On this weekend episode of The Daily Dad Ryan talks about being an "activity addict" and how he and his wife balance knowing when it's time to just rest. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
You want to raise kids who aren’t entitled. Who are self-sufficient. Who are decent and kind, part of the solutions not the problems of the world and of their generation. Successful or struggling, you want your kids to be generous. With their time, with their money, with their talents. Rather than let the Black Friday spirit of materialism and selfishness infect us, let us contribute to something bigger than ourselves. Let us be good Stoics today, just head over to dailystoic.com/feeding —togeth...
Today and always we should be grateful. To choose resentment or envy, bitterness or fear, anxiety or anger–because your flight was delayed? Because your band teacher is a jerk? Because your marriage fell apart? This is to spit in the face of so many people who have so much less. Gratitude, always. That is the way. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube We are thankful today and every day for all of you. Thank you for being a...
Pretty much every parent wants to raise kids who turn out to be good people . So it's important to show them that moral excellence is what matters. That being a good person is not just what you pay lip service to, but what you are always thinking about. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
We sweat so much. Whether we’re on our phone too much, when we could (and should) be playing with our kids. Whether their lunch yesterday was perfect. Whether we attend every dance recital and graduation. Whether we’re doing enough. Whether they’ll hate us forever for not letting them go to this school trip or that sleepover. Whether they’re scarred forever because we lost our temper or forgot something they needed or couldn’t afford something they wanted because everyone else has one. ✉️ Sign u...
Your son failed a test. He hit his brother. Your daughter forgot to do her homework. She scratched your car and lied about it. They are acting insane and you need it to stop. You just desperately want them to grasp the stakes of what’s happening. So you yell. You threaten timeout. You threaten to ground them. You don’t hold back. But it doesn’t work. Of course, it doesn’t work. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
On this weekend episode of The Daily Dad Ryan riffs about how he handled his kids outgrowing their stroller and his clever way to get them excited about exercising. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
As it happens, this is good advice for fathers as well. It’s easy to go into it thinking that you know. Because you’ve read the books. Because you’re on your third kid now and have it handled. Because you and your spouse have a plan for how to do it all right. And then guess what? Unavoidable reality quickly humbles anyone with this kind of certainty. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Across cultures, across generations, across politics and moments in time, this having kids thing–it just cuts through everything. You probably know very little about the Easter Uprising in Ireland. You don’t have to know who Michael Mallin was. You don’t have to know what motivated him to join an armed revolution against the British. You don’t have to know what he did as one of its leaders. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , You...
You’re pretty sure you know what’s best for your kids. You’re sure something they are considering is a bad idea. You’re sure they shouldn’t drop out of school. You’re sure they shouldn’t hang out with that kid. You’re sure they should take this job instead of that one. And usually you’re right. Usually , you know better. But do you know best? Really? How can you be so sure? ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
It can feel like there is never enough time as a parent. And it’s true, there isn’t…yet part of this is our fault. As Seneca would say, it’s not just that life is short, it's that we waste a lot of it. As parents we have to look for opportunities to save time…so we can spend more of it with the people we love. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
We’ve said before that parenting is a grind . It’s exhausting. It can all seem so humdrum, even a burden. Staying up with an overtired toddler. Staying up until curfew to check on a teenager. There will come a time that you’ll look back on even the most difficult moments of this journey and be nostalgic for it. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad, Ryan recaps his trip to Disneyland with his family and how he was able to teach his kids about the importance of gratitude. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
It’s interesting to think about the steady decline in expectations for our kids when it comes to reading. Sure, we want them to be able to read earlier than ever, but what about what they read? ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
You wouldn’t think of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius as a parenting book. The former Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao said all entrepreneurs, economists and politicians should read Meditations (and several American presidents have too). General James Mattis said every soldier should read Meditations . Actors recommend it to others in show business. Athletes recommend it to others in sports. Writers recommend it to other writers. Founders recommend it to others setting out to start a business. B...
