DADSKILLS
The practical dad handbook — hands-on skills, fixes, and know-how for showing up for your kids.
From setting a fair allowance and saving for college to checking a growth percentile, planning the family budget, sizing a car seat or first bike, and reining in screen time, DadSkills pairs free hands-on calculators with practical how-to guides. Skills you can use today to show up for your kids.
Tools & Calculators
Free tools for raising kids — allowance & chore calculator, college savings calculator, child growth percentile calculator, family budget calculator, car seat & bike size finder, and a screen time budget planner.
Allowance & Chore Calculator
Set a fair weekly allowance from your child's age and chores, with an optional save/spend/give split — so payday is consistent and teaches money habits.
College Savings Calculator
Project what a monthly contribution will grow to by age 18 with compound growth, and see the monthly amount needed to hit a tuition goal.
Child Growth Percentile Calculator
Estimate where your child's height and weight fall on the growth curve for their age and sex — a quick reference, not a medical diagnosis.
Family Budget Calculator
Split monthly take-home pay across needs, wants, and savings with the 50/30/20 rule, and see per-category targets for a household with kids.
Car Seat & Bike Size Finder
Get the right car-seat stage and bike wheel size from your child's age, height, and weight — with the safety milestones for each stage.
Screen Time Budget Planner
Build a realistic daily screen-time budget around sleep, school, and activities by age — see recommended limits and what's left for recreational screens.
The Fatherhood & Craft Museum
Wander an immersive, richly illustrated collection — fatherhood and family through history; the tools, trades, and DIY that get things built and fixed; childhood and growing up; and outdoor life and the rites of passage that mark it, each in its own gallery. Every entry, image, and fact is drawn from Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons. No content is AI-generated.
Tour the museum →From the Journal
Practical how-to guides on allowances and teaching money, saving for college, everyday fixes and DIY with the kids, family budgeting, car seats and first bikes, and handling screen time — reading to pair with the calculators above.
How to Teach a Kid to Ride a Bike
The fastest way to teach a child to ride is to skip the training wheels and teach balance first: get the seat height and helmet right, then work through a simple glide-then-pedal progression that has most kids riding in a session or two.
Basic Home and Car Fixes Every Parent Should Know
The ten-minute home and car repairs every parent should have in their back pocket, from shutting off the water and resetting a breaker to jump-starting a car and changing a flat, plus a clear sense of when to call a pro.
First-Aid Basics Every Parent Should Know
How to stock a first-aid kit and handle the scrapes, cuts, burns, nosebleeds, choking, fevers, and head bumps of family life, with clear signs for when to get professional help. General information only, not medical advice.
How to Build a Family Budget That Actually Works
A practical budgeting system built for family life: work from take-home pay, separate fixed and variable costs, adapt the 50/30/20 rule, use sinking funds for irregular bills, and run a fifteen-minute monthly review.
Teaching Kids About Money, Age by Age
A stage-by-stage guide to teaching kids about money, from coins and a clear jar at age three to first paychecks and compound interest in the teenage years, with the small lessons that add up.
Camping With Kids: A Beginner's Guide
Everything a first-time family needs to camp with kids and actually enjoy it: choosing an easy site, the gear that matters, keeping kids warm at night, simple meals, real jobs for the kids, and a safety talk.
Keep Learning
Plain-language explainers on the everyday skills of fatherhood — an allowance that teaches money, saving for the years ahead, reading a growth chart, building a family budget, choosing a car seat or first bike, and setting screen-time limits — everything you need to go deeper with confidence.
Visit the Learn hub →