Being a parent is no easy trick. There’s no guidebook or instruction manual (okay, there are plenty on sale, but you can bet none are specific to your own experiences!) and every day is a new adventure.

It’s a long-term gig as well, often with no reward and a lot of pain and heartache along the way. But the end result is always worth it. You know what else parenting is like? Blogging.

Scary and New

The moment we become a parent, it’s a whole new ballgame. Sure, we oohed and aahed at our friends and their kids, and we might even have babysat for them. But we always had the option of handing back at the end of the night. Not so with our own little bundles of fun. It’s a new experience, and it’s downright scary. We’re not quite sure what to do and how to do it.

Starting a blog is pretty similar. We’ve seen everyone else do it, and enjoy it. We’ve seen that it looks like something we can do too – heck, if that blogger can write, so can I. Of course, once we jump in we realize just how scary and new it is! What should we write? How often should we publish? Where do I look for help? Not too dissimilar to wondering what to do as a new parent.

Using the Right Products

Our kids are picky. It may not be their “fault” – no-one chooses which foods they’re allergic to, or which detergent our skin reacts to, so we can’t always lay that at our kids’ feet. But often, they’ll holler loudly enough that something has to be just so to make them smile.

Blogging’s just the same. Sure, you can keep your basic blog design or look, but there are a ton of tools that can help you make it a happier place. Plug-ins, theme designs, social bookmarking tools and more – they’re all there for you to use. If your blog could pull a tantrum, it probably would until you give it some nice extra toys to play with. So make it smile instead.

Long Hours, Scant Reward

We know that when we become parents, we sign on for a long contract. It’s not a part-time gig that we can look at in six months and see how it’s working out. Once that little face opens his or her eyes to the world, that’s it – we’re cornered. Then the long hours begin – wondering if the baby monitor’s working, nurturing through illness, helping with homework. And that’s just the good stuff! Then there’s the “I hate you!’ teens and eventually leaving home. It can feel we offer all our love for little reward. Of course, we know that’s not true, but at times…

Same goes for your blog. You can put hours crafting what you think’s the perfect post, make it all pretty with pictures and formatting, have great content, hit publish – and no-one reads it. No-one leaves feedback. You wonder why you put so much effort in when there often seems to be little in recompense, wither financially or emotionally.

But here’s the thing – it’s all about love. We love our children; we’ll do anything to make their lives as happy as they can possibly be. We’ll go to crummy kids movies, play dress up, eat mud pies and a whole lot more – because we love our children. Bloggers know this feeling about their blogs as well – it’s unconditional. Yes, some can be just to make you money while others are pet personal projects – either way, they need love and passion to work.

Who knows – maybe blogging can show us a little bit of what we’ll need for parenting? Without the dirty diapers, of course…

photo credit: dedrawolff

Danny Brown is a business branding and emerging media consultant, and the father to a beautiful little girl. He is also the founder of the 12for12k Challenge, a social media-led charity initiative. Say hello to him on Twitter.

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We all worry about our kids and how they use the Internet. Thanks to a safety filter application called littleye, however, a lot of our worries and fears are now taken care of.

Put together by a community of parents and teachers, littleye takes the concept of existing online safety filters on step further.

The very fact that it’s parents and teachers who have put the service together is a great starting place – after all, it’s who our kids will spend most of their childhood learning from.

What is littleye?

The best way to describe littleye is in the company’s own words:

“littleye is a virtual fence around safe websites that have been reviewed and approved by our community of parents and teachers. Kids can surf the Internet, but only within that virtual fence of a trusted safe list of websites.”

So it’s like letting your kids play in your virtual backyard – they have the freedom of playing but still within eyesight of us. If we think their playtime is getting out of hand, we can call them back indoors.

While you can do this with other safety filters, littleye separates itself by having some cool extra features for parents to use.

More Ways to Keep Our Kids Safe Online

Because littleye is a collaboration between parents and teachers, much of the legwork that other filters require has already been taken care of for you. You can pretty much open your account and you’re good to go from the start. So what are some of the key features?

