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You’re tired.
Not just physically; though yeah, that too.
You’re tired in your bones. In your soul.
Trying to be a steady husband, an intentional dad, a man of God… but deep down, you feel like you’re falling short. Like you’re carrying more than you know how to hold.
Dad Tired is a podcast for men who are ready to stop pretending and start healing.
Not with self-help tips or religious platitudes, but by anchoring their lives in something (and Someone) stronger.
Hosted by Jerrad Lopes, a husband, dad of four, and fellow struggler, this show is a weekly invitation to find rest for your soul, clarity for your calling, and the courage to lead your family well.
Through honest stories, biblical truth, and deep conversations you’ll be reminded:
You’re not alone. You’re not too far gone. And the man you want to be is only found in Jesus.
This isn’t about trying harder.
It’s about coming home.
Hey guys. Welcome back to the Dad Tired podcast. We're really glad that you are here. Before we jump into today's conversation, I do wanna thank my friends over at Classical Conversations for sponsoring today's episode, looking to give your child a well-rounded education, while also ensuring positive socialization opportunities and their ability to succeed in life.
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To find your community today, visit classical conversations.com/dad. Tired. Sissy, so glad that you are joining us today on the Dad Tire Podcast. I just wanna jump right into our conversation today, if that's okay with you. I think there's so much here to unpack. I don't wanna waste any time doing it. I know that our listeners are very familiar with most likely the terrible tragedy that happened earlier this year, a school shooting in Nashville.
And that's just kind of, that sits in in so many of our minds as parents. The reason I'm, I'm bringing that up is because I know that your office is very close to that, the location of that shooting and that you and the, I imagine your team was kind of the first ones there to just help parents and children process the tragedy that they had just experienced.
You've been doing this for a long time. You wrote a book about anxiety well before. This situation even came about. But I'm curious if you could speak to parents who, when something specific like this happens, even though it's in a, in a particular location, it kind of makes its way all over the country and world for many parents to think, are my kids safe In lots of ways, but specifically this area.
Maybe just kind of unpack for us some of the things you were encouraging parents as they start to deal with anxiety on specific issues like this. Yes. Well, let me say before we jump into that, just, I'm so honored to be on here with you. Thank you for having me and, and grateful. I know we were talking a second before, but I'm so grateful for all the dads that are listening.
'cause I think just your intentionality and your hearts for kids make such a difference more than you have any idea. Hmm. And so I just am really grateful for, for the work that you're doing, for all of you listening for your thoughtfulness and your heart, for your kids. Hmm. And, and even as we're talking about this really.
Awful subject that we really don't wanna ever have to be talking about. And yes, we were really have been, are continuing to be really involved with everything that's happened at the Covenant School, which is just this amazing little school in our community. And Catherine Kuntz, the head of school, was a friend of mine and just, it has been horrendous to watch.
Yeah. And such a picture of redemption as the school and the community has walked through it and the. Countless heroes that have showed up in a million ways. And there were so many counselors that rushed to the reunification center where the church, where the families were reunifying that day. But we got to be there too.
And, and as parents, again, we never wanna have conversations like this with our kids. We, we never wanna have to have preventative conversations. We want never wanna have to have conversations after the fact. Any of those things. And in this day and time, we have to and, and there are a few things I would say to think about when we're talking with kids, not just about something like this, but really anything that culturally we're going through in a macro environment or even in a micro environment in our homes.
I think often when we're thinking about kids and having big conversations. We start to feel really anxious. And I don't know about you, but when I feel anxious, I talk too much. I can go on and on and on and on. And that's sometimes what we see happen in these situations with kids. And, and one of the things that I would say, well the first thing I would say that's most important in talking through all of this, handling any situation with your kids that you're walking through, is that you wanna be aware of your own anxiety.
