This Will Make Your Life (And Kids) Better
The Daily Dad
Daily Dad
4.6 • 630 Ratings
🗓️ 6 December 2023
⏱️ 7 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Most times, we’re in need of all the help we can get. We read parenting books, or watch parenting videos, trying to find those keys to make our lives just a little bit easier. That’s why we created the Daily Dad email, after all. Seneca said that we ought to acquire one thing per day – whether that’s a quote, a story, a relationship that makes us better, it doesn’t matter. We try to deliver that one thing in each email.
But of course, we couldn’t do it alone. When trying to deliver that one thing to you each day, we often need one thing ourselves to inspire us, to help us become the best people and parents that we can be. Some of these things are books. Some are items to carry with you, or to keep on your desk. Some make for great holiday gifts. Some you might want to share with new or expecting parents.
In any form, check them out…and pass them along if they work.
The Daily Dad: 366 Meditations on Love, Parenting, and Raising Great Kids by Ryan Holiday
In each of his letters to his friend Lucilius , Seneca would include a quote, something to chew on, a thought to guide the day. “Each day,” he told Lucilius, you should “acquire something that will fortify you against poverty, against death, indeed against other misfortunes, as well.” Just one thing.
Good Inside: A Guide to Becoming the Parent You Want to Be by Dr. Becky Kennedy
When we talk about parenting books that completely change your perspective about raising your kids, we’re probably talking about this one. We’ve talked about it plenty of times before (like here, here, and here), and will inevitably keep returning to it, not only because it’s a book about becoming a better parent, but it’s also about simply becoming a better person. It’s about building empathy.
How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes by Melinda Wenner Moyer
At some point, we’ve all been scared that our kids will be bad people, that they won’t be the respectful and hard-working person we thought we raised them to be.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | 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. |
| 0:15.6 | I'm Ryan Holiday, and I draw these lessons from ancient philosophy, modern psychology, practical wisdom, |
| 0:23.1 | and insights from parents just like you all over the world. |
| 0:27.2 | Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps. |
| 0:32.7 | This will make your life and your kids better. |
| 0:36.4 | Look, it's not easy this thing we're trying to do. |
| 0:39.2 | You'd think parenting would be simpler or more natural. I mean, billions of people have done it |
| 0:43.1 | through history and the survival of our genes literally depends on it. But we're all struggling. |
| 0:48.3 | We're all in need of as much help as we can get. That's obviously the premise of the Daily Dad email. |
| 0:56.3 | Seneca's line was that we ought to try to acquire one thing a day, a quote, a story, a relationship, an insight that makes |
| 1:01.2 | us better. And we try to deliver that in the emails. But in today's episode, I wanted to bring you |
| 1:06.4 | some of my favorite things, some recommendations as we go into the holidays that I think will make |
| 1:11.3 | you and your kids better. The first is a book by Melinda Wener-Moyer called How to Raise Kids |
| 1:16.8 | Who Aren't Asholes. Melinda's an author after my own heart. She's putting aside most of |
| 1:22.9 | the classic parenting questions, what kind of sleep training, formula, breastfeeding, screen time, |
| 2:00.8 | and instead focused on how do we make sure that our kids aren't jerks, that they're not spoiled, who are kind, who work hard, or respectful, or empathetic. And I think this book is a wonderful set of answers to that questions. I'll link to all the stuff in today's show notes, but I can't recommend enough how to raise kids who aren't assholes. I'm a little biased. I would recommend two other books, the boy who would be king and the girl who would be free. Obviously, a question I get that I think about a lot myself is, you know, how do you teach your kid's stoicism? How do you introduce them to it? Because we all wish we'd heard it earlier. Well, I tried to write the boy who would be king and the girl who would be free as two fables building around the insights, the ideas of stoicism. |
| 2:07.9 | So your kids can see the ideas. It's a show, don't tell, kind of a book. They can see the ideas, |
| 2:13.9 | inculcate them. And I found with my own kids, like, you know, my son was accusing my other |
| 2:18.7 | son of cheating at something the other day or hurting him in some way. And I, you know, I said, what does Marcus really say in the boy who would be king, right? He says, the best revenge is to not be like that. And he gets it because he saw it in this kid's book. So that's what I tried to do. I think you'll like that. |
| 2:14.5 | I'll link to them in today's show notes, |
| 2:15.6 | but you can also just go to daily stoic.com slash king |
| 2:37.2 | and daily stoic.com slash free. This is another recommendation. This is my Tempest fugit |
... |
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