It won’t be the recitals. Or the graduations. Or the expensive trips to theme parks. Or the birthdays or the Christmas mornings. When you think back on your life, the moments that fill you with nostalgia and love will be rather ordinary. We are just there. We don’t need it to be anything other than what it is…which is ordinary and extraordinary at the same time. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Jan 03, 2023•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Some people’s houses look like they don’t even have kids. You see it on the Instagram accounts of the picture-perfect influencers. Or you go to a dinner party at a house that seems way nicer than yours. Where is the evidence of the kids? The mess. The piles of toys. The smudges on the windows and the walls. You know these people have kids, but somehow it looks like regular people live there instead of feral animals. Maybe this makes those parents proud. Maybe this makes you jealous or insecure. ...
Jan 02, 2023•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad, Ryan sits down with writing partner Nils to talk about how parents can get things wrong when it comes to maintaining a relationship with their kids and how they can end up driving them away when all they want is their presence. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 31, 2022•13 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s important that you teach your kids about gratitude . Because it’s so easy to take life, to take the gifts we have been given, for granted. Especially when we’re stressed, when you’re a kid with homework or acne or a room to clean. This is a wonderful time to be alive. Even if it wasn’t—it’s amazing that any of us are alive at all. The odds are astronomically small that we are. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 30, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Regardless of what some people say, it never hurts to give your kids a positive word, or to tell them that you love them and are proud of them. In fact, that’s our job. Our job is to encourage and support and believe–not minimize or cut down to size. It’s to help them be what they are. They need that, from you most of all. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 29, 2022•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Every parent knows that kids make a great excuse. When people ask us to do something we’d rather not do, if we need a way to get out of a commitment we mistakenly agreed to, we have the perfect out: Sorry, something came up with the kids. Sorry, I can’t, I have to grab the kids. If we’d actually wanted to, we’d have found a way. But they don’t know that! ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 28, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast This is that weird time of year where we start to think about how we want the following year to go. We start thinking about what we call “resolutions”—the promises we make to ourselves about what we’re going to do in the next 12 months. Why is it that we wait to demand the best for and of ourselves? ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 27, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast It can sometimes feel like everything is falling apart. No one is behaving. No one is listening. Everyone is yelling. Causing problems. Making messes. In exasperation you find yourself shouting What is going on? Why is everyone giving me such a hard time today? ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 26, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Here on Christmas, and throughout this holiday season, take some time to think about what it will take to have that. Think about the choices you’re making with your kids now so that they’ll choose to fly from their homes to yours when they’re older and have families of their own. Think about the gifts you have to give them today—your love, your support, your presence—to receive the gift of a crowded table in the future. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitte...
Dec 25, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad Podcast Ryan shares a compilation of his best thoughts on how to form the best habits from this past year. Ranging from journaling, rules and expectations, and how to cultivate good physical and mental health, Ryan provides these excerpts to help prep you for what parenting in 2023 will bring you. Sign Up For New Year New You Challenge Here ! ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 24, 2022•15 min•Transcript available on Metacast When we think teacher, we think classroom. When we think leader, we think the corner office or the lectern or a general in front of their troops. But the truth is that a teacher can do their job anywhere and in many forms, just as a leader can. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 23, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Nobody wants to be like their parents…or like the adults they remember growing up. The ones who were clueless…or uncool. The ones who seemed to forget what it was like to be a kid. The ones who rhapsodized about the good old days and the way things used to be. But here’s the cold hard truth: You’re not different. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 22, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast You weren’t the parent you wanted to be in 2022. You weren’t the person you wanted to be in 2022. Almost no one was. And anyone who thinks or says they were is lying. None of us were 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 . ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , ...
Dec 21, 2022•5 min•Transcript available on Metacast Nobody’s listening. Everyone is grouchy. Grades are slipping. Siblings are fighting. What is happening , one spouse says to another. Why are the kids such a mess today? The answer is there in plain sight: The kids are a mess because *things are a mess .* ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 20, 2022•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast We encourage our children . We want to set them up to succeed. But we can’t merge their glory into our own . We can’t let them think they have to impress us, make us proud, or worry that they have let us down or failed us. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 19, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad, Ryan speaks with Susan Cain about parental relationships, not just with their children but their own parents and how past grievances can influence your role as a guardian. Susan Cain is a long time friend of Ryan, she also is the author of the bestsellers “ Quiet Power: The Secret Strengths of Introverted Kids ,” and “ Quiet: The Power of Introverts in A World That Can't Stop Talking ,” which is in its eighth year on The New York Times bestseller li...
