Adam Kunes, Author at Dad Day

We’re always looking for stuff that isn’t junk.

That’s genuinely the bar. Not educational in a flashy marketing sense. Not a toy that ends up in the corner after 20 minutes. Something that actually holds their attention, makes them think, and doesn’t make us feel like we wasted money on more plastic.

KiwiCo cleared that bar. Here’s what happened.

What We Got

We picked up subscriptions for both boys. Seven and four (almost five).

For our four-year-old we went with the Koala Crate, which is the ages 3 to 4 box. He got a dinosaur dig kit where you excavate little figures out of sand. For our seven-year-old we went with the Kiwi Crate, which runs ages 5 to 8. His was the Motorized Spin Art kit. He built the motorized device himself, loaded it up with paint, and let it rip. The result was this kaleidoscope-style artwork he made from scratch. Think spinning, color, and a finished piece he actually created himself.

Both boxes arrived with everything included. No running to the store for supplies, no missing pieces, no printing instructions off the internet. Everything was in there.

How It Actually Went

We handed them the boxes and mostly got out of the way.

That’s the honest version. We weren’t hovering, we weren’t co-piloting, we weren’t saving anyone from frustration every five minutes. They just did it.

Our seven-year-old was locked in. He built the motorized device, figured out the mechanics, loaded it with paint, and came back with this wild swirling piece of art he made himself. It wasn’t a participation trophy project. He built something real, it worked, and the result was genuinely cool. He wanted to show everyone in the house.

Our four-year-old liked his too, though here’s an honest note: if your kid is on the older end of an age bracket or running a little ahead developmentally, size up. We probably should have gone with the 5-to-8 box for him. The dinosaur dig was a little too quick for where he’s at right now. He still enjoyed it, but he was through it faster than we expected. We’ll go up a level on his next one.

That’s not a knock on KiwiCo. That’s just good advice for dads making the call: when in doubt, go up an age bracket. You know your kid.

Why We’re Keeping the Subscription

For $30 a month this is genuinely one of the better line items in the budget.

Think about what $30 normally gets you. A toy that breaks in a week. A game that loses half its pieces. Something with batteries that makes noise for six months straight. Or in this case, a curated box that shows up at the door, keeps the kids occupied for a solid stretch, gives them something they actually made, and sets them up excited for what comes next month.

Both boys are already asking about the next box. That’s the real tell.

What KiwiCo Actually Offers

For dads doing the math on which box to get, here’s the quick breakdown:

Koala Crate (ages 3 to 4): Hands-on learning for preschoolers. Good starting point but size up if your kid skews advanced.

Kiwi Crate (ages 5 to 8): Science, art, and engineering activities. This is the sweet spot for most elementary-age kids and the one we’d recommend most confidently.

Atlas Crate (ages 6 to 11): Geography and culture focus. Each box explores a different country with STEAM projects tied to the theme. Great if your kid is into travel or learning about the world.

Tinker Crate (ages 9 to 14): More advanced STEM. Build and engineering focus for kids who want to go deeper.

Eureka Crate (ages 12 and up): Engineering and design for older kids and teens. This one runs into adult territory, which is actually a nice detail.

Every subscription includes free shipping. Prices range from roughly $17 to $30 per month depending on which crate you pick and whether you go monthly or annual. Annual is obviously the better deal if you’re planning to stick with it, which after this first round, we are.

Our Honest Recommendation

If you’re a dad looking for something different to give your kids that isn’t more junk, KiwiCo is worth it.

It’s not a screen. It’s not passive. It’s something they build with their hands and walk away from with a finished product they made. That combination is increasingly hard to find at any price point, let alone $30 a month.

Our boys loved it. We’re keeping both subscriptions. And next month we’re sizing up the four-year-old.

Check out KiwiCo here and use the age guides to pick the right crate for your kid. Click through our link and you will get 50% off your first box. When in doubt, go one bracket up.

We paid for our KiwiCo subscription ourselves. This post contains an affiliate link. If you sign up through our link, you will get 50% off your first box.

We were listening to My First Million with Sam Parr and Shaan Puri recently and the topic of daily affirmations for kids came up.

The idea was simple: have your kids repeat certain phrases every morning. Things you want hardwired into how they see themselves before the world gets a chance to tell them otherwise.

It stuck with us. So we went down the rabbit hole.

Is this actually a thing? What does the research say? And what should dads be teaching their kids to say to themselves every day? Here’s what we found.

Why This Isn’t Just Feel-Good Fluff

The concept is simple. Kids are in a critical wiring period. What they hear repeatedly, especially from themselves, gets encoded into how they see the world and their place in it. Negative self-talk becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Positive self-talk, repeated consistently, rewires the internal narrative.

Words are programming. The question is who’s doing the programming.

Right now it’s a combination of their environment, their friends, social media, and whatever their brain decides to chatter about at 2am. Most parents leave this entirely to chance. You don’t have to.

What the Science Actually Says

This isn’t feel-good fluff. The research is real and it’s consistent.

A study published in Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience found that self-affirmation activates the part of the brain tied to self-worth and emotional regulation. We’re talking about measurable, physical changes in brain activity from saying positive things about yourself.

Research from the University of Pennsylvania showed that repeating self-affirmations produces physical changes in brain regions associated with self-processing. The brain literally rewires around the messages it receives consistently.

A study in Child Development found that even brief self-affirmation exercises helped teens feel more capable and improved their school performance over time.

