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.

That they scared you is not an excuse.

Any parent can tell you the maddest they ever got at their kids was not because they did something wrong.

It's not because they did something that pissed you off or hurt your feelings.

It was because they scared you by running away in a parking lot,

by getting caught with some dangerous drugs, by not coming

home at curfew, by playing with something you told them never to touch without an adult present.

The reason you react so intensely in these moments is because the feeling you feel was so intense.

You care about this person more than anything else in the world, and here they

were risking that, endangering that out of ignorance, out of selfishness, out of stupidity, by not

listening, by not taking you seriously. And this was obviously what was at the root of the story

we told recently about Jimmy Carter. He had gone out to sleep in his treehouse and not answered

when his parents

called him. They must have been worried sick. Where was he? Did something happen? And the father gave him

the whipping of his life so he didn't ever, ever, ever have to feel something like that again.

Well, guess what? That's still not okay. Your emotions are not to be taken out on your child.

Who, by the way, cannot possibly comprehend a parents' worry until

they become one themselves. The outlet for your frustration and fear and anxiety and anger is not

your child, especially when you claim that the severity of those feelings is rooted in your

love for them. Really, Jimmy's father cared so much that he whipped his son? How silly does that

...