Durable Dad with Tommy Geary
The Durable Dad podcast gives men the skills and tools they need to be rock solid for their family, their work and their community.
Durable Dad with Tommy Geary
095: 5 Things a Kid Should See Their Dad Do
Our kids are watching.
In this ep we cover five essential things our kids should witness their dad doing.
- Apologize and admit you're wrong.
- Let them catch you reading instead of scrolling on your phone.
- Speak kindly about people. Don't gossip or talk low of someone behind their back. (Or to their face.)
- Respect your wife – Don't talk condescendingly to her or about her.
- Ask for help.
To learn about upcoming outdoor adventure trips with Tommy, go to tommygcoaching.com and join the email list for announcements about new challenges beyond the sold-out Grand Canyon trip.
Stop Losing Your Temper Road Map
This roadmap will teach you how to have more patience.
To give your kids more time and attention.
Anger isn't your fault, but it is your responsibility.
Learn how to manage it so it doesn't get the best of you.
https://www.tommygcoaching.com/roadmap
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. All right, what's up? Episode number 95. We are going to talk today about the five things our kids should see us doing and before we dive into that, I want to give you guys an update. The Grand Canyon trip that we're running in October it sold out in February in October. It sold out in February. The training is going awesome, the guys are hitting goals and because it's been going so awesome and I'm pumped about it and my colleague Craig, we're having a really good time with it we're going to do another one, and this one's not going to be the Grand Canyon, but it is going to be in a really cool place in the outdoors that you're going to be pushing yourself, having to get in good shape, for when you finish you're going to be feeling freaking, accomplished and alive, and that is going to be announced in a couple weeks. This is the heads up for that. If you want to get on the email list, that's where we'll announce it. You can go to the website, tommygcoachingcom, and you can hop on the email list so you know when we launch that next trip. So pumped about that that's coming up, wanted to let you know.
Tommy:Now let's shift to the episode today. So today. Now let's shift to the episode today. So today, the five things that our kids should see us doing. This is inspired by a blog post that I saw on the All Pro Dads website, and it was five things our sons should see us do. The workout group that I'm in, f3, at the end of every workout, they have a leadership topic or challenge, and this was the topic last week, and they went through the five things that were on this blog post and there were some good ones on there, so I want to share those and then a few other ideas about what our kids should see us doing as fathers, and the reason I think this is important is because see us doing is different than what advice we're giving them, what suggestions we're making to our kids, the lectures that we tend to dive into when we're trying to teach our kids.
Tommy:We have heard it a million times that our kids learn from what we do, not from what we say, and a perfect example of this is my daughter learning from what I do and not from what I say? I hate it when I ask her to do something and she says one second. And I tell her all the time that I want her to listen. When I ask her to do something the first time, and I tell her that. But do I demonstrate it? No, because yesterday she asked me to peel an orange for her and I said one second. I got to go change the laundry and then I'll peel your orange. Now I'm not going to drop everything I have to do so I can go peel her orange every time. But where did she learn to say one second? Let me just finish this. Oh, she learned that from my behavior. So that's why this topic is so important.
Tommy:Our kids are watching us, and what should they see us doing? So we can teach them to be solid, successful adults. What can we be demonstrating right now? And here are five things for you to start doing. Number one is apologize. Admit when you screw up and do something wrong. Let your kids see that you're not perfect. And there's two parts to this. One is apologizing to our kids, like if we blow up at one of our kids, coming up the next day or later on and being like, hey, sorry, I screwed up yesterday. I didn't mean to act like that, but my emotions just got the best of me trying to work on doing better. And that's a newer concept for us to apologize to our kids. I don't think most of our parents apologize to us when they screwed up, so that's awesome, I think, taking this a step further. The second part of this is having your kids see you apologize to your wife or admitting a mistake to another adult. I screwed up the other day. Brenda and I were supposed to meet at 5 am before the kids woke up to work. I was up, I was ready to go, even had some coffee brewed on a Saturday morning, but I was messing around with email and when she showed up I wasn't prepared with what I was supposed to be prepared with. So that was an opportunity for me to admit a mistake, and I did, and I did it in front of the girls because it was like, right when they woke up. And that's an opportunity for all of us, I think, is to admit when we screw up. It's really annoying to admit. Come in contact with a person that doesn't admit when they're wrong. We just had this issue with a fence contractor. They installed our fence a few years ago and we've had nothing but issues with the fence. And we had a 30 minute conversation with the guy. We had done some research, kind of saw some faults in the size posts they use, how they put the posts into the ground and during the conversation we admitted that we probably could have asked more questions. On the front end of all this but a half hour conversation there was no ownership on his side, no admitting that maybe they didn't do the best job on this go round and it's annoying. It's not someone you want to work with. It's not someone you want to be friends with. We don't want our kid to be that person that can't admit a mistake. So that's the first thing they should see us doing apologizing, admitting mistakes. That's the first thing they should see us doing apologizing, admitting mistakes.
