Build a Weekly Plan That Leaves Breathing Room

This puts you back in control of the week by choosing what truly matters, setting clear limits, and protecting real downtime. It helps everyday families reduce last-minute scrambling while making space for rest, play, and connection.

1. List every commitment and name your top priorities
   Start with a full brain-dump of school needs, practices, lessons, chores, and family obligations. Then circle your child’s top 2 to 3 “must-keep” activities for this season and write why they matter (skill-building, joy, friendships, or family values). Keeping priorities visible makes later decisions feel fair, not random.
2. Set a simple extracurricular limit for this season
   Choose a cap that matches your family’s capacity, such as “one sport plus one other activity,” or “no more than three after-school days booked.” If you need a tie-breaker, favor activities that best support your priorities and drop or pause the ones that add stress without enough payoff.
3. Run one shared family calendar with one weekly check-in
   Pick a single calendar that everyone can see, and put every repeating item on it, including pickup times and travel buffers. Add a 10-minute weekly check-in to confirm who is doing which rides and what needs to move. Consistent parent coordination matters, and parental involvement is linked with better long-term outcomes.
4. Block downtime first, then schedule the rest around it
   Choose 2 to 4 downtime blocks for the week and label them clearly (free play, reading, walk, quiet time). Treat these blocks like appointments so they do not get swallowed by “just one more thing.” Since children watch TV so often on typical days, planning for offline downtime helps rest feel intentional, not accidental.
5. Review the week using a quick “stress test” and adjust
   Scan each day for tight turnarounds, late nights, or more than one demanding commitment in a row. If a day fails the stress test, fix it immediately by swapping, shortening, carpooling, or declining something. Small adjustments each week prevent overload from becoming the new normal.

Turn Downtime Into a Simple At-Home Creative Project

Once you’ve protected a little breathing room in the week, it helps to have a calm, low-pressure option ready so free time doesn’t automatically turn into “more activities.” Encouraging kids to use creative digital tools during downtime can give them something engaging to do without making their schedule feel even more structured. AI animation generators let children transform text prompts, images, or their own imaginative ideas into animated scenes and short videos, which can be a fun way to experiment with storytelling and self-expression. Tools like Adobe Firefly’s AI animation creator make it possible to turn a small spark, one character, one setting, one silly “what if?”, into a simple animation that feels both productive and relaxing.

Because the goal is unwinding, keep the project light: the act of playing with visuals, movement, and narrative can become a satisfying outlet for imagination without the pressure of performance. Over time, these small creative projects can help kids decompress, explore what they’re interested in, and maintain a healthier balance between their commitments and the open-ended time that lets them recharge.

A Simple Weekly Rhythm That Keeps Plans in Check

This quick routine keeps your calendar from slowly filling back up while still leaving room for fun. It also makes scheduled conversations predictable, so you are not renegotiating every day. Use it as a lightweight loop: review, choose, adjust, and reset.

Because each stage feeds the next, you stay proactive without micromanaging. Capturing and blocking reveal what is realistic, choosing creates breathing room, and adjusting keeps you responsive to real life.

Common Questions About Kids’ Schedules

Q: How do I balance schoolwork with sports, clubs, and friends?
A: Put school, sleep, meals, and homework time on the calendar first, then add activities around those anchors. If homework is consistently pushing late, trim one commitment for two weeks and reassess. Aim for consistency on weeknights and more flexibility on weekends.

Q: What are the clearest signs my child is overscheduled?
A: Watch for more meltdowns, frequent complaints of headaches or stomachaches, trouble falling asleep, or sudden drops in motivation. Another clue is when every transition becomes a fight because there is no buffer. Treat these as data, not drama, and lighten the load quickly.

Q: How can I cancel plans without feeling like the “bad guy”?
A: Use a calm, steady script: “We are protecting rest this week, so we are skipping this one.” Add a short apology if you overbooked, because we all make mistakes and kids learn from that honesty. Then offer a replacement: “Let’s pick one fun thing for Saturday.”

Q: When should I push through a busy week versus pulling back?
A: Push through when it is temporary and your child is coping well with sleep, mood, and school. Pull back when stress is stacking for more than a few days or your family is snapping at each other over small things. Reducing one obligation now often prevents bigger problems later.

Q: Can I change the plan if another parent or caregiver disagrees?
A: Yes, but communicate early and focus on the child’s needs, not who is “right.” Suggest a concrete alternative like swapping days or choosing one priority activity, and keep the tone respectful. When co-parenting is the situation, clear, shared expectations reduce last-minute conflict.

Protecting Downtime While Keeping Kids’ Schedules Sustainable

When every week is packed with school, practices, and plans, family time turns into logistics and kids carry more stress than fun. The goal is a balanced mindset: set clear priorities, use a simple calendar check, implement activity limits, and protect scheduled downtime as a non-negotiable part of maintaining healthy routines. Over time, this approach creates more predictable days, calmer transitions, and space for connection without sacrificing what matters most. If the calendar leaves no breathing room, the schedule is too full. Choose one change this week, do a calendar reset or set one activity cap, and keep that boundary steady for a month. That breathing room builds resilience, stronger relationships, and healthier long-term habits for everyone.

The post How to Balance Kids’ Busy Schedules for More Fun and Less Stress appeared first on Dad of Divas.

Twenty-five years ago today, our nation experienced a tragedy that changed us forever.

For those of us who lived through September 11, 2001, the memories of that day remain remarkably vivid. We remember where we were, who we were with, and the disbelief we felt as we watched events unfold in New York City, at the Pentagon, and in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

I remember being in my office at the university where I was working as a Student Affairs professional. I received a call telling me to turn on the news because a plane had struck one of the Twin Towers. At that moment, none of us understood what was actually happening.

I joined colleagues around a television in our office, and together we watched the unimaginable unfold. There was shock. There was confusion. There was an overwhelming sense of helplessness as we realized the magnitude of what was happening and the tremendous loss of life occurring before our eyes.

A few days later, September 11 became even more personal for our family.

The Saturday before the attacks, my wife and I attended the wedding of one of her high school friends. It was a wonderful celebration filled with the kind of happiness, laughter, and promise that accompanies a wedding. During the ceremony, we met Kelly Ann Booms, a friend of the bride who was sitting in front of us.

Kelly mentioned that she needed to return to Boston because she was leaving early Tuesday morning for a business trip to Los Angeles.

That Tuesday was September 11.

Later that week, we learned that Kelly was a passenger aboard American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to strike the World Trade Center.

Suddenly, one of the thousands of names we would hear associated with September 11 was someone we had just met. Someone we had talked with. Someone who had plans for Tuesday and for all the Tuesdays that should have followed.

That is something I think about every September 11.

Nearly 3,000 people lost their lives that day. Behind that number were thousands of individual stories—parents, spouses, sons and daughters, siblings, friends, coworkers, first responders, and people simply going about an ordinary Tuesday morning.

They had meetings to attend, children to pick up, phone calls to return, vacations to take, birthdays to celebrate, and lives still to live.

Kelly was one of them.

Twenty-five years later, fewer and fewer people can say they personally remember September 11. An entire generation has now grown up knowing the events only through history books, documentaries, photographs, and the stories told by those who were there.

That makes remembering even more important.

We remember the horror of what happened, but we should also remember the humanity—the courage of first responders who ran toward danger, the passengers and crew of Flight 93 who acted knowing the risks, the countless acts of kindness that followed, and the families who have carried the loss of loved ones for a quarter century.

Most importantly, we remember the people.

Today, I remember Kelly Ann Booms.

I remember the brief conversation we shared just days before her life was taken. And I remember the thousands of others whose families have lived every day since September 11 with an empty chair, a missing voice, and memories of someone they loved.

Twenty-five years later, may we continue to say their names, tell their stories, and ensure that those who come after us understand not simply what happened on September 11, 2001, but who we

• What are your memories of this event in our collective history?
• How will you tell your children about this event in the future?

The post 9-11 – Remembering The Day 25 Years Later appeared first on Dad of Divas.

Intentionality and Presence
From the very start, Dr. Christopher Lewis sets the tone: fatherhood isn’t about achieving perfection, but about truly connecting and learning as you go. Each week, the podcast dives into stories and practical advice to help dads show up with intention. As John Azoni shares, “There’s no one right way to father our daughters,” but we can always add new tools to our toolbox by learning from each other.

Creating Meaningful Memories
A standout theme of this episode is making memories, both big and small. John Azoni recounts an unforgettable trip to Japan with his daughter for her 10th birthday—a tradition inspired by a parenting book. But the heart of the conversation reveals that it’s often the simplest moments, like cooking together or going for wonton soup every Thursday, that mean the most. One-on-one time, even a half hour at bedtime, can become the foundation for lifelong connections.

Honesty, Growth, and Mistakes
Both John Azoni and Dr. Christopher Lewis candidly discuss the challenges—especially during difficult times like COVID or navigating questions around faith. John Azoni is honest about making mistakes, from losing patience to not always having the answers. The key lesson? “I make a lot of mistakes and I’ve learned to be okay with that… I want my kids to grow up and know their dad was crazy about them.”

Encouragement to Other Dads
The episode wraps with powerful advice: Be intentional. Don’t let stress distract you from what really matters. As John Azoni puts it, “The grass is greener where you water it”—the relationships you invest in now will shape the future.

If you’re a dad, or know someone who is, this episode is a must-listen. It’s a heartfelt reminder that showing up, being present, and embracing imperfection are the real keys to building an unbreakable bond with your daughter.

Listen to the full episode of The Dad and Daughter Connection to get inspired and start your journey toward a stronger relationship today!

If you enjoyed this episode we ask you to take a moment to take our Dad and Daughter Connection Survey to let us know more about you as a dad. You can also sign up to get our newsletter to stay connected to our community and we will send items of interest to you to help you to be the dad that you want to be. Feel free to follow me on the following social media platforms: Facebook, Facebook Group, Instagram, LinkedIn, X.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:02]:
Welcome to The Dad and Daughter Connection, the podcast for dads who want to build stronger bonds and raise confident, independent daughters.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:12]:
If you’re looking to build a stronger bond with your daughter and help her grow into a confident, independent woman, you’re in the right place. I’m Dr. Christopher Lewis, and The Dad and Daughter Connection is the podcast where we dive into real stories, expert advice, and practical tips to help you navigate the incredible journey of fatherhood. In every episode, we’ll bring you conversations that inspire, challenge, and equip you to show up as the dad your daughter needs. So let’s get started, because being a great dad isn’t just about being there, it’s about truly connecting. Welcome back to the Dad and Daughter Connection, where every week we have a great opportunity to be able to connect with one another and work on building those that we want with our daughters one day at a time. I love that you come back every week because all of us are on a journey. Whether you have toddlers, whether you have a baby at home, whether you have teenagers at home, whether you have adult kids, we all are on this continuum of being a father to a daughter.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:19]:
And we can always learn more. We can always learn more to help us to be able to be better in the role that we have. We’re gonna stumble, we’re gonna fall, That’s okay. All of us do it. There’s no one right way to father our daughters. But what we can do is we can learn from other dads what’s working for them, what’s not working for them, and build some tools for our own toolbox, add some tools for our own toolbox, and be able to get just that much better every day because that’s what we need to be doing. to be able to be there for our daughters. That’s what we need to be doing to be able to be present.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:59]:
And I am really excited to have another new guest this week. John Azoni is with us today, and John’s a father of 2 daughters who are 9 and 11. And we’re gonna be talking about the journey that he’s been on with his daughters. And I’m really excited to have him here today. John, thanks so much for being here.

John Azoni [00:02:15]:
Thanks for having me. It’s great to be here.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:17]:
You know, it’s really, I’m really excited to be able to have you here today and to be able to talk to you about the journey that you have been on thus far with your daughters. And I guess one of the things that I always think about when it comes to raising our daughters is we’re always running after those moments. We want those moments with our kids. And as you think back to the years that you’ve had with your daughters thus far, what’s one of the most meaningful moments that you’ve been able to share with them and what made it so special? And one thing I’ll add is they could be separate moments as well.

John Azoni [00:02:49]:
So I read this book a number of years ago called Love Does. The author is Bob Goff and it’s a faith-based book. And in it, he talks a lot about parenting. parenting. And he told the story of taking his kids when they turned 10 on a trip anywhere in the world they want to go to, really leaning into what is it that they are becoming, what is it that they’re interested in, and, and where can we go in the world to kind of deepen that. And so I always thought that that was a cool idea. And my daughter, when she turned 10 last year, my daughter Ellie, in my mind I was kind of like maybe somewhere in the United States. I don’t remember explicitly saying anywhere in the world.

John Azoni [00:03:25]:
So when my daughter was like, I want to go to Japan, I was like, oh, okay. Well, so after a lot of hemming and hawing, I talked to my wife. She’s like, just do it. It’s like once in a lifetime. We’re like, all right, we’re going to Japan. So, so we went to Tokyo last May and it was so cool just to learn about another culture together, to really press into, you know, the stuff that she likes. She’s really into K-pop. It’s obviously not in Korea, but somewhere over there.

John Azoni [00:03:54]:
She’s into that kind of Asian culture and Hello Kitty. And they have the biggest Hello Kitty store in the world there, uh, video games and arcades where she can and do all the— she loves playing those claw games, which are really popular in Asian countries. So, so it was great. I mean, we just traveled around, we ate good food, we went to Paris Disney, um, and just spent a week together. That— and, and even just like, it was a pretty short trip, but— and people were like, well, you’re just going for like 5 days? Like, aren’t you gonna be— I mean, like, a big part of that is just traveling, you know? By the time you get there, I think we had 3 full days there. And I was just like, you know, it’s, it’s the adventure. It’s like traveling is, is part of it. We’re gonna learn how to do the airport together.

John Azoni [00:04:30]:
So on the way there, I kind of led the charge, but on the way back I was like, All right, where do you think we should turn to get to baggage claim or stuff like that? Or where do you think we should go to get our bags checked? So that was fun. And, you know, I’ve had other special experiences with my youngest daughter, Ryland. Currently though, we’re planning her trip. She wants to go to Paris. So we’re planning on going to Paris next year.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:04:50]:
Those will be experiences that they will never forget. And definitely you don’t have to do these huge moments. They can be small moments as well. But I had an experience like that last year with my oldest who is in college, but she was out in Colorado and I picked her up from a camp she was working in and we spent a week going to all the national parks all around in that area. So we went to Zion and Bryce and Grand Canyon and Petrified Forest, all kinds of places. And we hiked and we just had an amazing experience. And I think when you have those opportunities, not only are they great opportunities to be able to have to build memories, but you have time one-on-one. And I think that’s even more important.

John Azoni [00:05:32]:
Yeah, one-on-one time is really special. So last weekend, my oldest daughter went to Florida with my wife because she does dance, and her dance group went to go perform at Disney in the parade. And so that was just a life dream of hers. And she got this one-on-one time with my wife. And previously, we were kind of like, all right, we’re Disney’d out. We’ve been to Disney World. We’ve been on a Disney cruise. I took Ellie to Disney in Tokyo.

John Azoni [00:05:58]:
And we’ve been to Disneyland when we went to California last year. And my wife was kind of like, all right, this is the last time I got to go to Disney. And then I get a text from her in the middle of it. She’s like, this is so great. It’s such a different experience being one-on-one with Ellie and we’re just having the best time. And at the same time, I’m home with Ryland and we had our own special weekend. We, you know, wrote on the whiteboard, here’s all the things we wanna do and we wanna schedule all these things out. Anytime you can write a list on a whiteboard for my youngest, she’s all about it.

John Azoni [00:06:27]:
She loves to just like have a checklist, have a plan. So one-on-one time is something completely different that you just cannot replace.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:06:33]:
Now you talked a little bit about on that trip to Tokyo, giving your daughter some independence to be able to make some decisions and things like that. And, and as our kids are getting older, we definitely have to do that. How are you finding that you’re balancing not only guiding your daughters, but also giving them the independence to grow into the people that they’re becoming?

John Azoni [00:06:52]:
Oh, that’s a tough question. I try to lean into who are they and what is, what is my role in this? Like one of the things that I learned about Ellie on that Japan trip is how scrappy she is. And it’s so different for me. Like she has no problem going up and asking a stranger where to get directions. Or one time we were on the bus going somewhere in Tokyo and some lady was lost. And for some reason my daughter stepped in and starts trying to tell her where to go as if she knows where to go. I’m like, Ellie, where do you think you’re sending her? She just wants to get in there. And I’m just very like, I don’t like to be embarrassed.

John Azoni [00:07:27]:
I don’t like to ask for help. I’m a lot more shy, but she kind of lifts me up in that way. I really try to get on that level with her and also just try to let her be who she is and go out into the world and just talk to new people like her mom does. But I think it’s always a challenge where to step in. I think the biggest area that we are struggling with that right now is, is in faith. And I don’t know if you’re a person of faith, but when I got married, my wife and I were both devout Christians. And over the last 5 years, I’ve kind of deconstructed and my faith has evolved in a way— I wouldn’t say I’m not a believer, but I would say like I just have so many questions that I’m allowing myself to ask. And I’m engaging in these conversations with what I grew up believing versus what can be verified and things like that.

John Azoni [00:08:13]:
So I’m kind of down this more scientific path. My wife isn’t. How do we let our kids discover things on their own? And what do we teach them about the world? That’s been really hard because when you’re defining your parenthood around an entire ideology, like a religion, and that’s the lens that you’re giving your kids, and that’s the lens you’re told to give your kids, you’re instructed to teach them in this way. Well, now when you throw questions into the mix, mom and dad have different answers for what do you do? So I think we’ve kind of landed on. We want our kids to think independently. And when one of my kids has a tough question, I’ll say, well, here’s what I think. Here’s what I’m not sure about. Like, here’s what I have questions about.

John Azoni [00:08:55]:
Here’s what your mom thinks. And you can kind of make up your own decision. And that was also never more true in, you know, this most recent election. You know, my oldest had a lot of questions about who was running for president, who was the good guy, and who was the bad guy. And it’s easy to want to pick a side and train your kid on that side. But we really tried to just step back and be like, well, Well, here’s what this side says. Here’s what that side says. What do you think? And so that’s kind of where we’ve landed, I think, giving them some scaffolding, but letting them kind of figure it out themselves.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:09:26]:
And as you’ve been starting to do that with your daughters, especially around this faith journey, what has their response been?

John Azoni [00:09:33]:
It’s tough because they knew me when we were all praying every night and putting them to bed and going to church all the time and, you know, all this stuff. And so they’ve seen me kind of drift and ask these questions that they look at me as I’m supposed to have the answers To these, you’re supposed to know if if Adam and Eve are real people or not. And so that’s been tough. You know, their response has been honestly one of confusion. I wish I had a glossy answer for you. It’s not gone great. It’s very tough to navigate. And like I said, you know, we just go back to like here’s what two different people can think, and we can hold two different things in tension.

John Azoni [00:10:11]:
And certainly the Bible, there are a lot of instances where the Bible is represented as God holding two. seemingly opposing things in tension together and somehow making it work. So we kind of go with that. But yeah, I wish I could tell you that it’s gone. It’s just been perfect. And they’re— they have all the answers that I don’t have. But anytime you’re trying to sort through something on your own and your kid’s looking to you for the answer, that’s just a tough position to be in.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:10:36]:
It is a tough place to be because, I mean, you try to have that solid front on everything in parenting because when you don’t have the solid front, then things tend to go awry. So I think what you’re hearing here, though, is that John and his wife still have a solid front, but they’re attacking it in different ways. And they’re providing their kids the ability to be able to move in the direction that makes more sense for them. That doesn’t mean that they’re not in alignment on other things in their parenting journey, though.

