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.

The games mean more than you think. It was supposed to be a somber, serious place of business, but Lincoln led his kids,

as we said, turn his law office into a playroom. They spilled things. They made so much noise.

They pulled books off the shelf. They did the same thing at the White House, at one point

attaching a cart to their pet goats and riding through the halls.

Lincoln not only indulged this mayhem, he often encouraged and participated fully in their games.

There are pictures of his son Tad in a replica soldier's uniform, and Lincoln and his wife,

Mary Todd, often reviewed his little soldier with the solemnness that they gave to actual soldiers.

One of the games his boys liked to play was sentencing one of their toy soldiers to death for desertion. When they executed

the figurine and buried it in the garden, the White House groundskeeper came to Lincoln to complain.

Lincoln, with a smile, fixed the problem by writing an official pardon for the soldier and informing

the boys he could no longer

be so punished. Lincoln even helped the boys set up a fort on the roof of the building,

securing for them some logs to use as cannons. All these games must have been noisy. They must have

been disruptive. In some cases, they spurred controversies and criticisms. But Lincoln

understood that children needed to play and that the games they played were more than just

amusements. They were ways that the children processed what was happening around them. Instead of

shutting these games down, Lincoln took them seriously. He suspended disbelief. He entered their world.

Imagine what that must have meant, how comforting that must have been, to both the father and the

sons in a country torn apart by war. In the August 10th entry of the Daily Dad Book, you can

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