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.

Help them understand this distinction. It'd be wonderful if they never got upset, if they were

never tempted, if they

never felt like breaking the rules or breaking stuff. That's not really what being a kid is about,

is it? It's not really how being a human is either. We have emotions. We experience stressful

situations. We have intrusive thoughts. So what we really have to teach our kids, Dr. Becky

writes in her spectacular book, Good Inside,

is how to differentiate urge from action.

Having the urge to bite is okay.

She explains biting a person is not.

Having the urge to hit is okay.

Hitting a person is not okay.

We know this to be true in our adult lives, that there's a big

difference between being angry and then doing something rash or irresponsible or hurtful out of anger.

We know that we can type the email and not send it. We know that we can want to quit on the spot,

but think better of it. Parents often have the goal of getting rid of the urge, Dr. Becky writes.

What's wrong with it? Why would you want to hurt someone?

But it's better, she says, if we can try to humanizing the urge and then shifting where we allow a child to discharge it,

because it allows the child to gain regulation and over time make better decisions.

Instead of shaming them for the feeling, which is not in our

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