Have you ever asked yourself, "What makes a good dad?" No being a hot head and... what else?
On this episode of the Durable Dad we go on the journey of defining a path in fatherhood.
We also dive into the depths of growth, both physical and emotional, as an integral part of parenthood. From pushing our children to develop holistically, teaching them kindness, patience, and respectfulness. And yes, we talk about how leading by example sometimes trumps instruction. But it's not all serious, so sit back and listen to remind yourselves to cherish the humorous side of fatherhood.
Whether you're brand new to the dad club, a seasoned parent, or somewhere in between, this episode promises to offer a fresh perspective on the art of being a good dad.
Have you ever asked yourself, "What makes a good dad?" No being a hot head and... what else?
On this episode of the Durable Dad we go on the journey of defining a path in fatherhood.
We also dive into the depths of growth, both physical and emotional, as an integral part of parenthood. From pushing our children to develop holistically, teaching them kindness, patience, and respectfulness. And yes, we talk about how leading by example sometimes trumps instruction. But it's not all serious, so sit back and listen to remind yourselves to cherish the humorous side of fatherhood.
Whether you're brand new to the dad club, a seasoned parent, or somewhere in between, this episode promises to offer a fresh perspective on the art of being a good dad.
This is the Durable Dad podcast. I'm your host, tommy Geary. This show is going to give you the skills and tools you need to be a rock solid man for your work, your community and, most importantly, your family. Alright, what's up? Episode number 40. Happy Hanukkah.
Speaker 1:
It's the middle of Hanukkah right now and from my Jewish side my mom's side of the family is Jewish I wasn't Bar Mitzvah, but raised in a Jewish culture, a lot of my friends were Jewish. I went to Seder dinners at friends' houses, celebrated a lot of my friends' Bar Mitzvahs. So from that half of me well, from the other half too happy Hanukkah. My other half is. My dad was raised Catholic and I was kind of a mutt.
Speaker 1:
Not going to dive into spiritual and religious discussion today, I just wanted to say happy Hanukkah. There's a lot of unease in the Jewish community right now and I just want to wish everyone a safe and joyous celebration, whatever that looks like for you this year. Okay, today we're going to talk about what it means to be a good dad and how. That is a very individual answer, and the greater scope of this is that whenever we're trying to achieve something, whether we want to be a good dad or we want more success in our career or we want to be a good manager or a good husband. All those words I just said are very vague and they don't have a real tangible definition of what it means to be good at any of those things. And I think it's really important when we're striving to achieve that we have a clear vision of where we're going, and maybe it's not super clear, but it's least a direction to head. And I'm framing it up around what is a good dad? Because I was having this conversation with one of my clients and we were talking about his goals and he wants to be a good dad. So I asked him what that meant and he said he doesn't want his girls to be afraid of him. He grew up in a household where he was afraid of his dad and he didn't want that for his girls and totally get that. I think a lot of dads are right there. Maybe you're there right now and just not being angry and super reactive is being a good dad for sure. And he was kind of already there.
Speaker 1:
We had been working together for a little bit on that and I was like so what else does a good dad mean when you do have your temper more in your control and there was some space. He didn't really have an answer and we talked about it. We kind of brainstormed some ideas, but what I took from that was defining what a good dad is is really important, because then we can work towards it. And with any goal that we're working towards or an expectation that we have for ourselves, if we're not clear on what success looks like, then we're never going to be good enough, because there isn't a good enough and a lot of guys think that they're not providing enough, not working hard enough and defining enough. Defining what the goal is makes it tangible and it allows us to actually track it. What we're going to try to define or at least I'm going to define for myself what is a good dad, because a lot of us will tell ourselves that we're not being a good dad, that we should be doing more, and it'd be helpful to have a clear picture of what it means to be a good dad. Maybe you already do, and then you're able to track it, which is totally awesome. I would love to hear ideas that I miss, because I do think it's a question that the answer is going to be different throughout our lives. What I believe it means to be a good dad today probably won't be the same as I do in five years. So some of the ideas I have been mulling over as defining what being a good dad means for myself the first one is kind of back to what I was talking to my client about.
Speaker 1:
Was this not wanting your kids to be afraid of you? And I'm in line with that. I don't want my girls to be afraid of me. And then, as I think about it, is there a healthy fear that your kid should have of you? And I'm laughing just thinking about that because it doesn't sound right, but this is what I'm thinking. If my girls are older and they're gonna sneak out of the house, I want my voice in the back of their head saying don't do it. And them thinking dad will be upset, dad wouldn't approve of what we're doing, and have that be just a guardrail for them. They don't have to listen to that voice, but at least like a voice comes in and they know that dad's got some rules, dad's got some boundaries. And whether that's fear or respect, I'm not sure, but what came up for me was that fear is one end of the spectrum and what's the other is the other end. They can walk all over you. I don't know. I don't have the answer right now, but that's what's rolling around in my head.
