In this episode of The Dads Toolbox, Dr. Robert Zeitlin, rejoins us and turns the table on Don Jackson to talk about school and transitions for fathers when it comes to sending your kids to school for the first time. Dr. Robert Zeitlin is a father, speaker, psychologist and the author of [amazon text=Laugh More, Yell Less&asin=099629290X]. You may remember Dr. Robert Zeitlin from his earlier interviews with us about his book and about depression and seasonal affective disorder. We truly love having Dr. Robert Zeitlin as a member of the Dads Toolbox team and we think you will truly love seeing a different side to Don Jackson and also a different side to how we deal with transitions in general.

IDEO is a,the design firm that behind these design-thinking challenges, runs online courses including Insights for Innovation, the one that led me to interview Don on the subject of transitions

As Dr. Robert Zeitlin interviews Don Jackson, he explores the background of Don’s blog Daddy Newbie as well as the reason for Don’s love of baseball and coaching in general. Don Jackson talks about how coaching his son allows him to stay connected to him now that he is in school.

When Don’s son went to school, he reflected that he remembered how much he was dreading the transition that he was going to go through without having his son by his side every day. What he tried to do was do little things like: when he wanted to see what his son was doing, he waited a few extra minutes to see what was happening instead of going right away. While Don knew that this was only small in nature, it was a start.

When he dropped his son off for the first day, he went back to his car, and just sat there. He found himself tearing up, being emotional thinking about all of the things that will come now that his son was in school. Now that some time has gone by he has found that he has to take things in steps instead of getting overwhelmed by what was happening in this transition.

While Don knows that if anything ever happens to his child he will be the first person to be there to help him, but he notes that there is a dichotomy between this and what you have to do as a parent to support your child and allow your child their autonomy and their freedom.

As Don thinks ahead at when his son will be in kindergarten full time, he knows that he will have to break down this transition into parts. He will have to learn how to talk with his son about his own school experience. After this it is going through each day one day at a time.

When you are going through this, make sure that you are able to be all in and be there in that moment. Leave all of the adult stuff behind, and be there with your kids as those moments will be fleeting and gone before you know it.

Don says that he is still working on a bit of everything as it comes to the transition that he is going through, but really he is working on his patience. He said that it is too easy to get caught up in adult life, and while your kids are oblivious on what is happening around them, we are not. We have to keep in mind that the only things that will live on beyond us is our kids.

Robert talked to us about his concept, Pop Up PD

He entered his Pop-Up PD idea with The Teachers Guild

Dr. Robert Zeitlin also has a very  exciting school project called: XQ Super School Project, where he entered a design for a new school called