I am not sure if I was a helicopter dad. More of a hang glider dad, I think. On occasion I swoop down, do stuff with my kids. Then when the winds shift, try not to crash and burn. When my son was 4 years of age, he appeared to be a natural hockey player. So I enrolled him into power skating and then House League and Select. My daughter also preferred hockey skates to figure skates. So my son and daughter played hockey, for what seemed like twenty years. Two or three times a week. For most of the years, I was my son's hockey coach and watched a ton of my daughter's games. The hockey was great for all of us. My then wife and I did not stop at hockey. On week-ends we took the kids to power swimming, and then gym and modern dance for my daughter. As a family we did the Toronto Symphony for kids and the art galleries, Science Centre and tons of times at the ROM for the dinosaurs. We were also reading in libraries and at home. We tried our best to give our kids all the opportunities and experiences to find themselves. In later years, the children went to summer camps and we took them on holidays. Then they became a bit old for holidaying with parents and preferred travelling to Europe, Israel, and across the US following favorite bands. And then international study in the Netherlands and Japan. Along the way, I helped raise a stepson and stepdaughter. A lot of similar stuff and some different stuff as well. The children obtained university degrees and two even obtained graduate degrees. I learned that every phase of a child's life and a parent's life is great and challenging and sometimes frustrating. Like life itself.
