The Daily Dad

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You Don’t Have To Like It, But You Should Try Mar 11, 2024

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It had been a long day. He was tired. He just wanted his teenage step-daughter Tegan, from the indie pop duo Tegan and Sara, to stop blasting the same album over and over. Besides, he hated Nirvana, which was just then about the biggest band in the world. So he told her to turn it off. He told her the music was driving him insane.

He was well within his rights…up until the point that he made a joke about Kurt Cobain’s sexuality. He should have known better. As Tegan explains in her fascinating book, High School (a must read for any parent with artistic children), she was just then coming to terms with her own identity. She went ballistic at her father. She was inconsolable. It was clearly not about the music at all.

Finally, after many apologies, her dad was able to talk to her. She played Nirvana’s Unplugged album for him. A fan of David Bowie, he was surprised by their cover of “The Man Who Sold the World.”
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You Are Your Kids Biggest Fan Mar 09, 2024

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On this episode of the Daily Dad podcast, best-selling author and renowned stoic philosopher, Ryan Holiday, shares an insightful and heartwarming story about a profound parenting conversation he had with a driver on his way to the San Diego airport. In this engaging narrative, Holiday reflects on the importance of being your child's biggest fan.
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They’re The Only Ones In There Mar 08, 2024

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“This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/dailydad and get on your way to being your best self.”

Dr. Becky (read Good Inside already!) says she tries to repeat it to get kids as often as possible: “You’re the only one in your body, so only you could know what you like.”

She probably repeats it as much for her kid’s benefit as theirs. Because of course, they know what they like. The problem is that we tend to assume that we know better. And how could that be true? We’re not inside them, we’re not the same as them, as much as they sometimes seem like us. As we’ve said before, ‘knowing better’ is a corrosive thing, because it becomes less true over time and it’s hard to turn it off once you’ve internalized the assumption.

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They Need You To Do This For Them Mar 07, 2024

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There’s a story about Queen Elizabeth, told in Discipline is Destiny. After a long day of travel with her late husband, Prince Philip, the Queen found him worked up and in an argument with someone who was organizing an event.

What wouldn’t have worked in that situation with Prince Philip was the Queen coming over and telling him to get control of himself. It wouldn’t have helped for her to come in and pile on or take over the situation either. He was stuck in a loop, and she helped pull him out.

While it’s not our job to parent our spouses, this was a wonderful example of fantastic parent energy. When our kids are upset, we can help them with a simple redirect, an interruption, a distraction, we can give them an off-ramp. We can provide calming energy as opposed to amping things up, to adding more tension or stress to a situation by reprimanding them or telling them to shape up.
P.S. “Most powerful is he who has himself in his own power,” Seneca said. If you’re looking to gain a little more temperance, for both your sake and your family’s sake, check out Ryan Holiday’s Discipline is Destiny. Developing a practice of discipline not only makes it more likely you’ll be successful, it ensures that whatever happens, you are great, both for yourself and those around you. Grab a copy today!

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Your Future Is What You Make It Mar 06, 2024

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“This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/dailydad and get on your way to being your best self.”

In his fantastic book Outlive, Peter Attia (we carry the book at The Painted Porch and did a fantastic 2-hour interview with him on the Daily Stoic podcast) looks at this idea literally and figuratively. Will you want to be able to go skiing with your adult children? Will you want to be able to travel to see your grandkids? Will you want to live long enough to maybe get to see them get married or bring you great-grandkids? Just as important as whether these things are physically possible is will you have the kind of relationship that allows for this? Will your kids want to do those things with you?

These are the questions you have to be thinking about. Not just thinking about, but making decisions and investments about and in. If you eat whatever you want, let your weight balloon, smoke, drink to excess—it doesn’t matter what dreams you have for your twilight years. You are making a powerful statement in reality about the actual value of those things to you. The same goes for how you balance work and life, whether you have put in the work on your issues, whether you’ve improved at repairing with your kids, whether you support and root for them or whether you judge and criticize them. Again, you can fantasize about family trips when you’re retired, but if, while you’re working, you’re a self-absorbed, miserable jerk—that’s never going to happen.
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What Will Your Kids See? Mar 05, 2024

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As she writes her memoir Suffragette, these incidents illustrate to her “the fact that the impressions of childhood often have more to do with character and future conduct than heredity or education. I tell it also to show that my development into an advocate of militancy was largely a sympathetic process.”