Mm-hmm. Which is, I know what we're gonna talk more about in a few minutes too, but. They're gonna pick up on our emotions. And not that it's not okay to have them, 'cause it certainly is, you can say, I am sad, or I'm confused about this too. Or I feel a little worried about this too, but I'm gonna be okay.
Because your kids need to see honest, real emotions on you as their parent, and they need to feel secure in your strength in the midst of them. So both things happening at once and then. The second most important thing I would say is that kids, it's fascinating. I mean, in 30 years of doing this work, I would say across the board, kids have this innate sense of asking for the information that they're ready for.
And so even like in a divorce situation, I have kids who will immediately say, why is this happening? And then I, I remember a family that didn't ask, these girls didn't ask till they were seniors in high school when they were young when it happened. And it was because. I think intuitively they knew part of the reason and they just couldn't, their little psyches couldn't handle it yet.
And so we want to, with kids, think about development, think about age appropriateness and have a sentence or two about whatever it is that's happened, and then tell me what questions you have about that. Let them ask a question and then we give another sentence or two. And then let them ask the next question because again, we can start to ramble and give them information they're not ready for, and then they're more anxious because it was too much for them to handle.
So really letting the kids lead the conversation, I think is really foundational for talking through any hard situation with kids. That's really helpful. You know, we're talking about a really specific situation here, a school shooting, which has become so common. It's terrible, but that is like one thing that's on our worry list as parents.
Some people will hear this and be like, oh, okay, I kind of forgot about that today and now you just threw that back on my list of things I need to worry about because we're just so many things that we're worried about. I guess the question here is like, I think my mom worried, I grew up with single mom.
I think she worried about me, but I didn't have a cell phone. You know, I didn't like when I was a kid and I was just like, come home in dark. I'd ride my bike all around town. And then I'd just be home. But it seems like now my generation, for those of us raising these young kids, like we're, we're worried about everything.
Everything. And it seems like we're all, there's a lot to worry about and we just keep convincing ourselves there's more and more to worry about. Have you noticed that? Have you noticed that we're for, if you could just lump us as young parents into one group, are we a very worrisome generation? And if so, why?
Yes, yes, I would definitely say so. I'm glad you said it before me, but I would say so. And again, three decades of counseling kids and parents. I believe today parents are more worried than they've ever been. Hmm. And with a lot of good reason, like you said, I mean, kids just, if we just talked about technology, let alone then we add school shootings, then we add so many different cultural phenomenon.
I mean, there are so many things that our parents didn't have to worry about when we were growing up. I run, I'm a full-time counselor, but in the summers we have a little summer retreat program for the kids in counseling called Hope Town, and I'm the director of it and I just. I got back in last night from Hope Town and my sister and brother worked there too in the summers, sister and brother-in-law, and my nephew at four was, had a hammer and rocks for probably 45 minutes, was just banging rocks with a hammer and I thought, kids don't get to do this kind of thing in the summer.
There's just not that unfettered time where parents don't have to be worried about what they're doing. I think it comes from such a genuine place in terms of the things that are surrounding us. But I also think one of the things that is hard is that our parents, I mean, I literally was just telling somebody yesterday, my mom read one parenting book when she was raising me.
It was Dr. Spock, and the only thing she took away from it was Smile at your kids. And so I smile a lot as a person. But you know, I think every parent probably now has six parenting books on their bedside table, which hopefully I'm contributing some helpful things to that stack. Honestly, I think parents know too much and there are so many experts in our heads in some ways today that we can feel constantly like.
We're not getting it right. I mean, even the, the conversations sometimes about you have 18 years, which means 18 first days of schools, that you've gotta get the right perfect picture and 18 last days of school and you've gotta have the right con. I mean, there's just so much pressure out of that great awareness.
And I think parents are, again, not that our parents didn't prioritize parenting, but I think today parents are prioritizing parenting in a way that's never happened before too. Mm-hmm. And so. You want so much to get it right out of this beautiful part of who you are as a person, and so it's easier to end up feeling anxious.
