About TS Crawford

Tinian Crawford is a battle tested father of two and husband to one. In between fielding endless requests for snacks from his kids and attempting to keep his chickens alive he manages and authors lifeoutsidethebox.me, a blog focused on how best to approach parenthood and adult life in general. His work can be found at Red Tricycle, Medium, Just BE Parenting, the Good Men Project, parent.co, and more.
http://www.lifeoutsidethebox.me/

Posts by this author

Woman playing in the snow

Sometimes We Just Need to Play

Play is a powerful tool. For children, it helps their minds create connections between neurons, helps them promote development of coping mechanisms, and lets them experience different interactions in a safe and controlled manner. It is a major part of how they learn to navigate the world around them.

For adults, it has different, but no less important, purposes. When adults play, they are able to let go of daily stresses and be present in the moment, if only briefly. This can be extremely difficult when you have responsibilities at work, dependents at home, and things need to get done. What are you doing playing when you have so many things to do?!

When we, as adults, allow ourselves to release our stresses and interact with our bodies and environments freely, our brains are able to move the fast pace and constant stimulus to the back burner and just be.

man wearing funny glasses

The Fun Dad

As a kid, it always baffled me how boring and controlling grownups could be. Why did everything have to be so serious? Do people just get less fun as they got older? Not me, I thought. I’m going to be fun even when I’m all grown up.

Fast forward to the nightly ritual in which I find myself currently mired. I chase my three-year-old around with a toothbrush getting increasingly frustrated as time goes on, so that by the time I’m actually brushing her teeth I have to fight to keep from aggressively attacking her mouth and anything else near it with the toothbrush to the detriment of her health and safety.

Girl running with ballon

Learn From Your Kids and Live in the Now

There was a great tragedy in my family the other day. It came suddenly, while I was sitting at the kitchen table and my kids were playing outside. The idyllic quiet of early evening in the country was jarringly broken by my daughter’s hysterical scream.

I jumped up and, heroically abandoning the Facebook post I was working on, ran outside to save the day. But I was too late.

As I followed my son’s finger pointing up high into the darkening azure sky, I saw a faint speck growing smaller and smaller, and I understood my daughter’s pain.

Her balloon, Balloony as she so creatively named it, was making a frenetic escape to the stratosphere.

Toddler dressed like a boss

Rule of the Children

A groundbreaking new study has recently been published which outlines proof of something many children have long suspected but had until now been unable to prove. After years of collecting and compiling data and case studies, the scientific team at Studies-R-Us has determined as children age, their parents do, in fact, get dumber.

“I’ve been rolling my eyes harder and harder for the last several years now, but, like, they just don’t get it”, 14-year-old Cassandra Swinson said in a statement, continuing with several follow-up remarks explaining the complete lack of understanding about even the simplest concept which her parents seemed to be displaying.

father throwing daugther up in the air

Not Yet

All parents can hope for is to have the opportunity to watch their children grow away from them, to sprout strong legs of independence that will lead them on their own journey.
They must face hardships, they must fight their own battles, they must conquer their own demons.

Just not yet.