. Same routine, different year.
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How to Take the Best Father’s Day Photos
On Fox News Channel today, I gave Father’s Day photography tips to new Fox and Friends host, Pete Hegseth. We showed pictures he has taken of his kids, and my job was to explain ways to improve them. Here are the photography tips everyone can use:
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Duggar Dad: You Can’t Fix It If You Are in Denial
The big social news across the USA this week was In Touch Weekly’s disclosure about abuse in the Duggar family. They are the real-life family from the TLC’s, “19 Kids and Counting“ TV reality show. They have gained praise as well as condemnation for their outspoken views…
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Can Tragedy Lead You to Greatness?
What happened on 9/11 was an unparalleled tragedy. The new Freedom Tower, 9/11 memorial, and entire project are unparalleled greatness… so the question that came to my mind was whether this level of greatness is possible without an equal level of tragedy.
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The Difference Between Great Leadership and Great Parenting
There’s no shortage of articles out there about what it takes to make a great leader and plenty of articles on what it takes to be a great parent. And maybe not that many folks who have figured out how to be great at either.
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Can Anyone Take the Place of Your Dad?
Celebrating mom is as American as apple pie and it has been for the past 101 years since Woodrow Wilson proclaimed mother’s day a national holiday. I remember the joy I felt when I would bring my mom breakfast in bed, flowers, a present and a hand-made card on mother’s day.
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Can a Father Be a Role Model for His Daughters?
I couldn’t be a role model to my girls for the way to be a successful woman – or could I? – I finally just (a tad nervously) asked each of my daughters. What is the one thing they have learned from me in my examples that helps them be a successful woman today? And here’s what they said:
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What I Learned at a Marketing Event About Being a Dad
And then our keynote speaker, Vicente Fox, the former President of Mexico spoke. What, I wondered, would his talk have to do with clever marketing? “There’s no limit to what you can do in your life with a purpose,” he said, “but it is a purpose that has to be…
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50 Shades of Grey – Do You Know Where Your Kids Are?
I expected there wouldn’t be a lot of men in the audience and I was right. But what I didn’t imagine was that the audience would be mostly young girls – well under the ‘R’ rated age of 17 you needed to even get in.
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Nationwide Super Bowl Ad is NOT On Our Side
I think it’s fair to say most of us were shocked when we saw the Nationwide 2015 Super Bowl Commercial, “Make Safe Happen.” It’s pretty risky business to have a child in an ad who speaks about missing out on the best moments of his life because he died in a preventable accident.
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I Joined DADD – Dads Against Daughters Dating
When I became the sole and single parent of my 5 children, my 3 little girls were ages 18 months, 4 and 8 years old. Obviously dating was not an issue to be dealt with at that time but my thoughts of what the future would hold in that area weighed heavily on my mind. I know most dads (and moms) think about these things often.
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I Got the Wedding of My Dreams
My oldest daughter Michelle got married two weeks ago at a scenic venue overlooking Tel Aviv and the Mediterranean Sea. I know destination weddings are now trendy, but that had little to do with the choice to have the wedding there…
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I Was Sitting at the Bar When the Rabbi Said to Me…
No, it’s not the beginning of a joke. Yes that really happened. This past fall I was sitting at the bar of a Manhattan restaurant next to my friend, Adam Jacobs, who is a Rabbi at Aish Center, New York. We were having a cold beverage to celebrate the premiere of his documentary.
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Does Being a Parent Make You a Better Marketer?
The urgency I felt when my own children were suffering, unproductive and unhappy was greater than keeping my own job. This was a real creative problem unlike anything I knew before because the solutions are not linear. I had significant problems occur every day. They had to be solved.
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No Friggin Way I’m Taking Them to Chuck E. Cheese
I got my get-out-of-jail-free card by just following the advice of the famous philosopher, Nike: “Just do it.” I couldn’t quit my job. There was no one else to do it, so I just put my head down and worked my ass off all over the place. I needed to be a dad, and dads do things with children that are perfectly good and are perfectly acceptable to me.
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Another Day, Another Birthday – 27th Edition
I wish I had the experience and wisdom then I have now because I would not have been in such mortal fear for Michelle and my failure as her Father. God knows his work and Michelle is in many ways, most like me (despite her frequent denials) of all my children.
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A Happy 22nd Birthday Tribute to My Daughter (and me too!)
My middle daughter Rebecca is twenty two (22) years old today. I find it difficult to fathom that I actually have a daughter in her twenties. But fact is, I have three daughters and two sons. So today, while she is roaming around Manhattan with her younger sister, I reflect…
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Chronic Parent Syndrome and Multitasking on Steroids
One of the personality traits that successful parents develop is the ability to multitask. I don’t mean the normal kind of multitasking that one does at work where you complete an expense report while on the phone with the copier salesperson. I mean the kind of “multitasking on steroids” that allows you to handle multiple children at varying age levels, while having little sleep for extended periods of time.
