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 Holliday, 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. Take this seriously. They're scared there's

something under their bed or in their closet. They tell you they don't want to have to go

to school today. They tell you they feel depressed. They tell you that they think somebody hates them.

They tell you that they hate playing this sport or practicing this instrument. You care, of course,

but you also know that monsters don't exist. You know that going to school is important. You know that

life is full of phases and ups and downs and that

most of the time pushing through it is about all it takes. And you're not wrong. But what you're doing

is not taking their emotions seriously. You're papering over, you're arguing, you're pushing them and

it aside. We talked recently about taking kids seriously and to do that, you have to stop doing this

because it isn't fair.

You can say to your kids instead, look, I get that you're scared to get on this airplane

and that's okay.

I'm not scared because I've done this a million times.

I've done the research.

I know it's safe.

You can feel scared.

Just know that I'm not that I've got you. You can actually listen to the reasons they think their teacher is being unfair, and who knows, they might have a point. You can help them find a sport they like better, so they're not quitting, which is really what you're worried about. They're not quitting. They're trying something better. What you're really worried about is whether they're quitting. You can help them find

their lane, which is what they really want, which is what you really want. And you can let them

tell you, as we've talked about before, how the decisions you've made have hurt and frustrated them.

You don't need to argue. You can just apologize and accept that to them, it is true. Our kids' emotions are their emotions,

...