The Daily Dad

On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad,  Ryan talks with his wife Samantha on doing less by saying no, physically being present and the cost of every opportunity.  ✉️ 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-se...

Because you’re in charge, because you’re so much bigger and stronger and smarter, it’s easy to get trapped into a battle of wills with your kids. Don’t do that or else! Because I said so. Oh, you think it’s like that, do you? We put our foot down. We tell them how it’s going to be. We argue. Sometimes, at the very, very end of our rope, we lock them in their room. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad emai...

Is there anything better than the feeling of your kid’s head on your chest? Them running towards you at pick up time? Seeing their name pop up as an incoming call on your phone? Them asking for advice? Them asking to show you something? ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube      See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy...

Tom Brady has always been relentless about trying to get better. Trying to get his passes out quicker. Trying to get his spirals a little tighter. Trying to optimize his diet. Trying to recover from games faster. ✉️ 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...

We know the world throws a lot at our kids. We know it’s noisy out there and there are competing influences. We know they’re pretty forgetful too. These are kids that can barely remember where their backpack is…how are we supposed to communicate the most essential and important truths of life ? How do we get them to remember what we tell them? ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Fo...

One thing we know for certain is that our kids will go through things. They’ll have a crisis of identity, of faith, of social status. They’ll be overwhelmed. They’ll be confused. They’ll have questions. They’ll doubt 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 Ca...

On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad,  Ryan talks with one of his favorite writers Austin Kleon on Parenting strategies before and after writing a book, and Creativity within your household.  ✉️ 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:/...

We know that our kids want to feel good, feel safe, feel loved. We know they want to feel that someone is proud of them, that they’re talented, that they’re worth something. We also know that they’ll want to have fun, take risks, mess up, be crazy, and feel the pleasures of the world. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube    ...

It matters far less what a person does in life than how they do it. An exploitative corporate executive might have an expense account and a fancy title, but we all admire the hardworking and selfless teacher more. And we certainly acknowledge that, whatever the differences in salary, one contributes far more to society. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter...

Unless you are currently in line for a hereditary throne, it’s unlikely your children will ever be a king or a queen. This is a good thing, as it seems like both a thankless and toxic job–to say nothing of its effectiveness as a form of government. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube      See Privacy Policy at https://art19...

Few of us felt completely understood as kids. At a young age, our parents didn’t quite understand what we were saying, what we wanted, how much we missed them when they were gone, how scared we were when we were alone. When we got older, they didn’t seem to remember just how hard it was to be a teenager, how overwhelming the world was, how different we felt from others, how behind we sometimes fel...

We put our family first. That’s what we believe. That’s what we say. That’s the first commandment in the Daily Stoic Parenting Challenge . That’s the advice we give other parents. That’s effectively what we tell our kids too: You’re the most important thing in the world to me. And then almost every single day, in countless ways, we fail to live up to those words. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email...

Happy Father’s Day to everyone! It’s pretty incredible how concise Marcus Aurelius is throughout Meditations . There are nearly 500 passages throughout, and rarely is a passage longer than a few sentences. ✉️ 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...

On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad,  Ryan talks with his wife Samantha on setting our kids and ourselves up for success, creating space by doing less and building the confidence to remain consistent.   ✉️ 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 Not...

The point is not to get good grades. The point is not a good score on their SATs. It’s not about what college they get into. College is not about what kind of job they can snag. Success in school is not succeeding  in school . ✉️ 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 Calif...

Think of all the stuff you know. The skills you have. The movie quotes you can throw out there mid-conversation. It’s interesting, isn’t it? You remember more from a two-hour movie than from the museums you were dragged to. You learned more from Wikipedia rabbit holes you fell down than you do from a couple decades in school. What’s that about? ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 F...

Of course, her father would have preferred to be powerful, to be wealthy, to hold some prestigious position. He didn’t want to dig sewage canals or wait on entitled aristocrats. He didn’t want to be at the bottom of Rome’s social hierarchy. Nobody would choose that life. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube      See Privacy...

Some of the things your kids think are ridiculous–products of their imagination or their fears. Some of the things they like are hilarious and weird–the products of their own uniqueness, products of just not knowing better. Some of the feelings they have are not your fault–again, they have imaginations and fears. Some of their feelings are products of mistakes you’ve made, flaws you have. ✉️ Sign...

Nobody would have wanted Joseph Kennedy to be their dad. He was an avaricious businessman. He cheated on his wife. He had his daughter lobotomized and sent away. He was controlling and manipulative. He saw his kids as extensions of himself. As we wrote recently , one of the only reasons Robert F. Kennedy turned out differently than his siblings is that he was mostly ignored and left alone by his p...

On this weekend episode of the Daily Dad,  Ryan talks with his wife Samantha on screen time & the differences in parenting moods in the morning. ✉️ 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 .

When your kids mess up, what’s your reaction? Do you freak out? Or are you calm? Do you make the situation better...or worse? ​ Can you actually listen? ​ Or are you halfway through a solution before they’ve even gotten two words of explanation out of their mouths?  ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDad.com 📱 Follow Daily Dad: Twitter , Instagram , Facebook , YouTube      See Privacy Polic...

It was a long time ago. It was in a pretty conservative place, in a less understanding era. And even if it wasn’t, even in different circumstances, no parent wants to walk in to see their teenager making out with someone in their room. But in this case, a mom had been stunned to find her daughter on top of the covers with her daughter’s best girl friend. ✉️ Sign up for the Daily Dad email: DailyDa...

There’s something that strikes us as a little gross, the way politicians trot out their families to win elections, to humanize themselves or get sympathy when they screw up. There’s something exploitative about the way celebrities use pregnancy announcements or events in their kids’ life to get publicity. And there’s something plain weird about the way that some influencers turn their kids into co...

Sometimes it feels like it would be easier if they just did what we wanted. If they could sit there for a second, as we try to handle something. If they could just pose for the photo. If they could keep the clothes we got them nice and clean. If they would play the role we hoped for, fulfill the dreams we have for them–go to the school, get the job we pick, have the wedding we plan for them in our...

Education these days seems to be about signals. What did you get on your SATs? How many AP classes did you take? What schools did you apply to? What extracurriculars did you practice? Even some of the modern strain of political correctness, critics have said, is really just a way for people to prove that they are more educated than other people–that they were taught the right words for this and th...