John Azoni [00:11:07]:
Yeah, I would liken it to, like, giving them— I mentioned the term scaffolding, and I really like that term. And I would just say, So we’ve just really widened the scaffolding around faith to where we’re still in this box. But what that looks like on a day-to-day basis or on an individual beliefs basis can look different. And 2 people can arrive at different conclusions and still have the same heart.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:11:31]:
So as you think about your daughters and you think about what you’ve been doing with your daughters, what are some intentional ways that you have worked to strengthen your bond with your daughters, especially during times that might be more challenging?

John Azoni [00:11:43]:
COVID was a time of obviously being sort of forced into this intentional time. And at first it was very stressful because at the time I had a salaried job and a certain amount of PTO days and I’m a rule follower. So if I say I’m working, but I’m off at the park with the kids, like I don’t, I don’t feel good about that. But like there was all this stuff that you had to do from out of necessity during that time. So it was a stressful time, but it also kind of caused me to be like, let’s really soak this up. And so we did a lot of stuff together as a family, but that actually led me to leave that job. and start my own company, my own video production company. And for a big reason was to be more flexible with them and to be able to be home with them and be there when they need me and not have to worry about PTO.

John Azoni [00:12:28]:
And so that’s opened the doors to a lot of great times where I might be right in the middle of a busy project and I would get a call from the school. And my oldest, Ellie, she was the one that would call home a lot. She would feel a stomachache or something and she’d feel like she needed to go home. And we would have to navigate like a lot of times, like, what is the line that Where Dad will pick you up and where you need to tough it out. But there’s a lot of times where I could have been really stressed about work, but I had to just really be like, you know what, I’m just— I’m gonna go pick her up. I’m gonna be happy about it. I’m gonna have a smile on my face. I’m gonna make her feel like Dad wants to be here.

John Azoni [00:13:01]:
Dad cares about me. He’s not annoyed with me. You know, I think just those small acts have been great. And I remember, you know, other times too, just a lot of our special times revolve around food.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:13:12]:
Yeah.

John Azoni [00:13:13]:
It seems like every Thursday, a number of years ago when Ellie was in preschool, she would have a half day. And so I’d pick her up and every Thursday we’d go get wonton soup on the way home at this Chinese restaurant. And we learned— Dad stepped out of his comfort zone and learned the owner of the restaurant’s name so that when we called, we can say, hey, Lynn, our usual. She wanted that. Like, that would just be so cool. And so eventually she started calling and being like, hi, Lynn, it’s Ellie, just our usual. And then we’d go pick it up. But we cook a lot together too.

John Azoni [00:13:42]:
My daughters each really enjoy cooking and no matter what we’re making, just spending time together. And that’s where I think one-on-one time is really important because trying to cook with both of them at the same time is just a constant referee of who got to chop what, who got to pour this, who cracked the last egg, you know. So I found just one at a time, we’ll have a great time together, but let’s just, you know. So yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of opportunities, but I think it’s a lot in those small moments where it’s like my natural reaction might be to be stressed or just to be worried about the day-to-day. stuff, but like my daughters are looking to me as like, am I liked? Like, am I loved in this moment? Am I safe in this moment? Does my dad want to be here? And I really try to, to just put on a smile and just be like, you know what, this— because one of the things I say, I started saying since I started my own business was my business is in service of my kids, not in spite of them. And that’s a tough thing to, to stick to because whether or not something gets done has a very real consequences about whether, whether income comes in the door. But, but the reason why I— half the reason I started my own company was to be there for my kids and to not miss this time with them. And so, so yeah, that’s kind of how I think about work and spending time with them.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:15:01]:
All of us as dads, we’re not perfect. We make mistakes. And while we try our best to be the best we can, we’re going to make mistakes. We’re fallible. We’re humans. What’s a mistake that you made as a father? And what did What did it do, or what did you learn from it about fostering positive communication and connection with your daughters?

John Azoni [00:15:20]:
I think it’s a pattern of mistakes. And when I get overstimulated, when there’s too many people talking to me at once, I get immediate, like 0 to 100 stressed out. And that’s— I’m so likely to just lash out and like snap and say something, tell them to be quiet, but in a rude way that we’re not allowed to say. So that’s where it’s such a tension of like, because they’re both in the back talking like peak back-talking phase. And honestly, my youngest is the most cutting about it. I mean, she will just go right for the jugular. And they talk back usually as a reaction and not as a response, like not as an intentional response. So when I’m feeling stressed or overwhelmed and I lash out, I’m not doing any service to them.

John Azoni [00:16:06]:
It’s very hypocritical to tell them that’s not how we talk to people. And then just in a, in a different way or a different use of words, I do the same thing. So I think that’s— I think we’re all learning together. How to regulate ourselves. My wife is a therapist, and so we’ve learned a lot about the concept of regulation, and we’ve read a lot of parenting books about when your kids make you mad or something, or they say something completely disrespectful, they’re dysregulated. They’re not really choosing that response. And so your job as a parent is to be the one that regulates, not escalates. And so that’s— that is the toughest thing for me, like— I have to really think I’m feeling myself escalating this situation and I need to be the, I need to be the regulator.

John Azoni [00:16:50]:
So I don’t know if that answers your question, but that’s just a slurry of thoughts of, of communication between me and my kids.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:16:58]:
No, I appreciate you sharing that because I think it is important to understand that that happens. I mean, and we’re going to, things are going to adjust and, you know, and all of us get overwhelmed at times. And especially these days, there’s so many things being thrown at every one of us. And whether it’s technology, whether it’s, you know, whatever, there are so many things that are being thrown at each one of us, not only us, but our kids, etc. So it is important to know that. And then finding ways to be able to quiet the noise, not only for ourselves, but quiet the noise for our kids, I think is also important as we think about our— the way in which we’re fathering. Because if we know— if you know that you’re triggered when that happens, you have to figure out for yourself, and you’ve probably already done that, is What can you do to quiet the noise so that you can continue being present and continue, continue being who you want to be with your daughters?

John Azoni [00:17:51]:
Yeah, absolutely.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:17:52]:
So there’s been a lot of things that you’ve talked about where you’re showing that you’re doing some intentional things to really connect with your daughters. What do you do intentionally to make your daughters feel valued and heard?

John Azoni [00:18:04]:
I think it’s just trying to get on their level and care about the things that they care about. My youngest, it’s always was so funny, and we, my wife and I laugh about this. We would pick her up from daycare when she was younger, you know, 3, 4 years old. And that could be a very stressful moment because we’re also picking up my oldest from daycare and she’s wanting to do something. Can we go out for ice cream? Or when’s mom going to be home? Blah, blah, blah. And again, too many people talking to me at once. And my youngest, all she wants to do in that moment is show me the drawings that she made and show me the little worksheets that she did. And it’s so important to her.

John Azoni [00:18:38]:
And she feels, you can just see the receiving of love when you look at her and you care about what she wrote, that she wrote her name or that she did something, that she wrote, she counted to 10 or whatever it is. And so, I mean, we have stacks and stacks of paper because that behavior has never stopped. She’s almost 9 and she still to this day wants to show us everything. She went to this art camp a couple weeks ago, made all kinds of art. And the first thing she wants to do when we get in the car is like, Dad, let me show you what I made. And it’s so important that I give her my full attention. And I can get on board with that because I’m— my background’s in fine arts. I’m a painter.

John Azoni [00:19:14]:
So I went to art school and all that stuff. So that’s a perfect thing for me to like get on board with. I think just, yeah, finding in those moments, what are they really trying to say right now? What they’re really trying to say is, Dad, I want to connect with you. Not like, not necessarily about the papers or the drawings or whatever. And I find that with my oldest too. She’s starting to outgrow like bedtime, but she still wants me to put her to bed. And, you know, and I’m kind of just like clinging to that for as long as possible. And we just have the best talks.

John Azoni [00:19:43]:
Like, there’s just no greater conversation than when we’re just— I’m just laying in her bed with her next to her and we’re just, just talking about whatever, just laughing about things. I mean, so much laughter happens in those moments. And I listen when I’m putting my other daughter to bed, my wife’s putting Ellie to bed, I hear them cracking up too because they just get into the funniest, you know, they just become a new person. They feel so safe. And so I think just being intentional about those moments, because sometimes I’m like, I’m tired, it’s 9:30, I got to get up at 5 in the morning. I don’t want to spend a half an hour, you know, laying, laying with you and waiting for you to brush your teeth and waiting for you to put your pajamas on. And it’s getting towards 10 o’clock now. And so I try, but I try to really push that aside and say, hey, she’s, she’s not going to ask me to do this for much longer.

John Azoni [00:20:29]:
And in 5 years, I’m going to miss any, any attention she gave me, like her wanting to actually hang out with me, because it’s going to be the other way around. So, so I think it’s just, I think it’s just recognizing in those moments what’s really most important and then just leaning into that.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:45]:
Now, we always finish our interviews with what I like to call our Dad Connection 6. 6 more questions to delve a little bit deeper into you as a dad. Are you ready?

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:52]:
Sure.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:53]:
What’s one word that describes your relationship with your daughters?

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:56]:
Humor.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:57]:
What’s the best piece of dad advice that you ever received?

John Azoni [00:21:02]:
It’s probably from when you’re walking around a grocery store and you get like a whole stream of like elderly men that will say, I remember when my daughter was that age and then she started driving the next day. Like, don’t miss it. I really actually took advice to heart, like what I just said. I’m like, there’s gonna be a time when they’re not gonna want to hang out with me, so don’t miss it.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:21:20]:
What’s one activity you and your daughters love doing together?

John Azoni [00:21:24]:
Cooking.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:21:25]:
If you could give your daughters one life lesson in a single sentence, what would it be?

John Azoni [00:21:30]:
I think just don’t change for other people. Don’t be the person that you’re with. I think like maybe girls especially start dating and things like that, they want to change to be liked and to impress and things like that. And so I think my advice would just be to just be yourself and be What’s one thing you’ve learned about yourself since becoming a dad? I have learned, I have learned that I make a lot of mistakes and I’ve learned to be okay with that. I just want my kids to grow up and know that their dad was crazy about them. And for all my flaws, I want them to— I watched this video one time. It was my boss’s. We did a story on my boss at the time at my old job, his family.

John Azoni [00:22:11]:
And we interviewed his wife and they were talking about her parents and they asked her, what’s your favorite thing about your dad? And she said, said how much he loves me. And she started crying. And I edited that video. So of course, I’m like, I’m like tearing up and like, you know, you got the music going and stuff like that in the edit, in the video edit. So, but I’ve always kept that with me as like, that’s like my mantra as a dad. Like, I’m gonna mess up, but like, I want my kids to, to really feel and be imprinted with how like crazy I am about them.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:22:39]:
And finally, what advice would you give to other dads who want to build a lasting and meaningful relationship with their daughters?

John Azoni [00:22:48]:
I think it’s just being really intentional with them. I think for me, I just think about, it’s like we have 18 years if we’re lucky, and I want to build as many memories with them as possible. And I don’t want to waste this being stressed about stuff that’s just not going to matter in 50 years. And so, and I think about it the same way of like marriage advice. People contrast the saying of the grass is greener on the other side. side with, with saying the grass is greener where you water it. And I like that about marriage. And that’s something that I keep in my mind.

John Azoni [00:23:20]:
But I also think that that applies to kids too. I mean, the type of relationship that you’re going to have with your kids now and when they’re older is determined by how intentional you are in these early years and just watering that grass.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:34]:
Well, John, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for being here today, for sharing what you shared with the journey that you’ve gone through. If people want to find out more about you, I know you got a podcast. Is there a place that people can go to find out more?

John Azoni [00:23:46]:
Yeah, I’m very active on LinkedIn. My name’s spelled J-O-H-N-A-Z-O-N-I if you’re searching for me. That’s probably where I hang out the most, on LinkedIn. I don’t post a whole lot of family stuff, but once in a while you might get some sort of business advice through the lens of being a dad to 2 girls.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:24:00]:
Well, again, John, thank you so much for being here, and I wish you all the best.

John Azoni [00:24:03]:
Thank you.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:24:03]:
That’s a wrap for this episode of The Dad and Daughter Connection. Thanks for joining us on this journey to build stronger bonds and raise confident, independent daughters. Remember, being an engaged dad isn’t about being perfect; it’s about being present. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and share it with a fellow dad. And don’t forget, you can find all our episodes at dadanddaughterconnection.com. Until next time, keep showing up, keep connecting, and keep being the dad she needs.

Musical Outro Performer [00:24:34]:
We’re all in the same boat. And it’s full of tiny screaming passengers. We spend the time, we give the lessons, we make the meals, we buy them presents. So bring your A-game, ’cause those kids are growing fast. The time goes by just like a dynamite blast. Calling astronauts and firemen, Carpenters and muscle men, get out and be in the world too now. Be the best dad you can be. Be the best dad you can be.

The post Building Lasting Bonds: Intentional Fatherhood with John Azoni appeared first on Dad of Divas.

Challenging the Culture of Fear

One of the episode’s powerful themes is how today’s parents are conditioned to overprotect. Lenore Skenazy recounts the story that ignited her movement: letting her nine-year-old son navigate the New York City subway alone, only to face national backlash and probing “what ifs” from the media. As Lenore Skenazy explains at 10:01, our culture fixates on the rarest tragedies—like stranger abductions—despite statistical evidence showing how unlikely they are. This fear loop not only restricts children’s experiences but also saps much of the joy and pride of seeing them grow.

The Power of Trust and Letting Go

Dr. Christopher Lewis and Lenore Skenazy discuss the essential “trust loop,” where letting children try things on their own—whether it’s walking to the store or making pancakes—builds both competence and confidence. As Lenore Skenazy beautifully puts it at 30:28, “When adults step back, kids step up.” True confidence, she explains, grows from real experiences and problem-solving, not empty reassurance.

Practical Steps for Parents

The episode offers actionable advice for dads: let your kids help (even messily) when they’re small, encourage them to do things by themselves, and support their social independence with unstructured play. Check out the suggestions at 27:18—like organizing Free Play Fridays or starting your own “let grow” experiences. Not only will your children blossom, but you’ll also rediscover the pride that comes from witnessing their real-world triumphs.

Join the Movement

This episode isn’t just for dads. Anyone who wants to see children thrive in today’s anxious, scheduled world should tune in. Lenore Skenazy shares hope, humor, and evidence-based insights that will inspire you to let go—and let grow.

Ready to break the cycle and raise the confident daughter you know she can be? Listen to the full conversation now at dadanddaughterconnection.com and join a community of dads committed to showing up, connecting, and empowering the next generation.

If you enjoyed this episode we ask you to take a moment to take our Dad and Daughter Connection Survey to let us know more about you as a dad. You can also sign up to get our newsletter to stay connected to our community and we will send items of interest to you to help you to be the dad that you want to be. Feel free to follow me on the following social media platforms: Facebook, Facebook Group, Instagram, LinkedIn, X.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:02]:
Welcome to The Dad and Daughter Connection, the podcast for dads who want to build stronger bonds and raise confident, independent daughters.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:12]:
If you’re looking to build a stronger bond with your daughter and help her grow into a confident, independent woman, you’re in the right place. I’m Dr. Christopher Lewis, and The Dad and Daughter Connection is the podcast where we dive into real stories, expert advice, and practical tips to help you navigate the incredible journey of fatherhood. In every episode, we’ll bring you conversations that inspire, challenge, and equip you to show up as the dad your daughter needs. So let’s get started. Because being a great dad isn’t just about being there. It’s about truly connecting. Welcome back to the Dad and Daughter Connection, where every week we have a great opportunity to be able to connect with not only one another, but But to be able to work and grow, to be able to become those dads that we wanna become and to be able to build the relationships and the connections that we want to build with our daughters.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:11]:
I love it that you come back every week because every week there is something new that you can learn, some new tools you can add into your toolbox and things that you can do to be able to move yourself just maybe a little bit, maybe a lot, to be able to help you to be that dad that you want to be To your daughters. And that’s why this podcast exists. Every week I bring you different people. We have different conversations, all in alignment to help you to be able to move forward one step at a time. It’s not always gonna be easy. Being a father is not always gonna be easy, and that’s okay. That’s why I love being able to walk with you on this journey. You know, I’m a father of 2 daughters.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:52]:
There are times that I stumble and fall and make mistakes just like you, but we all can learn. One step at a time. And today we’ve got another great guest. Lenore Skenazy is with us today, and I’m really excited to be able to have Lenore on because if you’ve ever wondered whether kids are being overprotected or whether parents are under more pressure than ever, then you’re going to enjoy today’s conversation because Lenore Skenazy, who is a journalist, she’s an author, she’s founder of the Free-Range Kids Movement, is with us today. Now, she’s often called America’s worst mom after allowing her 9-year-old son to ride the subway alone, Lenore turned that experience into a national conversation about raising capable, confident children. Today, through the nonprofit Let Grow, she continues to help families and schools foster independence, resilience, and real-world confidence in kids. Lenore, thanks so much for being here today.

Lenore Skenazy [00:02:49]:
Well, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:51]:
I’m really excited to have you here today. And I always start these conversations with just an opportunity to be able to get to know you and get to know your relationship with your own father, because all of us have fathers, that have helped us to become the people that we’ve become. And I guess as you think back to your dad, and I know as we, we talked at the very beginning, your dad’s been gone for a number of years, but as you think back to the relationship that you had with your father, what’s one of the things that your father did that made you truly feel seen, heard, and valued as a daughter?

Lenore Skenazy [00:03:21]:
Well, I’ll tell you one of the things he didn’t do, and I think that was the most significant, which is that he didn’t expect me or my sister— my dad had 2 daughters just like you— to be anything in particular. We didn’t have to be doctors, lawyers. We almost didn’t have to be successful. We just had to be ourselves. And ironically, he was so into sports. He was so into sports that he started a tennis club. That was his job for the last 30 years of his life. He built one of the first indoor tennis clubs in the suburbs of Chicago where we grew up.

Lenore Skenazy [00:03:51]:
Beautiful place. He was the president of it until the day he died. Ran tennis clinics and tennis parties and tennis tournaments. And my sister and I never had to play tennis. And I thought, that is pretty amazing. You know, it’s not like my kid has to be a mini-me. We didn’t have to be mini-anythings. And I was really grateful for that because I was never interested in any sport.

Lenore Skenazy [00:04:14]:
And that didn’t bother him as much as he loved sports.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:04:17]:
As you think back on your dad, how did he encourage you to be confident and independent in the things that you were doing and to support you in the passion and the dreams that you had?

Lenore Skenazy [00:04:29]:
Well, here’s the deal. He always believed in me and my sister that anything we were ready to do, that was fine. And as he got older, the thing that, that we would have the most fun with is he would call up and, and he ended up in a wheelchair for like the last 12 years. So he’s looking for fun. And it was always, Laura, tell me a joke, because we just love jokes. It was the era when people did tell whole long jokes. You know, a guy walks into a bar, a man’s, uh, you know, guys on a golf course, whatever it was. And I don’t say that he turned me into a public speaker, but he certainly realized the value of good timing and trying to get that, nail that punchline.

Lenore Skenazy [00:05:09]:
And knowing that part of, I just read the book A Gentleman in Moscow by, I guess, Amor Towles. And one sentence he said in there struck me as so profound. It’s the novel of a guy confined to a luxury hotel since the beginning of the Russian Revolution until he’s very aged. And he adapts to the fact that he’ll never be able to leave this hotel. And at first, he’s just a rich guy, and then he ends up getting a job there. And he’s— everything he does, he does with incredible aplomb and tact and kindness. And towards the end, he said, a cheerful demeanor, which is the hallmark of an intelligent person, blah, blah, blah. And I thought, being cheerful is— it’s an obligation, right? And you can rise to it.

