The Secret to Raising Kids Who Don’t Lose Hope | Sharon McMahon
The Daily Dad
Daily Dad
4.6 • 630 Ratings
🗓️ 21 February 2026
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It’s our job as parents to remind our kids that they’re not powerless, that no matter what’s happening around them, they can create change in themselves and in their communities. In this episode, Sharon McMahon, author of The Small and the Mighty, joins Ryan to talk about how we instill real, grounded hope in our kids and help them see that making a difference isn’t reserved for someone else. It’s within their reach.
Sharon is known as “America’s Government Teacher,” and after years as a high school government teacher, Sharon now runs the non-partisan, fact-based Instagram account @sharonsaysso. Sharon just released her book, The Small and the Mighty, where she proves that the most remarkable Americans are often ordinary people who didn’t make it into the textbooks.
📚 You can grab copies of The Small and the Mighty by Sharon McMahon at The Painted Porch.
🎙️Listen to Sharon’s FULL interview on The Daily Stoic podcast | Apple Podcasts & Spotify
Check out Sharon’s podcast Here’s Where It Gets Interesting and follow her on Instagram @SharonSaysSo and on X @Sharon_Says_So
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Dad podcast, where on the weekends, we do a deeper dive |
| 0:08.4 | and how to get better at our most important job, being a parent. Sometimes in these episodes, |
| 0:13.9 | I talk to best-selling authors and elite performers and other guests, but lately I've also |
| 0:18.5 | been having conversations with my wife, Samantha, the co-parent of my two |
| 0:22.6 | boys. We do it over in the Daily Stoic studio here in Bastrop, Texas. She and I talk about things |
| 0:29.0 | that we're working on as parents, things that we're working on as people, and how we are supporting |
| 0:35.8 | each other, challenging each other, and like I said, trying to get better at what we do. |
| 0:41.6 | Guest or not, I hope you hear some ideas here that will help make you a better parent. |
| 0:47.2 | I was better for having the conversation. |
| 0:48.9 | I hope you enjoy. |
| 1:27.8 | Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Dad podcast. There's a lot going on all the time, right? As parents, you have so much on your plate. You've got to get your kids to school. You've got to get them to practice. You've got to feed them. You've got your own job to do. You've got your marriage to work on. And then there's just like all the stuff that's going on in the world that makes maybe you feel a bit nervous or anxious. Maybe it makes you stressed out. Maybe it makes you want to despair. Maybe it makes you angry. Maybe it makes you really disappointed, right? |
| 1:31.1 | Like you watch what's happening and you go, |
| 1:34.2 | what kind of world am I leaving to my kids? |
| 1:37.4 | What kind of world is this? |
| 1:40.7 | And I think it's really important. |
| 1:42.8 | We've talked about this a bunch over the years that, like, we don't rob our kids of their innocence. |
| 1:49.8 | We don't make them cynical before their time. |
| 1:53.2 | That obviously we have to do our best to remain helpful because our job is to not just dream about a better world, but make a better world for our kids. |
| 2:03.1 | But more importantly, we have to make our kids believe that a better world is possible. |
| 2:09.0 | That's what that amazing poem, Good Bones, is about. |
| 2:12.8 | I love it, right? |
| 2:13.9 | You've got to tell them this place has real potential, it says, that there's |
... |
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