Okay. That's helpful. Kind of, I guess, kind of, right, so I'm gonna just, well, let's address, I think what might be an elephant in the room for a podcast for dads. Maybe it's my own experience or, but it seems in just my personal experience with a bunch of dudes and their wives, this might be true and I want you to tell me if it's true or not.
Yesterday I was on a boat with my wife and my kids and we were fishing. I was moving from one location to fish to another location, to fish, and in order to get there in a timely matter on this boat that we were borrowing, I had to move kind of fast. And my wife what as we hit some choppy water, literally.
Screamed at me to my kids, have never heard my wife like, you know, scream. She was screaming at me to slow down because she was convinced that that boat was gonna flip over to the point my kids are laughing hysterically. They've never seen mom do this. But my wife, I mean, genuine like fear, anxiety. Jared, you are going to flip this boat over and capsize us here.
I think that probably is a good picture of our marriage where she would say, Jared, I have to worry because you don't worry enough as the dad. You're not worried enough about them. You're not worried about the water and the pool, and are they gonna choke and what's their education gonna be like? And are we caught up on medical stuff, mean all this stuff?
And so I think my wife were sitting here, she would say, well, I don't want to worry, but I have to worry because that somebody's gotta do it in order to keep this household running smoothly. I guess the question there is, in your experience, have you seen a difference, generally speaking in the way that men and women process worry?
I'm very glad that you're talking about that because, well, let me give a little statistics. So today with kids, if we're talking about kids. One in four children are dealing with anxiety. One in three adolescents, girls are twice as likely as boys. Wow. To deal with anxiety. Wow. Grownups, one in three adults are dealing with anxiety and women are twice as likely as men.
And so now that's not to say there aren't dads. There are some of you that are listening and you're anxious. I mean, I just sat with a couple today that the dad is much more anxious than the mom. Totally. And what research says is that in a two-parent household, there's often an anxious parent and a non-anxious parent.
Hmm. And the non-anxious parent is most often dismissed. Mm-hmm. I think because of exactly what you're saying, Jared, it's like you're not seeing the things I'm seeing. You're not paying as much attention. You're just not here. You're at work and you're not seeing all the things that I'm seeing. And I would say, and guys.
Feel free to play this with your wife too and talk about this. 'cause it would be a great conversation to have. That non-anxious parent voice is so important because, and again, maybe play this with her instead of telling her about it because hopefully she can maybe hear it from me a little bit differently because I think as a woman, and I'm anxious, I'm Type A is.
Is how my anxiety manifests. So I'm just super productive. But I think as women, especially if there are wives now listening who are type A, we are so intense when we're anxious. I think there is a good majority of men who, I think what you bring to the table is that you can have a sense of humor.
Sometimes in our more intense moments, you bring a playfulness to the table and a good. Risk taking, sense of adventure that kids really need, especially anxious kids because anxious kids don't feel capable and they're really manipulative often in the midst of that anxiety. And so they're gonna clamor really loudly for somebody to rescue them.
And instead they need to have to learn to do the hard things. And, and we need to have to learn to do the hard things. And if we are being anxious and we're responding out of that anxiety, they're gonna be learning it vicariously through us. And so. The combo, if possible is really important. Yeah, I think a lot of why husbands would be like, I will play this for my wife.
That would be because my sense of humor doesn't feel like a gift in those moments. For my wife, I. Okay. There's so much you just said there that I really wanna unpack. One thing that you just said was how your particular personality manifests your anxiety. Can you, I know we wanna talk about our kids and we have, all of us have, I have four kids.
I would say definitely at least one of 'em leans on the more anxious side. I think most families could resonate with that. But before we talk about kids stuff, let's talk about us, stay kind of camped for us as parents. How do you see adults, parents manifesting. Yeah, anxiety maybe, and they wouldn't connect those two dots.
