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.

You have to help them do this.

We love our kids.

That's why we hate to see them struggle. But maybe

that's precisely the wrong way to think about it. Because we love our kids, we have to let them

struggle. We need them to struggle. In his essay on Providence, Seneca writes, in defense of adversity and

hardship, think about the people you admire, he says, what's so impressive about them.

It's that whatever happens, they take it in good part and turn it to a good end.

This is the job of a good parent. Seneca continues out of love for the child. They act as the

trainer, endlessly manufacturing trials for the child. He compares it to the way that teachers and coaches

take it easy on the students and athletes who don't show much promise. But the ones they've

identified as having potential, they push them, they make things harder for them, they put them

in more difficult situations. He talks about how Spartan fathers demanded their children train

against the strongest and the toughest. He talks about how Cato fathers demanded their children train against the strongest and the toughest.

He talks about how Cato's parents exposed their frail son to the extremes of heat and cold.

He talks about the farmer's callous hands, the athletes' strong legs, the soldiers broad shoulders.

In each case, he says the part of the body exercised is the strongest. It is by enduring ills that the mind can adapt, can acquire contempt for enduring them. And in our course, The Stoic Parent, Ten Commandments for Becoming a Great Parent, we talk about how Theodore Roosevelt would take his family on walks and lead his kids through and over all sorts of obstacles.

It was a wonderful fun experience that also taught the same lesson Seneca was talking about,

how to toughen yourself up, how to solve problems, how to never get discouraged,

...