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.

This is a sign you're doing great.

We all sit up at night and wonder if we're doing a good job,

if we're failing our kids, if we're raising them right? And we kick ourselves for what we feed them,

whether we're meeting all their needs, whether we're learning, whether they're learning.

And it can be hard to know what to measure, how to measure what kind of progress we're making.

Well, here's a helpful idea from the Stoics.

Epictetus said that a beautiful and good person neither fights with anyone nor as much as they

are able permits others to fight. Of course, all kids fight. That's the nature of siblings,

but how much do parents and kids have to fight? How much of the fights in your house are actually necessary?

We've talked many times here about letting go of the things that don't matter.

Call it the philosophical approach to parenting. Do you really need to argue about their taste in music, about their posture at the dinner table, about half the things you've chided or criticized them for?

An educated person, Epictetus says, has learned what is their own affair and what is not.

They also know what is truly valuable. In this case, it's your relationship with your kids,

their sense of being loved, of their home being safe and accepting. So what if they put a piece of

tape on a wall that might pull off some paint? So what if they put a piece of tape on a wall that

might pull off some paint? So what if they spill the food on their clothes? So what if they're a little

late getting to bed? So what if they got a B-minus? These are not things that need to be argued about.

These are not things that matter. And a sign you're making progress as a parent is your ability to avoid these

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