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.

Show them how to use that energy.

Joan Didion was bored.

She was four or five.

She was bothering her mother.

She was asking for something to do.

Her mother could have sent her away.

She could have told her to stop.

She could have told her to figure it out for herself.

Instead, she went over to a drawer and pulled out a notebook.

Here she said, if you're bored, then write something, then you can read it.

The little girl was taken aback.

I'd just learned to read, she later explained.

So this was a thrilling kind of moment, the idea that I could write something and then read it.

Anyone who has read and loved her books, The Year of Magical Thinking or slouching

towards Bethlehem or any of Didion's beautiful novels should be grateful for this moment.

As a bookseller, I'm grateful for them. We carry a bunch of them in the bookstore. Every parent

should learn from this too. Kids don't always understand that they have the tools to fix their

own problems. They don't fully realize the latent capacities inside them. Our job, as we have said here many times before,

...