Research shows that daily repetitions of positive affirmations in children help them develop stronger self-esteem, increase psychological wellbeing, and significantly improve their educational performance and motivation.

The mechanism isn’t complicated. Kids develop their belief systems early. What they hear from their environment, their parents, their peers, and crucially from themselves, gets baked in. The affirmations work because they give kids a competing voice to the negative self-talk that naturally creeps in. They build the internal narrative on purpose instead of letting it form by accident.

The Window You Have Right Now

Here’s the part that creates urgency.

Licensed family therapist Kelly Oriard, co-founder of Slumberkins, puts it plainly:

“When children use positive phrases about themselves, it helps shape and strengthen their own inner voice that will be with them a lifetime.”

Their lifetime. Not just their childhood.

The inner voice your kid develops before age ten is going to follow them into every job interview, every hard conversation, every moment of self-doubt they face as an adult. You have a window right now to help shape what that voice sounds like.

Most parents leave this entirely to chance.

What to Actually Have Your Kids Say

The research is clear that affirmations work best when they’re specific, age-appropriate, and repeated consistently. Not a random list. A small set of phrases your kid says every day until they believe them.

Here’s how we’d think about building a short list for your kid based on the areas that matter most.

On capability and resilience: “I can do hard things.” “I am braver than I feel.” “When I fall down I get back up.” “I figure things out.”

On identity and self-worth: “I am loved.” “I am enough.” “I matter to my family.” “I am proud of who I am.”

On mindset and growth: “My brain gets stronger every day.” “Mistakes help me learn.” “I don’t give up.” “I keep going even when it’s hard.”

On confidence and courage: “I am brave enough to try.” “I believe in myself.” “I can handle whatever comes.” “My voice matters.”

The research suggests keeping the list short. Three to five phrases is better than twenty. The goal is for them to genuinely internalize these, not recite a script.

How to Actually Make It Happen

The biggest reason parents don’t do this is it feels weird to start. Here’s how to remove the friction.

Make it a morning routine anchor. The morning is the highest-leverage moment. Before school, before devices, before the day has a chance to put its own spin on things. Even 60 seconds of affirmations during the drive to school or at breakfast changes the internal setup for the whole day.
Do it with them. Don’t hand your kid a list and tell them to recite it alone. Say it together. You modeling it removes the awkwardness and adds the weight of your voice alongside theirs. Some dads go first. Some do it call-and-response style. Find what works for your kid.
Start young, keep going. Research shows you can start this with toddlers. Simple phrases work for young kids. “I am brave. I am kind. I am loved.” Three-year-olds can say these. And the earlier the internal voice gets shaped in a positive direction, the longer it runs.
Let them own it as they get older. The best affirmations are ones your kid chooses themselves. Around age six or seven, ask them what they want to believe about themselves. Write those down. Those will hit differently than anything you hand them because they came from inside.
Consistency over intensity. Every day for two minutes beats once a week for twenty minutes. The research is clear that repetition is what produces the neurological change. Build the habit small and protect it.

The Bottom Line

Your kid’s inner voice is being formed right now. Either by design or by default.

The affirmation piece isn’t soft parenting. It’s intentional parenting. It’s recognizing that the words your kid repeats to themselves every morning become the beliefs they operate from for the rest of their life.

The kids who grow up with a strong, positive internal narrative are harder to rattle. More resilient. More willing to try things. Better at getting back up.

It starts with 60 seconds in the morning. Start tonight.

Fourteen episodes in, still no editor, still no script. Just Adam and Ben catching up on a few weeks apart and diving into the topic every dad eventually has to figure out: how to navigate family and in-laws once you’ve got kids of your own.

What This Episode’s About

Adam and Ben trade Fourth of July stories (lake life vs. HOA fireworks fines), run through the Ethos Life Insurance read, and shout out the DG Mindset podcast before getting into the real topic: in-laws, generational parenting differences, and the moment every new parent hits where family visits stop being simple.

The Big Takeaways

You get to choose what you keep. Ben’s framing on family patterns: once you have kids, “you have two options. You can teach what you were taught, or you can do what you want to do.” Nobody’s obligated to repeat the playbook they grew up with.
Give your family grace, not judgment. Adam’s take on why in-law friction happens: “Everyone was raised differently… this all stemmed from a generational thing. They were raised a certain way, and then they raised their kids that way.” Understanding the “why” makes the friction easier to sit with.
Communication beats silent frustration. Adam’s bottom line on keeping the peace: “Being vocal and sharing how you feel is numero uno for a healthy relationship with the in-laws.”
Nothing prepares you, and that’s okay. Dad Day’s own newsletter poll backed this up — the top answer to “what would you tell a new dad” was some version of “nothing will prepare you.” Adam: “In your mind you feel like you have it all figured out. And then everything changes, man.”
Support systems matter more than people realize. Ben’s honest admission after his first family trip without backup: “That’s the game changer for us, just having someone to hand off to. If you don’t have that, you’re kind of toast.”

Best Quote of the Episode

“Everybody wants everybody to win. It’s just some people have a different way of getting to the win. Everybody loves each other. That’s the foundation, that’s all that matters.” — Ben, on in-laws

“Love is the glue, man.” — Adam

Listen to Episode 14

Join the Conversation

Got a story about navigating in-laws, or a family tradition you’re passing down to your own kids? Drop it in the Dad Day Slack or call it in to 833-DAD-SHOW. We might play it on the next episode.

The onesie that fit last week doesn’t fit today.