Like they, there's this behavior and they wouldn't have connected that back to, oh, I'm actually pretty anxious. Yes. Can you help us connect some of those dots? Yes, so, so I have a new book called The Worry Free Parent, finding the Confidence You Need So Your Kids Can Too, which I think I even like the subtitle better than the title on this one because I think that's part of what happens again.
Please hear me say it is out of the very best of intentions and the very best of hearts that you care about your kids and you want to protect them. Of course, in and out of that way. Just sorry to interrupt, but in some ways it would be terrifying if somebody didn't have at least a little bit of anxiety when it comes to their kids.
You're just like, okay, exactly. You should care. But yes. Yeah, we've gone to an un unhealthy side maybe in some ways. That's a, that's point Jared. Exactly. Yes. Yes. And so I kind of break it down into several different types of parents. I'm seeing the most often, you know, we all talk about helicopter parenting where you're hovering over them all the time.
That's one of the ways I see it manifest. I would also say. Talk about backhoe parenting where you're kind of going forward or, and you're cleaning up the messes behind them all the time. And also, I mean, there's so many different kinds that we could talk about, but sidecar parenting where because I was anxious growing up, you know, I think about old school, Batman, Robin with Robin in the sidecar, Batman's doing this adventure.
And Robin's just being tossed around that sometimes when we're anxious, we decide they are too, when it's not necessarily even what's going on with them. Parade float parenting where I don't want them to be sad. I don't want them to worry, so I'm gonna try and keep things as fun as possible and keep them entertained all the time without letting them.
Be in a little bit of distress or even feel disappointed. And so there are a lot of different ways we can step in based on really who God's made us to be on our personalities that we can step in. And invariably, I think all of them involve some type of rescue. Prevention, micromanaging, and one of the things I talk about, I have another book specifically about girls called Raising Worry Free Girls, and that I tell parents to think about two things they're doing for their kids right now that they can do for themselves, and two things they're doing for their kids that they can almost do for themselves.
And that we need to let them do that. I mean, a lot of, again, kids are just gonna have to do the hard thing. Any of us to work through whatever we're afraid of, we have to do the thing that we're afraid of. And sometimes as adults, that means letting your kids do the thing they're afraid of. Hmm. So giving them some room to do that and to prove to themselves that they're capable at dat tired.
We have lots of resources to help equip you to be the spiritual leader of your home. But by far the most helpful thing that we offer is what's called our Family Leadership program. Our team will come alongside of you over the next 30 days and beyond to help you really lean into what it looks like to be the spiritual leader of your home.
Everything from family devotions to practicing Sabbath. So what it looks like to have the gospel infiltrate your marriage, all kinds of stuff. And we're gonna do it alongside of you. Go to dad tower.com, click the family leadership tab, and you'll be able to jump right in. That's so good one. I know one of the things you talk about in the book is that our anxiety is contagious.
And I think that that, I wonder if there's so much of, we don't want to, we're afraid to let our kids try and fail because we're scared of failing or we're scared of what the consequences. A failure might look like or what it might feel like. But can you just maybe just unpack that for us? Like what does it look like for our anxiety as a parent to be contagious toward our kids?
Yes. I'm glad that you said that, and I'm especially glad you said that in this conversation because I would say as we're talking about areas that dads are particularly gifted, I think one of the blind spots can be exactly what you're saying. And I, I had a girl years ago. That I was working with, she had anxiety and I brought her dad in because she adored her dad.
I mean, he was absolutely her hero. And this girl out of her anxiousness was putting a lot of pressure on herself to do everything perfectly. And I said to him. I want you to start to talk about failure around your house. I want you at the dinner table to say, I did the dumbest thing at work today, or I really botched this, or I think I really hurt this person's feelings, because when she knows that you as her hero fail, it's more okay for her to fail too.
I. And she's aware that she does and, and I think there can be so much pressure to be a perfect dad and to, for her to see you as her hero all along the way. And in fact, what's gonna happen is if she can still see you fail, and I would say even fail and laugh at yourself in the process, she's gonna be able to accept herself more when she gets to that place.
