Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast.

Every Dad needs a little help, and that's why we made this podcast.

It's one inspiring, philosophically driven, historical-driven, lesson about fatherhood

that you can use to do your most important job a little bit better.

Curb sometimes spur at others. Seneca was a father, though we don't know much, if anything,

about his son. We know that he was a wonderful uncle and that he struggled valiantly as a tutor to rein in the impulses of Nero. What kind of

father was he? How did he teach his young charges? We don't have many specifics. But in his essay

of anger, Seneca gives us fathers some advice on how to raise our kids,

specifically when it comes to making sure they are not spoiled, mean, or cruel. And here is a thought

from Seneca this morning on the importance of encouragement and freedom. He writes,

A boy's spirit is increased by freedom and depressed by

slavery. It rises when praised and it is led to conceive great expectations of itself. Yet this same

treatment produces arrogance and quickness of temper. We must therefore guide him between these two extremes,

using the curb at one time and the spur at

others.

He must undergo no servile or degrading treatment.

He must never beg objectively for anything, nor must he gain anything by begging.

Let him rather receive it for his own sake, for his past good behavior, or for his promises

of future good contact.

Our job as dads is to encourage as well as to enforce, to spur as well as curb.

One kid might need more of one while another kid needs less of the other.

The same kid on different days might need different things. But that's what you're

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