You didn’t notice it happening. You were just living. Doing the feeds, the burp, the 3am shuffle to the crib and back. And then one morning you go to snap it and something’s off and you realize: he grew out of it. Sometime in the last seven days, while you were just trying to get through the week, something changed.

That’s kind of how all of it goes.

The Trap Nobody Warns You About

When you have a newborn, it’s almost impossible to imagine them walking.

They can’t hold their own head up. They need you for everything. The version of them that runs through the house and has opinions about dinner feels like science fiction.

So you don’t plan for it. You just survive the stage you’re in.

And then suddenly they’re crawling and you haven’t baby-proofed anything. Then they’re walking and you’re scrambling. Then they’re starting school and you’re realizing you never thought about what that transition was going to feel like.

Then they’re a teenager and you’re wondering how you got here and whether you built the kind of relationship that’s going to survive the next few years.

None of it sneaks up on you slowly. It all arrives faster than you expected, every single time, even after you’ve been told a hundred times that it will.

This Isn’t About Rushing It

To be clear: we’re not saying sprint through the stages. We’re not saying wish it away or skip the hard parts to get to the good parts.

The opposite.

The point is that the dads who think a little ahead, who have some loose sense of what’s coming and what they want to be building toward, tend to be more present in the current stage. Not less. Because they’re not just reacting. They’re playing a longer game.

There’s a difference between rushing and being intentional. Rushing is wishing this stage was over. Being intentional is enjoying this stage while quietly keeping one eye on who your kid is becoming and what they’re going to need from you next.

What Thinking Ahead Actually Looks Like

It doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s not a spreadsheet.

It’s more like a loose awareness. An occasional question you ask yourself: what’s coming next, and am I ready for it?

When they’re a baby, what’s coming next is mobility. At some point this child who is currently a potato is going to move. Then walk. Then run. Then open every cabinet in the kitchen while you’re in the shower. The dads who think about this a little bit ahead of time aren’t caught completely flat-footed when it happens.

When they’re a toddler, what’s coming next is language. Real, full sentences. Opinions. Questions you don’t know how to answer. The dad who’s been having one-sided conversations with his kid for two years, narrating everything and asking questions even without answers, has laid some groundwork for this.

The dad who’s been handing over the iPad every time things got quiet hasn’t.

When they’re in elementary school, what’s coming next is the formation of their identity. They’re going to start caring what their peers think. They’re going to start forming their own sense of who they are.

The dad who’s been paying attention to what lights his kid up, what they’re curious about, what kind of person they’re becoming, has something to work with. He can meet them in that.

When they’re a preteen, what’s coming next is the wall. The pulling away. The “I’m fine” when they’re clearly not fine. The dads who built the relationship in the earlier years, who logged the hours and the conversations and the side-by-side time, have something to draw on when things get harder.

The dads who figured they’d connect with their kid when they got older sometimes find that the door is a little more closed than they expected.

You don’t have to have all the answers for every stage. You just have to know it’s coming.

The Specific Thing Most Dads Miss

The physical stuff. Not emotional readiness. Physical readiness.

Your kid is going to get faster than you. Sooner than you think. The toddler you can scoop up with one arm is going to be a ten-year-old who can actually run. Then a teenager who can beat you in a sprint.

The dad who kept himself in some kind of shape, who built the habit of staying capable, can still keep up when it counts. Soccer sidelines, driveway races, hiking trails that get harder as the kids get more ambitious. The dad who let things go completely is sitting it out by the time his kid is actually old enough to really do things with.

This isn’t about vanity. It’s about availability. Being physically capable enough to show up for the stages ahead.

The Practical Version

Once a year, sit down and think about what stage your kid is entering in the next twelve months.

What’s going to change? What are they going to need more of from you? What conversations are coming that you haven’t had yet? What habits are you building right now that are going to carry into the next stage?

You don’t need to have it all figured out. You just need to not be completely caught off guard.

The parents who look back on their kids’ childhoods and say it went too fast are usually the ones who spent it all in reactive mode. Surviving each stage. Getting through the week. Looking up one day to find their kid is leaving for college and wondering how it happened.

It happened week by week. Day by day. The way it always does.

The Stage You’re In Right Now Is Worth Paying Attention To

That’s the other side of this.

If you’re always thinking about the next stage, you miss the one you’re standing in. The one that won’t come back.

The baby weight in your arms right now. The tiny hand that reaches for yours right now. The ridiculous three-year-old mispronunciation of a word that’s somehow the funniest thing you’ve ever heard right now.

Don’t rush through it to get to the good parts. These are the good parts.

Just don’t be so in it that you never lift your head and think about where it’s all going. Because it’s going somewhere. Faster than you think.

Stay present. Stay aware. Those two things aren’t opposites.

They’re the whole job.

You don’t need to be a contractor. You don’t need a garage full of specialty tools or a YouTube channel about home improvement.

You just need to know how to handle the stuff that breaks. Because it will break. The toilet, the bike, the doorknob, the relationship with your kid when you blow it. All of it.

Here are 15 things every dad should know how to fix. Some of these are literal. Some aren’t. All of them matter.

1. A Running Toilet

The most common household repair there is, and the one most dads still call a plumber for.

Nine times out of ten it’s the flapper. The rubber piece at the bottom of the tank that seals the water in. It degrades over time, stops sealing properly, and water keeps trickling through. A replacement flapper costs about $8 at any hardware store and takes ten minutes to swap. Turn off the water supply, drain the tank, unhook the old flapper, hook in the new one. Done.