Lenore Skenazy [00:05:52]:
And it is the mark of somebody smart, not somebody silly and goofy, because it means that you’re putting somebody else’s emotions sometimes ahead of your own.

Speaker D [00:06:01]:
Yeah.

Lenore Skenazy [00:06:01]:
And also recognizing that the sort of the more cheerful you are, certainly the more you try to put yourself out there, it pays you back. And so everybody, it’s the rising tide for all the boats, all those glum boats out there. And my dad was always trying to do that. You know, he would ask the waitress, honey, what’s your name? Oh, okay, Samantha. I would love a cup of coffee. And he had a way of trying to bring things up. And he expected that of me. And I am grateful for that.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:06:32]:
Now, I know you said your dad’s been gone for a number of years. If you could spend an entire day with your dad today doing anything, what would it look like?

Lenore Skenazy [00:06:41]:
Oh, I could tell you that. We would immediately go to a movie theater that has an all-day roster of really old black-and-white movies, most of them starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, but some of them a little bit deeper than that, and even some silent movies. My dad was really old when he had me, and I’m pretty old myself. And he loved— he had a book when I was growing up of the silent movie stars of the teens and ’20s. And oh my God, how I loved that book. And we really shared this fascination with how great the movies were back in the day. And he was a great dancer, and so he loved Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and we loved musicals. And so— I would just sit there and we’d get a big tub of popcorn, which then would be stuck in his teeth for the rest of the day.

Lenore Skenazy [00:07:30]:
And God knows how many toothpicks he’d go through and sucking sounds like, like that, which is happening to us all at a certain age. But we would really have a great time with an all-day extravaganza at the movies.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:07:42]:
Now, I mentioned at the very beginning that you have been working on a free-range kids movement throughout, I’m going to say the world, because you’ve been really talking about this beyond just the US. You know, your message has gone beyond that. Let’s go back in time. I want to go back to that origin story because not everybody has heard about this. Tell me about what made you decide that it was so important not only to tell your own story, but to work with parents to be able to start this broader movement.

Lenore Skenazy [00:08:12]:
Sure. So what happened was when our younger son was 9, older son was 11 at that point, Izzy started asking me and my husband if we would take him someplace he’d never been before. in New York City where we live and let him find his own way home by subway. That was the dream, by subway, because we’re always on the subways. We don’t have a car and he’s a boy, right? Boys like transportation. Oh my God. From the backhoes to the Cadillacs to the subway. And so one sunny Sunday, I took him to Bloomingdale’s fancy department store where we don’t shop.

Lenore Skenazy [00:08:45]:
So he’d never been there before. And it’s built on top of a subway station. And I left him there. I said, okay, have at it. Today’s the day. And he had to take a subway several stops down to 34th Street, which everybody knows, miracle. And then he had to take a bus across town. And when he finally got home, which took about an hour, he was just levitating with the excitement of like, he did it, it happened.

Lenore Skenazy [00:09:08]:
He’d finally been let loose and he’d proven himself and he was really happy. And so I wrote a newspaper column about it like months later, ’cause it didn’t strike me as a big deal at the time. But when I needed a column to write, oh my God, what am I gonna write? I’ll write about this subway ride from a couple months ago. So I wrote Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway Alone, and 2 days later, I was on the Today Show, MSNBC, Fox News, and NPR. And what I heard in all these interviews, and what disturbs me to this day, is that there was no joy, right? It was like, okay, so he did that. That’s wonderful. You seem happy. He seems fine.

Lenore Skenazy [00:09:44]:
But what if he wasn’t? What if he’d been thrown on the tracks? What if he’d been raped and thrown on the tracks? What if he’d been raped and decapitated and thrown on the tracks? And the disturbing thing about that is not all the pictures you get in your head of, you know, that, but the fact that, that the news media was allowed to go to the what-ifs, the very worst what-ifs. And this was treated as a legitimate yin to the yang. He came home fine, he was happy, but what if instead he never came home? And I started recognizing that that’s what our culture does. It fantasizes for some reason about the very worst-case scenarios. And if you’re not doing that too, if you’re not saying, well, I’d like her to walk 2 blocks to the bus stop, but what if in, you know, in those 2 blocks in the quiet suburb, my, you know, 13-year-old who’s, you know, 5’6 tall, is kidnapped by a guy in a white van and I never see her again, so no, I’m not going to let her walk. And that’s a very strange culture that almost relishes thinking of catastrophes that are, thank God, extraordinarily rare. And I— my God, I’ve been writing about this so long, I know what the odds are. If you wanted your kid to be kidnapped by a stranger— do you know this already— how long you’d have to keep them outside for it to be statistically likely that they would be kidnapped by a stranger? Take a guess.

Lenore Skenazy [00:10:57]:
How long would you have to keep your kid outside for them to be kidnapped?

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:11:00]:
Days.

Lenore Skenazy [00:11:01]:
Think higher.

Speaker D [00:11:02]:
Months?

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:11:03]:
Higher. Years?

Lenore Skenazy [00:11:04]:
Higher.

Speaker D [00:11:05]:
Wow.

Lenore Skenazy [00:11:05]:
Yeah, the answer is 750,000 years.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:11:09]:
Wow.

Lenore Skenazy [00:11:09]:
Yeah, because it’s an extraordinarily rare crime. It’s not extraordinarily rare on TV. It’s pretty darn common on Law Order, you know? But in real life, thank God, it just doesn’t happen. I mean, you know, there are kids who are taken. It’s generally by parents in a custodial dispute, divorced parents. And there are kids who run away. But kids taken by a stranger is one of the rarest of crimes, thank God. And if you’re gonna go and think about the rarest of crimes, or the rarest of tragedies in almost any situation, you, you know, you wouldn’t let your kid get in the car.

Lenore Skenazy [00:11:39]:
You know, there’s drunk drivers out there, there’s bad drivers out there, there’s elderly drivers out there. And you certainly, you wouldn’t let them live in a house with stairs or there’s a bathtub because, you know, once in a while kids fall downstairs or they drown in bathtubs. But the only one we really perseverate on Is the idea of, you know, you turned your head and while you turned your head, your kid was taken from you and you’ll never see him again. And that’s, that’s as weird as if we had a culture that believed that there were giant spiders out there. You know, it’s like, I can’t let my kid out. What about the giant spiders? It’s like, I’m really not too worried about the giant spiders. And it’s like, well, you should be. It’s like, but I’m not.

Lenore Skenazy [00:12:16]:
Well, what if you came— what if you let him ride the subway and he got eaten by a giant spider? I’m like, I’m just not worried. Well, Lenore, I guess you don’t care.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:23]:
You know, from everything I’ve seen, your videos and things like that, it seems like a lot of people often think that free-range kids is about giving kids more freedom.

Lenore Skenazy [00:12:34]:
But it—

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:35]:
from everything I’ve read, it seems like it’s actually more about giving parents permission to trust their children. Tell me more about that.

Lenore Skenazy [00:12:42]:
Well, I think you’ve nailed it. The way I’ve started describing it is that what I was just talking about is what I call the fear loop, which is You know, I’d love to, like I said, you know, let him walk to school. But what if something terrible happened? What if a car jumped up the curb? You know, what if a, you know, man comes along in a van and that would all be my fault and now I’d never see him again and I would— couldn’t live with myself and it would be the end of my marriage. And, you know, I, you know, I’d be at the funeral. And, and you go through this loop, which, as I said, the media has actively cultivated. And the fear loop means that you never get out of it because what if something bad happens? I could never forgive myself, so I won’t let anything happen. The end.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:13:17]:
Yeah.

Lenore Skenazy [00:13:17]:
It’s sort of the Finding Nemo loop. But there is an alternate loop, which is the trust loop. And the only way you get to the trust loop is through action. And the action is literally letting your kid do something without you. It sounds radical. It’s not radical. Throughout all of human history, this is how children were raised until the advent of tracking and constant supervision. But if you can let your kid walk to the bus stop, go to a friend’s house, play at the park for an hour, run an errand, even if you’re sitting there biting your nails the whole time, even if there’s horrible scenarios running through your brain.

Lenore Skenazy [00:13:51]:
First of all, you’re a parent, you’re going to have horrible scenarios running through your brain because you’re— you, you’ve given birth to a child and now you’re going to worry about them. There’s no such thing as a completely anxiety-free parenting venture. So give that up, live with the anxiety for a little bit. And when the kid comes home and they’re thrilled because they got the ice cream or they met a squirrel or they climbed a tree, or they’re a little shaken because they thought they took a left and then they found themselves on another block and they couldn’t remember where they were and they had to talk to somebody, but now Either way, you’re so proud, right? You’re so proud that, look at, they had a great time, or look at, they problem solved. Parents, I mean, you’re a parent. I’ll ask you, tell me about a time that you can remember when you were most proud of one of your daughters. Like, like, ah, you just love remembering that moment.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:14:40]:
You know, I think my oldest went away to college about 12 hours away from home. And because she went that far away, she really had to figure things out for herself. And being able to see her be more confident in her abilities, and, and even as a part of that, she, you know, she took a term and she went to Scotland and had to, you know, had to adult. And also as a part of that, she, she went and she backpacked around Europe for 3 weeks by herself. And it was scary at times to be able to think, okay, she’s out in the middle of you know where, and not exactly knowing is she safe or not until she lets us know. But I also was really proud of her for being able to do that.

Lenore Skenazy [00:15:30]:
Yeah, it’s not a but. Let me just pause here. You know, I was scared but also proud. No, those go together, right? I wasn’t there. She had to do something on her own. Look at who I’ve raised, right? This is the joy of parenting that our culture keeps sucking out. Because we’re there at every practice, we drive them to every activity, we’re there helping with the homework. And really, the joy of a child is saying, I did it myself, right? Look at, look at, I did it myself.

Lenore Skenazy [00:15:59]:
And the joy of a parent is they did it themselves. And instead, we’re always there helping and intervening and suggesting and, you know, just hovering. And that’s because our culture has told us as it was telling me, you know, how dare you let your kid do something? What if something terrible happens? We’ve really catastrophized everyday life to the point where kids need us to do anything we think safely or successfully on their own. But when the truth comes in, the truth breaks that fear cycle with this trust cycle of like, I let her go, look what she did. Oh my God, she did get on the wrong train in Edinburgh, or she did, you know, she tried the oysters and then she was sick for 3 days.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:16:43]:
Okay.

Lenore Skenazy [00:16:44]:
But look, that’s part of life. And look at them blossoming. We don’t get that. It’s, it’s the fun of— well, it’s the fun of seeing your kid after you haven’t seen them for a while. You go like, oh my God, you’re so much taller and you’ve filled out and now you eat broccoli. I mean, all those things are thrilling to a parent. And that’s why when you get down to it, what let grow is about is first of all, letting grow. You let go and then you let grow.

Lenore Skenazy [00:17:09]:
But it’s also about Stepping back, because it’s true of me too, and my kids are in their 20s. When you’re with your kids, you see what they’re doing wrong. Oh, that’s sloppy. That’s a little risky. Oh, use your indoor voice. You know, I wouldn’t do it that way. Here, let me help. It’s just inevitable.

Lenore Skenazy [00:17:26]:
It’s not because you’re a bad parent or a harpy or a helicopter parent. It’s because when you’re with a younger kid and you see them struggling, you, you don’t want to see that. So the only solution is to not see it by not being there. And so Let Grow is dedicated to making it easy for you to not be there for some of your kids’ adventures. And the way we do it is with a program for schools that’s free, free, free, free, um, that’s called the Let Grow Experience, where once a month the kids get a homework assignment that simply says, go home and do something new on your own with your parents’ permission. But without your parents. And then each month there’s a different theme, like do something for your family, do something in the community, do something with a friend. And there’s a list of ideas.

Lenore Skenazy [00:18:14]:
You can climb a tree, you can go to the store, you can bake dinner, you can babysit, walk the dog, whatever it is. Depends on your kid, their age, their interests, the neighborhood. But it’s really just to create that action that I’m talking about, ’cause action breaks the cycle. You’re afraid this’ll be terrible. If you’re really afraid, have 2 kids go out together. Have you and, you know, your friend’s kid go out together. They don’t have to be exactly the same age.

Speaker D [00:18:35]:
Right.

Lenore Skenazy [00:18:36]:
and they can go to the store or they can go get ice cream or, you know, they can have the lemonade stand down the block at the corner where you can’t see them. Our culture has made it just like parents and children are fused at this point. And throughout human history, that, that hasn’t been the case. It’s been a group of mixed-age kids trying to make something happen while the parents are busy basically having more kids or gleaning the oats, right? And instead, we’re there all the time and we separate kids by age and only the 7-year-olds are playing with the and it’s so unnatural. And we wonder, gee, they seem to be a little droopy. They seem to be a little depressed and anxious. It’s like, yeah, because they haven’t eaten. They haven’t eaten this normal life of this rich, this rich banquet of different ages and arguments and exhilaration and exploration.

Lenore Skenazy [00:19:25]:
And we’ve taken that out and we’ve given them travel soccer and they look a little sad. We gotta give it back. Let Grow gives it back in, I’d say, the easiest possible way as a homework assignment.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:35]:
So talk to me a little bit about, for, you do that for schools. Can individual parents also apply access those same resources?

Lenore Skenazy [00:19:42]:
Yeah. So we have the Let Grow Experience is the school version, pre. And then there’s, I think we call it the Let Grow Experience that’s also just for home use, quote unquote. It’s like a game. It’s like a home version of Jeopardy. But the fact of the matter is, you know, one of my Let Grow co-founders, there’s 4 of us, is Jonathan Haidt, who people know because he wrote The Anxious Generation. And he always says, and I think he’s right, that a collective problem needs a collective solution, which is that nobody knows when they can let their kids go out anymore. There was just an Institute for Family Studies survey of 25,000 parents that asked, you probably know this one, right? What age their parents are letting their kids do things in the neighborhood.

Lenore Skenazy [00:20:21]:
And even the parents of 14-year-olds, the majority of them will not let their child, child, 14-year-old, leave the block. Okay? That’s a very constricted childhood and that’s a very constricted adulthood, I would say. So if that’s the going norm, Then if you do a program through the schools and everybody has to send their kid to do something, you know, it could be in the house too if it’s, you know, if everything is very scary outside. But, you know, they could be making pancakes or they could be learning how to clean or something like that or something fun, make cookies and take them out of the oven with using a mitt without mom. But a collective action is easier because everybody’s doing it. You don’t feel weird, you don’t feel crazy. Nonetheless, if your school doesn’t do the Let Grow, experience. First of all, shame on them.

Lenore Skenazy [00:21:08]:
But secondly, you can do it with a friend. You know, you and get— you get another friend and you send your— you’re drinking your Starbucks and you send your kids to the other end of the strip mall to go to the dollar store or go down there and get the bread for dinner from Kroger’s and bring it back. So almost any activity breaks the cycle. And I used to be kind of bummed that sometimes kids let grow experiences, whether it was for school or just, you know, for home, were minor league. You know, I did the dishes. Okay, that’s nice. Or the laundry. That’s good.

Lenore Skenazy [00:21:41]:
You know, it doesn’t take a whole lot to learn how to do the laundry. But what I’ve seen is that it’s just this loosening. It’s just a little loosening. There’s a little bit of pride. There’s a little bit of movement. And then it’s like, Mom, can I please go to the, you know, to the post office 2 blocks away? What’s a post office, Mom? I’ll go there. Right? What are those things? Letters. But But it builds on itself.

Lenore Skenazy [00:22:05]:
So I’d say any movement is better than no movement, and it’s often easier with a friend.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:22:10]:
What’s some of your favorite stories of, we’ll say, success stories from the movement thus far?

Lenore Skenazy [00:22:16]:
This is the one that I’ve heard this year that I liked the most, which was a mom in Connecticut, mother of a 10-year-old boy, ADHD for what it’s worth. She was so nervous that— this is why I like the story, ’cause it’s almost unbelievable how nervous she was. She’s sort of the apotheosis of what’s happening in the culture in that she said when somebody rang the doorbell, she would tell her, her young son who’s 10 and her older son who was 16, on the ground, get on the ground. It’s, it’s like, because someone’s going to be shooting through the door? And do they not shoot towards the ground? I don’t know. To me, it struck me as just odd, let’s put it that way, or excessive, right? I won’t say crazy, I’ll just say excessive. But she was excessively anxious, and she said she worried about everything. And, and I can understand that. I actually am a worrier, just not about strangers.

Lenore Skenazy [00:23:00]:
But anyways, he comes home, he’s got the Let Grow experience, He’s a 10-year-old. Mom, can I please ride my bike? Okay, yes, you can ride it up and down the block. He’s in Connecticut. Finally, he says, Mom, can’t I please go around the corner? You know, my buddy is around the corner. And she’s like, okay, because she’s been— she’s getting used to it. It’s, you know, there’s, there’s a word in psychology, I think it’s accommodating or whatever it is. She’s getting used to it. So he goes around the corner, gets a friend, and the 2 of them start riding together.

Lenore Skenazy [00:23:25]:
And then number 3 and number 4 and number 5. And by the time the summer rolls around, there’s 10 of them and they call themselves a biker gang.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:32]:
Wow.

Lenore Skenazy [00:23:33]:
And then they’re all over the neighborhood and they’re zooming around. And she said, and when they come to her house, it’s like locusts. They’ll eat, you know, every Pop-Tart and sandwich in the house. But she’s now keeping the door open because the kids could be coming by. And my favorite thing that she did this past winter is she sent me a picture of them when it was freezing temperatures. You know, it was below 32. And there they are, 6 of them, not 10, but 6 of them on their bikes. Because now they have a reason to live.

Lenore Skenazy [00:24:02]:
live. Now he comes home and he throws his backpack on the ground and he eats his lunch or his snack and out he goes with his buddies. And then she wrote a thing in— she’s also an assistant principal— she wrote a little note in the, the school note, you know, whatever it is, the school email about a bullying incident. And I know that parents are very worried about bullying, so let me tell you what happened in this thing, which is that her son finally confessed to that he was being bullied on the bus ride home. And she was like, I can’t believe it. I’m gonna call the school. You know, I’m gonna get out there. That’s so terrible.

Lenore Skenazy [00:24:38]:
Don’t worry, honey. And he says, wait, Mom, no, Mom, Mom, we’re handling it. And by we, he meant his bike buddies. And so what they did is on the bus ride home the next day, 2 of his bike buddies told the bully, you can’t keep being mean to whatever this kid is. Let’s call him Steve. You can’t keep being mean to Steve. You know, that’s just not fair, or, you know, we won’t ever sit with you, or something like that. And the mom wrote in the newsletter, so I gotta believe it’s true, that after that, Steve came to her door, apologized, and asked could he be part of the bike gang.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:25:11]:
I guess as I think about what you’re saying, it really makes me think back to my own childhood because I think that a lot of people my age, we grew up, we left the house at a certain time after— whether it was after school, parents said be home by, you know, Whatever time. And it seems like at some point, you know, things kept getting closing down as we got into being parents ourselves. Things just got narrower and narrower instead of keeping open, like you’re saying. So you talk about what you’re doing and trying to open that back up. What would you say are some things that parents can do from day one, from early on?

Lenore Skenazy [00:25:59]:
A couple of things. Like when kids are really young, and I got this from Eat— what is it? Not Eat, Pray, Love— Hunt, Gather Parent. Let them help. They’re not good helpers. They’re terrible. Things spill more than they get unspilled, right, and cleaned up. But kids are desperate to be part of something, and that something is the family unit, the first community they’re part of. And so don’t thwart that.