Dec 17, 2022•23 min•Transcript available on Metacast Way too many parents are competitive . They see the car their neighbor is driving and they want to get a better one. They hear that a friend’s kid got into a fancy school and they think, “My kid is smarter. I’ve got to get them in there too.” We want to make more money than other parents, we want our kids tobeat other kids in sports, we want our kids to be cuter than other kids, we want our houses to be cleaner. Needless to say, this is mostly toxic and negative. Where should we channel it? 📱 F...
Dec 16, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast Epictetus said that the root of beauty was beautiful choices. “If your choices are beautiful,” he 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. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 15, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’re rightfully disappointed when we hear about a kid getting caught cheating. Whether it’s on a test or a violation of some NCAA policy, it’s good that we take these things seriously. The problem, of course, is the lack of self-awareness– on our parts. We must ask ourselves where did they learn this from? ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 14, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast We all know how hard our home life is, we know how it affects us–weighing on us, distracting us, making us act out. Well, we can safely assume that the same is true for everyone else. So we should then act with the corresponding empathy and understanding. Everyone is going through something . They don’t need more crap from you. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 13, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s a haunting thought that, in the busyness and day-to-dayness of parenting, we can so easily forget the little things. The chubby hands of our toddler. The squeaky voice of our teenager. The clear skin of our little boy or girl. The days when we could easily pick them up and carry them. The days when they needed us to drive them around or make their Halloween costumes. That will soon be gone. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook ...
Dec 12, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad Podcast, Ryan talks to Steven Rinella about his new book Outdoor Kids in an Inside World: Getting Your Family Out of the House and Radically Engaged with Nature (which you can pick up at the Painted Porch) , making sure your kids aren't spending too much time on screens, and how to find the right balance between pursuing your purpose and spending time with family. Steven is a conservationist and host of his own show MeatEater. ✉️ Sign up for the Dail...
Dec 11, 2022•27 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s a story as old as fatherhood itself. The son or daughter kills themselves to win the approval of their dad, which never seems to come. There is pain, resentment, bewilderment. I have worked so hard to make you proud, am I just not enough? Only at the end, or after the parent’s death, is it revealed: The child had the thing they wanted all along. They just never knew. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 09, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast You’re just trying to keep them safe. You’re just trying to help them. You’re just trying to look out for them. So you say or scream or text . Be careful! But you know what you’re really doing? ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 08, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast One thing that hits you from the very first moments of being a parent is the noise. Your children come out screaming and they don’t stop. It makes you realize how quiet life was before—a quiet you will never know again, except for those few odd hours in a hotel room on a business trip and the precious evening hours between their bedtime and yours. However, we must hear every one of these wonderful sounds. We must appreciate what each one represents and says to us. We must listen to them. ✉️ Sign...
Dec 07, 2022•4 min•Transcript available on Metacast You work hard. It keeps you busy. You are trying to provide for a family after all–to keep them safe and secure, so they never have to want or go without. That’s why you come home late, after they’re all asleep. That’s what has you rising early and heading to the airport, before anyone has stirred. It’s beautiful. It’s inspiring. It’s your job. It’s also sad. Very sad. And very easily the sign of something very broken. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter...
Dec 06, 2022•2 min•Transcript available on Metacast It’s not easy, this thing we’re trying to do. You’d think it would be: Billions of people have done it through history and the survival of our genes literally depends on it…yet here we are struggling. In need of all the help we can get. Today, we wanted to put together a list of stuff that has been of use to us here at Daily Dad over the years. Some books. Some items to carry with you or to keep on your desk. Some make for great holiday gifts. Some you might want to share with new or expecting p...
Dec 05, 2022•7 min•Transcript available on Metacast On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad Ryan compiles advice from his Daily Dad newsletter, podcasts, and interviews to share a highlight reel of 5 Parenting Don'ts. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 03, 2022•16 min•Transcript available on Metacast The Stoics remind us not only to focus on what’s in our control , but specifically in regards to aggravating people, they tell us that the best revenge is to not be like them . Don’t be angry. Live well. Don’t get sucked into a negative world, commit more deeply to a positive world that you do control–the one you live in with your family. The one where your children will not exist forever—so enjoy it now while you can. Put that energy where it counts. Put it where it makes you better. ✉️ Sign up...
Dec 02, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast We’ve said before: kids do well when they can. When you give them the opportunity, kids generally do the right thing. You don’t have to scream. You don’t have to force them to do their homework. You just have to give them the opportunity to show you they know what’s right…sometimes they just need one more chance to get there. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube...
Dec 01, 2022•3 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