If it’s not the flapper, check the fill valve next. Either way, this is a $10 fix that plumbers charge $150 for.

2. A Flat Bike Tire

Your kid’s bike will get a flat. Probably on a Saturday. Probably right when you were about to head out.

Pop the wheel off, use tire levers to get the tire bead off the rim, pull out the tube, find the puncture (a bucket of water helps, look for bubbles), patch it or swap in a new tube, reseat the tire, pump it up. Twenty minutes once you’ve done it a couple times.

Keep a basic bike repair kit and a pump in the garage. It will get used more than you think.

3. A Clogged Drain

Before you reach for the chemical drain cleaner, which is bad for your pipes and honestly doesn’t work that well, try a drain snake. Cheap, reusable, and gets through 90% of clogs in a few minutes.

For sink clogs specifically, the P-trap under the sink can be unscrewed by hand or with pliers. Most clogs are sitting right there. A bucket underneath, unscrew the trap, clear it out, screw it back on. Five minutes, no chemicals.

4. A Wobbly Chair or Table

Almost always one of two problems. A loose joint where two pieces of wood meet, or legs that are uneven.

For the loose joint: take it apart if you can, add wood glue, clamp it, let it dry overnight. For uneven legs on a hard floor: a set of adjustable felt pads or a small wood shim under the short leg solves it in two minutes.

This is the kind of fix that makes you look like a genius to your kids for basically no effort.

5. A Door That Won’t Stop Squeaking

WD-40 on the hinges. That’s it. That’s the whole fix. Takes 30 seconds, lasts for months.

If the squeak comes back fast, the hinge pin might need to come out entirely, get a thin coat of grease, and go back in. Still a five-minute job.

6. A Punctured Pool Float or Inflatable

Every summer, every family. A patch kit costs about $5 and works on pool floats, inflatable mattresses, kiddie pools, and most rafts. Find the hole (soapy water and look for bubbles, same trick as the bike tube), clean the area, apply the patch, let it cure per the instructions.

Buy the kit before you need it. You will need it.

7. A Loose Doorknob or Handle

Nearly always a screw that’s backed out over time from people gripping and turning it thousands of times. Most doorknobs have a small set screw on the side or underneath that you tighten with an Allen wrench or screwdriver. Two minutes, problem solved.

8. A Computer or Phone That’s Running Slow

You don’t need to be tech support for your whole extended family, but the basics matter. Restart it. Clear out apps and programs you don’t use. Check how much storage is full, anything above 90% will slow a device down significantly. Clear the browser cache. Update the operating system.

These four things solve the majority of “my computer is so slow” complaints, and now you’re the guy who knows how to fix it instead of the guy who has to pay someone $80 to do the same four things.

9. A Bike Chain That’s Fallen Off

This one terrifies new parents and takes 90 seconds once you know how. Shift to the smallest gear if you can. Pull the chain back onto the smallest chainring at the front, rotate the pedal backward slowly while guiding the chain on with your other hand. Keep a rag in your bag for this one. It’s always greasy.

10. A Hole in Drywall

Small hole from a doorknob or a kid’s toy? Spackle, let dry, sand smooth, paint over. Total cost under $10, total time about 20 minutes plus drying.

Bigger hole? A drywall patch kit with a self-adhesive mesh patch handles most household-sized holes without needing to cut and replace a whole section. Worth having one in the garage. You’ll use it.

11. A Sticky Zipper

WD-40 or a graphite pencil rubbed along the zipper teeth, then work it back and forth a few times. Works on jackets, backpacks, tents, anything. Most people throw away perfectly good gear over a sticky zipper that takes 60 seconds to fix.

12. A Wifi Router That’s Acting Up

Unplug it. Wait 30 seconds. Plug it back in. This solves the overwhelming majority of household wifi problems and yet most people call their internet provider before trying it.

If that doesn’t work, check for a firmware update in the router’s app or admin panel. If you’re still struggling, the router placement matters more than people think, central and elevated beats stuck in a closet behind the TV.

13. A Broken Promise to Your Kid

This one isn’t a tool fix. It’s a relationship fix, and it matters more than any of the items above.

You will break a promise at some point. You’ll forget the thing you said you’d do, or something will come up and you’ll have to cancel. The fix isn’t pretending it didn’t happen. The fix is naming it directly: “I told you I’d be there and I wasn’t. That wasn’t right. I’m sorry.”

No excuses tacked on the end. No justification. Just the acknowledgment and the apology. Kids don’t need perfect dads. They need dads who own it when they get it wrong. That repair is one of the most important things you’ll ever fix.

14. A Tense Moment With Your Partner

The instinct is to let it sit, to wait for it to blow over, to avoid the conversation because it’s uncomfortable. That’s how small tension turns into real distance.

The fix is almost always simpler than it feels in the moment. A direct conversation. An honest “I think we need to talk about this” instead of letting it fester. A genuine apology when you’re wrong, without immediately defending yourself.

Your kids are watching how you handle this one closely, even when they don’t say anything about it.

15. A Kid Who’s Having a Hard Day

You can’t fix every bad day. You’re not supposed to. But you can fix the part where they feel alone in it.

Sit down. Get on their level. Ask what happened. Actually listen instead of jumping straight to solving it. Sometimes the fix isn’t solving the problem at all, it’s just making sure they know you’re in their corner while they work through it themselves.

That’s a fix too. Maybe the most important one on this list.

The Common Thread

Most of these take less than 20 minutes. Most of them cost less than $20. And almost all of them are things people pay someone else to do because nobody ever showed them how.