Tommy:Number two let your kids catch you reading a book, not scrolling on your phone. This one's pretty straightforward, comes from Ryan Holiday, who teaches about stoicism. A lot of the stuff I know about stoicism is through Ryan Holiday and I don't know if I pulled this from one of his books or something online that I read, but it's always kind of in my head, especially when I'm scrolling on my phone and my kid catches me scrolling on my phone like, ah shit, I wish it was a book. But the other night I was actually totally checked out and I picked up a book and laid in bed and was reading and it was bedtime but the kids weren't brushed, they weren't prepped for bed. I was supposed to be doing it and I just wasn't doing it. Brenda came upstairs and I was like I'm sorry, I totally checked out and she kind of pulled this line out on me. She was like well, let your kids catch you reading a book, not scrolling on your phone. So it helped me feel a little less guilty in the moment and I don't always get it right, but this one I like a lot because you're teaching your kid that reading is important, that reading is something that we do as a family and we don't have to be on our phone all the time.
Tommy:Number three speak kindly about people. So I have this friend that has a horrible neighbor. This guy, if one of the kids crosses the property line, my buddy hears about it. He's given me some specifics. That man, I would be pissed if this guy was my neighbor. He's handled it really really well. He's been as cordial as possible, assertive with things, checked out a few times and let his wife talk to him because he gets so pissed, handling it like an adult. I wonder and I don't know the answer to this how he speaks about the neighbor in front of his kids. Does he bad mouth him the whole time and bitch about him and call him an asshole? Or does he say things like you know the guy's a jerk, but we don't know what he has going on in his life right now. I mean he might have job issues, financial issues, he might have problems in his marriage. He's not right how he is acting and it sucks that we're getting the brunt of it, but he's probably hurting in other areas of his life. If he's talking about his neighbor like that, he's seeing his neighbor as a human being and I think that's what our kids need to see us doing as dads.
Tommy:Is speaking kindly about other people, recognizing that everybody else has their issues going on, not gossiping, not pointing out other people's faults. Speaking kindly about other people. Gossiping, not pointing out other people's faults. Speaking kindly about other people that was number three. So we've got apologizing, admitting mistakes. Let your kids catch you reading a book, not scrolling on your phone, and speaking kindly about people. Number four is let your kids see you treating your wife with respect. I like to throw this out there. I've heard this example before. But speak to your wife like you would a CEO of a company. Respect your wife like you would respect a really refined, important professional person in your life. Would we cut off someone like that in conversation? Probably not, all right. So let your wife have the space to speak, say what she needs to say. Don't cut her off in conversation. How else do you respect your wife in front of your kids? You lift her up, you celebrate her successes, you talk about things that you appreciate about her.
Tommy:I have a sister-in-law that just got her physician's assistant degree. She went through a ton of school, a ton of testing, a ton of hours in the clinics and she passed. And the whole time her husband, my brother-in-law was championing her, supporting her. He'd have the kids make dinner for his wife when she would come home after like a big test, or they would all go out to dinner together when she passed another step in the long train of getting her physician's assistant degree. So he was demonstrating to his kids how much he respected his wife and celebrating her.
Tommy:So another way you can do this that doesn't have to be your wife making some huge accomplishment like that. It could be a family vacation or a weekend that was just really fun. And in order for that weekend to be fun, mom had to do a lot of the logistical planning and maybe you guys hosted a party and were also at a bunch of sporting events and mom nailed it and the whole family benefited from having a good time. At the end of that weekend you guys could be sitting around and you could just call it out like hey, babe, you crushed it this weekend. And she might brush it under the rug and not take the compliment, but you could just be like no, seriously, like we all had a blast and it wouldn't have happened without you, like we're really lucky to have you. If you speak to your wife that way in front of your children, imagine the impact that has on their future relationships how your son will treat his future wife, the attributes your daughter will look for in a husband. How we speak to our wife in front of our kids is going to impact their future relationships.