• Online monitoring from any location means as long as you have an Internet connection, you can see what your kids are viewing. This lets you either approve or filter that site.

• Time limits for both sites and daily use make sure your kids aren’t wasting all their time online and leave room for other activities.

• Customized and pre-set website filters let you approve your own sites or choose from tens of thousands of littleye-approved sites.

• Keyword filters that make sure your kids can’t search for any questionable keywords, or find adult sites that use keyword masking to hide their real content (think searching for Snow White leading to a porn site because it uses this term to trick web browsers).

The filter itself is an application that you can download for either Windows or Mac systems. There’s even an iPhone application for monitoring regardless if your location isn’t anywhere near a computer.

As the web becomes more useful for kids for personal and school use, so the risk of viewing unwanted websites goes up too. With littleye activated, the chances of this happening are greatly reduced.

INCREDIBLE SPECIAL OFFER

Until the end of August 2009, you can grab a free lifetime subscription! After that it’s either $4.95 per month or $49 for an annual subscription. You can find out more (including a nifty set of videos) on the littleye website, or follow them on Twitter if you’re on there.

Danny Brown is a business branding and social media consultant, and the father to a beautiful little girl. He is also the founder of the 12for12k Challenge, a social media-led charity initiative. Say hello to him on Twitter.

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Just over a year ago, the founder of this project, Chris Brogan, wrote a blog post entitled 100 Topics I Hope YOU Write. I bookmarked it for future reference – it was, and still is, a great resource for when the blogging ideas well runs dry. Today sees the first fruit of that blog post’s labors, for me at least.

The world is a crazy place. Some may say it always has been, but you know, the last decade more than anything has seen everything change. These are scary times, and we only have ourselves to blame in many cases.

I’ve been sitting watching the news about the terror in Mumbai coming through, both on mainstream media and Twitter, of all places. For anyone with family or friends in Mumbai, Twitter has been playing a key role in updates on the situation as they happen.

Now I’ve just read a headline about the horrendous death of a Wal-Mart worker in Long Island, NY when shoppers burst through the doors of the store he worked at. The worker was knocked over by shoppers hellbent on getting the best Black Friday deals, and tragically he died from suffocation.

Combine these two stories with everything that’s happening around us – the ill-conceived War on Terror, the collapse of the economy and the destruction of our planet’s resources. When did we stop caring about each other so much that we seem destined to end each other’s existence?

Is this the legacy we want to leave our children? Will there be any legacy to leave them?

This is why we need our children more than ever. Every generation says, “This time it’ll be different.” Every generation says these words with good intent, I’m sure. But so far, every generation has failed. We have to offer hope that our children will do things differently.

Perhaps this time will be different. Perhaps Obama’s “Vote for Change” will really mean something, as opposed to just being a campaign slogan. The signs are good – now is the time to take these signs and make good on them.

We have to teach our children not to hate.

We have to teach our children greed is bad.

We have to teach our children tolerance of others and belief in mankind.

These life lessons and more start from the top, but we need the powers that be to offer a helping hand. What good are our teachings about greed when our children see corporate CEO’s banking millions while overseeing the worst financial crisis in recent years, and not being punished for it?

We need to stop the madness. Stop the conflicts. Stop the craziness that sees a single day of sales result in death and injury. We need to stop hating, stop the bigotry, and start loving our fellow man again.

We need to say, “My children will do it differently.” And believe it. And make it happen.

Danny Brown is father to a beautiful daughter and owner of Press Release PR, a boutique agency specializing in search engine optimized press releases and social media PR. He is also a blog partner of the iEntry and WebProNews network and an avid supporter of Toronto FC. Say hello to him on Twitter.

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As parents, we all want what’s best for our children. Education, health, happiness – all these and more are top of our lists when it comes to our kids being happy and having the best start in life. Yet we also need to understand that at times we may not always be going the right way at making these things happen.

Children are fast learners, and what they learn from us goes a long way into shaping who they become. Helping them grow while letting them grow is so important – sometimes it’s easy to make the little mistakes that might mean a lot to our kids.