You don’t need to master all 15 overnight. Pick one this weekend. Learn it. Do it once and you’ll never forget it.

That’s how every dad who seems like he can fix anything actually got there. One small thing at a time.

We’ve built an impressive system for raising kids who are good at following instructions.

School teaches them to sit still, raise their hand, wait their turn, and get the right answer. Social media teaches them to perform for approval. Group chats teach them to read the room before they say anything. The entire architecture of modern childhood is quietly, constantly asking kids: what does everyone else think?

And we wonder why so many kids struggle with confidence.

Here’s what we believe: confidence isn’t a personality trait your kid either has or doesn’t have. It’s a skill. It’s built. And it’s built mostly at home, mostly by you, mostly through things you do and say in ordinary moments you don’t even realize are significant.

This is the guide we wish someone had handed us.

What Confidence Actually Is

Let’s get clear on the definition first because most people get this wrong.

Confidence is not the absence of doubt. It’s not the kid who never gets nervous, never questions themselves, never feels the sting of what other people think. That kid doesn’t exist.

Real confidence is the ability to act despite doubt. To move forward when you’re not sure.

To trust your own judgment enough to make a call and live with it. To feel the discomfort of someone’s disapproval and not let it determine your next move.

Psychology Today puts it simply: confidence is the ability to trust yourself, override anxiety, and step out with a strong stride in life into whatever you’re pursuing, whether that’s speaking up against a bully or giving a book report.

That’s the goal. Not fearlessness. Not arrogance. Self-trust.

And the research on how to build it is surprisingly consistent.

The Two Kinds of Kids (And Which One You’re Raising)

Psychologist Dr. Jim Taylor draws a line between two types of children.

Contingent children are dependent on others for how they feel about themselves. Independent children are intrinsically motivated to achieve. What you want to raise is a self-reliant child, one who is confident in their own abilities and able to do things for themselves.

The contingent kid is constantly scanning for approval. They check the room before they express an opinion. They modify themselves based on who’s watching. They’re exhausting to be because the emotional regulation is always outsourced.

The self-reliant kid has an internal compass. They know what they think. They can tolerate disagreement. They don’t need the room to agree with them to feel okay.

The difference between these two kids is not genetics. It’s not luck. It’s largely what happened at home between ages three and twelve.

Here’s how to build the second one.

Let Them Struggle. On Purpose.

This is the counterintuitive one that most parents get backwards.

Research shows that parents who are over-involved in an activity a child is doing, who take over, raise kids who don’t develop a sense of pride, adventure, and willingness to try new things.

Read that twice.

Every time you jump in to fix it, finish it, smooth it over, you are sending a signal. The signal is: I don’t think you can handle this. That signal compounds over years into a kid who genuinely doesn’t believe they can handle things.

Let them figure out the Lego before you help. Let them navigate the conflict with the friend before you call the other parent. Let them sit with the hard homework problem for fifteen minutes before you explain it. Let them feel the discomfort of not knowing and then watch them find their way through it.

The pride that comes from solving something difficult is one of the primary building blocks of confidence. You cannot give that pride to them. They have to earn it themselves. Your job is to create the conditions and then get out of the way.

Praise the Right Thing

Most parents praise results. Smart parents praise process.

Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck’s research has made this distinction famous for good reason. Kids who are praised for being smart become afraid of failing because failure threatens their identity. Kids who are praised for effort and process become willing to take on harder challenges because the challenge itself is the point.

The difference in practice is small but significant.

“You’re so smart” becomes “I love how hard you worked on that.”

“You’re such a good athlete” becomes “I noticed how you kept going even when it got hard.”

“That was easy for you” becomes “You figured that out. How did you approach it?”

Doubt is normal. It doesn’t mean your kid isn’t confident. Get specific and narrow down the area of doubt rather than seeing doubt as a sign of lack of confidence.

Think growth mindset: encourage children to ask for help and think about what they need to improve.

The goal is a kid who sees challenge as information, not as evidence of inadequacy. That shift starts with how you talk to them after every game, every test, every project, every attempt.

Answer the Why Questions

Kids start asking why around age three. Most parents get worn down by it fast.

Laurence Steinberg, a psychologist at Temple University specializing in adolescent development, says kids start to develop critical thinking skills right around when they begin asking why questions. It’s important that parents take the time, when they can, to answer those questions, because you don’t want a child to think it’s bad or wrong to ask.

The why questions are not annoying. They are your kid building the machinery they’ll use to think for themselves for the rest of their life. Every time you engage with a why question instead of shutting it down, you’re telling them their curiosity has value. Their thinking has value. Their judgment is worth developing.

Every time you say “because I said so” and close the conversation, you’re training them to stop asking and start complying. Compliant kids are easy to raise. They are also easy to bully, pressure, and manipulate because they’ve learned to defer to external authority rather than their own internal voice.

Answer the why. Even when you’re tired. Especially when you’re tired.

Teach Them to Disagree With You

This one takes some courage from the dad’s side.

When children challenge our authority, they begin to develop critical thinking skills. By questioning rules and seeking explanations, they learn to analyze situations, consider different perspectives, and evaluate the validity of rules, expectations, and instructions. This process cultivates independent thinking and helps children form personal opinions, values, and beliefs.

The kid who can look you in the eye and respectfully disagree with you is practicing one of the most important skills of their entire life. They are learning to hold a position under social pressure from the most powerful person in their world.

If they can do that with you, they can do it with the friend group telling them to do something stupid. They can do it with the internet. They can do it with the culture telling them who they’re supposed to be.