Speaker 1:
Another idea is to do fun things with your kid. That's what it means to be a good dad this one I put a lot of weight to. It doesn't have to be everybody's definition of a good dad, but I, for my definition, I say fun is a key component. I love laughing with my girls. I love being goofy with them. I don't always have it in me too, but when I am, I know that we're making good connections and I feel like I'm being a good dad because our guards are let down and we're just having a good time.
Speaker 1:
Another one is tell them that you love them, letting them know you love them, and I think that we can say I love you when they go to bed, which is great and we can tell them I love them after. You know we yell at them and we're preparing. I think those are good spaces to say I love you. And being a good dad, I think, could mean being able to pause in a moment, see your kid in whatever situation and remember how much you love them, how special they are, and let them know in those moments and kind of along the same lines, is telling your kid that you're proud to be their dad and I think there's a difference of saying I'm proud of you versus I'm proud to be your dad, and that I'm proud of you possibly could put expectations on the kid, like oh, if I succeed or if I do a good deed, then you'll say you're proud of me, when that's not what we're actually trying to communicate. What we're trying to communicate is whether you slip, whether you fall, like I am proud to be your dad, I love my job as a dad and I'm so happy that you're my kid. I guess would be the other translation. Those two things are important to me.
Speaker 1:
When I sit down to think about what it means to be a good dad. I don't do it all the time, but just going through this exercise, asking myself what it means to be a good dad, I get those reminders, I get the wisdom in my head that maybe I haven't looked at in a while by asking that good question. So it's a practice you can do. It's not it's a conversation with your wife, it's a conversation with your buddy, just shooting ideas around of what it means to be a good dad.
Speaker 1:
Another one that I've been thinking about is a good dad puts their kids in uncomfortable situations that have the opportunity for growth. Pretty much setting your kids up to grow and try new things that are gonna be difficult, whether it's physically or emotionally, and I think we're pretty good at the physical. As a dad, we will push our kids physically to play harder in sports or swim more in the pool or do more pull-ups or do more monkey bars whatever it is we can. We'll push them physically. Emotionally is the spot that I question Like, what does it mean to put your kid in an uncomfortable emotional spot and allow them to grow? And that one is tougher because what it means is you have to allow them to feel sad. You have to allow them to feel disappointed and bummed and not liked or whatever, an uncomfortable emotion, embarrassed. And being a good dad is allowing them to feel those uncomfortable emotions without trying to change them, without trying to come in and help. And I'll give you an example.
Speaker 1:
We put Nell in a race and she's five, and when we showed up to this race I was looking around and all the kids were older than her and I just saw her in her yellow shirt and her long hair and see her kind of getting the picture that everyone's older than her. Everyone kind of looks like they know what they're doing and she doesn't. At least, that's what I'm telling myself in my head. That's what she's thinking. I just saw in her face something change. The excitement wasn't there anymore and then they took off.
Speaker 1:
The runners took off and everybody in front of her gone Like 20, 30 yards in front of her within 10 seconds. And she was running hard. She had her arms straight, body tilted forward, head down and just moving her legs really fast. And I saw her turn the corner and I saw her slow down and all the runners were gone. She was the only one still around and she started to slow down and she started to walk and I ran up to her. She didn't really see me yet but I could see the side of her face and how it was just balled up and really tight and looked like she was about to just burst into tears. And she stops and I look at her and I say hey, and she looks at me and she starts crying and I go up to her and give her a hug and whatever it ended well, she ended up walking back across the finish line.
Speaker 1:
Even when she didn't want to, she still had to persevere and get through. And could I have let her experience that uncomfortable emotion by herself a little bit longer? I don't know the right answer, I just think, like that's the emotional discomfort right when I saw her getting upset that she was alone on the course. That was too much for me. I couldn't let her feel whatever she was feeling that moment. I had to protect her and it was an awesome hug and a really good experience. But a good dad puts their kids in uncomfortable situations as an opportunity to grow. Did I do that in this case? I don't know. I guess time will tell whether that race event had a net positive or a net negative effect on Nell's life. So I guess that just makes me think, like all of this, let's not take it too seriously. We're a dad.
