City Dads Group co-founder Matt Schneider is the featured podcast guest this week. In our conversation, Matt and I talk about how he and Lance Somerfeld started City Dads Group in New York City after finding a lack of opportunities for dads to hang out together and learn from each other. We also talk about how quickly City Dads Group has grown across the country and how to be a part of the group.
Because City Dads Group was started by two stay-at-home dads, I also ask Matt about being a stay-at-home dad, about how dads can maintain their identity if they choose to stay at home and how they can continue to be encouraging to their spouses.
Family therapist Colleen O'Grady, author of Dial down the Drama: Reducing Conflict and Reconnecting with Your Teenage Daughter, is the featured guest this week.
In our conversation, Colleen gives me a preview of what I have to look forward to when my kids become teenagers. We’ll talk about the differences between parenting young kids and teenagers. And since Colleen is the first family therapist to appear on the show, I ask her about how to know when you should actually see a family therapist. Because who hasn’t thought they could use a therapist at one time or another?
Marc Webb, director of The Amazing Spider-Man movies and 500 Days of Summer (also amazing) starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel is the featured guest this week.
On April 7, Marc has his next movie coming out titled Gifted. The movie stars Chris Evans (Captain America) who plays a single man raising his child prodigy niece. So in our conversation, I asked Marc about what he learned from researching this movie about how to help a gifted child fulfill their potential without pushing them too far. I also asked Marc how he gets the best performances out of child actors, which can be a very hard thing to do. I know I struggle to get my kids to say please, so I can’t imagine what it would be like to try to get them to say a memorized monologue. I will say, however, that Mckenna Grace, the girl who plays Chris Evans’ niece in the movie, is a very gifted actress. I know she helped make Marc’s job easier.
And finally, I asked Marc about directing Spiderman, because that’s kind of a big deal. According to IMDB, The Amazing Spiderman 2 had a 200 million dollar budget. That’s a lot of responsibility for a director. But Marc did awesome, just like he did this interview.
Behind the Scenes: When I interviewed Marc, we were both at the Dad 2.0 Conference in San Diego, so there is a little bit more noise in the background than usual. My interview last week with HGTV's Josh Temple was at the same conference.
Josh Temple, host of the popular HGTV show House Crashers, is this week's featured guest. In recent years, Josh has also hosted America’s Toughest Jobs on NBC, Ultimate Treehouse on the Discovery Channel and Backyard Nation for TLC.
What makes Josh a great host of House Crashers is that he’s not only entertaining, he is also a real licensed contractor. But since this host, me, doesn’t know much about home improvement, in our conversation I made sure to ask him for easy home improvement tips. We also talked about how he got into doing home improvement projects and how to get kids interested in architecture and engineering.
Behind the Scenes: When I interviewed Josh, we were both at the Dad 2.0 Conference in San Diego, so there is a little bit more noise in the background than usual.