Create space for your kid to push back on your thinking. Ask them what they think about a decision you made. Tell them you might be wrong. Show them that changing your mind when you get new information is strength, not weakness. The family dinner table is a training ground for their entire future relationship with authority, pressure, and their own judgment.

Use it intentionally.

Talk About Bullies Differently

Most advice about bullies focuses on the bully. What to tell a teacher, what to do in the moment, how to stay safe.

That stuff matters. But the deeper work is building the internal architecture that doesn’t collapse when someone is cruel.

Here’s what that looks like in practice.

Separate their worth from the opinion. When your kid comes home and tells you someone called them something awful, your first instinct is to fix it. What they actually need is help separating the event from their identity. What that person said is data about that person. It is not data about your kid. That distinction has to be taught explicitly and repeated often because the culture is constantly telling them the opposite.

Normalize being disliked. This sounds harsh. It’s actually one of the most liberating things a parent can teach a child. Not everyone is going to like you. Not everyone is going to think you’re great. Some people are going to be actively unkind. That’s true now and it will be true at forty. The question is whether that reality has the power to determine how you feel about yourself.

One parent captured it perfectly when she told her daughter: you can’t please everyone. And not everyone is going to like you. But that’s okay. Her choice had value. Instead of worrying about what everyone else thought, her daughter needed to think about her own desires too.

Don’t rush to fix it. When your kid is upset about what someone did or said, the temptation is to solve it immediately. Call the school. Talk to the other parent. Make it stop. Sometimes those things are necessary. But before you do any of that, sit with them in it. Let them feel it fully. Ask them what they’re feeling and why. Ask them what they want to do about it. The processing is where the resilience lives.

Model how you handle your own critics. Your kid is watching how you respond when someone is unkind to you. When someone cuts you off and you lose it, when you spend dinner talking about what a coworker said about you, when you ruminate visibly about what someone thinks, you’re giving them a template. Give them a better one. Show them what it looks like to absorb a criticism, decide whether there’s anything useful in it, and move on without letting it take over the room.

Let Them Own Their Interests. All of Them.

Younger children especially are trying to assert their independence in ways that may come across as defiant or disorderly to some parents. But experts caution not to overreact or jump in to correct too quickly.

The kid who is passionate about something weird and specific and completely their own is building something important. They are learning what it feels like to care deeply about something regardless of whether anyone else cares. That internal relationship with their own interests is the seed of a self that doesn’t require external validation to exist.

Let them go deep on the thing nobody else at school is into. Don’t redirect them toward something more conventional. Don’t make them feel like their interests need to be justified or explained. The kid who knows their own mind about what they love is significantly harder to push around than the kid who is still trying to figure out what the group thinks is cool.

The Most Important Thing You Can Model

All of this circles back to one thing.

Your kid is building their model of how a person exists in the world primarily by watching you. How you handle uncertainty. How you respond to criticism. Whether you say what you actually think or perform what you think people want to hear. Whether you make decisions from your own values or from what the room will think.

Children learn by observing. Show them how to navigate social situations with empathy, clear communication, and respect. When they see you handle uncertainty with composure, they’re more likely to do the same.

Be the version of yourself you want them to become. Not the aspirational version. The real, daily, ordinary version. The one that shows up at breakfast and makes calls under pressure and handles it when someone is unkind and gets back up when something goes wrong.

That’s the curriculum. You’re the teacher.

The Philosophy First

Before the ages, a framework that makes everything else work.

Meet them where they are, not where you want them to be.

The biggest mistake dads make when adventuring with kids is planning the trip they want to take and then dragging the kids along. A six-mile hike with 2,000 feet of elevation gain is a great hike for you. For a five-year-old it is a hostage situation.

The adventure has to be sized for them. Not dumbed down. Sized. There’s a difference. A great adventure for a four-year-old might be a half-mile trail to a waterfall. That waterfall is just as real as yours. The mud on their boots is just as satisfying. The sense of having gone somewhere and found something is exactly the same.

Let them set the pace whenever you can.

Kids who feel dragged through an experience don’t absorb it the same way kids who feel like they’re leading it do. Give them ownership. Ask them to navigate. Let them pick which fork to take. Let the trip slow down when something catches their attention.

Yes, this means you will spend twelve minutes looking at a caterpillar. The caterpillar is the adventure for them right now. Let it be.

Build the yes before you push the limit.

Every great adventure with your kid is built on a foundation of smaller ones that went well. The trust gets established in the easy miles. The resilience gets built in the slightly hard ones. The big stuff comes later, when they know you’ve got them.

Don’t skip the foundation. The summit can wait.

Babies and Infants (0 to 1 Year): You’re Training Yourself

Let’s be real about this stage.

The adventure is not for them yet. They won’t remember it. They have no preference about whether they’re on a mountain or in the living room. The world is enormous and confusing either way.

The adventure at this stage is for you. You’re training yourself not to disappear. Not to put the adventurous version of yourself in storage until the kids are older.

Because the dads who do that often discover that by the time the kids are old enough, the habit is gone.

This is the stage to figure out the gear. The carrier is everything. A good structured baby carrier, Ergobaby Omni, BabyBjörn Move, Osprey Poco, changes everything about what’s possible with a baby.

You can hike. You can walk the city. You can explore. The baby is along for the ride and generally happier than you’d expect because the motion and your body heat tend to put them straight to sleep.