Speaker 1:
Going back to one of the ideas have more fun. Let's not take this thing too seriously. Let's just make this fun with a clear idea of what fun and success looks like. So another idea what is a good dad's role in teaching kindness, respectfulness, thinking of other people. There's two fold. Here is how I'm breaking it down for myself. One is by example, leading by example and being kind and respectful of other people, of Brenda. When I'm at home, when I talk about other people, talk about them with respect and kindness. If we're checking out at the grocery store and the cashier is there looking at her, smiling, engaging her and that's one side is the example. The other side is how do you teach them, what do you tell them to do about respect and kindness? And this is kind of just me thinking out loud right now Our kids learn more by our actions than they do with our words.
Speaker 1:
I'm a big believer in that, and so teaching our kids to be kind and respectful through words, how powerful is that and what message are we really sending? So, for example, in teaching your kid to share, some parenting books would say have the kids work it out themselves. Don't tell your kid to share all the time, because then they're just learning that they're supposed to put someone else's needs before theirs. I don't know if that's true and that's how it's really gonna work long term, but I question that because I also I don't want my daughter to be an asshole and not think of other people when someone's hurt or when someone needs some help. I want my daughter to reach her hand out for them. So what's that balance of letting your kid learn respectfulness through you and through your actions versus telling them how to be respectful? And if they try to make other people feel a certain way, will that lead to people pleasing in the rest of their life? And I don't want to sound dramatic about it, but that's what I think of when I'm considering what it means to be a good dad.
Speaker 1:
Respectfulness and kindness is a top value of mine and I want to instill that. How do I do that? Patience is another one. How do you teach your kids patience? I think a good dad might have that responsibility.
Speaker 1:
We just went to a Cirque de Soleil show in Chicago and it was an awesome show. And when we were sitting there, she was on the edge of her seat the whole time and then she was scooting back to the back of the seat and then standing up for a second and sitting down and they just thought, huh, we haven't put her in a lot of situations where she has to sit for a long period of time. We haven't brought her to the movie theaters. Yet we're actually doing that for her sixth birthday in a couple weeks. We've been saving that one for a special birthday experience, so pretty pumped about that. But Nell really hasn't like gone to many church services where she has to sit for a whole hour or I don't know what other scenarios. Kids would sit for long periods of time, but we don't put her there.
Speaker 1:
So right now, currently, how do I instill patience? That might be a role as being a good dad right now. That's probably not going to be a part of being a good dad when my daughters are 22. But there'll still be a question of what's a good dad, but the answers will be different than they are right now. So patience is one of them and some of the things I'm thinking about of how to instill some more patience. We used to do circle time before we went to sleep at night and we would meditate for two minutes and that was really awesome. Not every night went very smooth, but we did it and we haven't done it for a couple years and I wonder if we brought something like that back, if that would help build the skill of patience for our daughters.
Speaker 1:
Really, what patience is is self-control. Self-control meaning you have an urge to do something. You have an urge to stand up and walk around when everyone else is sitting down watching the show. Manage that urge and stay in your seat. If you want five cookies at the party, be able to control yourself around those cookies. And when we go back to words versus actions, my actions aren't very strong in self-control around cookies, so I have to work on that side of the coin for patience.
Speaker 1:
All right. So that was kind of two in one. A good dad helps instill patience and self-control into his kids and also models those two things well. That's a good dad. So those are some ideas of what it might mean to be a good dad, the ideas that I'm kicking around right now. So if you have other ideas, send them my way. If you have like something that I totally forgot, I would love to hear it, because this is going to be a question that I'm going to start asking myself more often. And the big thing that I think will always be true is that a good dad hangs out with their kids. When it's the just random time after work or at a party, you're there, you're present, you're not on your phone. It's the boring moments. Those small moments are the ones with the most joy, and a dad that can be there for some of those small moments, that's probably being a good dad, in my opinion. All right. So ask yourself this question and let's remember the reason we're doing this is to detail, make tangible what good is, what being a good dad is.
Speaker 1:
One guy I was talking to about his marriage. He wanted an extraordinary marriage, and when I asked him what extraordinary meant, it took him a while to define it and when he finally did, he kind of laughed at the answers because his brain was telling him that extraordinary was big trips and dinners and fancy hotels. And when he said it out loud, he like laughed at himself. He's like that's not what extraordinary means. It means communicating more or whatever. We have to define these expectations that we're putting on ourself. If you want to be a good dad, define what a good dad is and then start doing those things. Set him up, knock him down. That's what I got for you guys today. Ask yourself that good question what does it mean to be a good dad? Have a conversation with people about it and have an awesome week.