• Kids will make mistakes. Heck, we’re still making mistakes as adults! Just because our kids make a mistake doesn’t mean they’re not trying their best. If we allow them to make their mistakes and support as opposed to chide, they’ll learn faster and won’t be afraid to try new things.

• The way we respond to the mistakes our children make can make things worse. We shouldn’t be coming out with accusatory messages like, “How could you do that?” or “What were you thinking?”. Instead, let’s try and see the positive each time and help our kids understand why it was wrong and how it can be worked around.

• Admit to our own mistakes. If we get something wrong, let’s admit to it instead of trying to look for someone or something else to blame, and let our kids see that we were wrong. Knowing that we can admit to making mistakes will help them realize making mistakes isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but something to learn from and improve on.

Like I said earlier, children grow up fast so we only have a small window to play with. Let’s make it count.

Danny Brown is father to a beautiful daughter and owner of Press Release PR, a boutique agency specializing in search engine optimized press releases and social media PR. He is also a blog partner of the iEntry and WebProNews network and an avid supporter of Toronto FC. Say hello to him on Twitter.

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My little girl Lia was born in 2003, a healthy and beautiful little mite that immediately changed everything for me. Up until the point I held her in my arms, I guess I didn’t really feel like I was a daddy. The moment I felt her warmth in my arms and saw her innocent little eyes look up at me, though, that was it. Here was the reason for being; the reason to be; simply, here was everything.

Lia will be six next year. I last saw her when she was 10 months old. I have no idea where she’s living, only that it’s somewhere in Ireland. I haven’t given her a birthday or a Christmas card ever, and presents lay unopened. Does that make me a stay away dad?

My ex-partner and I never married. We had a strange relationship – we were together 4 months initially and then broke up (she had just come out of a long relationship and it was too soon for another). We were apart for about 6 months and then we got together again.

Things really seemed to be working – she was going to move in with me and transfer to a department of the company she worked at that was in the town where I lived. Then she found out she was pregnant and although it came as a surprise, we both were excited about how things were coming together. Then the world collapsed.

Three months into the pregnancy, my ex decided she didn’t want to be with me after all. She didn’t love me and as much as it hurt, we both agreed that it would be best not to bring our unborn child into a house that wasn’t a truly loving one. So, we parted and remained friends – after all, we had a baby on the way and a child needs both parents.

Perhaps what happened next was my fault – I don’t know, and may never find out. Lia was to be my first child and I was over-excited; wanting to be part of the clothes shopping, pram shopping and all the other great stuff that parents-to-be go through. Maybe I was too zealous.

My ex felt I was being too demanding, words were exchanged and the amicable agreement that seemed to be working so well fell away. Lawyers became involved and, to cut a long story short, I was granted access at weekends. Sadly, this wasn’t acceptable to my ex who made many excuses why she and Lia couldn’t be available on visiting days. I was left having to resort to legal action.

I guess this is what led to her leaving the UK with my little girl. I found out she had left when I went for an agreed visit. Her landlord said she had moved out earlier that week. He had no forwarding address. I tried her parents, only to find out that they had moved back home to Ireland. Again, no forwarding address.

Because Ireland isn’t part of the UK, the laws are different when it comes to family disputes. I continue today to try and find where my little girl is, but brick walls are pretty obstinate opponents.

I know my daughter will be happy. Despite the differences between us, I do know that my ex makes a wonderful mother who loves our little girl dearly. I can only hope that having Lia is enough and she doesn’t distort facts about me if Lia ever asks where daddy is. Perhaps she doesn’t – perhaps she has a new daddy and that’s the only one she’s ever known. If he’s a good man and makes my daughter happy, then that’s something to be happy about.

Maybe when she’s older Lia will start asking questions. Maybe she’ll even look for me. I can only make the trail easy to find.

Danny Brown is father to a beautiful daughter and owner of Press Release PR, a boutique agency specializing in search engine optimized press releases and social media PR. He is also a blog partner of the iEntry and WebProNews network and an avid supporter of Toronto FC. Say hello to him on Twitter.

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