The lesson, which we built the whole first month of The Daily Dad book around, is a simple one: Children learn by example. It doesn’t matter so much what adults tell them, what ideology they try to teach them, what matters is what children see. And that children are far more perceptive than we might think.
P.S. “Thou Shall Teach By Example” is the 1st Commandment in The Stoic Parent: 10 Commandments For Becoming A Better Parent. If you want to take your parenting to the next level, or just looking to set a better example as a parent, The Stoic Parent course is 10 days of the most important things that you can do to become the best parent you can be. Sign up today at the Daily Stoic Store!
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The Key To Real Happiness Mar 04, 2024

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As we said recently, no parent has ever successfully shielded their child from negative feelings or distress. No parent has done it and no grown adult has ever looked back at their childhood and been grateful that their parents tried. “I’m so glad Mom and Dad kept me in a bubble of sunshine and kittens, that really set me up now that I’m on my own.”

Gaslighting someone about their feelings is not, and never has been, a service.

Dr. Becky Kennedy writes In Good Inside, her wonderful book about parenting (can’t recommend it enough), that “adults whose childhood were focused mainly on happiness are not only unprepared for tough moments, they experience more discomfort in those tough moments because deep down, they think they’re doing something wrong if they can’t ‘find the happy’ and get themselves to a ‘better place.’”

We’ve talked before about Seneca’s Consolations essays where he works his friends and family through the awful grief they are experiencing. It’s important that we understand this is how the Stoics—and hopefully your kids—learn to deal with strong emotions, period. You don’t stuff it down. You don’t mask it with smiles. You don’t seek out pleasure to counterbalance it. In fact, the more you do those things, the harder time you will have in the future if even more serious or distressing things happen.

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Are Your Kids Having Fun? Mar 02, 2024

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On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad Podcast, Ryan shifts to the basketball court as he attends both of his son's game, unveiling profound lessons about team sports for kids and the essential role of adults in shaping their experiences. Amidst the cheers and competitive spirit, Holiday reflects on the delicate balance required in fostering a positive environment.
He observes that, while skill development is crucial, the paramount lesson lies in the importance of having fun. As an engaged parent and spectator, Holiday underscores the significance of adults maintaining perspective, encouraging sportsmanship, and emphasizing the joy of the game over mere victories. This insightful episode serves as a reminder that, ultimately, the true victory in youth sports lies in the smiles, camaraderie, and personal growth experienced by the young athletes on the court.
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It’s Part of The Job Mar 01, 2024

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Look, we get it: the iPad is a magical device. It can quiet even the craziest kid. It can take them into a world of learning and exploration that is literally miraculous. Best of all, most of this content is free!

Books on the other hand are not free and they take up so much space. Lugging them around can be a pain. You’re a grown-ass person. Do you really have to read about why dragons love tacos again? Or what Frodo is going to do with that stupid ring? And read it with the excited tone of a voice-over actor?

Yes. The answer is yes. Your house and your life must be filled with books. Good ones. Silly ones. Annoying ones. Used ones. New ones. Reading is part of the job. “A house without books is like a room without windows,” Horace Mann once said. “No man has a right to bring up his children without surrounding them with books, if he has the means to buy them.”
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Deal With It Now Feb 29, 2024

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We all have our issues. We had trauma from childhood. We have bad habits we picked up in college. We have scripts we learned, patterns we’ve repeated, coping mechanisms we’ve developed.

We prefer not to die with them, to carry them always. But when exactly are we planning on dealing with them? In a perfect world, we would have gotten serious about it before we had kids. In the next best world, we’d deal with them now.

“All I know is that as we age the weight of our unsorted baggage becomes heavier,” Bruce Springsteen explains in his spectacular autobiography Born To Run, “…much heavier.” We talked before about his strange and disorienting childhood, which was warped by the grief of his grandparents and their inclination to spoil him, along with the distance and demons of his father. He related that, like a lot of us, “the defenses I built to withstand the stress of my childhood, to save what I had of myself, outlived their usefulness…” When the bill comes due, Springsteen says, the payment is in tears.

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