And I had another conversation with a dad. Where I was saying this because of the same reason, and I'm particularly with girls, I'm seeing girls more perfectionistic than I ever have in my life in every area. Sports, grades, friendships, I mean, everything they're doing. And so I said, you know, because this guy was.
Her hero too. I said, I want y'all to do something together as a family that no one does. Well, if you're not athletic, I want you to go to the batting cage. If you are not artistic, I want you to go paint pottery together and I want you to laugh at yourself while you're doing it. And this dad said, really, you're telling me to, for all of us to go do something together that we suck at?
And I said, yes, that is exactly what I'm telling you. And. Again, I think perfectionists don't laugh at themselves when they fail. Mm-hmm. And me being one, I wish somebody had taught me to do that when I was eight years old or 15 years old. And as you lead the way as the father, I think what a beautiful gift for you to give your kids, not just girls, but boys too, because I think girls, sometimes it manifests as perfectionism and boys, it's gonna manifest as competition a lot of times.
And how are they measuring themselves? And so. All of us need to be practicing those ideas together. That's so helpful. That's really good. I, I wonder you have so much experience working with parents and kids. Are there other things that you're just like, I know you can't do this as a therapist probably, but like, just want to shake a dad and be like, if you just did this, if Dad's just did this, it would be so helpful.
You'd save yourself a lot of heartache, whether that's in marriage or in parenting. Are there any things that just kind of are glaring to you when you think about. My generation and, uh, trying to raise these young kids or be married in a healthy way. Probably two things stand out to me, and these are particularly as they relate to girls, but one, well, not, not necessarily, but one I would say is I.
I think probably every dad who's listening, again, your population are really intentional dads or they wouldn't be listening to a podcast about fatherhood. And I remember hearing somebody speak that said, if you don't know the names of your daughter's, five best friends, you don't really know your daughter, I.
And culturally we are moving way too fast today, and I think it's part of why the anxiety rates are so significant among kids. And I would say your kids need time with you where you're just listening, where you're playing with them, where you're hearing their hearts and dad's a voice where you're playing with them not to coach them.
But just to play with them, they, when you're shooting the ball back after, they've just missed the goal. You don't say now, Hey, here's a tip. You're just spending time with them, because I think that's something we're losing. I feel like a lot of time spent today with kids is on the way to the next activity rather than just.
We're walking the dog together, or, hey, we're just gonna sit in the backyard. Or we just recorded our own podcast, which is coming out this summer with Lauren and Thomas Rhett Akins, and she talked about how her family would lay in the, they lived in a small town. You can't do this everywhere, but they would lay in the street.
You could lay in your yard. And would look at the stars together. I mean, things like that where we're just spending time with them I think is really important and not in order to be productive or to even fix, I think dads can lean towards trying to fix whatever is going on for kids. So that would be one.
The second I would say particularly pertains to girls, and one of the biggest mistakes I've seen dads make over the years is in that great desire to connect in that great desire to. Fix. I've had a lot of girls who say to me something like, well, especially in adolescent, well, my mom's really strict and my dad and I think blank.
And that says to me that father has aligned with his daughter. I. In a way that Sigmund Freud would have a heyday with. Mm-hmm. That he's really, it's called triangulation, where that girl has just become the third parent in their home. And girls are gonna figure out the differences in your parenting and they're gonna try and work it.
Mm. And I think they most often will lean towards trying to manipulate their dads. And so, as your daughter comes to you, which my hope is she will come to you when she has conflict with her mom because you wanna be a safe place for her. That you listen with a lot of empathy. And then you remind her that her mom is for her because it is not helpful for her to, I actually have dads who have said things to girls like, I know she does that to me too.
Never helpful in a child's life. Instead to say, oh honey, I hate that you're feeling that way. I know your mom loves you. Let's go talk to her. You can even practice what you're gonna say to her because I think she needs to hear that, and I'm gonna help you come up with a way to say it respectfully, and then let's have the conversation and then you let them work that out together.