Tommy:Another thing to think about here is how do you speak about your wife when she's not around? Like a lot of people be like, oh, we're going to do this, but don't tell mom or your mother doesn't need to know about this. It's kind of funny. People joke about it, but that's kind of undermining her. Is that respecting mom by keeping things from her? Another thing is like if your kid comes and complains about mom's been nagging at me, mom's been so crazy lately. That's an opportunity to show how much you respect your wife. Like you could just say, yeah, mom gets kind of bitchy sometimes and let it be like that. Or you could say, yeah, mom gets a little crazy sometimes, but we all do right. Like I know I'm not always perfect and I don't think you are either. Sometimes mom's not perfect. Those kinds of examples.
Tommy:Letting your kids see that it's going to go a long way in their relationships later in life. All right, that's number four. Number five is asking for help. Let your kids see you ask for help. Let your kids hear you say I don't know that my dad hardly ever said the words I don't know. We actually started to make a joke of it when we got older and this is a thing for guys. We love offering support. We love offering help, but when it comes to asking for it, we're not very good at it. I know this comes up for me whenever there's an issue in the house or with our car and my wife wants to call her dad to get advice on it, and I'm like I should be able to figure this out. We shouldn't have to call your dad. It used to lead to arguments with Brenda, it doesn't. I have let that go. I have been able to receive a lot of help and support when it comes to fixing things, and my father-in-law is amazing about it. But even though I'm a lot better at it, there's still this twinge inside me whenever my wife wants to call him, and I think it's just a stigma. Maybe it's because my dad always had a hard time saying he didn't know, and I feel like I should know.
Tommy:When we don't ask for help, we just delay getting the results that we want in life, like if something's broken at our house and I don't ask my father-in-law for help, that thing doesn't get fixed. I either ignore it or I try and butcher the repair and then I have to do it again. Asking for support isn't a sign of being weak. Being weak, it's actually an intelligent move, because you're going to get to where you want to go even faster if you have someone supporting you, someone in your corner cheering you on and this is what I do, right, like even the list that we're talking about here, the scrolling too much on your phone, the respecting your wife. If you're not getting those results, hiring a coach is going to be that support that gets you there faster. And the reason we want to demonstrate the ability to ask for help to our kids is because we want to de-stigmatize it.
Tommy:The underlying belief when we don't ask for help is that if I ask for help, there's something wrong with me. I must be broken or not good enough if I need a coach or if I need a therapist, and we don't want to pass that message down to our kids. Because nowadays to our kids, because nowadays a lot of kids see therapists, a lot of kids are seeing their school counselors and letting them know that that's okay. Right, we can tell them yeah, it's okay to get help, it's totally okay, this is helpful, it's going to serve you. If we're not modeling that we ask for help sometimes, too, that we don't have it all together. Those words that the counselor is here to help you, they're not going to land if you aren't willing to ask for help. So those are five things.
Tommy:I'm going to give you one more bonus one. The bonus one is have fun. Let the wall down, have some fun, sing a little bit whistle dance. You know my brother-in-law not the one that I mentioned earlier, a different brother-in-law. I have two awesome brother-in-laws. He just brought his son out to a baseball field with their remote control cars. And he brought him to a baseball field because when you race the dust kicks up and when you spin circles you can drift the cars faster and longer.
Tommy:And his son's 12 and he's making that time to show his son that he's not just a go-to-work dad, he's there having fun. That's gonna allow his son not to take life so seriously as he grows up. There are serious parts of life, but we also got to make some time to have fun. All right, those are your five things, plus the bonus. Let your kids catch you reading a book, not scrolling on your phone. Apologize, admit mistakes. Number three was speak kindly about people. Number four treat your wife with respect. Number five ask for help, ask for support, let your kids see you doing it. And the sixth bonus one is have fun, and that's what I got for you guys today. So have a good one and I'll catch you next time.
