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

These are lessons inspired by ancient philosophy, by practical wisdom, and insights from dads all over the world.

Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.

Don't let them get sick.

Every parent struggles with screen time, their kids' screen time, their own. We're all trying to

figure out how to be less dependent on these devices. We want to know we're spending the right

amount of time on them so that we get the most out of the technology without taking it too far.

We want to be confident that we're using the technology and that it's not using us. There's a great word out there

that describes what happens when we spend too much time on our phone, whether it's an adult

doom scrolling or a kid going down a YouTube unboxing rabbit hole. When you spend too much time

staring at a device, you get screen sick. You know, that insane place your kids get to when you turn

off the TV they were watching and tantrums ensue. That catatonic state when they're locked

into some ridiculous cartoon where the walls could be falling down around them and they wouldn't even

blink. The fantasy world, your teenager,

comes to mistake for reality after too many hours on the computer in their room. And what about

you? You know the symptoms. You're grouchy and hate humanity after seeing too much of its underbelly

on social media. You can't pay attention to anything but your email. The phantom vibrations of the phone in your

pocket steal your focus like the drip from a leaky faucet. We can have reasonable disagreements

about how much screen time is acceptable, but we know that any of this is a sign that something is

wrong. But the good news is this is a pretty easy illness to cure.

A phone-free day can cure it. Going outside for a couple hours can refocus your mind and reset your

spirit. But the bad news is that the people who made your phone and everything that goes on in it

...