That's really helpful because it's funny you say that. Yesterday after we got home, my son tried to side with me against my wife, that in that situation he was saying. Mom, you're being so crazy. Dad's not gonna, he's not gonna flip the ball he's doing and everything he was saying I agreed with, but I'm like, this doesn't feel right, dude, you're not.
I'm on your mom's team, regardless of what, what just happened on that boat. I'm still on your mom's team. And so yeah, that's really fascinating. Uh, your perspective on that. You said earlier in our conversation how anxiety can turn into manipulation with our kids. That really piqued my interest. Like, what did you mean by that?
How does a child, uh, you may have just touched on a little bit there, but flesh that out for us. How does a child become manipulative when they are actually feeling anxiety? I would compare anxious kids to a drowning victim. You know that idea of, I mean, I remember lifeguard training. You don't wanna jump in if you don't have the skills yet because they're gonna take you down with them not on purpose.
And anxious kids to think about doing whatever is making them anxious. It feels like the scariest thing they can imagine doing in that moment. And so they're gonna get really loud. They're gonna push all the buttons they can push you don't love me. Moms don't make their kids do this. Dads don't make their kids do this.
This isn't right. You're not a good parent. They're gonna say anything they can, like a drowning victim going down to not have to do the thing. And instead when we can say, you are so capable, you know, I love you. I wouldn't put you in a situation that I don't think you're capable of. You got this. You are so brave that we're giving messages like that over and over with them.
But I think that's so much of it. And. It's interesting, the two most common parenting strategies when kids are anxious. Our escape and avoidance. Mm-hmm. So I'm gonna pull 'em out. I'm gonna help them avoid the situation. And, and in all this research on anxiety, the definition I came up with is that anxiety is often an overestimation of the problem and an underestimation of themselves.
Hmm. And so if they're manipulating us and we fall for it and we rescue them, we just have confirmed that definition. You're right. It is too big. You're not big enough to handle this, so I'm gonna have to step in. Wow. Instead of you got what it takes. I believe in you. You're so strong. You're so brave. Yeah.
And they'll scream at you as they do it. Uh, no I'm not. One thing I said to my, our kids who feel anxious about a particular thing is I gave the analogy, I love that analogy by the way that you gave the, of the, the drowning victim. One of the analogies I gave to my kids was, you are in a wild jungle. Right now.
Mm-hmm. And you have no path. You feel like you have no path to get through. But I said, when you do this, you'll actually, it's like a machete. You've created a path in your brain, and the next time you get into that wild jungle, even though it feels scary, you will have created a path. And the more you walk down that path, the more clear it becomes.
And even though it's scary, it becomes clear and clear for you to be able to walk down. Oh, that's beautiful. Because you know, you's done it before's. You can steal that. Yeah, tear it up Adam. I'm not a counselor, but I love that analogy. That's awesome. It seemed to work with my son. He liked that one. That, that, yes.
Not in the moment, but later. I'm like, see dude, you've been in the jungle before. You've, you've hacked down some stuff and you can walk down that path. You have what it takes to walk down the path. It's scary as it is. Yeah. That's really, really, really helpful. One thing you said that, uh, again, piqued my interest is you tell parents to let go of the bottom 20%.
What do you mean by that? What does that mean to let go of the bottom 20%? Well, I think when we are anxious. We micromanage. So, and again, probably especially more of the type A parents or any parent of a teenager, I think it's easy to micromanage. And so what I will say to parents often is, I want you to think about the 10 things that.
Feel like you're battling your kids with the most right now? What are the things you're talking about the most? You're having power struggles over the most when we are, you know, that whole idea of majoring in the majors and minoring in the minors. When we're majoring in everything, they're not gonna hear us, and our relationship is going to be characterized more by conflict than connection.
