The Daily Dad

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 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-i...

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 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19...

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. Write...

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 , Faceboo...

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 📱 Follo...

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...

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 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19...

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. ✉️ Si...

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:...

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: DailyDa...

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 📱 F...

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 , Yo...

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 See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/p...

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 h...

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 See Privacy Policy at https:/...

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 , Yo...

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 em...

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 , I...

On this weekend's episode Ryan shares his youngest son's reaction to his book making the New York Times Best Seller list, diving into what kids truly care about when it comes to your role as a parent. ✉️ 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 live in a world awash with ego. We see it every day. We can see the ego of our boss, and how it has turned the office against them. We can see ego in politicians and professional athletes. We can see it in our kid’s teacher, perhaps, when they get in some pissing match with another parent or are threatened by a precious student. As they get older, we can even see ego in our own kids—thinking th...

In 2021, in the midst of a terrible storm that not only killed hundreds of Texans but left millions without power, U.S. Senator Ted Cruz fled the state for the warmer weather of Mexico. It was, of course, a shameful abdication of leadership and responsibility that surprised absolutely no one who knows anything about Ted Cruz, especially members of his own party. If that wasn’t enough, Cruz would t...

We would love for our kids to be perfect. To not just be born with ten fingers and ten toes, but flawless genetics and impeccable luck so nothing bad ever happens to them, so they are never sick and never in pain. However, the inevitable is true: everyone has something.  📕 Ryan Holiday's new book " Discipline Is Destiny " is out now! We’ve extended the pre-order bonuses for the next week —among t...

The story of George Washington and the cherry tree is not a true one. It is also, as we’ve written here before , not a story whose moral is about lying. It’s actually about the complex relationship between a parent and a child, one where the child trusts the parent enough to tell the truth, even when they have done wrong, and a parent who respects their child enough not to punish this kind of hone...

There’s so much we don’t control as parents. We don’t control what’s happening in the world. We don’t control what our kids are going through. We don’t even really control what they do–not as much as we’d like to think anyway. But the one thing we do control, the Stoics would say, is how we choose to look at things. We choose what handle we grab in each situation, the story we tell ourselves about...

Daily Dad on Staying Present with the Kids When Traveling for Work Ryan talks to his friend and writing partner Nils Parker about the impact traveling for work can have on the relationship with your kids and spouse.  ✉️ 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 See Privacy...