Short hikes. Flat walks. Beach days. Farmers markets. Anything that keeps you moving in the world and gets you practiced at doing things with a small human attached to you.

The payoff comes later. The habit is being built now.

Toddlers (1 to 3 Years): The Chaos Stage

Toddlers want to do everything. They also can’t do most things. That gap is where the comedy and the frustration both live.

A toddler on a trail is not hiking. They are conducting a slow-moving scientific investigation of the natural world. Every stick. Every bug. Every puddle. Every pile of dirt that looks slightly different from the last pile of dirt. This investigation has no agenda and no timeline and it is entirely absorbing for them.

Your job is to protect the investigation without killing it.

What works at this age:

Short trails with big payoffs. A quarter mile to a creek. A half mile to a waterfall. Something they can see and touch and interact with at the end. Distance is irrelevant. Destination matters.

Water. Always water. A toddler near a creek or a beach or a puddle is a toddler who is completely occupied. If your adventure involves water in any form, you have bought yourself a minimum of 45 minutes of genuine engagement. Pack dry clothes and lean into it.

Let them walk until they can’t. Then carry them. The moment you force a toddler to keep walking when they’re done, you’ve lost them. Have a carrier or a good pack ready for the second half of anything.

Pack two of every snack. One for now. One for the meltdown that’s coming.

The expectation reset:

You will cover less ground than you planned. The trip will take longer than you expected. Something will go sideways. Plan for all of it and you’ll stop being surprised when it happens.

The metric for success at this stage is: did they have a good time? Did they see something cool? Did they go to sleep easily that night? That’s a win. Nothing else required.

Preschool and Early Elementary (3 to 6 Years): The Golden Age Begins

This is where it starts to get genuinely fun.

Kids in this range are capable of more than most parents give them credit for. They can hike legitimate distances when motivated. They can kayak in a tandem. They can camp and actually sleep. They can snorkel in calm water. They have energy that borders on supernatural.

The key is motivation. A motivated four-year-old will walk further than seems physically possible. An unmotivated one will lie down on the trail and refuse to move regardless of how much it embarrasses you.

Motivation at this age comes from a few places. A destination they can picture. A treat waiting at the end. A friend along for the ride. A story about the place you’re going before you get there. Their own gear that feels real and not like a toy.

What works at this age:

National parks are made for this stage. Junior Ranger programs give kids a mission. They collect badges, answer questions, do activities. The park becomes a game. We cannot overstate how much the Junior Ranger program transforms a trip for a kid in this age range.

It’s free, it’s everywhere, and it turns a passive spectator into an active participant.

Family camping at this age is genuinely one of the best things you can do. Not glamping. Not a cabin. Actual tent camping. Setting it up together, making fire, cooking outside, sleeping in a bag.

Something about sleeping outside does something to kids that is hard to explain and impossible to replicate anywhere else.

Give them a real job. Navigator. Photographer. Camp chef assistant. Fire tender under supervision.

Kids who have a job on the adventure are invested in the adventure.

Kids who are just passengers disengage.

Bikes and scooters extend their range dramatically. A kid who can barely walk two miles can cruise five on a bike. Rail trails and paved paths are underrated adventure infrastructure for this age group.

The thing to push gently:

Start introducing discomfort as something survivable. A hill that’s hard. Weather that’s not perfect. A day that doesn’t go as planned. How you handle those moments in front of your kid is some of the most important teaching you will ever do. Stay calm. Stay positive. Show them the problem-solving version of yourself.

They are watching everything.

Elementary School (6 to 10 Years): Level Up

Kids in this range can do real things.

Actual summits. Multi-day backpacking with the right planning. Whitewater in the appropriate class. Mountain biking on beginner to intermediate trails. Surfing. Rock climbing. The list of what’s accessible opens up dramatically.

This is also the age where the adventure starts to belong to them in a different way. They remember it afterward. They talk about it at school. They ask when you’re going back. The investment starts paying dividends that compound.

What works at this age:

Let them have a say in the planning. Not full control. A say. Show them the map and ask what looks interesting. Give them two or three options and let them vote.

When a kid chooses the destination, they arrive with ownership of the experience.

Introduce the concept of earning it. The best views come after the hardest climbs. The best campsites require the most miles. This is not a difficult lesson for kids to absorb at this age when it’s presented right. Hard things have good things on the other side of them. That lesson lives in the body differently than it lives in the head.

Gear matters more now. A kid with a real pack that fits them correctly, a headlamp they actually own, trekking poles if the terrain calls for it, a journal to record what they see, is a kid who feels like a real adventurer rather than someone being dragged through someone else’s adventure.

Multi-day trips become possible and powerful at this age. One night becomes two. A weekend becomes four days. The deeper you go, the more it changes them.

The tension at this age:

They have their own friends and interests now. Weekends fill up with parties and sports and sleepovers. The window for dad-led adventure starts to compete with other things for the first time.

Don’t cede the ground. Protect the trips. Put them on the calendar. Let them be the thing the family does, not the thing that gets sacrificed when something else comes up.

Tweens (10 to 13 Years): The Critical Window

Something shifts around ten or eleven.

They become self-conscious. They start caring what their peers think. The wide-eyed openness of the elementary years gets a little more guarded. Fatherhood in general gets more complicated during this stretch.

But here’s what we know from the dads who’ve navigated it: the ones who stayed consistent with adventure during these years came out the other side with something real. A through-line. A shared language with their kid that never fully went away even when everything else felt distant.

Adventure at this age works best when it respects their growing autonomy.

