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.

You're not trying to raise well-behaved kids.

We have so many things we need to do as parents.

There's the logistics of it, the survival aspect of it, you know, food and shelter.

There's the education we have to give them.

There's the experiences we want them to have.

There's the values and character we know need to be instilled.

So it's strange we seem to measure ourselves and other parents so much on something that has very little to do with this, politeness, behavior, appearances. That's why we're

always admonishing our kids, why we're mortified when they act out, why we're judging other people

whose kids are loud and talk back and make messes. Having a kid who is quiet and does everything adults say is not necessarily a sign of a great

parent.

It may well be the opposite.

They could have parents that were mean or use corporal punishment.

They could also be a complete mess under these appearances for manners only say so much about

someone's character or

self-awareness or happiness. We're not trying to raise well-behaved kids. As we've said before,

we're not trying to raise kids at all. The whole point of parenting is to raise our kids into

adults. It's trying to raise these little people into good human beings. Of course, behavior matters,

but that's not the end-all-be-all.

Tantrums aren't great. There's a time and place for craziness, but as parents, we need to remember that our primary job is teaching our kids how to manage and regulate their emotions and urges. It's not to stamp them

...