The Daily Dad

The tantrum. The whining about going to school. The punch that’s thrown. The slipping grades. The sneaking out. The lie. The shouting. The moping around the house.These are not things you like to see your kids do. Maybe these are things you’ve talked to them about before, maybe a million times. But maybe that’s the problem. You’re seeing the wrong thing. You’re talking about the wrong thing.In her wonderful book Good Inside (yes, we love it), Dr. Becky Kennedy writes that “on the surface we see a behavior, but underneath we see a person.” We’ve said before that your kids are always talking to you—just not necessarily with words. “Throwing the cereal box wasn’t the main event,” Dr. Becky explains. “It was a window into the main event. Behavior, in all its forms, is a window: into the feelings, thoughts, urges, sensations, perceptions, and unmet needs of a person. Behavior is never “the story” **but rather it’s a clue to the bigger story begging to be addressed.”What a wonderful gift it would be to your family, to everyone you met, if you could start seeing behavior not as a thing to be upset about but a window into how someone is doing, what is going on with them. We’ve said it many times—they’re telling you that they’re hungry, that they’re tired, that they’re scared, that they’re lonely, that they’re overwhelmed or stressed. But they don’t know how to say that…so they lash out, so they hide in their room, so they call you something mean.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad, Ryan talks to creator, author, designer, and the founder of ConvertKit Nathan Barry on having kids earlier in their career, their interest in farms and outdoors, and the process of Emotional Vaccination.IG, and, X, ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

These are challenging, uncertain times, no question. What’s at the root of it? How did we get here? And what can fathers do about it?The answer comes to us, as it often does, from an ancient prescription: Character is fate. Who a person is determines what will happen and what they can do. It should surprise no one that a culture that has put character at the absolute bottom of the list of requirements for its leaders—below whether they tell us what we want to hear, below how clever their tweets are, below how they look on television, below whether they’ll pass short-term measures that benefit us financially, below whether they belong to this party or that one—would find itself in crisis after crisis.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Rich is how much you get to see your kids, we said recently. We were redefining wealth away from material items and salary—although these things are nice as far as they go—and towards a thing that pretty much everyone wishes they had more of: time with the people you love most. Is it really a rich life if you are missing out on something so priceless? Perhaps it’s worth also taking a minute to do some similar considerations about power. There are the obvious trappings of power: The corner office. The gatekeepers. The influence you have over world events or an audience. The presidency. The title. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Maybe you did before, but you can’t now. Before you could afford to get sucked into drama, to gossip, to get into long arguments with your buddies, to be petty, to hold grudges, to follow the latest breaking news or celebrity.But now? Now, you need to remind yourself: I ain’t got time for that.Because you don’t. You have kids now. You have people you’re responsible for. You have a big enough struggle on your hands.Your crazy coworker is their own problem. That actor who cheated on their spouse is in their own mess. Your dumb neighbor with the flag for the political cult they’ve joined…Your sibling’s poor financial choices…That person who is embarrassingly wrong on the internet…You ain’t got time for that.Not one second. You ain’t got one second for that anymore.TEMPUS FUGIT✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We’ve said before that it’s never too late. It’s never too late, as a parent, to follow your dreams—to show your kids that they can too. It’s never too late to start showing up. It’s never too late to deal with your demons. It’s never too late to change. Sooner is better of course, but it’s never too late.It’s also never too late to do that thing we’ve been talking about a lot recently—repair. “Repair can happen ten minutes after a blowup, ten days later, or ten years later,” Dr. Becky Kennedy writes in Good Enough. “Never ever doubt the power of repair—every time you go back to your child, you allow him to rewire, to rewrite the ending of the story so it concludes in connection and understanding, rather than aloneness and fear.”✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It’s a wonderful state—being in flow. Getting caught up in your work. Getting caught up in the moment. And before you had kids, you lived for this…in fact, you may well have lived in it.Life was simpler then. You would get lost for days at a time in a project. You could spend years, it would seem in retrospect, in the building stages of a company, in the pursuit of a dream, in finding yourself, in exploring the world.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad, Ryan talks with his wife Samantha on how Sam prepares for writing Ryan, Integrating his routine in a well adjusted life, how this year is going to be different, all while protecting their headspace.