Welcome to the Daily Dad podcast where we provide one lesson every day to help you with your

most important job being a dad. These are lessons inspired by ancient philosophy, by practical

wisdom, and insights from dads all over the world.

Thank you for listening, and we hope this helps.

What do you never want them to think?

Imagine you're gone and able to look down now and see your kids from above.

Or imagine that somehow you had magical powers and you could see inside their heads and read their thoughts.

What is it that you would never want them to witness?

What is it that you would never want them to feel?

Not failure, obviously, because you know that's part of life. Not suffering,

because within reason, that is part of life too, as Buddha says. But you would never want them to

feel stupid or feel unloved or feel that they had to earn your approval. You would never want them to

feel worthless or find out that they really needed you but were afraid to come to you for help.

You would never want them to think that you were too busy for them or that you cared about

their success more than their happiness. This is basic stuff, right? Okay, but honestly,

if you really looked at your behavior, do you think you contribute to those exact feelings? They come to you,

and instead of listening, you rushed in with judgment or lecture. You criticize more than you

compliment. You are cold or easily disappointed because you're still dealing with your own issues.

You lost your temper. You said harsh things. Every father does this. We make our kids feel a way

that if we heard their boyfriend or their boss made them feel we'd drive down and kick their ass.

We do it because we're not aware enough because we don't take our influence seriously enough.

And that's not okay. We can do better. We have to do better. Imagine you can see the

...