Speaker D [00:26:20]:
Yeah.

Lenore Skenazy [00:26:20]:
And then when they’re older, Let them do things for you. This is not advice I had when I was a mom of little kids, and I think it’s really good advice. It’ll take longer, but in the end, you’ll have more helpful kids who sort of look around and think, what should I be doing? How can I be helping? As they get older, anything that they can do for themselves that you’re doing for them, try to let them do them for themselves. There was a great study from Yale where— this came out like 2 years ago— where they took parents who were coming into families that were coming into a A museum in Philadelphia, a children’s museum in Philadelphia. And they assigned them, you know, every other A, B, A, B, A, B. And they told both groups of parents, listen, your kids have to wear a little hockey uniform. These kids were 5. And they told Group A, it’s because they’ll get so into the hockey exhibit.

Lenore Skenazy [00:27:07]:
And they told Group B, they’ll get so into the hockey exhibit. And did you know that every time that they’re struggling with a button or a toggle, that’s actually learning? They’re learning every time they try to do something, even if they’re not doing it well.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:18]:
Yeah.

Lenore Skenazy [00:27:18]:
And then the experimenters clicked how many times they saw the parents intervening to help. And the ones who knew that, who had been told that actually the struggle is the learning, intervened half as much. And that’s just something that I think can help us all if we recognize that trying to do something on their own is actually not just, you know, a stupid waste of time, right? It is their education in the world.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:43]:
Yeah.

Lenore Skenazy [00:27:44]:
that’s very helpful. And then as they get older, just encourage them to do things in the real world, especially if you want them to be off phones some of the time. You have to give them the other world, which is the real world, is at least as interesting as the virtual world. There are places to explore, there are people to meet, there are conquests to be made. And I can’t show you this because this is audio, but when last summer we did a Harris poll asking kids, how do you most want to spend time with your friends? How would you like to spend time with your friends? old school like you were just talking about, 1980s, ’90s style, just hanging out with your friends, no grown-ups, no schedule, or in an organized activity like soccer, ballet, chess, or online. And that could be video games or social media. And the kids said the number one choice was just hanging out, and number 2 was organized activity, and 20 points below hanging out was online. And so we keep thinking Kids are addicted to their phones.

Lenore Skenazy [00:28:43]:
That’s all they care about. No, kids are addicted to each other, right? They want to have fun. They want to flirt. They want to joke. They want to play. And if the only place they can do that is online because we keep not even letting the 14-year-olds go around the corner, well, of course they’re going to be online. I would be too. It’s the only escape route.

Lenore Skenazy [00:29:01]:
So if you can get some of the other parents in your neighborhood to agree, we’re going to send our kids out. And you could start out by saying— we call it Free Play Friday.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:08]:
Okay.

Lenore Skenazy [00:29:09]:
Friday afternoons, I’m gonna be sending my kids to the park. You can too. You know, I’m not gonna be watching them, but there’ll be hula hoops and balls and, you know, they’ll be there from 4 to 6. Do that. And I, I just got a, a wonderful email this week from a mom who was doing that. And there’s, you know, 15 kids showed up. So why not do this? Your life becomes better and so does theirs.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:30]:
Now, you said in one of your videos, I heard you say this and I, I wanted you to unpack it a little bit. You said that competence builds confidence. Can you explain that idea?

Lenore Skenazy [00:29:42]:
Not only can I explain that idea, I feel like I should give credit where credit is due. I’ve been talking about the same thing for all these years, and then I was talking to a pastor’s wife from Dallas, and she said, when you try something, when you’re trying something in the real world, at first you’re not good at it, whether it’s making the pancakes or building a birdhouse or anything. But as you do it, you become competent. And it is the competence that builds confidence. We all want these confident kids. Confidence doesn’t fall from the sky like mana, right? Confidence comes from like, oh, I can handle that, or, oh, I’ve done something like that before, or, I’ve never tried this, but I did make blah, blah, blah, so let me try this instead. And we think that we can get from no confidence to confidence by saying, you’re wonderful. But kids know, what am I wonderful at? I haven’t done anything.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:27]:
Right.

Lenore Skenazy [00:30:28]:
So we just have to step back and let them do things. You know, the Let Grow slogan is, when adults step back, kids step up. And that’s all I’m saying. It’s just a wonderful opportunity for you to see how much they can do and for them to grow in confidence, self-esteem, eagerness, agency, readiness for the world.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:46]:
Now, if people want to find out more about Let Grow, where should they go?

Lenore Skenazy [00:30:50]:
First of all, bless them. Secondly, they should come to, guess what? Let Grow. And you know what? Nobody gets the name right, so I’m just going to spell it. it because everyone thinks it’s let’s go or let it grow or let’s get growing, whatever it is, they get it wrong. It is let grow, L-E-T, new word, grow, G-R-O-W. So it’s letgrow.org. And if you want a vaguely easy way to remember it, maybe it’s actually quite hard, I don’t know. It’s let go and let grow was originally our title.

Lenore Skenazy [00:31:19]:
So just let grow is when you— I just heard another story from another mom this week. about a kid who had to get an EEG, which I guess is like an EKG, whatever it was. They’re gonna be like little electrodes stuck all over her. And she was like 10 or 11 years old. And she’d been doing Let Grow through her school, you know, once a month had to do something new. And her mom said, okay, honey, do you want me to come in the room with you? And she said, no, mom, Let Grow. So I thought, yes, right? That’s a score one.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:31:48]:
Now we always finish our interviews with what I call our Dad Connection 6. I usually ask the dads these questions. I’m gonna ask you some questions too. and see, see what you have to say. What’s one word that describes your relationship with your dad?

Lenore Skenazy [00:32:04]:
Warmth.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:32:05]:
What’s the best piece of dad advice you’ve ever received?

Lenore Skenazy [00:32:08]:
Oh, advice from my dad and from my mom. They always said, march to your own drummer.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:32:12]:
As you think about parents, and especially fathers of daughters, what advice would you give to other dads who want to build a lasting and meaningful relationship with their daughters?

Lenore Skenazy [00:32:24]:
I guess this is going to sound counterintuitive or whatever, but there’s a giant book by a woman named Judith Harris called The Nurture Assumption, which maybe you’ve heard of. And it talks about we can give our kids a lot of love, but we can’t make them into something. We can’t make a physicist. We can’t make a sports lover, as we found out from my own dad. You can’t make a genius. You can’t make a jerk. There’s a lot that’s innate in a kid.

Speaker D [00:32:51]:
Yeah.

Lenore Skenazy [00:32:52]:
And I think that relieves some of the burden on a parent because you can’t make an Einstein and you can’t really screw it up either. And that allows you to just watch the kid unfold.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:33:03]:
Well, Lenore, I just wanna say thank you. Thank you for being here today. Thank you for all that you’re doing to help our kids to let grow and allowing parents to let go and allow for our kids to grow in their own ways. I wish I had had this when my kids were really young. Because I think it would have pushed me in different directions. Because I know that I’ve fallen into some of the pitfalls that other parents fall into when it comes into this. But I think that we’ve done some good things too. But we’ve also made mistakes along the way.

Lenore Skenazy [00:33:34]:
You know what? You are not supposed to be perfect either. If you were perfect, I think a kid would probably turn out horrible if they had perfect parents. Because that’s just like only being given yogurt smoothies for your whole life. It’s like, that’s not right. You have to learn how to chew.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:33:48]:
Definitely the case. None of us are flawless. We’re all humans and we’re going to make mistakes. And I think that what you’re doing is amazing and definitely is going to help our next generation of parents be able to raise kids that are confident in their abilities. So thank you. Keep up the good work. I really appreciate your time and I wish you all the best.

Lenore Skenazy [00:34:09]:
Thank you so much, Christopher.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:34:10]:
That’s a wrap for this episode of The Dad and Daughter Connection. Thanks for joining us on this journey to build stronger bonds and raise confident, independent daughters. Remember, being an engaged dad isn’t about being perfect; it’s about being present. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and share it with a fellow dad. And don’t forget, you can find all our episodes at dadanddaughterconnection.com. Until next time, keep showing up, keep connecting, and keep being the dad she needs.

Musical Performer [00:34:41]:
We’re all in the same boat. And it’s full of tiny screaming passengers. We spend the time, we give the lessons, we make the meals, we buy them presents. Bring your A-game, ’cause those kids are growing fast. The time goes by just like a dynamite blast. Calling astronauts and firemen, Carpenters and muscle men, get out and be in the world too now. Be the best dad you can be. Be the best dad you can be.

The post How to Let Go and Let Grow: Encouraging Independence in Daughters appeared first on Dad of Divas.

For the past several years, I’ve been bringing you a new episode every single week, and I am incredibly grateful for everyone who listens, shares an episode, recommends the podcast to a friend, or simply takes the time to tune in. This podcast means a lot to me, and getting to have conversations with amazing dads, daughters, authors, experts, and people who have something meaningful to teach us about fatherhood has been an incredible journey.

But I’ve also been reminded of something that I talk about on this podcast all the time: being present matters.

As much as I love doing this podcast, I’m also a dad, a husband, and someone with a lot of other responsibilities and commitments. And I’ve realized that trying to maintain a weekly schedule can sometimes mean I’m stretching myself a little too thin.

So, beginning today, The Dad & Daughter Connection will be moving from a weekly podcast to an every-other-week schedule.

Now, I want to be very clear: this isn’t about slowing down or giving you less. In fact, it’s about making sure I can continue giving you the kind of conversations and content you’ve come to expect from this podcast.

I want to have the time to find great guests, ask thoughtful questions, have meaningful conversations, and produce episodes that are worth your time. And just as importantly, I want to make sure I’m protecting time for the people who matter most to me—my family.

Because if I’m going to spend my time talking about the importance of being present for our daughters, I need to make sure I’m practicing what I preach.

So, you’re still going to hear the stories, the conversations, the laughs, and hopefully a few things that make you think differently about being a dad and raising strong, confident, independent daughters. You’ll just hear them every other week instead of every week.

I hope you’ll stick with me for the journey. And if you’ve been listening all along, thank you. I truly appreciate you being part of The Dad & Daughter Connection community.

Until next time, keep connecting with your daughters, keep having those important conversations, and most importantly, keep showing up.

The post A Change In Our Format appeared first on Dad of Divas.

Dr. Christopher Lewis opens with his signature warmth, reminding listeners that the core of fatherhood isn’t perfection, but presence. The conversation quickly pivots to Ed Frauenheim’s personal growth as a father to Skyla, his strong-willed, non-binary child. Their story is not just about adjusting to pronouns or grappling with change, but about learning the art of persistent, trusting connection.

One major theme running through the conversation is trust. Ed Frauenheim candidly shares early struggles trying to control Skyla, only to discover the power of letting go—of giving space, listening deeply, and trusting his child’s autonomy. He admits the journey wasn’t always smooth, referencing honest and sometimes painful moments of conflict that led to growth. It’s the small shifts—choosing to draw beside Skyla instead of insisting on homework—that became turning points, building a deeper bond rooted in respect.

The episode masterfully unpacks the challenges of moving past parental expectations when faced with a child’s evolving identity. Ed Frauenheim reflects on the initial mourning and adjustments after Skyla came out as non-binary, and the courage it took to support them fully, even in spaces steeped in traditional notions of masculinity. Through his vulnerability, listeners are offered a blueprint for embracing discomfort as a catalyst for connection and understanding.

Additional highlights include practical tips for other dads: creating a home where listening is prioritized, learning together about new concepts, and bringing levity to sensitive journeys through shared experiences. Ed Frauenheim emphasizes the value of apologizing, modeling openness, and never giving up on the pursuit of genuine connection.

If you’re a parent, caregiver, or anyone seeking to better support the young people in your life, this episode is a must-listen. It’s a tribute to adaptability, unconditional love, and the transformative power of trust. Tune in for actionable wisdom, moving anecdotes, and inspiration to keep showing up, even when the path is uncertain.

Catch the full episode at dadanddaughterconnection.com, and remember—the journey isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being present, persistent, and ready to grow.

If you enjoyed this episode we ask you to take a moment to take our Dad and Daughter Connection Survey to let us know more about you as a dad. You can also sign up to get our newsletter to stay connected to our community and we will send items of interest to you to help you to be the dad that you want to be. Feel free to follow me on the following social media platforms: Facebook, Facebook Group, Instagram, LinkedIn, X.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:02]:
Welcome to The Dad and Daughter Connection, the podcast for dads who want to build stronger bonds and raise confident, independent daughters.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:12]:
If you’re looking to build a stronger bond with your daughter and help her grow into a confident, independent woman, you’re in the right place. I’m Dr. Christopher Lewis, and The Dad and Daughter Connection is the podcast where we dive into real stories, expert advice, and practical tips to help you navigate the incredible journey of fatherhood. In every episode, we’ll bring you conversations that inspire, challenge, and equip you to show up as the dad your daughter needs. So let’s get started. Because being a great dad isn’t just about being there. It’s about truly connecting. Welcome back to the Dad and Daughter Connection, where every week we have a great opportunity, we have a great opportunity to be able to come together to and grow together to be able to work on those relationships that we want to have with our daughters, to help us to be able to create those solid relationships, those solid bonds that are going to help our daughters to become the people that they are becoming in their lives.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:15]:
That’s why, that’s why every week I love being able to introduce you to people with different experiences, people from all different types of walks of life that have had different experiences that’ll help you to be able to, I guess, in a way, reframe and to think about How are you fathering? Because not every father will father in the same ways, and that’s perfectly fine. What’s important is that we learn along the way. We take those bits that make sense. Maybe we adjust those things that don’t work for our family, and we help ourselves to become just a little bit better every day. Because by us becoming a little bit better, our kids are going to be better, and we’re going to be able to have those relationships and those— and build those connections that are going to last a lifetime. This week, we got another great guest. Ed Frauenheim is with us. And Ed is an author, a researcher, a speaker, and a workplace culture expert whose work explores how redefining masculinity can help men lead healthier, more connected, and more fulfilling lives.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:19]:
He’s a co-author of Reinventing Masculinity: The Liberating Power of Compassion and Connection, a book that examines the shift from outdated restrictive ideas of manhood toward a more compassionate and emotionally healthy vision of masculinity. And in addition to his work on masculinity, he’s also, also a father of 2. We’re going to talk about his own journey as a father. And we’re going to be able to talk a little bit further about what he’s had to go through in this journey that he’s been on as well. So I’m really excited to have him here. Ed, thanks so much for being here today.

Ed Frauenheim [00:02:53]:
Thanks, Christopher. It’s a real pleasure to be with you here.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:56]:
It’s my pleasure having you here today. And I, I’m going to be very honest with Everyone that Ed has been on a podcast with me before, he and I did a podcast on my past podcast, Dads with Daughters. And on that podcast, we talked a lot more about Reinventing Masculinity. We’re not going to talk as much about the book this go around. So I encourage you that if you want to learn a lot more about Reinventing Masculinity, I talked to Ed right when that book came out. So I encourage you to go over, I’ll put a link in the notes today where you can find that other podcast. And you can listen there and learn even more. And but Today what we’re going to do is first we’re going to start off by chatting a little bit more about being a father.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:03:38]:
And we’re going to talk about some of the journey that you’ve been on. And I know you have 2 kids, you have a son, and then you have a non-binary child that at birth was a daughter and now is non-binary. And we’re going to talk about that journey as well. So I always start off with a few questions that just to get a little bit of a sense about you as a dad.

Ed Frauenheim [00:03:56]:
Okay.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:03:56]:
And one of the things that I love being able to delve a little bit into is as fathers, one of the things that we try to do is we try to create those moments, those moments where we can really bond with our kids, really be able to share special times and special moments with our kids as well. What’s one of the most meaningful moments that you’ve been able to share with your youngest and what made it so special?

Ed Frauenheim [00:04:20]:
Thanks for that great question, Christopher. The one that comes to mind with my child Skyla, as you mentioned, Skyla was born in a female body and now identifies as non-binary. Maybe when Skyla was 9 or so, we were butting heads a lot. We were in conflict in, in part because Skyla is quite strong-willed and I can be a little bit controlling as well, or especially back then as a dad. And I remember this moment where I was in charge of making sure the kids, and Skyla in particular, got started on their homework. And I said, Skyla, time to do your homework now. And Skyla had been doing something with like cutouts and, and making some drawings, and they said, I’m, I’m, I’m almost done. Why don’t you draw with me.

Ed Frauenheim [00:05:02]:
And I did. I kind of let down my kind of controlling guard, if you will, and immersed myself a bit in Skyla’s world. And they were making these interesting characters, cartoon characters. I can’t remember the name right now, but I learned how Skyla was drawing them, and I drew my own, and it was a loving experience. And then after we did that for maybe 20, 30 minutes, Skyla happily went on to her homework. their homework. And I say her there, Christopher, because you and I were talking before the podcast started about how it’s— I’m still struggling to get the pronouns right, even though I’m trying to honor as best I can Skyla’s non-binary identity. But many years of calling Skyla by female pronouns are still hard to shake sometimes.

Ed Frauenheim [00:05:43]:
And Skyla, to their credit, gives me a lot of grace, a lot of room for growth there, and does not jump down my throat when I throw out a she or her. So anyways, to me, it was a moment of connection, a moment of realizing I could trust my child. I could trust that I didn’t have to be this disciplinarian and give more space in the relationship and really kind of honor Skyla’s will to chart their course and figure out what they want to do and when. And yeah, I had some boundaries to set, but being a little flexible in that moment really made a difference and I think helped us to repair a bond that wasn’t so strong and has gotten stronger ever since in a lot of ways.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:06:20]:
All of us are having to balance. And as you talked about, Skyla tends to be strong-willed. You said that you were strong-willed at the same time. And we try to do this balancing act Because all of our kids are trying to find that independence for themselves. And especially, I have a child that’s very strong-willed. And I know, especially in that time where they were first pushing that independence, it was challenging. It was challenging in many different ways because they really wanted that independence. How did you balance guiding Skyla while also giving them the independence to grow into the person that they want to be? ultimately have become?

Ed Frauenheim [00:06:58]:
I would say that a couple of things really helped me strike the balance. One of them was actually my former employer, Great Place to Work, and its mantra of trust. The research that originally began this organization, Great Place to Work, which is the company behind the Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list— it surveys employees and finds out which ones are having the best experience at work— it all came down to, do people feel like they can trust their leaders? Do they trust each other? Do they have good bonds at work? And so this mantra of trust was big for me back in that day. I’ve been out of Great Place to Work for about 6 years now, but I was reminded of it by my wife a lot. She would say, Ed, you’re not necessarily practicing what you preach with respect to Skyla. You say trust your employees and build trust with them, but are you really trusting your own child? And she was right that I often— oftentimes I wasn’t. And I worried that Skyla’s resistance, her acting out occasionally, was a sign that she could be a sociopath. You know, I was like, I was worried that she was just not going to be a civil, polite person.

Ed Frauenheim [00:07:59]:
And, but I was wrong in that. What I found, and I heard this from other parents, Skylar was really wonderfully behaved with almost all of her friends’ parents. And we had school, her teachers, they considered her a model student in a lot of ways and a model friend. They saved a lot of their resistance from Rowena and me, which I gather can happen a lot when, when parents are trying to have a more, a parenting style that’s not governed by fear. Such that we didn’t like try to scare or physically hit Skyla in punishment. It was about consequences. It was about conversations, mostly, these consequences of acting out. So we did set these boundaries.

