Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast, where we provide one lesson every single day to help you with your most important job, being a parent.

I'm Ryan Holiday, and I draw these lessons from ancient philosophy, modern psychology, practical wisdom, and insights from parents just like you all over the world.

Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.

Be careful of telling them to be careful. You're just trying to keep them safe you're just trying to help

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 you're putting a voice in their head a voice of nervousness and worry and

anxiety a voice that prevents them from trying and risking,

a voice that steers them into always doing the safe and easy thing.

We've talked about how we have to be careful of the implications of words we throw around.

We have to always consider how our kids will interpret them.

We talked about how we have to let them do difficult and dangerous things.

Locter et emergo. We have to let them struggle and emerge. So we have to find better ways to communicate

when we're worried about them. We can say notice how slippery the driveway is or try taking

little steps first. We can ask them, slippery the driveway is or try taking little steps first.

We can ask them, does that branch seem sturdy?

Or do you feel how hot it is this close to the fire?

Or if you made it to the top of the tree, what would your plan be for getting down?

And we can say the same thing when they think about dropping out of school. Instead of

being careful, teach them to be aware, instead of avoiding difficulty, teach them to be problem

solvers, teach them how to take chances to get up when they fall, to learn from their experiences

to live.

As parents who want the best for their kids, we all need a reminder, something tangible to remind us. Difficulty is forging our kids who they're meant to be. We have to be there for

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