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There is a great story about a young Spartan woman, Gorgo, who would one day become queen. Despite her royal status, like all Spartans she was raised to be self-sufficient, and without any frills or needless luxury. So imagine Gorgo’s surprise when she witnessed a distinguished visitor to Sparta have his shoes put on by a servant. “Look, father,” she said, “the stranger has no hands!” ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We have emotions. We experience stressful situations. We have intrusive thoughts. So really what we have to teach our kids, Dr. Becky writes in her incredible book Good Inside (must read!), is how to differentiate urge from action. “Having the urge to bite is okay,” she explains, “biting a person is not. Having the urge to hit is okay; hitting a person is not okay.” We know this to be true in our adult lives—that there’s a big difference between being angry and then doing something rash or irresponsible or hurtful out of anger. We know that we can type the email and not send it. We know that we can want to quit on the spot but think better of it. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Our parents weren’t everything we needed. Maybe it was more time we needed. More understanding. More kindness. More support. More love. More just them having their act together.But they weren’t this. Sadly, they also weren’t what the world needed either. Few generations have been. They kicked problems down the road. They started wars that cost blood and treasure to little purpose. They abused the environment. They averted their gaze, turned their hearts away from sufferings and injustice.In a recent interview on Marc Maron’s podcast, Arnold Schwarzenegger talked about how his own life, as a parent, as a politician, as a person was largely driven by the desire to go in a different direction than the example of his father and his father’s generation. His father had been a Nazi, his father drank too much, his father smacked his kids around.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

George Dewey was a kid who got in trouble a lot. His father was always bailing him out. Finally, as a last ditch effort, he secured his son entrance into the U.S Naval Academy in 19XX.“George, I’ve done all I can for you,” his father told him as he dropped him off. “The rest you must do for yourself.” We talked a while back about how you have to let your kids fail, you have to let them struggle. As we’ve said before Luctor Et Emergo—from the struggle they emerge (we have a cool challenge coin as a reminder for parents).✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The bike was nice. So was the trip to Disneyland. So was being able to graduate from college without student debt. They appreciated the presents. They appreciated the clothes that fit. Or maybe they didn’t. Maybe they took for granted what it cost for you to buy a house where they could have their own room. Maybe they didn’t understand what it took out of you to give them a better life than you had, to pay for all this stuff, to pay to go to all these places. Maybe they didn’t understand because that stuff wasn’t really what they wanted, even if they said they did. Because—and you know this already, you do—all they really wanted was you. They wanted you to be present, more than they wanted presents. They wanted your love, your attention, they wanted your acceptance. They wanted your support. They wanted you to be proud of them. They wanted you to apologize. They wanted you to understand them. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad Podcast, Ryan talks with clinical psychologist Dr. Becky Kennedy on how we emotionally vaccinate, the ability to cope through stress, educating our kids on emotions and her new book Good InsideDr. Becky Kennedy is an American clinical psychologist who is founder and chief executive officer of the Good Inside company, an online parenting advice service. She has been called the "millennial parent whisperer" by Time Magazine and is a number one New York Times bestseller for her book Good Inside. As a mom of three, when she was first starting out, she practiced a popular behavior-first, reward-and-punishment model of parent coaching. But, after a while, something struck her: those methods feel awful–for kids and parents. She put together everything she knew about attachment, mindfulness, emotion regulation, and internal family systems theory, and translated those ideas into a new method for working with parents. www.GoodInside.comIG: (drbeckyatgoodinside)Podcast: Good Inside with Dr. Becky✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The career opportunities are hard to turn down. It’s hard in the moment, as we’ve talked about, to be able to think too far into the future. It’s hard to make much in the way of long term investments as a parent because you’re so overwhelmed by the responsibilities of the present.But we have to remember what we’re after, we have to keep in perspective that this is a marathon we’ve signed up for. We quoted the baseball player Anthony Rendon recently about how he was having to weigh painful but career-elongating surgeries and the grind of continuing to play against the kind of shape he wants to be in as his kids get older and the kind of relationship he can have with them. “Right now, it looks like we are only playing for these next four years of baseball,” Rendon said, “but I’m trying to hang out with my kids for the rest of their lives.”✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You didn’t like rules when you were a kid. Your parents had too many. Your school was a prison of pointless, arbitrary ones—how you could dress, when you could go to the bathroom, how you had to hold the pencil.So it makes sense that you’re averse to them now. It’s good that you question how many of them matter and don’t want to make the same mistakes as adults did in your own childhood.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There are lots of ways to read, ways that have improved the experience and opened up the world of literature to people who otherwise would have missed out. Ebooks are awesome. Audiobooks are spectacular. They let you read anywhere. They let you read faster. They let you read while you’re multitasking. All from the convenience of a device in your pocket smaller than the smallest book. But that’s sort of the problem isn’t it? Your kids have no idea that that is what you’re using your phone for. To them, you could just as easily be on Twitter. You could be answering emails and working like you always do. You could be betting on sports. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You know your kids are good. You’ve seen their sweetness, their cuteness since the beginning. You’ve seen them try. You’ve seen them feel shame when they’ve messed up.You also know how hard it is to be a person, let alone a kid, in this world. Life is frustrating. Life is tough. It’s full of temptations. It’s easy to make mistakes. It’s easy to get overwhelmed.Dr. Becky Kennedy - Good Inside ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“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.”How flexible you were then. How much energy you had. What you could eat without consequence. The innocence. The earnestness. The sweetness. You had it once and now, it’s gone, disappeared beneath the years and the experiences and everything else.When Taylor Swift sang ‘being this young is art,’ she wasn’t talking about your kids, about kids generally, but she may as well have been. And it’s high time we appreciate it. Because it’s something special, something irreplaceable, something that one can only do for a short time, at a very specific time.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad, Ryan talks with his wife Samantha on Their word for 2024 being systems, designing the system around people instead of people around the system, and creating plans before they happen instead of during the chaos. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The late Paul Woodruff told a wonderful story in his episode on the Daily Stoic podcast. Before he died, he loved birdwatching and had a bird feeder in his backyard. But the squirrels kept stealing the birdseed he was putting out. This was frustrating and annoying and he found himself growing angry.But then he remembered a passage from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations about how we should accept when things are doing what their nature demands. The squirrels were not trying to give Paul a hard time, they did not mean any harm. The squirrels were simply doing what they do. They were doing what their nature demanded.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Bruce Springsteen has three children: Evan, Jessica, and Sam. One of them is an Olympic-level equestrian (which can not have been a cheap or easy interest to encourage, nor always a fun one to watch). His son, Sam, recently became a New Jersey firefighter (a scary thought for any parent). Clearly, Bruce and his wife Patti have figured out how to help their children become who they are, and to realize their potential.“I wanted them to see people that did a lot of other things,” Bruce once said in an interview, “be around people who would shape them and they would have a lot of options.” Perhaps his inclination to encourage them to pursue their dreams comes from his own experience. In his autobiography, Springsteen takes us back to when he was 7 years old and watched the controversial rockstar Elvis Presley’s appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show. When Elvis walked off the stage, “I sat there transfixed in front of the television set, my mind on fire. I had the same two arms, two legs, two eyes; I looked hideous but I’d figure that part out… so what was missing? THE GUITAR! The next day I convinced my mom to take me to Diehl’s Music on South Street in Freehold. There, with no money to spend, we rented a guitar.”✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It can be hard in the moment to think of anything else. You have lunches to make. Practices to get to. Birthday parties to plan. Work to do. Childhoods to survive.Having kids is so overwhelming that your ability to conceive of two weeks from now, let alone the future, is severely compromised. This isn’t entirely a bad thing—it’s good to be in the moment, to not get too far ahead of yourself.But at the same time, you do need to make sure that you consider more than just this moment.The baseball player Anthony Rendon has talked about how he’s needed to balance optimizing not just for his professional career but his goals as a parent. “Even if the season doesn’t work out or the next four years don’t work out,” he said recently, “I’m planning for taking care of my kids when they get older. Hip surgeries, wrist surgeries, ankle surgeries … I want to play with them when they are 10, 12, 15 years old.”✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There are lots of different trappings of wealth. A big house. A nice car. Exotic vacations. First-class flights? Private flights? Not everyone can afford these things. In fact, that’s sort of the point—they are considered fancy and elite because of how elusive they are. But is this really wealth? Or is this just materialism? On Christmas (and it’s the Dec 25th entry in *The Daily Da*d book, too), we quoted Paul Orfalea, the billionaire founder of Kinkos, who defined ‘success’ as having kids who come home for the holidays. He was saying that there are lots of wealthy people out there who don’t have that, who are estranged from their family. But what’s interesting about this idea is that it is largely focused on where you and your kids end up later in life, when they have a choice about how much they see you. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Your kids are going to face stuff in life. Big stuff for sure–failing tests, being made fun of, getting fired, losing something important to them. We may wish we could prevent that from happening, but we can’t. We teach them resilience instead. But our kids are also going to face little situations too. The TV is going to have to be turned off at some point, and they’re not going to like it. They’re going to have to get up early for school tomorrow. Their routines are going to change. They’re going to have to try new things. They’re going to be out of their comfort zone. This is going to bring up strong emotions: Frustration. Fear. Anger. Annoyance. Sadness. The answer to this is also resilience, but in a more specific way. Dr. Becky talks about this in her fantastic book Good Inside, referring to a strategy she calls “emotional vaccination.” ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad Podcast, Ryan talks with clinical psychologist Dr. Becky Kennedy on how we emotionally vaccinate, the ability to cope through stress, educating our kids on emotions and her new book Good InsideDr. Becky Kennedy is an American clinical psychologist who is founder and chief executive officer of the Good Inside company, an online parenting advice service. She has been called the "millennial parent whisperer" by Time Magazine and is a number one New York Times bestseller for her book Good Inside. As a mom of three, when she was first starting out, she practiced a popular behavior-first, reward-and-punishment model of parent coaching. But, after a while, something struck her: those methods feel awful–for kids and parents. She put together everything she knew about attachment, mindfulness, emotion regulation, and internal family systems theory, and translated those ideas into a new method for working with parents. www.GoodInside.comIG: (drbeckyatgoodinside)Podcast: Good Inside with Dr. Becky✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Most schools and most parents teach reading all wrong. They bully kids into doing it. They pressure them. They tell them, “Reading is what smart and successful people do.” Then they’re surprised when kids who struggled with reading don’t think they’re smart, and they wonder why kids almost wear illiteracy as a badge of honor. They wonder why people say things like, “I haven’t read a book since I was forced to in high school.”No, the way to teach a kid to read is not to talk about how wonderful literature is and force them to read fancy or pretentious novels. You teach a kid to love books by—as the great lover of books Robert Greene has said—appealing to their self-interest. *Show them what they will get out of books.*Tangibly. Immediately. Show them that quote from Warren Buffet, where he says the single best investment he ever made was buying a copy of Benjamin Graham’s The Intelligent Investor.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We spend so much time at the office, trying to get better at our jobs, trying to make a little more money, trying to climb further up the ladder. We spend hours in the gym over the course of a life, trying to get into better shape, trying to hit personal records. We spend mountains of time online, trying to help our fantasy football teams, trying to find discount codes to save money shopping, trying to stay abreast of our friends’ and families’ lives (or so we tell ourselves). ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It doesn’t feel like they listen. In fact, we have pretty visible evidence that they don’t. We tell them not to do this or that and then we watch them do that exact thing. We warn them, remind them, advise them…and then they come to us crying or complaining or in trouble, having heeded none of that guidance.So you can be forgiven for missing the fact that not only are they listening to what you say, but that your words have an enormous effect on them. So much so that you have to really, really be careful.Think about your own life. Are there not things that your parents said that still weigh on you? The way your father would call you lazy. The comments your mother made about food or your weight. The way they would tease you. The things they said about your grades. The tone they used when they were disappointed or angry.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We’ve been quoting recently from the old children’s story The Velveteen Rabbit, about a toy that’s so loved by a young boy that it becomes real. This is a great metaphor for parenting in a way. Because that’s what’s happening to us. We made a decision to have kids many years ago and then for years that decision works on us, shaping, changing, transforming us. No part of that is more powerful than the love and energy of our children—whose joy, whose innocence, whose pain, whose growth is working on us always…even as it takes so much out of us.