Ed Frauenheim [00:08:35]:
And as I said with that opening story, eventually I, I kind of came to see it. I could trust Skyla. In fact, I needed to trust Skyla more. And I came to see that strong-willedness as a positive, Christopher. And I saw one of the places I got to see it more was that I think helped me was in on the soccer field. Skyla was a a standout soccer player for many years and ultimately was on the team that won the city championship in San Francisco in high school. And so I think that mantra from work applied by my wife and then seeing how, you know, being assertive, being aggressive is a positive thing in the sports realm, all those helped me to soften and make more space for Skyla in our relationship and I think build a stronger bond with them.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:09:17]:
You know, not every time, as you were just talking about, as you’re raising a child is It’s going to be many times where it’s going to be fraught with challenge. What are some intentional ways that you worked to strengthen your bond with Skyla, especially during those challenging times?

Ed Frauenheim [00:09:35]:
I would say that I really tried to be there for Skyla on the school front and the sports front. I coached Skyla’s soccer team up until the end of 5th grade and then was a fan throughout their high school years. And as Skyla got into middle school and then most, a very academically rigorous public high school here in San Francisco, Lowell High School. I really tried to make sure I was there to support them as they studied for AP History, AP US History, read the text with them and watched the kind of notes they were taking, helped with papers. As a trained writer, journalist, could be an editor for them as they, as they wrote papers and they became a pretty good strong writer even in the high school level. So those are some ways I did that. And I think it was a way of demonstrating my love, my deep trust, my care for Skyla. And to this day, they ask me to edit papers and edit memos.

Ed Frauenheim [00:10:29]:
We have that relationship of support, and it’s been, it’s been one of those intentional ways I’ve tried to be a good dad.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:10:35]:
As I said, none of us are infallible. We’re all humans. We’re all people that are going to make mistakes as we go through our own experiences as fathers. What’s a mistake that you’ve made as a father, and what did you learn from it about fostering Better or more positive connections with Skyla?

Ed Frauenheim [00:10:53]:
Why do you have to ask that kind of a question, Christopher? The thing that pops up to my mind as maybe one of the worst moments and choices I made was treating Skyla like someone I could control in that early childhood phase into their late elementary years, you might say. Because I remember this moment where we were having a conflict and Skyla was having a tantrum of sorts, wasn’t doing what I, or I think my wife, wanted them to do. And I remember carrying Skylar like a football down the street to the car. I think we had to go somewhere and it was humiliating all around. Like they were too big. I mean, they might’ve been in 2nd or 3rd grade when I did this. And the whole time I’m carrying Skylar literally like kicking and screaming as I’m walking like a block and a half to my car parked in this San Francisco neighborhood. And I knew that they were embarrassed and shamed by this.

Ed Frauenheim [00:11:41]:
And, and I was feeling ashamed of like what kind of an— and especially cuz I was in public. During this time. And I think in some ways that public embarrassment helped me to— that was the last time I tried to physically control their body, you know, when raising them. We shifted toward these longer and more, in some ways, trying boundaries that were a lot about conversation. You do something that breaks a rule or breaks a boundary, we’re gonna talk about it. And Skylar hated that, you know, at times, you know, but they, they couldn’t do what they wanted to do until we talked through it. And that meant Both my wife and I and Skylar were stuck with each other, if you will. But I think that paid off over time.

Ed Frauenheim [00:12:16]:
And I tried to learn from that mistake of manhandling my child at an age that was not really appropriate for it.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:23]:
You definitely have to learn and you have to find that balance for yourself and figure out what is right at the right time and what is right that’s age appropriate. Like you said, it’s not always easy to determine and, and you’re definitely going to make mistakes along the way. But you definitely also have to do whatever we can to be able to support them in who they’re becoming, but also who we’re becoming, and know that it’s okay to trip, it’s okay to fall, and it’s okay to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and keep moving forward. And I’ve heard it from many fathers that have been on the show in the past that you just have to own it. And you have to say, you know, if you make a mistake, you make a mistake, and you tell your kid that. And I’m sorry.

Ed Frauenheim [00:13:05]:
Can I follow up on that, Christopher? Because I think that’s a great point you’re making. That idea of apologizing, I have seen that as a strength, something I determined I was going to do from a pretty young age as a father, if you will. And I remember feeling really frustrated that— and with my own father, who rarely if ever apologized for his own anger outbursts, for bad choices as a parent or spouse that we witnessed as the 3 kids in our family. And I feel good about that idea of at least if I have lost my cool or made a mistake as a parent, I have really tried to apologize every time. And I think that that modeled something good for my kids, that they could see that it’s okay to make a mistake. It’s okay to— and in fact, it’s important to acknowledge mistakes, to say you’re trying to get better. I think it’s over time helped them to give me grace as a father as I’ve continued to make mistakes along the way.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:13:57]:
Every one of us as dads always are trying to find ways to support our kids. And I guess as Skyla has gotten older, what do you do to support Skyla in pursuing their passions and their dreams?

Ed Frauenheim [00:14:14]:
I guess some of the things that I mentioned before, like trusting them, giving them space to do their thing, and to support them academically, that’s continued and taken on some new shapes. Right now, as we talked about before, before the show, Skyla is studying in Bologna, the University of Bologna, an academy of art there in the city of Bologna. for the semester from January to about June. And that program has been wonderful for them. They’re usually— they’re a University of California at Santa Cruz student. And this time abroad has been wonderful. It’s also been really challenging to get through the bureaucracy of studying abroad, of getting visas, of getting the coursework that they need, navigating financial questions, of travel questions. So I’ve really just tried to be there for them as they’ve tried to get through these hurdles.

Ed Frauenheim [00:14:59]:
Like recently, for example, Skylar asked me to help with a a note to one of their professors asking that a class that they took at University of Bologna count as a requirement for a Santa Cruz degree. And so we worked back and forth with this memo or email to kind of make the best case that this literature class should count as a critical thinking, critical reading class for Skyla. So it’s still supporting them with time and energy, but in some newer territories of academic and institutional bureaucracy and requirements. And it’s very gratifying.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:15:32]:
Skyla.

Ed Frauenheim [00:15:34]:
is increasingly expressive about her appreciation for the help I’ve given and just the way she— they have matured. But the trust I had early on is proving true. They are not anything like a sociopath. They are like an incredibly thoughtful and kind and polite and curious young person. And I get to have that relationship with this ever more mature human being.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:15:56]:
So we’ve been talking about the fact that Skyla has come out to you as non-binary. Bring me back To that point, when they first shared that part of themselves with you, what was that experience like for you as a father?

Ed Frauenheim [00:16:09]:
It was intense, Christopher. I remember that the moment that it came about was when Skylar was applying to college and put on their UC, University of California application that they were non-binary. And that was the first time I learned that that’s how Skylar was identifying. And there was some mourning that I had to go through. I loved calling Skyla my little lady. That was my nickname for her. I call my wife lady. It might be a little anachronistic, but, you know, it’s part of our internal language.

Ed Frauenheim [00:16:38]:
And I would call Skyla my little lady, and I couldn’t do that anymore, you know. And so I actually started calling them my young person, which is very kind of stilted on some level, but it’s now taken on its own life. So I say, how are you doing, young person? Adapt and adopt their identity. And I would say, even though that moment was difficult in some ways, there was a sadness to kind of quote unquote losing a daughter, I feel like I gained a better relationship over time. I think Skyla, as I see it, really does embody a lot of both the archetypical feminine and masculine. All that strong-willedness, that assertiveness, to me reflects this integration of the 2 sacred genders, if you will. And so I think they’ve kind of come into their own as a non-binary person more than ever before. And so it’s a joy to see them thriving.

Ed Frauenheim [00:17:25]:
And I think the gender identity is a part of that.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:17:28]:
So many fathers have expectations. We have expectations or assumptions about who our kids will become. How did you navigate adjusting your own expectations while continuing to support and love Skyla unconditionally?

Ed Frauenheim [00:17:44]:
I would say that a lot of my expectations were turned into uncertainties with the new gender identity that came about 3 and a half years ago, maybe. And I didn’t know whether Skyla would change how they presented themselves, would change their clothes, or were they going to potentially pursue a trans transition? It was a kind of a new world for me to learn more about, but I have come to really kind of— my worries have eased, if you will, and the expectations are more just Skyla as my child. I expect that they’re going to continue this path, and I’m excited to see how it unfolds for them. They continue to kind of Mostly present themselves in a feminine way. I would say skirts and makeup and clothing that is more leaning toward what you might consider females would wear typically. And I feel like I’ve become used to who they are. And I don’t think about it that often, honestly, anymore. And those expectations that were confused maybe initially, or my uncertainties around who they were going to become, have not really plagued me much or been a lot of what I’ve worried about.

Ed Frauenheim [00:18:51]:
I worry about stuff like, are they going to get the courses they need? Are they going to find a job after college? The kind of worries of probably any father about their kid in college.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:59]:
What are some of the most important things that Skyla needed from you during their transition? And how did you learn to support them as they were going through that?

Ed Frauenheim [00:19:11]:
I’m guessing that Skyla needed to hear that I honored their choice. And it’s funny as I look back at it, Christopher, but I think that one sign of that was getting the pronouns right. And I think that Skylar was a little more sensitive to me misgendering in the earlier phases of their, their shift to being non-binary. And we both sort of relaxed. I mean, I, I wouldn’t say relaxed in the sense of I am completely relaxed about, I don’t care what pronouns I use. I’m trying to use the right pronouns for them. But I would say that they’re less critical of me if I don’t get the pronouns right now than they were initially. But I think I demonstrated to Skylar over time that, yeah, I’m going to honor this.

Ed Frauenheim [00:19:49]:
I don’t totally understand. what it means that I’m going to learn and did my best to do that. I went to some educational sessions or made some connections with folks to understand this relatively new way to my experience of defining oneself on gender terms. And at this point, I think the two of us are largely in sync around the identity and the non-binary identity and treating each other more like father and child.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:13]:
I said at the very beginning that you wrote a book on reinventing masculinity. And I guess as you look at being a father of a non-binary child, how has Having a non-binary child challenged or expanded your understanding of gender and masculinity?

Ed Frauenheim [00:20:28]:
It has pushed me to be braver and walking my own talk. I speak and give workshops in some pretty hyper-masculine territories, a niche of working with folks in the ski lift profession. Kind of a strange, very specific niche that I kind of randomly stumbled into. I love it. I love the folks in there, most of whom are guys, but I still occasionally get intimidated by all these guys with beards and mirrored sunglasses on top of their caps. They’re like tough dudes out there in the snow in the middle of the night grooming hills or clearing out chairlifts. And I can feel a bit of trepidation, a bit of worry when I talk about having a non-binary child, but I typically do. And it’s caused me to have to be brave around not conforming to that old outdated, what I call confined masculinity, where we are intolerant, where guys are intolerant of difference, whether it’s sexual orientation, Whether it’s this gender identity, whether it’s non-binary identities, and to sort of like be very judgmental as men.

Ed Frauenheim [00:21:27]:
So I’ve been called to sort of be more courageous. That’s one of the six C’s they talk about around reinventing masculinity, along with curiosity and compassion, connection. You mentioned in the subtitle of the book commitment. I’ll start about contemplation, but but the courage piece to bravely say I am the proud father of a non-binary kid is something that I’ve had to live up to, and I’m glad to say I mostly have, and and most. Most of the response I’ve gotten is positive, or certainly not negative. No one’s challenged me to fight. I’m gonna have to fight you because you’re a father of a non-binary daughter. Like, not okay.

Ed Frauenheim [00:21:59]:
I think a lot of guys, when they’re given permission to open up that cramped definition of masculinity that we— many of us grew up with, they’re hungry for it, and they’re more curious than I would have maybe thought. So that, I think, is one of the main ways I’ve had to live into my own, my own words, my own philosophy. Thanks to Skyla’s choice.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:22:18]:
For fathers whose children may be questioning their identity, what are some practical ways that they can create a home environment where their child feels safe, seen, and accepted?

Ed Frauenheim [00:22:32]:
That’s a good one. I think one thing is to make a lot of space for listening as a dad. Really kind of open your ears up and say, I’d love to talk about what you’re reflecting on, thinking about with respect to your identity or how you’re going to define yourself. So announce that you’re ready to listen and actually do listen. A lot of talking and try to paraphrase, you know, do the active listening that we know helps relationships. I would say another thing is to demonstrate that you’re trying to learn about this territory as well and let your kid know you’re reading articles or looking at other kind of educational content that may help explain this territory. And a third thing might be to try to have some fun with it. And I’m thinking about looking at movies together that may play around with some of these questions of identity, gender identity, non-binary identity, trans identity.

Ed Frauenheim [00:23:23]:
I don’t immediately have one in mind. You know, there’s been a lot of interesting film and TV show content that has been cutting edge in this stuff. I’m even watching a series called La Brea. It’s, I guess, some years old. It’s on Netflix right now, and it doesn’t have the trans piece, but it does have same-sex couple issues in there. And so I’m just thinking about how it doesn’t have to be super heavy all the time. There can be some entertainment built into your joint exploration of these questions of identity.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:50]:
You know, I was just thinking that in what you were just saying, that as you’ve gone through this, I’m sure that there have been moments, there’s been things and things that you’ve learned and things that you’ve been able to appreciate in the journey, along with the challenges as well. What’s been the greatest gift or unexpected blessing that has come from walking alongside Skyla on this journey?

Ed Frauenheim [00:24:12]:
Reciprocated love. One of the biggest challenges that I had as a dad of Skyla was that for a number of years, maybe going back to that middle elementary timeframe up through maybe into high school even, like, Skyla was very reticent to say I love you to me. And it might have had something to do with going through adolescence, puberty. She also was very— didn’t want to have hugs either. They didn’t want to have hugs. And I just tried to be consistent about telling them I love them every night. you know, as they’re going to bed. And gradually it has become a two-way street on sharing that we love each other.

Ed Frauenheim [00:24:50]:
It actually may have helped that I’ve had some health challenges in recent years. Like, I had a mild heart attack in 2021 during the pandemic caused by stress. That’s what the diagnosis was. And I remember Skylar giving me a hug in the hospital, and that was very dear, telling me that they love me. And then over this past year, I wrestled with appendix cancer. I’m just coming out of a year’s worth of treatments. I’m cancer-free. of now, and hoping to stay that way for a while, if not forever.

Ed Frauenheim [00:25:18]:
And again, during this time, Skyla has been very caring and giving out hugs and I love yous. And I don’t know if I would have predicted that would have ever happened back when we were in our most butting-of-heads times, around the time that I first talked about when I’m telling her to do their homework. So it’s a delight, and I’m very grateful for our mutual affections, mutual shows of affection.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:25:40]:
And if Skyla was sitting here today, what would you hope that they would say about how you showed up for them as a father during this transition?

Ed Frauenheim [00:25:48]:
I would hope they would say I was— they would probably say, Dad, you’re so clueless sometimes. And that’s true. I have been. And I think they have a wonderful relationship with my wife. And I think they see us as playing different roles at times. Like, I’m the lead editor, if you will, on Skyla’s papers, even though Rowena is a great writer as well. And I would hope they would say this, and I think it’s accurate, that collectively, we parents have shown up and helped them get through this time. And thankfully, I don’t think Skyla has had some of the challenges in choosing this non-binary or identifying as non-binary as some young people around the country or the world have, because Skyla has grown up in San Francisco, a very liberal-minded city.

Ed Frauenheim [00:26:27]:
They go to University of Santa Cruz, one of the hippiest schools you can possibly go to. And they’ve been surrounded by family and friends that have been very welcoming and understanding for the most part. So it hasn’t taken a big lift of emotional support from me or my wife, I don’t think, maybe compared to someone who’s identifying this way and in a much more conservative area of the country, middle of Missouri, say. I don’t know, but that— it’s my sense is that it’s more been showing up for them as a, as a young adult, more so, or as much as being a non-binary person. That might be my guess.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:26:59]:
Now, we always finish our interviews with what I like to call our Dad Connection. 6 more questions to delve a little bit more into you as a dad. You ready?

Ed Frauenheim [00:27:06]:
I’m ready.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:06]:
What’s one word that describes your relationship with Skyla?

Ed Frauenheim [00:27:11]:
I’ll go with loving. Pretty simple.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:13]:
What’s the best piece of dad advice you’ve ever received?

Ed Frauenheim [00:27:16]:
Trust your kid.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:18]:
And what’s one activity that you and Skyla love doing together?

Ed Frauenheim [00:27:22]:
Hiking, or more generally, outdoor recreation.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:26]:
And if you could give Skyla one life lesson in a single sentence, what would it be?

Ed Frauenheim [00:27:30]:
To try to calm down and trust in how things are unfolding. I haven’t always abided by that myself. I, I get pretty anxious, and I think unfortunately Skyla sometimes follows me in that trait.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:42]:
What’s one thing that you’ve learned about yourself since becoming a dad?

Ed Frauenheim [00:27:46]:
That I can build trust, that I can loosen up. That is something that I’m pleasantly surprised by over the years.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:54]:
And finally, what advice would you give to other dads who want to build a lasting and meaningful relationship with their daughters?

Ed Frauenheim [00:28:01]:
I think I would say keep at it. Keep being present with your kids, with your daughters. There may be times where they’re pushing you away, And I’m not saying push back to stay right next to them, but I think the key is to sort of make clear that you’re there for them. You’re ready to talk. You’re ready to engage and try to build these activities where you can do stuff together. But the overall message is persistence.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:28:23]:
Well, Ed, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for sharing your story today and for sharing your journey with Skyla. If people want to find out more about you, where should they go?

Ed Frauenheim [00:28:32]:
I would suggest come to my Substack page. I have a Substack newsletter called frauentimes.substack.com. Uh, where I’ve been chronicling a lot of the, the lessons of this past year of cancer, including my relationship with my kids and Skyla. I can be found on LinkedIn, and I have a website, edfrownheim.com, but happy to, to connect with folks.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:28:51]:
Again, Ed, thank you so much for being here today. I know this journey will only continue. You’ll continue to learn. Skyla will continue to learn, but I appreciate you sharing what you’ve learned thus far, and I wish you all the best.

Ed Frauenheim [00:29:03]:
Thank you so much, Christopher. And it’s great to be here with you.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:06]:
That’s a wrap for this episode of The Dad and Daughter Connection. Thanks for joining us on this journey to build stronger bonds and raise confident, independent daughters. Remember, being an engaged dad isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being present. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and share it with a fellow dad. And don’t forget, you can find all our episodes at dadanddaughterconnection.com. Until next time, keep showing up, keep connecting, and keep being the dad she needs.

Speaker D [00:29:37]:
We’re all in the same boat, and it’s full of tiny screaming passengers. We spend the time, we give the lessons, we make the meals. We buy them presents. Bring your A-game, ’cause those kids are growing fast. The time goes by just like a dynamite blast. Calling astronauts and firemen, carpenters and muscle men, get out and be the world to them. Be the best dad you can be.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:29]:
Be the best dad you can be.

Speaker D [00:30:30]:
Be the best dad you can be.

The post Trust, Growth, and Connection: A Father’s Journey with a Non-Binary Child appeared first on Dad of Divas.

One of the most impactful themes that emerged is the importance of quality time and shared adventures. Alan Mallory talked passionately about how he’s embraced experiences with his two daughters, from spontaneous ski trips to months traveling across the country in a fifth wheel trailer. These journeys provided special opportunities, not just for fun, but for deep conversations and growth. “When it’s just the two of us, you can connect on a deeper level,” he shared, highlighting the magic of one-on-one time.

But beyond the adventures, Alan Mallory emphasized the vital balance between guidance and independence. He champions a parenting style rooted in mentorship rather than control: “You can’t dictate the direction… you have to give them that latitude”. This philosophy was shaped by his own experiences, like summiting Mount Everest alongside his family—and by seeing how trust and empowerment forge the strongest bonds.

