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.

Brooding, sullen, moodily, immature. He aches to impress people. He takes crazy risks. He bursts into tears and then is

mortified by it. He talks back to his mother. He can't even conceive that she might too be going

through something. This isn't a description of your teenager, however much it might seem. It is in fact

an ancient poet describing a teenager

almost 3,000 years ago. As we talked about recently, Emily Wilson deftly captures Homer's

telemachus in her beautiful edition of The Odyssey. And with those words above, we come to understand

this is how teenagers have been for all

time. So why do we take their personality so personally? It's worth remembering that they're

not like this because you did anything wrong. They're like this because it's hard to be a teenager,

because they are by definition immature. They are by definition

developing. They are struggling with who they are. They are struggling with all that's happening around

them. They are struggling with what's happening in their body. Of course, they're moody and sullen and

broody. Wouldn't you be? Weren't you? What you need to do as a parent, which we've

said, is understand. You need to accommodate these feelings. You need to empathize with these

emotions. You need to remember what it's like in these developmental years. You need to be there

for them even when they're at their most intolerable. And you need to get ready.

Hey, thanks for listening to the Daily Dad podcast. You can get this via email every day as well

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iTunes. Most importantly, if you know any dads or parents who would benefit from these messages,

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