This seems like such a fraught moment in time. There was a pandemic. There’s been civil unrest. It feels like institutions are falling apart. Naturally, this scares us as parents. We’d like to look at the world before us is with fear and anger. But there's another way: gratitude , and determination. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Today is Election Day in America (and countries all over the world will have theirs sometime soon). If you don’t vote, if you can’t be bothered to participate, then how can you say you really want your kids to have a better life? How can you really say you’d do anything to protect them? Do this for them. It’s literally the least you can do. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Each of us goes into this with opinions–so many opinions. Not just about parenting but about other parents. Parents who let their kids have lots of screentime. Parents of kids with “ADHD.” Divorced parents. Parents who ply their kids with soda and sugary cereals to get them to behave. Because we think we know better, or at least we’re confident that we know “the right way” to do things. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Ryan talks about a recent chaotic travel week when he was reminded about how easily life can take you away from what actually matters. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com Check out the Daily Dad Store https://store.dailydad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
You’re not a babysitter. You’re not some lesser figure in your kids’ lives. When you are with them—and when you are not with them— you’re their father. That matters. It’s an important job , one that you should take seriously and never demean (and not let others demean, either). You’re doing it because you love it , because you get something out of it, and you know what kind of impact it has. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , Yo...
The famous screenwriter’s maxim is “show don’t tell.” Marcus Aurelius said it’s a waste of time to speculate or argue about what makes a good man, a good athlete, a good teammate, a good parent. Our job, he said, was to be one . We can have great conversations. We can give them a great lecture. But what matters is what we model. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Not every parent is a public figure, but each of us are constrained by the same amount of finite energy. And it could be argued that in a world of social media, we do have a presence on platforms with the potential to expose us to endless amounts of people who disagree or dislike us. The question is: Are you going to get bogged down by this or ignore it? ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
It’s impossible to do this all, isn’t it? We have all the tasks, responsibilities, and aspirations we’ve always had–eating and sleeping and working and paying our taxes and taking out the trash and following our dreams–but now we have little people to care for on top of all that. Little helpless people with infinite needs. How can we do it all? ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Michael Lewis tells the story of a coach named Jack Kenney who changed his life. One morning at an overnight tennis camp, all the campers stormed the dining hall to try to get their favorite box of cereal. The options ranged from Froot Loops every kid likes to the dark bran stuff no kid likes. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
On this weekend's episode of Daily Dad Ryan chats with his writing partner Nils Parker about different parenting topics and how to respond to outsider opinions and parenting expectations. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
The great physicist Richard Feynman had a father who instilled his brilliant son with an interesting perspective about the world. Sitting down, he would lay the newspaper out on the table and ask his boy questions about what they saw and read. Once, when they came upon a photo of the Pope blessing a group of believers, Richard’s father asked his son if he knew the difference between the Pope and his followers. And then, before Richard could answer, he said, “The difference is the hat. He is wear...
Your job is to be a fan of your kids. We’ve said this before. Your job is to help them become who they are. We’ve said that too . Your job is to help them find “their project,” their “life’s task.” We’ve said all that, and hopefully you’ve gotten the message. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
We talked recently about this choice we have as parents –about what we choose to see. Just like everyone has the choice to see the cup as half full or half empty, as parents we have a lot of power over the lens that we bring to each parenting situation, each crisis, each potential frustration. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Any parent can tell you, the maddest they ever got at your kids is not because they did something to pissed you off or hurt your feelings. It was because they scared you. By running away in a parking lot. By getting caught with some dangerous drugs. By not coming home at curfew. By playing with something you told them they could never touch without an adult present. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
We must take two seemingly contradictory facts seriously at the same time. The first is that many parents are way too risk averse, overwhelmed by anxieties and worries about incredibly rare or unlikely dangers. The second is that, to paraphrase the writer Morgan Housel, things that never happen, happen all the time . ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