Another powerful thread: fostering communication and emotional growth. Mallory admitted to struggling at times, especially when it comes to connecting on the emotional level, teaching us all that vulnerability makes for better dads: “I could probably think of a few times where I should have been more empathetic… and just listened”. It’s a message that resonates—sometimes the greatest gift we can offer is our presence and our ears.

For dads supporting daughters’ passions or mental health journeys, this episode is rich with wisdom: encourage experimentation, be the gentle guide, and above all, show up—time is fleeting, and investing those hours pays lifelong dividends.

The Dad and Daughter Connection is a source of community and inspiration for fathers everywhere. Whether you’re seeking reassurance or a nudge to start a new adventure, tune in—this conversation with Alan Mallory will remind you that being a great dad is about being present, facing the adventures together, and empowering your daughter to blaze her own trail.

Ready to strengthen your bond? Listen to the episode now and start building those lasting connections!

If you enjoyed this episode we ask you to take a moment to take our Dad and Daughter Connection Survey to let us know more about you as a dad. You can also sign up to get our newsletter to stay connected to our community and we will send items of interest to you to help you to be the dad that you want to be. Feel free to follow me on the following social media platforms: Facebook, Facebook Group, Instagram, LinkedIn, X.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:02]:
Welcome to the dad and Daughter Connection, the podcast for dads who want to build stronger bonds and raise confident, independent daughters. If you’re looking to build a stronger bond with your daughter and help her grow into a confident, independent woman, you’re in the right place. I’m Dr. Christopher Lewis, and the dad and Daughter Connection is the podcast where we dive into real stories, expert advice, and practical tips to help you navigate the incredible journey of fatherhood. In every episode, we’ll bring you conversations that inspire, challenge, and equip you to show up as the dad your daughter needs. So let’s get started, because being a great dad isn’t just about being there. It’s about truly connecting. Welcome back to the dad and Daughter Connection, where every week we have a great opportunity to be able to talk about, but also work on those relationships that we want to build with our own daughters one step at a time.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:04]:
And I’m so excited that you come back every week because we’re all on a journey. We’re all on a journey of trying to be the best dads that we want to be and the best dads that we can be. But to get there, we’ve got to put in the time. We got to put in the effort. We got to learn from other dads around us and see what they’re doing, see what makes sense and what works for them. But maybe, maybe that will work for you as well, and that’s why this podcast exists. This podcast exists to help you to be able to connect with other dads, but also to learn from some other dads that have different experiences. And I love being able to bring you different people with different experiences every week that can do just that.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:39]:
Today we got another great guest. Alan Mallory is with us. And Alan is a dynamic speaker. He’s an author, he is a performance coach. But I saw him at a recent conference, and he was really talking about some of the things that he’s done in his life to push himself beyond who he thought he was and who he thought he could be. He. In his presentations, he gives kind of a unique blend of psychology, engineering, project management, and some artistic flair to be able to make the presentations really a dynamic one. And in the conversation that he gave to the Rotary group that I was with, I loved the message that he gave because he really rooted his messages in his experiences, both as an adventurer, a mountaineer, but really talking about the things that he’s done with his family, to be able to keep them, to bring them together and seeing that he is a father.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:33]:
Of two daughters. I wanted to bring him on to talk a little bit about his own experience in being a father to daughters. So, Alan, thanks so much for being here today.

Alan Mallory [00:02:41]:
My pleasure. Looking forward to it.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:42]:
Well, I’m really looking forward to talking to you today. And as I said, even before we started, I said this is kind of a topic that’s a little bit different than ones that probably you talk about all the time. And I always start the interviews with an opportunity because I know that you have two daughters yourself, 12 and 8. And all of us as fathers want to create those moments, those meaningful moments, those things that we can share with our daughters that they’ll remember but also will remember and that bring us closer together. What’s one’s, what’s, what is the most meaningful moment that you’ve been able to share with your daughters and what made it so special?

Alan Mallory [00:03:15]:
I don’t know if I could boil it down to one meaningful moment, but I mean, I’ve kind of emulated what my father did with me and my siblings and that spend a lot of quality time, especially out doing adventures with. With my kids. And so in many ways, I’m kind of blessed in the vocation I’ve chosen. I because I’m traveling all over the place, often I’ bring one of my kids along and both my daughters always spent some amazing quality time. Even this past winter, different ski trips, for example, where it’s just kind of a dad daughter ski trip, or when I have events in Hawaii or in kind of tropical locations, often they put their heads up to come along with those. And I found those particularly special when it’s just the two of us and you can kind of connect on a deeper level and just have fun as well. It’s not a chore if you’re doing things that you would normally like to do anyway and that they’ll like to do. And so we go kayaking or stand up paddleboarding or do some sort of adventure.

Alan Mallory [00:04:11]:
And I found those are the most special moments.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:04:14]:
Now your daughters are getting older and you’ve got that daughter that’s a pre tween now and another daughter following not too far behind. And as they get older, they definitely push to get more independence. How do you balance guiding your daughters while still giving them that independence that they need to be able to grow into the people that they’re bec.

Alan Mallory [00:04:34]:
Yeah, I mean, that’s the balance that’s hard to strike. And we, all of us, that are parents really go through that. One of my programs I share kind of A curve between. It’s a parabolic relationship in that you have a mentor role that you want to kind of nudge your daughters in the right direction or what you believe is the right direction, but you can’t dictate that direction. And that’s what’s almost makes the parenting journey such a roller coaster. They’re their own people and sometimes they make. They need to learn through decisions that are made. And, you know, that’s how we learn.

Alan Mallory [00:05:03]:
If we kind of prevent them from discovering and innovating and all of that, then they just end up with bigger problems down the road. And so it’s through small. Allowing them the independence to make small mistakes in many ways, while providing that father mentor role that I think allows them to develop healthily. And it’s a difficult balance to get. And I would say in many ways it’s a balance that our society has really gone one way on. And that’s this kind of, you know, over controlling, bubble wrapping our children rather than allowing them to make mistakes in life, for example. But if you want them to be strong, independent people, you have to give them that latitude. I’d say that’s another thing that I learned from my father, for good or bad.

Alan Mallory [00:05:46]:
You know, he was always a very empowering person. We climbed Mount Everest in 2008, and this was with my father, brother, sister and I. And so also I was kind of learning from how he treated all of us, especially my sister in this case. There was one instance where basically we were in the death zone above 26,000ft. And he empowered her to kind of make her own decision, whether she wanted to continue on or not. And she was all by herself at that point because she had the altitude weakens your immune system. And so she had these awful sicknesses and she had actually internal bleeding, it was so bad. And.

Alan Mallory [00:06:18]:
But that was, you know, a difficult decision to make because obviously in a scenario like that, mistakes can be fatal, and often they are. But I think he’s always kind of had that mentality and I’ve tried to do that as well. You know, you start small so that when they’re young, allow them to make their own mistakes. You know, don’t always be there to provide. Well, I mean, you’re providing the safety rope kind of from a distance. I would say you don’t want them to get badly hurt or die, but that’s how they’re going to learn. You learn through adversity. And when we take that adversity away, which we do out of kindness in many ways, Certainly in the Western society, we’ve lived pretty, what I say, good lives.

Alan Mallory [00:06:57]:
We don’t have the same types of challenges that let’s say our ancestors had. So we try to make life more comfortable for our kids. Well, that can be detrimental because they just don’t learn. You learn through the adversity.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:07:11]:
Well, I’d be remiss to not push a little bit on the trip that you had on Everest. And, and I guess I’m not going to ask you to retell that story because you have some books that are specifically about that. But one of the things that I guess that I am interested in is having you talk a little bit about what you learned from that trip with your siblings and your f and how that experience has either helped you in being the father that you’re becoming or has made you make some pivots in how you’re fathering your kids in different ways.

Alan Mallory [00:07:45]:
Well, that was the ultimate family adventure, you might say. I mean, the stakes are very high. The need for healthy relationships is extreme because otherwise, 70 plus percent of the teens while we were there, they tore themselves apart from the inside out. And at that point it’s everyone on their own and they have to just pack up and head home. And so being able to resolve conflicts effectively and quickly and say what needs to be said, even though it might inevitably result in a conflict, I think that’s a big problem in a lot of families and father daughter relationships that in order to maintain the harmony in the here and now, you just don’t say what needs to be said. It might cause someone to get upset. Well, the problem is these issues, they bottle up within people over time. And so every one of those said, what would you call them, items in order to preserve the relationship in the here and now, it just compounds and eventually it explodes.

Alan Mallory [00:08:44]:
And that’s what tears apart family familial relationships. Now that’s obviously true in spousal relationships. We see that all the time. But there’s plenty of daughters that don’t hardly talk to their fathers when they get married and they move off. And I see that all the time. And I want to, you know, I don’t want that to be reality in my life. No, there’s lots of, of factors you can’t control. But again, I would say maybe I’m giving my dad too many kudos.

Alan Mallory [00:09:08]:
But when I look at his friend groups and so on and there’s just lots of broken family relationships and he doesn’t sugarcoat things, but more than anything, he just makes sure he creates time for doing things with his siblings. He still does. I mean, he’s in his 70s now and I can kind of see in his eyes how much he really appreciates that, that his kids, they keep coming back. I mean, they kind of want to spend time with him and my mother as well. So I would love to able to create the same type of environment where your kids really want to still enjoy spending time with you. And part of the secret to that is get them involved young in things that you also are going to be interested in doing throughout your life now. So it’s kind of a privilege. We all enjoy swimming and biking and mountain biking and kayaking and things like that.

Alan Mallory [00:09:56]:
And so it’s not so much of chore when we’re trying to get together. And I think if I can preserve that, if you aren’t taking an active role when they’re young, and I know some of our family friends, that this is exactly what happened. I mean, the kids kind of go a different direction. The parents are into hiking, the kids are into skateboarding, something like that. Now it’s really tough. And I see in those family relationships how they can hardly get together for Christmas dinner. There’s just no shared interests anymore. And certainly that tears the family apart, but certainly makes it a suboptimal situation to be in as you age.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:10:29]:
So how are you incorporating that mentality, that mantra into what you’re doing with your daughters?

Alan Mallory [00:10:36]:
If I’ve maybe taken it to the extreme, you might say in terms of the different adventures, but again, it’s kind of a. It dovetails well into the, the work I’m already doing because I’m traveling around. But we lived, for example, for a year on a fifth wheel trailer traveling around the. The southern United States. And every two days or so we were in some new amazing national park, state park. It was during COVID and so the kids were already doing online school. And so in the morning we would do schooling and then in the afternoon we’d be out biking and hiking and swimming and depending where we were. That was just an incredible trip.

Alan Mallory [00:11:15]:
I almost wanted to just stay on the rig and do a whole nother loop. It was so amazing. But those types of things, I mean, whether you like it or not, you’re in close proximity in those in a fifth wheel trailer, for example. So yeah. And then whenever I can, especially the skiing, they’ve really taken to skiing. Both my daughters are just amazing, amazing skiers. And, and it happened quickly too. My eldest, I take her to Whistler and she goes Right down the double black diamonds through the trees and you know, my heart’s skipping a few beats, but again, I tried it.

Alan Mallory [00:11:46]:
Well, she’s got to learn her own limits here. I don’t want her flying off a cliff and perishing. So I’ll kind of be in watching things, but let her own. Make her own decisions. And I remember when we were there, thinking, it was only a couple years ago when I was taking her down the bunny hill at our local ski resort, going behind her to make sure she didn’t kind of get out of control. But I think, did I teach them skiing? I mean, kind of the basics. But more than anything, I just gave them the latitude and the opportunity to figure out where their limits were and develop the skills themselves with a little bit of guidance here and then there when they wanted it. And so that’s just wonderful going on those ski trips now.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:29]:
None of us are infallible. We’re humans. We make mistakes. What’s a mistake that you’ve made as a father and what did you learn from it about fostering better communication with your daughters?

Alan Mallory [00:12:41]:
What is a mistake? Well, I’m probably always making mistakes of some sort. I probably don’t connect well on the emotional side as well as I should. I’m still a guy. I don’t necessarily understand kind of the emotions and things, especially at that. The age when they’re kind of going through puberty and so on. And so probably I could be better at just listening at times. I’m an engineer as well, and so I kind of like, like engineering our way out of these problems. But when there’s, you know, those emotional challenges that we all go through.

Alan Mallory [00:13:14]:
Yeah, I could probably think of a few times where I thought, well, maybe I should have been a little more empathetic to that and just listened and really tried to see things from. From their perspective.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:13:24]:
That’s definitely something that you have to do. I’ve heard that numerous times from numerous fathers and others about doing more listening than talking at times and. And being able to not come in trying to answer the question or to solve a problem, but let your daughter do what she can to be able to guide, whether it is either a solving conversation or a listening conversation. And that’s something that I wish that I had learned earlier than not.

Alan Mallory [00:13:52]:
Yeah, no, it’s interesting in some of my psychological background, you know, I remember reading this same type of thing over and over again when it comes to psychotherapy. You know, half the time the therapist is not really saying anything. You’re just kind of there nodding, allowing the other individual to kind of work true in their own mind, in their own life. And surprisingly, that has just tremendous benefit. You just, you kind of need to be this sounding board that the individual can’t do it on their own. They need someone there that’s almost doing, you know, it’s doing very little than listening, but it’s tremendously beneficial. So the engineer in me says that makes no sense at all. But having just read about it again and again now, I realize as humans, you know, the human mind is not something that can be reverse engineered very well.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:14:41]:
And speaking about your background in psychology and now trying to raise kids and raise daughters, talk to me about that. And the juxtaposition between having the understanding of how the mind works but also being able to be the father and being able to be there for your kids in different ways and not bringing too much psychology into it at the same time.

Alan Mallory [00:15:06]:
I went the psychological direction because I had my own mental health challenges in my younger years. I had quite a severe social phobia, an anxiety disorder, generalized anxiety disorder. And so because I’m an engineer by trade, which is the polar opposite of psychology, but I started studying the human mind as I was trying to work through my own challenges. And I think what got me more and more interested in it is it started to work. I developed these different cognitive strategies that would allow me to quickly bring down elevated baseline stress levels, for example. And you know, I’d play a lot of these mental games that I would read about and, and kind of develop for my own purposes that would change my emotional responses in the here and now. And so now there’s a genetic element to the predisposition to these types of mental health challenges. And I kind of see some of them in my daughters, for example.

Alan Mallory [00:15:57]:
And so I do want to be proactive in providing them the tools that are needed. Now I’m careful to even say that, that there’s a genetic element because so many people just, it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy for them. You know, my father had this, my mot had this, my grandmother had this. I guess it’s inevitable. I will. And I was actually told that many, many times by the different medical professionals that I thought saw my younger years throughout that journey. Basically you have this chemical imbalance that’s leading to this. And almost all the time they just suggested medication.

Alan Mallory [00:16:28]:
And now I don’t want to be too negative on medication because it obviously has a place, you know, when people are really at low points, sometimes anything that will help is the way to go. But I saw it as something that would kind of hide my symptoms rather than get at the root causes. So I never went down the medical pat. I developed cognitive strategies that would work. And I’ve tried to kind of, you know, when I’ve seen my daughters having, you know, who knows if they’re. I think every kind of preteen has that type of thing. They have to develop their own strategies. So I.

Alan Mallory [00:16:59]:
I’m not saying necessarily are they going to be more predisposed than others to this type of thing, but I also just kind of notice when I was going through a mental health journey, you become hyper sensitized to, you know, noticing little twitches and things like that.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:17:14]:
Right.

Alan Mallory [00:17:15]:
Because I’m always so concerned about it in myself, or was at the time. So I’ve kind of tried to share those strategies that I’ve developed. Now. I wouldn’t say I’ve shared them very effectively, or at least they haven’t been adopted. And part of it is because I’m, I guess, the dad. You know, often they’re like, oh, dad, maybe that’ll work for you. But this is a different era and I can kind of relate to that because that’s exactly what I said to most people who tried to share strategies with me, including the different psychologists I saw. Oh, yeah, I mean, yeah, it’s easy for you to say that.

Alan Mallory [00:17:47]:
You’re not living through this. And so I would mostly brush off the different things they were trying to tell me. And there was always a bit of truth in each one of them. And I really listened. I didn’t really discover some of those, well, let’s call them things that really helped in my life until I kept reading from people that were going through the same challenges that I’d gone through. And. And we’re able to finally figure it out. And it was a combination of self education, learning how your mind works, but also kind of voluntary exposure therapy, and not getting out of your mind, stop fighting yourself, because it’s a response to those symptoms, really, and the way that leads to this rumination that holds us, that perpetuates the disorder.

Alan Mallory [00:18:31]:
So when I try to share those types of strategies, I have to be careful, mindful of how I do it. And if I’m really kind of rushed in my own work, it’s not effective. I think it’s going to be through many years of just kind of, you know, providing little tools here and there. And this is what you should try, maybe give this a try. It worked in my life. And so hopefully I’m able to, you know, just provide what they need and maybe they won’t. Sometimes this is just a natural stage of growing.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:00]:
And speaking of the mental health issues that you were dealing with yourself, how do you talk to your own daughters about that experience in relation to building that connection with them?

Alan Mallory [00:19:11]:
Well, in many ways I haven’t in a lot of detail. I’ve tried to encourage my eldest daughter to read my second book because that’s what it’s all about. She finds it too boring because it’s kind of psychological pace and she’s into, you know, romance and adventure stories and that sort of thing. So I haven’t. Wouldn’t say I have been particularly effective in kind of sharing the whole journey and all the those strategies I’ve tried at times, but there hasn’t been a lot of interest in it. It’s kind of. So I don’t know, maybe they’re still a bit too young. Maybe they won’t need those types of strategies.

Alan Mallory [00:19:44]:
I can certainly relate to how I found it frustrating to try to play the right mental movies in my mind, for example. Your mind almost fights back against it. It says, no, that’s not what you need. I mean, this is futile. I mean, I should just analyze more. Well, the constant analysis of your own symptoms certainly just makes things worse and worse.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:20:04]:
Worse. You’ve had your own passions, your dreams, your things that you have tried to push yourself to do through your life, and the things that you continue to do. Talk to me about how you support your daughters in pursuing their passions and dreams.

Alan Mallory [00:20:17]:
Well, it’s certainly giving them the opportunity. I guess they are still kind of discovering what their passions and dreams are. And I’ve seen that with my eldest. I would say, if anything, my wife and I are just trying to allow her to try different things because she doesn’t seem to have. Have gravitated to particular sport or dream just yet. There certainly have been things that have captured her interest. We had her learning sign language for a while. Right.

Alan Mallory [00:20:44]:
But it let things wane and as they should. I mean, that’s the whole idea. You want to just try as many things as you can and when you’re young so you can kind of see what tends to excite you, I guess, and ideally align your vocation with. With whatever that is. So got them. I play the violin and so I’ve got them in both playing the violin. And that’s just wonderful to me. And that’s was a little frustrating to me in the early years because like I was when I was a kid, I just didn’t want to do it.

Alan Mallory [00:21:10]:
I didn’t want to practice it where you know, spending the time and energy and money in many cases to pursue that. And I had to keep reminding myself, well I gotta. This really isn’t for them. Even though I’d love to be able to play with violin with my daughters, maybe they’ll go a different direction now. In recent years they seem to have taken it a lot more seriously and I think it says they’ve gotten into the different festivals and started playing some fun songs that they recognize and enjoy and so hopefully that that passion will. Will continue to grow within them. But. And we’ve tried lots of different sports too.