Hmm. And they need connection with us. Wow. And so to think about letting the 20 bottom 20% go means, you know, maybe you stop saying something every time they roll their eyes, or every time they push back a little or every time. I mean, I think we wanna be saying yes more than nos. I read that once in a book about toddlers, and I think it's true of kids of all ages, that we wanna say yes more than no, so that our nos have more power when they come.
Mm-hmm. And so just to think about, even to make a grid of what are the things that I'm, yeah, talking about the most and how do I let the bottom. Two go, or the bottom 20% go, wow, that's a really powerful and convicting line as a parent that we would have more. What did you say? That we'd be connecting more on conflict and connection.
How did you say it? It was so beautiful. You said that. I don't remember how I said valuing connection more than correction. Yeah, man, that is convicting because I feel like we spend so much of our time as parents just correcting, correcting, correcting, correcting, and um, yeah. That you can get through a whole day.
And it's like, I've corrected my kids 7,000 times today, but I don't know if I connected with them at all. Yes. Today. And God does that so well with us that neither are absent and yet he just parents us so well. And the fact that he will correct that he's a good father, but he will never do it outside of connection and that's just gospel parenting, that we would somehow be able to parent more like that, that we can still correct when needed, but still our kids don't feel like they're losing that connection.
I want to be. More of a parent like that. I went through your book, it's phenom. Every time I was like flipping the page. I'm like, that's relatable. That's relatable. That's helpful. That's relatable. Thank you. Um, I think all of our listeners are gonna feel that same way. It's called the Worry Free Parent Living in Confidence so your kids can too.
I love that you are really like. You're just focusing on us as parents, like we gotta, we gotta deal with this, our own stuff so that it doesn't become super contagious to our kids, as you say. Yes. Thank you. Thank you so much. I know you're, you're busy and you're, you got a whole bunch of these conversations happening right now, but thanks for squeezing in some time with us and sharing your wisdom with us.
I wish. We all could have you on call. Aw, we're trying parent. You're so kind. Well, I'm so honored to get to have time with you and thank you again. Like I said earlier, I just am so grateful for you equipping dads, and I'm grateful for every dad that's listening before I let you go. I, I do want because it's, it's fascinating from your perspective, you know, there's data out there about when a dad shows up, how things often turn for the better.
Statistically, I mean from a secular Christian, whatever perspective you look at it, when there's a dad there in the home, present things go better. In your experience of working with families, can you kind of put some flesh onto those bones and just from an outsider's perspective, 'cause there's a lot of dads who are just, they're exhausted and we can default to, I'm not doing very well, but I just, I just, I'll put food on the table and I'll keep a roof over their head.
But it's like from your perspective. What are you seeing when a dad really says, I'm going to engage my family? Hmm. You know, I think how often I say to parents, I think it's time for dad to do school drop off because I have more kids who will refuse to get outta the car, who will cry the whole way to school, who are more anxious in the presence of their moms than they are of their dads.
Mm-hmm. Part of that is I think kids feel more sometimes like they can manipulate their moms, and I think part of that is a real gifted place in moms of the strength of connection and intuition and all of those things. But I think you as a male, you as a dad, you just provide. In who you are without even you having to do anything.
You provide the strength that I think settles the hearts of kids and makes them feel more secure. And so there are so many things that we could talk about that are are places. Dads are really uniquely gifted and crucial in the hearts of kids. And I would say that is certainly one of them. That makes a huge difference.
Yeah. Thank you for that encouragement. Thank you for sharing your wisdom, encouraging us, convicting us where we need to be convicted. But I'm really excited for everyone to go pick up a copy of your book. Thank you again for spending some time with us today. Thanks for having me. Dear.
Hey guys, hope you enjoy today's episode. As a reminder, we have our dad tired annual retreat coming up in September. We're already halfway full on that, so if you wanna secure a spot, go to dad tire.com, click the annual retreat tab and get signed up today. I love you guys. We'll see you next week.