The podcast discusses the ancient parenting strategy from Plato that teaches children their true value lies in their uniqueness and combination of DNA, experiences, and circumstances.

Stuart Scott, ESPN broadcaster and father of two girls, discusses the importance of fathers not being viewed as babysitters but as parents. He shares a personal story and encourages fathers to take their role seriously and not let others demean their importance.

The speaker discusses the importance of creating a warm and inviting environment for children and nurturing a strong relationship with them, rather than just focusing on their success. Success as a parent is having a crowded table filled with loved ones to spend time with.

This podcast delves into the damaging effects of anxiety on parenting and emphasizes the importance of self-reflection and improvement to create a happier and healthier family environment.

We’ve talked before about David Epstein’s wonderful book Range, which advises against premature specialization—in athletes, in kids, in intellectual development. It tends to be better, he writes, to pursue a wide variety of activities and build a base of competence than it is to be like Tiger Woods--or rather like Earl Woods--and dedicate yourself or your child to golf at two years old.  But it’s important that the message of this book is not oversimplified. There undoubtedly must come a time, as Epstein points out, for someone like Roger Federer, where you decide to commit to something and it becomes your thing. While you don’t want to do that too early, it’s important you don’t get to it too late either. Getting serious about becoming a Navy SEAL at age 35 is an exercise in futility (another lesson Tiger Woods learned too late). Which is why it’s important that we also pass along the advice that David Brooks has for young people in The Second Mountain. “Get to yourself quickly,” he writes. “If you know what you want to do, start doing it.” It’s ironic that the rise of specialization for kids seems to have also coincided with an increasingly extended adolescence for many kids. Now everybody is told to go to college. Then encouraged to travel. Or travel and then go to college. (Gap year consulting is now a real thing.) Then move to a new city. Date around, have flings. Try a handful of different jobs. People seem to be delaying getting serious about their lives...and then they wonder why they are falling behind, why they aren’t truly great at anything, why they are 35 years old and have little to show for their year and start thinking about the Navy SEALS.So this is the delicate balance you’ll have to figure out as you guide your kids through life. Don’t take options off the table too early...but don’t put off choosing forever. It’s great to be interested in lots of things...but you should still search for a true love. Don’t overly specialize...but if you have a calling, chase it!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ted Williams was not a good father. We’ve written about this before, but it bears restating for our purposes here that while he was the greatest hitter to ever play baseball, he was quite literally the opposite as a father, totally neglecting the responsibilities of being a dad...until eventually his hardened exterior cracked. With time, and mostly due to the persistent efforts of his children, he began to connect and share with them. He began to be the father they had wanted and needed for so long. There is one scene in Wright Thompson’s profile of Williams’ daughter that shows Ted learning one of the most basic lessons of being a great father—one that we could all use a reminder of today (and, by the way, one that will make you a better husband and boss and person too). It happened when Claudia was going through a painful breakup. For some reason, she decided she would actually open up to her father about it, that she’d actually invite this man who had rejected her so many times when she was younger into her private pain. Almost immediately it became tense, a kind of argument about what to do. “Please don’t be mad,” she pleaded with him. “Just listen to me. I am hurting.”Williams grinded his teeth and struggled with his impotence towards another person’s problem. “What the hell do you want me to do about it!” he shouted. “I can’t do a fucking thing.Then Claudia said the words that every father needs to remember: “Just tell me you love me.”Then Williams said the words that every father needs to say: “JESUS CHRIST. I love you more than you’ll ever know. Most importantly, he did what you need to do more of, when your spouse has a problem, when your kids have a problem, when they come to you with news or with worries or with mistakes. He listened. Just listen. That’s all you have to do. You don’t always have to solve their problems You don’t have to tell them what they did wrong. You don’t have to make it go away. You just have to hear them. Because as often as not, what your loved ones are really looking for is love, not lessons. They don’t want fixes, they want friendship. They want a sympathetic ear, a confederate, someone to be on their side and to say “you’re right, screw those guys!”. You don’t need to have all the answers, you just have to let them know that you hear them and you love them. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