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We talked recently about what Dr. Becky Kennedy always tells parents: it’s never too late. We’ve talked about Nell Painter’s mother, who became an author late in life (and Nell Painter herself, who went back and was Old in Art School) We’ve talked about Bruce Springsteen’s father finally telling Bruce what he needed to hear. We’ve talked about other parents who got their act together late. We should be inspired by these examples. We should be inspired to be this example for our kids. We should show them, it’s never too late. It’s never too late to lose weight, to change, to find a new career, to quit a longtime vice, to try something new, to invest in yourself, to repair or apologize or make amends. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad, Ryan talks with his wife Samantha on finding common ground and learning to empathize after they had kids, the value of to do lists, pros and cons from the pandemic & the importance of routine.If you want to spend time with more dedicated Stoics, if you want to join a culture full of people rising together, we invite you to join the 2024 Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge. We did the first New Year New You Challenge in 2018, and year after year, we’ve realized more and more that one of the core benefits of the challenge is the community dynamic. Change and improvement comes fastest through culture, results through accountability, and wisdom through exposure to new people and new ideas.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We’ve said this before, but one of the things we need to constantly remind ourselves of as parents is that our kids are just being kids. If we’re being honest, what’s closer to an accurate description of a kid: those behaviors listed above or being a perfectly quiet, perfectly obedient, perfectly well mannered and well behaved? You know that kids do these things, you know that it’s normal, you know that it’s largely harmless, you know that they have very little control over it, that it’s all part of a process of learning and growing and figuring things out.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You weren’t the parent you wanted to be in 2023. You weren’t the person you wanted to be in 2023. Almost no one was. Anyone who thinks or says they were is lying…and for most of us, this truth goes back further than a calendar year.None of us are perfect. We all screwed up. We all back-slid. We all picked up bad habits. And as a parent, that means our kids picked up those bad habits too. Because, as we’ve said before, behavior is the language of children.For those ready for reformation, as we mentioned last week, we created the 2024 New Year New You Challenge. It’s a set of 21 actionable challenges—presented one per day—built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. Our goal is to help you and your family make 2024 your best year yet.Participants of the New Year New You Challenge receive:✓ 21 Custom Challenges Delivered Daily (Over 30,000 words of all-new original content)✓ Three live Q&A sessions✓ Printable 21-Day Calendar With custom daily illustrations to track progress✓ Access to a Private Community PlatformThese aren’t pie-in-the-sky, theoretical discussions but clear, immediate exercises and methods you can begin right now to spark the reinvention you’ve been trying for. We’ll tell you what to do, how to do it, and why it works. And when adversity inevitably comes around, you’ll be ready.The 2024 New Year New Your Challenge officially begins on Monday, January 1st. Stop delaying. Head over to dailystoic.com/challenge and sign up NOW! Let’s go.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We do so much for our kids. We drive them around. We provide for them. We entertain them. And of course, there are parents who do even more. Parents who packed up and moved across the world for a better life for their kids. Parents who gave their lives for their kids.How much do children understand these sacrifices? How much do they appreciate it? Not fully, that’s for sure. But that’s OK—because it’s not theirs to understand, it’s not theirs to appreciate. As we’ve said before, we owe our kids everything. We’re the ones that brought them into this world. They don’t owe us anything except to be themselves.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Every parent wishes they could have done some things differently. Maybe you wish you were around more when they were a toddler. Maybe you wish you were more patient when they were a teenager. Maybe you wish you said I love you more.In her amazing book Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be, Dr. Becky Kennedy writes that that’s what she hears all the time:✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today we wanted to run our favorite entry from The Daily Dad: 366 Meditations on Parenting, Love, and Raising Great Kids, a helpful reminder on this day of celebration.When you were younger, for Christmas, all you wanted was presents.Now that you’re older, now that you have kids, all you want is presence. All you want is for your kids to be present over the holidays.Our New Year New You Challenge is all-new content, guided by thousands of responses and reactions to our previous challenges, courses, videos, and emails. It’s a whole new challenge based on painstaking research and timeless science, for an all-new, life changing experience.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“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.”On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad, Ryan talks with his wife Samantha on the emotional neglect that comes with using kids for social media, the culture of Christmas being stressful, not letting work or expectations become the main thing along with self awareness and communication.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