Alan Mallory [00:21:46]:
My parents never got me involved in organized sports and we are trying that a little bit. Like my youngest is playing soccer for example and seems to really have taken to that. I guess the challenges with some of those organized sports is it consumes your life and for a lot of the adventures and travel and so on the that that certainly my wife and I like to do. It’s tough if you’re driving every weekend to different hockey tournaments and so on and so on. Maybe plots could argue. Well, maybe there is a bit of a selfish motivator there and I don’t want to be a non stop taxi driver, but I see how it worked with my dad and he got us into running and biking and things that, you know, they were more like they’re kind of individual sports versus large group sports like that and there’s benefits in both. But they didn’t consume our life. And that can be the challenge with.

Alan Mallory [00:22:32]:
And I don’t want to sound like I’m being negative about organized sports. There’s lots of benefits and you learn camaraderie and teamwork and all of that. But I look at some of my friends and they do nothing but drive around to different sports events.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:22:46]:
Now we always finish our interviews with what I like to call our dad connection. 66 more questions to delve deeper into you as a dad. You ready? Sure. What’s one word that describes your relationship with your daughter?

Alan Mallory [00:22:58]:
Empowering.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:22:59]:
What’s the best piece of dad advice you’ve ever received?

Alan Mallory [00:23:03]:
I don’t know if I’ve received very much dad advice, but probably if I had to just choose what I’ve discovered, it would be, you know, spend as much quality time with your daughters as you can before it’s too late, before they move on. Every, you know, every older father basically says the same thing. The time flew by.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:21]:
What’s one Activity that you and your daughters love doing together.

Alan Mallory [00:23:25]:
I would say skiing.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:26]:
If you could give your daughters one life lesson in a single sentence, what would it be?

Alan Mallory [00:23:31]:
Probably to align your vocation with something that really you’re passionate about.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:37]:
What’s one thing you’ve learned about yourself since becoming a dad?

Alan Mallory [00:23:41]:
Maybe I don’t have all the answers. I’ve still got a lot to learn.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:44]:
And what advice would you give to other dads who want to build a lasting and meaningful relationship with their daughters?

Alan Mallory [00:23:51]:
That one’s easy. You’ve got to carve out the time. You’ve got to be doing adventures all the time. The father daughter relationships that fall apart. I think it’s dads that are just too busy with other things. And it’s a tough balance. I mean, you’ve got to also make a living, provide for your family in all of that. But you can’t go back.

Alan Mallory [00:24:10]:
Once the time is gone and you haven’t invested those important hours and days in the relationship. Then was it all worth it? I mean, there’s so many people that have regrets when they get older.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:24:24]:
So now, Alan, I know you’ve got a lot of things going on. If people want to find out more about you and your books and everything else that you’re doing, where should they go?

Alan Mallory [00:24:34]:
Well, my website’s pretty comprehensive. It’s just Alan Mallory.com a L a N and have a YouTube channel. And I put various videos on there. My electric violin and my different adventures and so on. And yeah, those are probably the. The two places to start.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:24:48]:
And I will tell you, check out his electric violin. He is an amazing electric violin player. And I was really impressed. I didn’t even know that he was playing at the event that I was playing. And then I looked up and I’m like, oh, this is Alan playing. And it was great. So I really encourage you to check out all of that. We’ll put some links in the notes today.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:25:08]:
And Alan, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for sharing some of your journey today. I look forward to hearing more about the adventures not only that you have, but the adventures that you’re having with your kids and being able to live a little vicariously through what you’re doing. And I just want to say thank you and I wish you all the best.

Alan Mallory [00:25:25]:
My pleasure. Thank you.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:25:26]:
That’s a wrap for this episode of the dad and Daughter Connection. Thanks for joining us on this journey to be build stronger bonds and raise confident, independent daughters. Remember, being an engaged dad isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being present. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and share it with a fellow dad. And don’t forget, you can find all our episodes@dadanddaughterconnection.com until next time, keep showing up, keep connecting, and keep being the dad she needs.

Alan Mallory [00:25:57]:
We’re all in the same boat and it’s full of tiny screaming passengers? We spend the time, we give the lessons, we make the meals, we buy them presents and bring your A game? Cause those kids are growing fast? The time goes by just like a dynamite blast? Calling astronauts and firemen, Carpenters and muscle men? Get out and be the world to them? Be the best dad you can be? Be the best dad you can.

The post Empowering Daughters: Alan Mallory on Guiding with Adventure and Trust appeared first on Dad of Divas.

This episode dives deep into what meaningful connection really looks like between dads and daughters. Jared Mees shares his biggest bonding moments, like the summer road trips he’s taken with his daughters since they were little—unstructured adventures that have become cherished family memories. Whether braving uncomfortable camping trips or hours on the road, these simple, unplugged experiences spark genuine connection, laughter, and character-building for all.

As daughters grow up, the balancing act for dads shifts. Jared Mees opens up about learning to give his daughters independence as they get older—recognizing when to lean in, when to back off, and how to be present even when they aren’t seeking attention. For his younger daughter, it’s about reading and drawing together. For his teen, it’s understanding late-night chats and respecting her space.

One of the most powerful parts of the episode centers on vulnerability. Jared Mees shares honestly about a mental health crisis he faced and how it affected his family. Learning to admit mistakes, say “Daddy was wrong,” and seek real support reshaped his relationship with his daughters. His openness models strength and resilience—and shows that kids benefit deeply from witnessing their parents’ growth and recovery.

Other themes include the importance of encouraging kids’ passions without taking over, calling out the specific things that make them unique, and navigating the emotional transitions as daughters become teens. Dr. Christopher Lewis and Jared Mees also discuss letting go of ego, embracing imperfection, and being consistent in small, everyday ways.

If you’re ready to hear authentic stories and actionable advice about being the dad your daughter needs—through life’s ups, downs, and transitions—be sure to tune in. Head to dadanddaughterconnection.com, catch the latest episode, and start building those lifelong bonds, one day at a time.

Don’t miss this uplifting and honest look at fatherhood—listen now!

If you enjoyed this episode we ask you to take a moment to take our Dad and Daughter Connection Survey to let us know more about you as a dad. You can also sign up to get our newsletter to stay connected to our community and we will send items of interest to you to help you to be the dad that you want to be. Feel free to follow me on the following social media platforms: Facebook, Facebook Group, Instagram, LinkedIn, X.

TRANSCRIPT

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:02]:
Welcome to the dad and Daughter Connection, the podcast for dads who want to build stronger bonds and raise confident, independent daughters.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:12]:
If you’re looking to build a stronger bond with your daughter and help her grow into a confident, independent woman, you’re in the right place. I’m Dr. Christopher Lewis, and the dad and Daughter Connection is the podcast where we dive into real stories, expert advice, and practical tips to help you navigate the incredible journey of fatherhood. In every episode, we’ll bring you conversations that inspire, challenge, and equip you to show up as the dad your daughter needs. So let’s get started, because being a great dad isn’t just about being there. It’s about truly connecting. Welcome back to the dad and Daughter Connection, where every week we have a great opportunity to be able to work together, to work on identifying ways in which we can build those relationships that we want to have with our daughters one day at a time. It is going to be a journey.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:09]:
Having those perfect relationships is going to come in ebbs and flows. It’s not always going to be easy, but there are things that you can do to make it a little bit better one day at a time. And that’s why this show exists. This show exists to be able to give you some tools for your toolbox, for you to be able to learn, to grow and to be able to be that dad that you want to be showing up for your daughter every day. That’s why every week, I love being able to bring you different dance with different experiences to help you to be able to see fatherhood in a little bit of a different way and to be able to see how they are fathering their own daughters, to be able to help you in your journey. Today we got another great guest. Jared Mees is with us today, and Jared is someone I’ve known for a number of years. Jared was on another podcast that I used to have called Dads with Daughters.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:01]:
And at that time, it was about four years ago, we were chatting about some music that he was making with his daughters, and his daughters keep growing as they always do. So I’m excited to be able to have him back, to be able to talk about how things are going today and be able to check back in. Jared, thanks so much for being here today.

Jared Mees [00:02:20]:
Thanks so much, Chris. Appreciate it. Excited to be here.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:23]:
Well, I’m really excited to have you here today, and I always loved starting the conversation because this show is all about connection and how you build those meaningful connections with your daughters. And I. I know you have two daughters yourself. What would you say is one of the most meaningful moments that you’ve been able to share with your daughters thus far and what made it so special?

Jared Mees [00:02:41]:
Yeah, I have two lovely daughters. Piper is 8 and she’s almost 9. And July is 14 going on 24. So we’re. I’m super blessed to have them in my life. And I always thought I’d be a dad of a son or something before I had kids. But then, now that I have two daughters, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Of course, they’re definitely lights of my life.

Jared Mees [00:03:03]:
They’re both totally individual, different human beings, and they both need completely different things. And I try to provide it every day, whether I feel like it or not. And, you know, some days I succeed better than others, as we all do. But I would say, to answer your question, the biggest things that we do together are these road trips that we take every summer. Ever since COVID when Piper was two or three, two and a half, and July was eight, we’ve taken summer road trips to my hometown in Colorado from Oregon, where I live. So just driving around with them and exploring, mostly the western United States and just seeing things, camping. A lot of the. The funnest times are just when there’s no real plan and we just get into something.

Jared Mees [00:03:53]:
We’re on the beach or we’re having a conversation around a fire, or just all the little things that happen along the way. But the road tr. Definitely, we’ve taken one every summer since 2020, and they’re definitely a way to connect. And when I look back, I’m like, those are precious times. And, you know, they can be challenging. And sometimes the challenges, when you’re away from your home and you’re uncomfortable, you know, camping, they think they don’t like camping, but every time we go camping, they have a great time. They can be, you know, character building. And so I remember those fondly.

Jared Mees [00:04:29]:
We’re going on one this summer. This summer is going to be easy going. We’re just going to go down the Oregon coast.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:04:34]:
Those moments are so important, and they’re going to be things that your daughters are going to think back on, remember fondly as they get older. Whether it’s the. The fun times or the squabbles in the car, the moments where you pull off the road to be able to see something cool, you know, it’s going to be those memories that they’re going to relate to. So it’s. It’s so exciting to hear those things. Now, I know you said your daughters are getting older and, and as your daughters do get older, as all of us that have daughters get older, there is the struggle that we go through as dads, which is allowing for us to be able to help our daughters to find that balance, that balance in having independence while still being who they are. How do you balance guiding your daughter while also giving her the independence to grow into her own person?

Jared Mees [00:05:26]:
That’s a great question. And I don’t know that I really think about it as it’s happening, but there’s a lot of connection that I feel like I try to foster every day that just kind of lets them know that I’m there and that I’m around and present for them. I try to be there every day when they get home from school, there when they leave for school. And I think just the presence allows me to be just plugged into what they’re going through on a hour to hour, day to day, week to week basis that I don’t know, there’s. That ends up. It makes it where I don’t really get in their way so much. I would say we have a lot of things going on and so trying to just make space for the small things that they want to do. Like my 8 year old wants to play and you know, you don’t always want to play, but you get down on the floor with them for 20 minutes and it means the world to them.

Jared Mees [00:06:20]:
And then my 14 year old wants space. And so sometimes that’s just like coming in, saying hi and being like, I love you, what are you up to? And then if they don’t want to talk, then just letting them have that moment and then eventually they come around and they want to talk. I noticed that my 14 year old really gets talkative right before bed and right before she goes to sleep, which is kind of like the time you want them to be winding down. And so just being around for the moments that they want you and then being okay when they don’t want you. And I think that’s where I’m not like starved for attention myself. Keeping myself really trying to be my own best friend where I’m not like trying to just go get attention from them keeps me from like being too hovery. That makes sense.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:07:05]:
It does make sense. And I think each of us has to find that balance for ourselves and, and also allow for our kids to be able to have that space that they need to be able to be who they are. And that becomes hard as they are transitioning, especially transitioning from that phase where they Always want to be around you to that phase where they’re like, nope, I need my space, I need to be away and I close my door, whatever it may be. But yeah, I completely get it. And I remember times where I’ve gone through that myself. As you think about your daughters and what you’ve done to be able to really work on that bond with them, what are some intentional ways you think that you’ve worked to strengthen your bond with your daughters even through challenging times?

Jared Mees [00:07:50]:
Well, I think that I have a. We’ve got things that we focus on together on a day to day basis. My 8 year old is learning to read and so reading with her every day, it’s very basic. But reading, drawing, making art, it’s just day to day easygoing stuff that doesn’t feel like, oh, I’m building a bond with my daughter. But over time it kind of builds this repetition of like, this is what we do together and kind of gives them confidence in that they can, they’re developing skills and you’re watching them develop skills and encouraging them to be better while like really noting the improvement that they’ve made or noting something specific. Even if you don’t, you know, have the time to like look at like something small that they’ve made that they’re excited about, you can like, I always have the time to just be like, oh, that’s cool. I like this thing. And I think that’s like, I like this specific drawing of this the way that you did the cat’s whiskers or something versus just like, oh, that’s nice honey.

Jared Mees [00:08:52]:
And so I’ve really tried to like, because I don’t have all the time to sit down and praise them for everything they do, but there is an element of just calling out specifics of something that they’ve done that makes them feel seen. And that’s specifically my 8 year old. But you know, with my 14 year old I do it as well. And so I think that builds like the bond of like, I’m seen, I’m, I’m noted, I’m known. Even if it’s not a big time investment, just like calling out specifics of something that they’re doing. So that’s just like a little thing I do. I think I learned that from a book too. That said, even if you don’t have time, just noting a specific will make the connection for the kid that you are listening.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:09:34]:
Let me dig a little bit more on that because you know, showing them that they’re seen is important and I think One of the other things that I’ve noticed is that it’s so important with daughters to be able to let them know that they are both valued and heard. How do you show your daughters that they’re valued and heard?

Jared Mees [00:09:52]:
Well, my daughters are pretty loud and gregarious and like, in your face. And so it’s like, they are definitely heard all the time. I think it comes down to, like, important moments where they’re trying to say. It’s really like during moments of friction. That is probably where it really becomes like, am I being heard or not? Because we listen to them all the time talk about whatever they’re talking about. But it’s like there’s the moments where they need something specific or like, I didn’t. I don’t think that you did this. That you vacuumed even though I asked you to vacuum is like, I did vacuum.

Jared Mees [00:10:29]:
Well, you need to vacuum better. Let me show you how to do it. It’s like, I already know how to do it. You already showed me. And it was like, well, then why didn’t you do it correctly? And like, there’s these moments of altercation that stepping back and not allowing the heat of the moment to get in the way of. Of what they’re trying to tell you. You know, even if they, you think, you know, they did a bad job vacuuming, hearing out that they think that they did a good job and that they’re, you know, they did try and like, acknowledging that while then continuing to offer the input of how to do it better, I think is. Those are like the difficult moments, I think is really where you have to focus on making sure that they’re heard while also not letting them off the hook.

Jared Mees [00:11:16]:
Because I think it’s important to instill that kids know quality is necessary for them to be like a fully fleshed human. They’re going to have to be able to do things in a quality manner. But I don’t know if that makes sense. But it’s ultimately during moments of altercation or friction, allowing some space for them to say what they need to say while also not backing down from the truth that you’re trying to get across. And that can be a fine line. That can be difficult. I think as a man, it’s easy to get angry in those moments. And so you really have to keep your eye on what you want to get accomplished in the conversation versus being right or not being talked to in a sass with sass or anything.

Jared Mees [00:11:58]:
It’s like allowing what they need to say to get said, but Then knowing that the end of it, it’s going to be a. There’s going to be the. Some sort of, like, lesson is going to get taught, and you’re going to feel okay about it. I feel like dads and feel like they need to be heard, too, you know, because I live in a family with three women, and so it’s easy to, like, just have it be a lot of alternating energies and a lot of talking about disparate subjects. And, you know, you can kind of get lost in that sometimes. So it’s important to feel like you’re heard as well, you know, in those

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:12:31]:
moments that are challenging. I know that there are times as fathers where we’re not going to make all the right choices. We’re going to make mistakes along the way. There’s going to be errors of judgment. What’s a mistake that you made as a father, and what did you learn from it about fostering a positive connection with your daughters?

Jared Mees [00:12:51]:
Oh, I don’t think I’ve ever made a mistake. No, it’s. There’s mistakes, you know, get made all the time. And I think that the one thing that I’ve. I’ve learned to say is. And this, like, somehow fixes it all the time is just saying daddy was wrong and just saying it plainly and quickly. And it really does just, like, help the whole thing. And you have to swallow your pride a little bit to say it, but once it’s out of your mouth, everything is like, all the tension goes down.

Jared Mees [00:13:21]:
Once you’ve made a mistake, you say, daddy was wrong. And it’s generally the mistakes I make are in, like I said before, probably letting my anger or, like, my agitation get the better of me in a specific situation because I have a certain set of emotions going on that my kids are not privy to. And I decide to snap at one thing and say, oh, you didn’t do this or you didn’t do that. You didn’t do the thing I asked. And then they say, no, we did. And then I’ve just spent all this time yammering on and getting upset about something that I was just wrong about. And so those are the moments, like, think of growth for me really is like, just saying daddy was wrong. And I think it’s hard for men to admit they’re wrong, but it just feels good once you say it, because it just lets the pressure off.

Jared Mees [00:14:13]:
Like, we don’t always have to be right or get it right, but it feels good to kids to, like, understand that, you know, you’re a human who makes mistakes. And I think trying to hold up some sort of standard, gold standard where you never make mistakes or you’re never wrong or even the illusion of that is just too much pressure on a human. And so it’s kind of nice to, to be able to just admit that and admit it up front and quickly. And it just lets a lot of the air out of things. It’s like we think sometimes that if we say we’re wrong that like our life’s going to end or that we’re going to be less of a man or just there’s some worthiness factor that’s going to enter, but you know, that’s just a lie. And so just quickly copying to things that you’re wrong about is really helpful.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:15:00]:
Definitely. And I know that there’s plenty of times where I think being vulnerable will definitely open things up and allow your daughters to be able to see not only you in a different way, but see relationships in a different way and allow for them to feel differently about the way in which they kind of maneuver through life. So I know that you’ve done a lot of really cool things with your, your daughters and pushing them and encouraging them. You have your own passions and dreams. You have a lot of things with music that going on. You’ve done music with your, with your daughters along the way. Talk to me what you have done over your daughter’s lifetimes to be able to support them in pursuing their passions and dreams.

Jared Mees [00:15:41]:
Yeah, I mean, both my kids dance. They’re really into dance and acting. So it’s, it’s a lot of just driving to and from you. Just the work a day, driving, being in the car, taking them to the thing they want to do. And it’s. You don’t always want to do it. But the barometer I use is like, they’re happier when I pick them up than when I drop them off. And that is worth doing it.

Jared Mees [00:16:03]:
And like, I say that to myself and I say it to other people like, oh man, it’s so much work doing this driving for dance. But it’s like the happiness that you see on their faces when you pick them up from the thing they got to do, that you got to provide the money and time and effort and the car and the gas, et cetera. It’s worth it when you see that they are happier and consistently happier and like, that’s what ultimately makes a happy life. And then also, I don’t know, my 8 year old’s working on a play. She really wants to write a play and so she can’t really type or know how to like format a script or anything, but she knows exactly what she wants the play to be about and she has all these big creative dreams. So like we recently got her play from like in her head to. On a first draft and then we went through it and made it better and better and my 14 year old got involved and so she’s gonna be. We got it all printed out recently and we have.