When you read parenting books, it’s hard not to get the distinct sense that there is a right way to parent. That being a dad (or a mom) means following a set of processes—backed up and confirmed by research—and that to do anything else is to deviate and fail. We think the same thing about teachers too: Here is how the best teachers operate, so be like that. But the truth is that it’s all relative. There is no right way because every child is different, every parent is different, every situation is different. Think about the story of the prodigal son—it’s a lesson about a bunch of things, but one of the subtler lessons is that different kids require different treatment. The father in that story wasn’t being unfair. He was being what each of his sons needed. Recently, we asked the author James Frey (yes, that James Frey—the brilliant and controversial novelist; read Katerina or Bright Shiny Morning if you haven’t yet) what he’s learned about fatherhood, and he actually told us something pretty similar:Being a Dad is an ongoing process of learning and adjusting and adapting. That for each kid, at each stage of that kid's life, you have to adjust and learn. I have three kids. Two girls and a boy in the middle. Being a Dad, to me, isn't like being a drill sergeant. There is no single way to handle each child...I don't want them all to be the same person. They are each unique, with their own personalities and strengths and struggles. And they are radically different at different ages. And that requires me to constantly be learning how to best raise them.It’s great advice and worth thinking about today. You have to be flexible. You have to be willing to approach each situation as a distinct set of circumstances and conditions. There is no “right way” to do things, but there is always a “right thing” to do in each situation. Adjust until you find it. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You’ve told them a million times. You told them why they need to study before their test, and they didn’t and they came home with a D. You told them about how their effort is the only thing they control in sports, and here they are, complaining—after refusing to take their training seriously—about why their friend gets more playing time. You’ve told them about manners. You’ve told them about not hitting their brother. You’ve told them why it’s important to keep their room clean.And yet, and yet and yet...Here you are. Looking at a dirty room. At bad grades. How many times do I have to tell you?, you hear yourself say. Are you deaf?Here’s a better question, one that might stop you cold: How many times have you been told? Not when you were a kid, but lately. About the importance of eating better. Of the relationship between exercise and weight. About how gross it is to bite your nails. To save for retirement. To read that important book. To update your operating system. And yet, and yet and yet...You’re still doing them. Or not doing them. You got a speeding ticket last month that cost you $250 and here you are still driving faster than you should. So why don’t you cut them a little break? Or at least be a little more understanding? Just because it’s clear what someone is supposed to do (or not do) doesn’t mean it’s easy. Especially when you’re a kid. Especially when your whole life is people throwing commands and demands at you. So relax. Be kind. Be patient. And maybe try to inspire them by showing them how it’s hard for you too—but you’re still trying. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Ted Williams was not a good father—at least not for most of his life. He was a great baseball player, but for a long time, he was a really selfish and ruthless person. He came from a horrible, abusive childhood himself and struggled to find the ability to love and care about anyone, including himself. It was like his own childhood prepared him to be a kind of lone wolf, a machine designed to do one thing really well (and caring about other people was not that thing). If you haven’t read Wright Thompson’s insanely beautiful profile of Williams’ daughter, Claudia Williams, you should. It starts off dark and depressing, but by the end it has enough hope in it to inspire even the most hard-boiled and reluctant fathers. Because, over time, due to the incredible efforts of his children, Ted Williams started to change. “What’s incredible as an observer was to watch him fall in love with his kids,” a friend says in the profile Thompson says in the piece about Williams.”The vulnerability of having love for your children. You could see it just gnaw. It was everything against his grain to succumb to this outside influence of children. Love had control over him. He felt vulnerable. A vulnerability he had never had in his life.” And that was starting to show itself in little hints, whether it was entries in Williams’ fishing journal, where for the first time he began to write about the kids he had long ignored or in the signed poster his daughter had found under piles of memorabilia after her father’s death, that just said, ‘To my beautiful daughter. I love you. Dad.’”You have that vulnerability now. Those same powerful forces are gnawing at you too, hopefully, and making progress on that tough exoskeleton you developed to protect yourself. You can let this change you, let this make you better. You can even begin—no matter how far you are down the road, as Williams was—start to make up for mistakes you might have made earlier in fatherhood. It’s never too late.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The great physicist Richard Feynman had a father who instilled his brilliant son with an interesting perspective about the world. Sitting down, he would lay the newspaper out on the table and ask his boy questions about what they saw and read. Once, when they came upon a photo of the Pope blessing a group of believers, Richard’s father asked his son if he knew the difference between the Pope and his followers. And then, before Richard could answer, he said, “The difference is the hat. He is wearing a hat.” His dad would repeat the same exercise whether it was a photo of a general with stars on their collar or a wealthy executive with an expensive suit. After years in the uniform business, Feynman’s father knew that people were people, whatever clothes their job dressed them in. He wanted his son to realize that nobody was better than him, that everybody was equal, no matter who they were and what they had accomplished. You can imagine this gave his young son a lot of confidence, confidence that your children could benefit from. Just because other kids live in bigger houses or have more illustrious last names, does that mean they are better? Just because other kids do or don’t wear glasses, do or don’t have their own car, do or don’t go on weekend ski trips, do or don’t receive financial aid, what does that mean? It means nothing. If you want to raise a kid that challenges the status quo, that fulfills their potential, that looks at the world without prejudice, teach them that. The other side of that lesson for Feynman was humility and it’s why you should teach it to your kids too. Feynman didn’t think his Nobel Prize made him special—in fact, he was reluctant to accept it. Because he disliked the pomp and circumstance and he knew that accolades don’t make you any more or less right. He didn’t need a special hat to feel good about himself, and he didn’t like getting the attention—when the work was what mattered. Nobody is better than your kids and your kids are not better than anyone else. The sooner they realize that, the better.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.