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.

Let them have a seat at the table. You host a dinner party or the whole extended family is together for a holiday or a couple of friends stopped by. Most of us remember how this went when we were young. The adults sit at one table, all the kids at another table, if not in another room. After everyone eats, the kids are shoot away.

Go outside and play.

Go downstairs and watch a movie.

Go upstairs and put your pajamas on and play on your iPad.

It makes sense.

Adults want to spend time with adults.

And not everything is appropriate for kids to hear or be a part of.

And it's good for kids to be with other kids too.

But we want our kids to mature, right? We want them to be able to hold a conversation with adults.

We want them to understand what's going on in the world. So why do we always exclude them from the

opportunities to do so? In his autobiography, Ben Franklin wrote about how it was one of

the best things his father did. I remember well, he said, his being frequently visited by leading people.

At his table, he liked to have as often as he could, some sensible friend or neighbor to converse with

and always took care to start some ingenious or useful

topic for discourse, which might tend to improve the minds of his children. By this means,

he turned our attention to what was good, just, and prudent in the conduct of life. Let us try to

follow that example with our own children. If we want to raise grownups,

there is no better education than letting them be around grown-up conversation. And there is no safer

place for them to make their first forays and stumbles in that world and in the seat right next

...