​Theodore Roosevelt lived an incredible life. He was an author. A naturalist. A rancher. A police chief. A cowboy. A hunter. A governor. A soldier. A president. An explorer. A philanthropist. And that’s probably not even close to an exhaustive list. His life was full of activity. It was full of adventure. It was marked by triumph and adversity to overcome.It’s worth telling your kids the story of Theodore Roosevelt to inspire them for the same reason that Theodore Roosevelt’s parents made sure he knew about the fascinating and inspiring lives of history. As one biographer observed, “the story of Theodore Roosevelt is the story of a small boy who read about great men and decided he wanted to be like them.”So we’ll leave you today by putting a challenge in front of you. For the last four years, we have been doing what we call the Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge—a set of 21 actionable challenges, presented one per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. These aren’t pie-in-the-sky, theoretical discussions but clear, immediate exercises and methods you can begin right now to spark the reinvention you’ve been trying for. We’ll tell you what to do, how to do it, and why it works.From these challenges, you will:✓ Learn to stop procrastinating and avoiding the change you truly desire✓ Build new habits that form a strong foundation for change✓ Abandon the harmful habits that are dragging you down✓ Strengthen your character, becoming a more virtuous version of yourselfAnd above all: You will find out just how much you are capable of.Every morning, the email arrives in your inbox, and it presents you with a choice. You can do the harder thing, you can do the challenge. Or you can follow the drift of least resistance—you can open the email and leave it at that. Or worse…you can ignore this call right now and not sign up at all. Which way will you go?The 2024 New Year New You Challenge officially begins on Monday, January 1st. Stop delaying. Head over to dailystoic.com/challenge and sign up NOW! Let’s go.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There is a beautiful passage in The Velveteen Rabbit where the young rabbit asks one of the seasoned old toys in the playroom whether ‘becoming real’—the process of being changed by the love of a child—is something that has to do with how a toy is made. Is it about having certain parts, he asked? Does it require a certain makeup?"Real isn't how you are made," says the toy horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."So yes, it’s a choice, but an unusual type of choice. It’s the decision, as we’ve talked about, to accept this process. To open yourself up to it. To let it change you.We choose to have kids, and they choose to give us their love, to really love us. We play with them, we connect with them, we open ourselves to them and they to us. And then this process changes, transforms both of us in the most wonderful and magical of ways.For those ready to accept the process, to open yourself up to it, we created the 2024 New Year New You Challenge. It’s a set of 21 actionable challenges—presented one per day—built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. Our goal is to help you and your family make 2024 your best year yet.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Beauty to the Stoics was far deeper than appearances. “If your choices are beautiful,” Epictetus said, “so too will you be.”It’s simple and it’s true. You are what your choices make you, nothing more and nothing less.Isn’t this what we try to teach our kids? That, yes of course, we love them unconditionally and unequivocally, and have since the moment they were born, but they have this incredible power to choose what kind of person they’re going to be. The reason we read to them, the reason we tell them things, the reason we have rules and punishments and incentives in our house is to try to instill in them a good compass for making good choices.We created the 2024 New Year, New You Challenge for that person and for that reason—to help you create a better life, and a new you in 2024. It’s 3 weeks of actionable challenges, presented in an email per day, built around the best, most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy. It’s 3 weeks of waking up each morning, opening the email, and making a beautiful choice. And it will require 3 weeks of discipline and sacrifice and following the process.But when you see the results? Well, it will take your breath away. So sign up NOW to join us in the 2024 Daily Stoic New Year New You Challenge!✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Each of us is responsible for what we do as parents, but we’re also responsible for the dynamic that exists in our homes and in our relationships. Just because you’re the nice one, just because you do the repairing, just because you’re not as hard on your kids—that doesn’t mean that you’re not complicit in the stress or strain that’s being inflicted. It’s our job to create a safe and loving and supportive home. We can’t make excuses—Oh, he’s just under stress at work. Oh, that’s what she learned growing up. And this pertains to more than just punishment. It’s our job to get on the same pages as our spouse, our co-parent, their step-parent, our ex, whatever, and figure out how to do this right. If we’re struggling, if we sense something’s wrong? Well, we can’t deny it. We can’t make excuses for it. We can’t just leave our children to fend for themselves with it. Because what they’ll end up doing is blaming themselves…and eventually, inevitably, you too. For those tired of making excuses, we announced last week the 2024 New Year New You challenge. This set of 21 actionable challenges—presented one per day, built around the most timeless wisdom in Stoic philosophy—is really a set of 21 choices. Every morning, the email arrives in your inbox, and you have to choose. Will you take the easy way or the hard way? Will you read the email and leave it at that or will you take on the challenge? Will you get better this year? That’s the question. That’s the choice. That’s the responsibility you can accept. