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.

Nobody likes a spoiled child. There is nothing more lovely and more wonderful than a child.

Their laugh, their joy, the cute things they say, but like every sweet thing can easily turn sour.

There is a certain beauty in the child. The beauty of innocence and docility, wrote the Catholic

philosopher Doug McMahon.

But there is nothing beautiful about a spoiled child. You're not doing your kids any favors by giving them

everything they want. You're not helping them by removing every difficulty and preventing all

adversity. You're not making life easier by fighting all their battles. You're not rewarding them

by over-indulging them. No, you're spoiling them. And you're certainly not doing much of a service

for the world in the process either. Instead, you're setting them up for a very tough and unpleasant

time in this life. You are, in fact, making them very weak, very unpleasant. It may well be, as F. Scott Fitzgerald

found that your kids will resent you for this, or they will become dependent on you. Or you may both,

as we saw in the college admissions scandal, end up in a dark place together. Don't spoil them.

All things in moderation, even as you love them as much as humanly possible

it's a difficult balance for sure that the stakes are too high not to get it right 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 them and encourage them and believe in them. Of course, that doesn't mean we need

to do everything for them. We need to let them struggle and emerge. Remember that iron sharpens

iron, resistance builds muscle. They'll be better for it. And look, this is one of the reasons

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