Jared Mees [00:17:02]:
She had, they had picked the kids, they want to be in the play. And so my 8 year old is going to be directing it and my 14 year old is producing it and we’re going to put it on at the warehouse that we have and just kind of staying out of it and letting them. My 14 year old has a phone now, so she’s texting all the parents to get all the kids to show up for the rehearsals and you know, they’re working on all the costumes and stuff. So just like helping out with stuff like that and being involved while also not like taking it on as like my own project and kind of like letting it be whatever quality it’s going to be, it’s been fun. It’s like in a lot of times I would have jumped in and like made it this super extra over the top thing, but then it kind of becomes my project. It’s nice to sit back and have it be completely theirs. But providing the tech expertise to get things printed and to like share numbers with peop, you know, kind of the executive producer role, I suppose.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:01]:
You know, one of the things that I know that we talked about at the very beginning was that over the last couple of years you had a bit of a scare, you had a bit of a mental health issue that you were dealing with and you had to maneuver through that period, that period in your life with your kids. Can you talk to me about that? And some of the things that you had to do to be able to not only get yourself in a good place, but also to help your children to understand what was going on and help them to better maneuver through that time.

Jared Mees [00:18:35]:
Yeah, you know, I’m an open book about it, but I, I had a mental health issue basically. Like they used to call them nervous breakdowns, but it’s basically a mental health event where I was not really able to function in the capacity that I normally could function because my nervous system basically was shutting down. And so for about three months I was not really the person that, that I normally was. And while I was recovering and this was a Period of basically getting clean and getting sober. I wasn’t a huge alcoholic or anything, but I definitely, I smoked weed every day for 15 years just to deal with my anxiety issue. And so I, when I stopped doing that because I wanted to have a different modality for dealing with my anxiety, there was a transitional period basically brought on a long term anxiety attack slash nervous breakdown. So the transition to getting clean really was difficult. And you know, with my 14 year old I was able to discuss it a little bit because she knew that I smoked weed and we live in Oregon and it’s a very accepted thing but it was, you know, something I had to tell her.

Jared Mees [00:19:46]:
Like I’m doing this to get better, worse. But in the meantime it’s really difficult for me to just deal with things I normally deal with. Noise was a big problem, really difficult to deal with noise for like nine or 10 weeks. And so just being in a house in a normal volume house was really difficult. And so I was like, I had to just explain that I was going through a difficult time. And they’ve gone through difficult times. They go through difficult times every day, every week. And so they understand difficult times but they didn’t understand, I think that I had to go through a difficult time and they didn’t understand why it was taking so long.

Jared Mees [00:20:24]:
And so I was just having, just having to explain the nature of what I was going through in a way, way that they could understand. It was difficult. It wasn’t easy to. Because you can’t really get too clinical and detailed because they kind of tune out. So it was really just about like I just need things to be simple and you know, I’m getting sick in my brain a little bit but my brain’s gonna get better. That’s kind of what we had to tell our 8 year old. And then my 14 year old, I was a little more upfront with her about the, the way things were working in reality. But by and large they were the North Star in the end of it all.

Jared Mees [00:21:01]:
You know, I was doing this for them to be better, not worse. And I feel like I’m definitely a better dad today than I was. I wasn’t bad before, but it was like I’m a better, I’m more confident person and I like myself better. And I think that shines through to the way I parent now. So it’s been a positive thing for them overall. But the transitional period, it was sad. It was difficult for me to try to note. I couldn’t give them what I normally give them.

Jared Mees [00:21:30]:
And you Know, but knowing that it was the best I could do at that moment and allowing that to be okay, that was what I had to focus on, that this was okay and I wasn’t messing them up. And for them to see someone go through something hard and to be better, because they really noted, oh, you’re better. I just noticed we’re doing all sorts of loud stuff and you don’t have any problem with it. And, like, that was really awesome when that came around for them. And they just, like, noticed that I had gone through something at hard and how I dealt with it. And I don’t know, maybe they’ll remember it. They’ll probably remember it as they grow up, but I don’t think there was hardly any moments that were, like, traumatic. There was a few times where I yelled because I was just, like, overwhelmed by my own emotions and the noise.

Jared Mees [00:22:12]:
And like, those were the times that kind of, like, necessitated conversations afterwards. But I don’t think it was. They were pretty quick and dealt with. And I have a support. My wife was super supportive and my extended family was super supportive. My friends were super supportive. So it was. I was able to get away when I needed to get away and deal with my own stuff, away from the audience of my family when that.

Jared Mees [00:22:39]:
When that needed to happen. So I really am thankful to them for, you know, being the North Star and being the guiding light for, like, this is why I’m doing this and why I’m going through this difficult thing. It’s not just for me. It’s for me first and for them second. But definitely they were, like, a huge important thing for getting me through it. I don’t know. I could talk about this for, like, hours and have. Obviously.

Jared Mees [00:23:00]:
But that’s Cliff Notes.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:01]:
And what would you say to other dads that may be struggling with their own mental health issues and maybe they’re not getting the support that they need at this point.

Jared Mees [00:23:10]:
Um, gosh, say like that. Really examining at the bottom of it, like, what you need and whether or not you’re getting what you need and. And knowing that every day doesn’t have to be so hard. You know, often when you’re dealing with a mental health issue, it’s because there’s something underneath it that is basically just not working. And then we string it together and jury rig our lives so that it will work, and it’s often with substances and that really just examining what is it that’s not working and taking, like, a moment and knowing that just like, admitting it doesn’t mean you have to fix it. But admitting it is definitely a first step, and then deciding what you can do to fix it incrementally, if possible. And if you can fix something incrementally with discipline and with small changes, that’s definitely, I think, a better way than trying to go cold turkey like I did, and then, like, having to fall off the rails. But, like, the body keeps the score.

Jared Mees [00:24:17]:
And eventually you will have to reckon with the thing that is not working in your life, whatever it is. And to reckon with it slowly and incrementally over time is much easier than just having it reckon with you one day and having to deal with it all at once, one day. So I would say it’s just being honest with yourself about what you need. And it really takes time. Taking time away from your family and taking time away from the stress of life and examining what it is you’re doing and why you’re doing it and what is important to you and what you want to do better and what you think you’re doing great. And like, that’s probably through a journal or some sort of, like, cataloging of your life in an organized way can be really powerful. But we often don’t take time for ourselves. As fathers, we’re kind of the ox that has to just continually pull.

Jared Mees [00:25:15]:
And we think that to take time or to not to admit that we are not strong is a failure in and of itself. And I think it’s ultimately the opposite. To, like, take time and to admit that we need help, even if it’s just to ourselves, is super powerful and actually makes us twice as strong. And I think that there’s a current in, like, men’s health that is moving that direction, that examining your problems makes you stronger, not weaker. And I’m excited for that because I really think that a lot of men suffer needlessly just because they don’t think that. They think that if they admit they need help or that they aren’t as strong as they put on, that they are, that somehow that’s going to be the end of something. And really, it’s just the end of your ego. And your ego dying or being minimized is actually a really positive thing for your.

Jared Mees [00:26:14]:
For your life, for being a father, for being a provider, for being a man. It’s like, it’s super important that that happens. It feels like the opposite in the moment, but it’s really important that that happens at some point in your life. I think.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:26:28]:
No, I think that was great. And I guess one of the other things that I was Thinking about is you talked earlier about the fact that your daughter is now transitioned into middle school and she’s moved into this. You know, you were dealing with your own issues. She’s now going into middle school and there’s a lot of things that happen in middle school, a lot of changes that happen in the lives of our daughters. Talk to me about that transition for you and balancing supporting her going through this, but also dealing with the changes that come with that and maybe the interplay with the mental health challenges that you were going through.

Jared Mees [00:27:02]:
Yeah, you know, as my daughter turned 13, I was kind of going through the mental health transition and I just cried and cried like a baby for God, like an hour one night. And it was just like kind of mourning the transition that like my baby was gone, my little girl was gone, and not feeling like I knew the new person that they were. And it’s not so black and white like that, but it felt very black and white at that moment and that it was like a new person had been placed where the old and the old one had been taken away. And I think it was important to have that moment of like acknowledging the transition because I think often the transitions are kind of just glossed over as we go through life and that we don’t get the moments to really acknowledge internally what’s happening for ourselves. Like, of course we have birthday parties and quinceaneras and bat mitzvahs and whatnot. But there’s gotta be an internal reckoning with the transition that’s happening so that you can then treat them in the now and be like communicating with them in the now and not have this constant mourning or sadness that it’s time has passed me by and where did my little girl go? And I think there’s a element of letting that out and acknowledging it. And that’s what these coming of age parties are supposed to be about. But I think often fathers don’t really do the emotional work to truly transition for themselves and the way, and like the way they’re thinking of their daughters.

Jared Mees [00:28:42]:
And I think it’s healthy to have some sort of internal moment with a journal or with yourself, just to like acknowledge that you tried your best for them, you did your best for them when they were little, and now they’re. You’re going to do their best for them as they’re this age and every age after that, you know, and then it’s really. Nothing has changed in terms of your commitment to the person, but it’s like your commitment to them being this and not that I think is important to them, really living in the now, in the present. This can take some pressure off, at least for me. It’s like taking some pressure off just having some sort of like internal transition moment, like emotional acknowledgement, like a ritual or something that is yours, that is specific to you and feels right to you rather than this, you know, these big outward public displays. Those are great and those are gonna happen, but it’s like, did you really get what you needed out of that? Did you really acknowledge it internally to where you can now transition with her and not just continue to think you have a three year old when you have a 13 year old and be frustrated that you don’t and feel like the time where did all the time go and feel sad. There’s so many emotions that come up that we press down, you know, that are nostalgic memories and et cetera. And it’s like those need to be acknowledged.

Jared Mees [00:30:05]:
It’s important.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:06]:
Now we always finish our interviews with what I like to call Our Dad Connection 6, which are six more questions that delve deeper into you, you as a dad. Are you ready?

Jared Mees [00:30:14]:
Sure.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:14]:
What’s one word that describes your relationship with your daughters?

Jared Mees [00:30:19]:
Joyful.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:19]:
What’s the best piece of dad advice that you’ve ever received?

Jared Mees [00:30:24]:
Take life one day at a time.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:26]:
What’s one activity that you and your daughters love doing together?

Jared Mees [00:30:30]:
Let’s say drawing. We all like to draw together.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:33]:
If you could give your daughters one life lesson in a single sentence, what would it be?

Jared Mees [00:30:37]:
Let’s say to love yourself and love others.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:40]:
What’s one thing you’ve learned about yourself since becoming a dad?

Jared Mees [00:30:45]:
Life is long and there’s lots of transitions and to take time with each period because it will soon be gone.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:54]:
And finally, what advice would you give to other dads who want to build a lasting and meaningful relationship with their daughters?

Jared Mees [00:31:02]:
I would say letting your own ego go and letting expectations you may have on yourself go and just being present with your kids as often as you can in small ways is important.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:31:18]:
Well, Jared, I just want to say thank you. If people want to find out more about you and what you’re doing, where should they go?

Jared Mees [00:31:24]:
They can visit tenderlovingempire.com that’s my business. I run with my wife that we sell the art of 500 different artists and we run a record label here in Portland, Oregon. And or my Instagram is just aradmeese.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:31:38]:
Well, again, Jared, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for being here today, for being so honest and open. About the the highs, the lows, and everything in between of fatherhood and your own journey and being a father. And I wish you all the best.

Jared Mees [00:31:54]:
Thanks so much, Chris. I appreciate you having me.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:31:56]:
That’s a wrap for this episode of the dad and Daughter Connection. Thanks for joining us on this journey to build stronger bonds and raise confident, independent daughters. Remember, being an engaged dad isn’t about being perfect. It’s about about being present. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and share it with a fellow dad. And don’t forget, you can find all our episodes@dadanddaughterconnection.com until next time, keep showing up, keep connecting, and keep being the dad she needs.

Musical Outro Performer [00:32:27]:
We’re all in the same boat and it’s full of tiny screaming passengers we spend the time, we give the lessons we make the meals we buy them presents and bring your A game Cause those kids are growing fast the time goes by just like a dynamite blast Calling astronauts and firemen Carpenters and muscle men get out and be the want you now Be the best dad you can be Be the best dad you can.

The post Jared Mees on Fatherhood, Vulnerability, and Connection appeared first on Dad of Divas.

Quick Summary: Creative After-School Options

• Explore crafts for kids to build creativity and confidence through hands-on making.
• Try arts education to expand self-expression with guided, skill-building activities.
• Practice musical instrument learning to develop focus, discipline, and a lifelong hobby.
• Add language acquisition for children to broaden communication skills and cultural curiosity.
• Choose STEM experimentation, after-school volunteering, or youth entrepreneurship to grow problem-solving and purpose.

Turn Big Ideas into Digital Art with Supervised AI

Once you’ve spotted a few creative paths worth testing, digital art with supervised AI can turn imagination into something kids can actually see. Creating art with AI tools can be a child-friendly outlet when you sit with them, talk through ideas, and treat it like playful experimenting rather than a “right answer.” With an AI art generator, you can create unique images together, you can learn more to see what’s really possible. Your child can type in a prompt to generate an image, then customize the style, colors, and lighting to match the story in their head.

Choose One: Step-by-Step Ideas Beyond Sports and Homework

If your child liked generating digital art with supervised AI, you already know the secret: a small, safe creative prompt can turn into a real skill. Use the same approach here, pick one lane, take a first step this week, then expand.

1. Try a “mini-studio” painting plan: Start with one 60–90 minute session at home: choose a single subject (a pet, a bowl of fruit, a favorite character) and limit supplies to paper, one medium, and three colors. End by hanging the work and asking your child to name one technique they want to try next (shading, texture, perspective). This builds creative skill development through repetition, not perfection, and it’s easy to scale into a community painting class when they’re ready.
2. Test theater with a low-stakes role first: Look for a short workshop, school drama club, or community youth theater, but begin with a “starter role” goal: stage crew, narrator, or one-scene character. At home, practice a simple routine, read the lines aloud twice, then once with a different emotion, to build comfort fast. Theater strengthens communication, memory, and teamwork without requiring an “outgoing” personality.
3. Pick one dance or music lesson and run a 4-week trial: Choose a single style or instrument and commit to four lessons before deciding to continue. Make practice concrete: 10 minutes after a snack on three weekdays, using a checklist (warm-up, one skill, one fun piece). Dance and music lessons work well for kids who enjoy AI art because they’re also about patterns, iteration, and getting feedback.
4. Build a weekly science-and-technology project loop: Set a repeating schedule: one “build day” and one “improve day.” Start with household engineering (bridge from paper, rubber-band car) or a beginner electronics/coding kit if you already have one; then keep a notebook with three columns: Idea ? Test ? Change. This mirrors the supervised AI process, try, review, refine, and turns curiosity into problem-solving habits.
5. Choose community service for youth with a clear job description: Help your child pick one cause and one task they can own for 30–60 minutes weekly, sorting donations, making cards for seniors, walking dogs at an animal shelter with supervision, or neighborhood litter pickup. Before the first shift, agree on a “success metric” like “show up on time and finish my task,” then debrief with one question: “Who did this help today?” Service builds empathy and reliability while expanding social horizons.
6. Start a tiny “after-school business” with training wheels: Keep it simple: one product or service, one customer type, one weekly selling window (e.g., Saturday morning). Add two rules, track costs and time, and reinvest the first $10, so it’s about learning, not pressure. The fact that small businesses account for 44% of economic activity can be a motivating talking point, but the real payoff is planning, communication, and follow-through.

After-School Options Compared at a Glance

These options all build creativity, but they differ in cost, adult time, and the kind of growth you will see first. Use the table to match your child’s interests with a realistic weekly rhythm, so you can start without overcommitting.

A simple rule: choose the option with the lowest friction to start, then add a challenge later. When you can, lean into supportive involvement since research links parental involvement with long-term educational outcomes, while overly strict approaches may backfire. Knowing which option fits best makes your next move clear.

Pilot One New Activity to Build Confidence and Growth

Choosing an after-school activity can feel like a balancing act between a child’s interests, time, cost, and the worry of picking “wrong.” A low-pressure mindset helps: treat the decision as a short pilot, lean on what fits the family right now, and use empowering parental support to keep expectations realistic while encouraging creative exploration. With diverse after-school engagement, confidence building in kids often shows up first in small ways, showing up, trying again, and finding their people, then grows into positive child growth outcomes over time. Start small, stay curious, and let the activity reveal what your child needs next.

The post Discover Creative After-School Activities That Expand Kids’ Horizons appeared first on Dad of Divas.

(L-R) Mandalorian (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu in Lucasfilm’s THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU. Photo by Nicola Goode. © 2025 Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

Join the Mandalorian and Grogu on their most thrilling mission yet when Lucasfilm’s “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” arrives on digital platforms including Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, and Fandango July 21, and on 4K Ultra HD and Blu-ray August 25.

Film Synopsis

The evil Empire has fallen, and Imperial warlords remain scattered throughout the galaxy. As the fledgling New Republic works to protect everything the Rebellion fought for, they have enlisted the help of legendary Mandalorian bounty hunter Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and his young apprentice Grogu. “Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu” also stars Sigourney Weaver, with Martin Scorsese and Jeremy Allen White lending their voices. The film is directed by Jon Favreau and written by Jon Favreau & Dave Filoni & Noah Kloor.

Bonus Features*

FEATURETTES:

• Crafting “The Mandalorian and Grogu”: Discover the craft behind an epic Star Wars adventure! Go behind the scenes with artists creating the stunning puppetry, miniatures, sound design, and visual effects that bring the worlds, characters, and creatures of “The Mandalorian and Grogu” to life.
• Biomes—From Snow to Swamp: Voyage with director Jon Favreau and his crew to a pair of brand-new worlds that may seem a touch familiar to fans of the original Star Wars trilogy. Discover how the ingenious filmmakers constructed snowy landscapes and a living swamp from the ground up!
• Welcome to Shakari: A bustling metropolis like Shakari cannot simply be found—it must be made. Join the film’s fabrication as they build an entire Star Wars city with a downtown warehouse, conjuring an epic playground for Mando and his young apprentice.
• Dejarik for Real: Sometimes it’s the little things! Who can forget the Millennium Falcon’s charming holochess game introduced in 1977? Witness how the tiny creatures featured in the game were lovingly brought to giant-sized life for the Mandalorian’s big-screen debut!

Grogu and Anzellans in Lucasfilm’s THE MANDALORIAN AND GROGU. Photo courtesy of Lucasfilm. © 2026 Lucasfilm Ltd. All Rights Reserved.

AUDIO COMMENTARY:

• Audio commentary by Jon Favreau: Watch the film with audio commentary by director Jon Favreau.

*Bonus features may vary by product and retailer. Only available on Digital and Physical.

My Take on the Movie

Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu successfully brings one of the franchise’s most beloved duos from the small screen to the big screen without losing the heart that made them fan favorites. Pedro Pascal’s Din Djarin remains the steady, honorable protector audiences have come to admire, while Grogu continues to steal nearly every scene with charm, humor, and surprising growth. The story balances thrilling action with quieter moments that strengthen the bond between mentor and apprentice, giving the adventure genuine emotional weight. Visually, the film embraces the cinematic scale expected from Star Wars, with impressive worlds, memorable creatures, and exciting battles that feel larger than anything seen in the series. While longtime viewers may recognize the familiar storytelling style, the movie still delivers an entertaining journey that stands on its own. It may not redefine the galaxy far, far away, but it captures the spirit of adventure, friendship, and hope that has always made Star Wars so enduring.

Social Media

YouTube: @StarWars

X: @DisneyStudios; @starwars

Instagram: @DisneyStudios; @starwars

Facebook: @WaltDisneyStudios; @starwars

TikTok: @DisneyStudios; @StarWars

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