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There’s no question Hemingway was a great writer. He was the voice of a generation—The Lost Generation. He redefined prose style in the English language. His books have sold millions of copies. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.He wrote beautifully on love and family (A Farewell to Arms). He wrote beautifully on struggle and perseverance (The Old Man and the Sea). He was also a pretty awful husband and father. As one of his sons said, to Hemingway “family life [was] the enemy of accomplishment.” It was a thing that interfered with his greatness, his craft, his books. “On several occasions,” Patrick Hemingway recounted that Hemingway “said being a a good husband, being a good father…all of [these things were] not recognized by a reviewer when he reviewed his book.”✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad, Ryan talks to American stand-up comedian, actress, writer, director, producer, and podcaster Whitney Cummings on self-awareness, the ability to update the script, and the impressions we leave on our children.IG, X, and Tiktok: @WhitneyCummingsTo follow her on OnlyFans @Whitney✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It can be hard to express your feelings as a father sometimes. Not so much because men are expected to bottle up their emotions, but because the emotions that come with being a dad can be so overwhelming and complex. It’s a rush of a million feelings: love, joy, fear, absurdity, exhaustion, responsibility, motivation, and primal attachment.No one prepared you for any of this…and it’s unlike anything you’ve ever dealt with before. How do you express it? How do you let your family know what they mean to you? How they have you wrapped around their finger, how they are your everything?Maybe the line from The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse will suffice. “Sometimes I want to say I love you all,” says the mole, “but I find it difficult.” “Do you?” says the boy. “Yes, so I say something like I’m glad we are all here.”✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A parent is only as happy as their unhappiest child, goes the expression. And even if that wasn’t true, even if it didn’t directly impact our own happiness, would any of us want our children to be unhappy? Of course not. We love them so much. The last thing we want is for them to feel pain.We want their lives to be wonderful. We want them to have fun. We want them to have a great life. We want them to be happy!There’s nothing wrong with this…except that oftentimes trying to make someone happy is a recipe for failure. “Happiness is not my ultimate goal for my own kids,” Dr. Becky Kennedy writes in her amazing book Good Inside (which we continue to rave about). “Unhappiness certainly isn’t my goal for them, but here’s a deep irony in parenting: the more we emphasize our children’s happiness and ‘feeling better,’ the more we set them up for an adulthood of anxiety.”See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

He was a young man fresh out of the Naval Academy and a stint in the submarine service. He was being interviewed by Admiral Hyman Rickover for a coveted spot in the nuclear program. Then he got the question that changed his life.“How did you stand in your class at the academy?” Rickover asked. “Sir, I stood 59th in a class of 820,” future president Jimmy Carter answered. “But did you do your best?” Rickover asked. And when Carter could not honestly answer that he has always done his best, Rickover simply said, “Why not?” and then ended the interview.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We wanted it so badly and we never got it. We still haven’t got it. Dad was withholding, dad was hard to please—we wanted to make him proud, but we just couldn’t. That’s partly why we’re working so hard today.There’s some part of us that thinks if we can just accomplish enough, make enough money, win enough awards, surpass him then maybe, finally, we’ll get that begrudging pat on the back. We’ll get him to acknowledge us. He’ll let us know he respects us, loves us, and appreciates us. But somehow it never seems to be enough.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There are things you would have never done before. You’d never have sung a crazy song in public. You’d never have painted your nails. You would have vomited before you sucked snot out of someone’s nose (as Hasan Minhaj did). You’d have rather starved than put on a McUniform and work extra hours at some job you hate.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

“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.”On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad Podcast, Ryan reminds us to raise a resilient child by resisting the urge to intervene, helping them manage their emotions, showing them that everything thing can be figured out, and lastly leading by example. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.