What works at this age:

Let them lead. Literally. Put them at the front of the group on the trail. Let them make route decisions. Give them the map and follow their call. The shift from being guided to guiding is significant at this age. They feel the difference and they rise to it.

Bring a friend. A tween who would drag their feet on a dad-led hike will often push harder and complain less when a buddy is along. Use that. A trip with another family, a friend they choose, or a cousin closes the engagement gap significantly.

Choose challenges that feel genuinely impressive to a twelve-year-old. Not impressive to you. To them.

A technical rock climb. A remote backcountry camp that requires real miles to reach. A surf session with actual waves. Something they can tell their friends about and have it land.

Keep the ratio of talking to listening heavily weighted toward listening. The long car ride, the hours on the trail, the camp dinner where you’re not looking at each other directly, these are where the real conversations happen at this age. Create the conditions and then let it come to you.

Teenagers (13 and Up): Invest Harder Than Feels Natural

The conventional wisdom says teenagers don’t want to do things with their parents. The conventional wisdom is partly right. But it’s missing something important.

Teenagers don’t want to be managed. They don’t want to be organized into fun. They don’t want to feel like a project.

But they absolutely still want connection. They want to be known by the people who matter to them. They want to do real things. They just want to feel like an equal participant, not a child being enriched.

What works at this age:

Ask them what they want to do and actually do it. If they’ve expressed interest in something, even once, in passing, over months, file that away and build a trip around it. Nothing signals “I was paying attention” to a teenager like a trip to somewhere they mentioned they wanted to go.

Make it hard enough to matter. The teenage years are when the summit really does the work. Something that requires genuine effort, that tests them, that they weren’t sure they could do until they did it, that’s the experience that resets the relationship and their sense of what they’re capable of.

Step back from the teaching role. You’re not their guide anymore. You’re their companion on this one.

Let them feel the weight of that. Let the experience happen without narrating it.

And don’t stop. Don’t decide the trips are done because the interest seems lower or the schedule got complicated or they pushed back the last time you suggested something.

The data on father-teen relationships is unambiguous. This is when the investment matters most. This is when the presence or absence of a dad who shows up has the longest shadow.

Book the trip. They can be annoyed about it on the way there. They’ll be glad you did on the way home.

The Through Line

Every stage has its version of the tension you named.

The toddler who wants to stop at every rock. The five-year-old who can’t stop moving. The eight-year-old who has their own ideas about what’s fun. The twelve-year-old who’s somewhere else in their head. The teenager who acts like they’d rather be anywhere but here.

The answer to the tension is the same at every stage.

Show up anyway. Size it right for where they are. Let them lead when you can. Push gently when it’s worth it. Stay calm when it goes sideways.

The adventures don’t have to be perfect. They don’t have to go according to plan. They don’t have to produce the moment you envisioned when you were driving to the trailhead.

They just have to happen.

That’s the whole thing. The kids who grew up adventuring with their dads don’t remember the miles or the elevation. They remember that their dad was there. That they went places together. That the door was always open for the next one.

Keep the door open.

A really great surf session requires a whole slew of variables to cooperate.

Tide. Wind. Swell. Crowds. And maybe most importantly these days: your personal schedule.

There was a time when if the waves were good, you surfed. If the waves were bad, you probably surfed anyway. You had the time, the flexibility, and zero humans depending on you to be somewhere else.

That season looks different now.

Now you’re pushing your kid into a mushy two-footer at 7am and calling it a win. You’re coaching from the shoreline in a hat you should have thrown away two years ago. You’re sneaking out for a quick session during nap time and back before anyone notices you’re gone.

The desire to surf hasn’t changed. The windows have.

And when the windows get smaller, every wave starts to matter a little more.

The Honest Conversation Every Surf Dad Eventually Has

At some point the trusty board that carried you through your twenties stops feeling like it fits your life.

You paddle out. You’re working harder than you used to. Waves you used to catch easily are slipping under you. You’re a little more tired than you’d like to admit. And somewhere in the back of your mind you know that a little more foam in the right places would fix most of this.

But it feels like giving something up. Like moving backward.

Here’s the reframe: it’s not about riding a bigger board. It’s about staying in the water. It’s about making the most of the 90 minutes you actually have. It’s about stacking the deck in your favor so that when you do get out there, you’re not spending the whole session fighting your equipment.

The goal is more waves. More time on your feet. More of whatever made you fall in love with surfing in the first place.

The good news is that surfboard design has never given surf dads more options than it does right now. The old choice between a performance shortboard or a 9’6″ log is long gone. There are a lot more stops along the way now.

Option 1: Stay Short, Add Foam

This is where most surf dads start. And for good reason.

You still want the feeling of a shorter board. You’re not ready to fully commit to something with a fin at each end and a concave deck. But you’re also honest enough to admit that catching more waves sounds better than the alternative.

Modern surfboard design has gotten remarkably good at hiding volume. Wider tails, thicker rails, fuller outlines, alternative fin setups. There are now plenty of ways to gain serious paddle power without dramatically changing the way you surf or the way you look in the lineup, which matters more than we all admit.

This category alone can make surfing feel easier, more productive, and a lot more fun. Same surfer. Better tool. More waves.

Option 2: Embrace a Little Length

There’s a point where adding foam without adding length starts to become diminishing returns.

If the goal is maximizing wave count, a few extra inches of length can do what no amount of extra thickness can. You’re paddling into waves earlier, getting to your feet with less effort, and spending more time actually surfing instead of hunting.

This is where a lot of surf dads discover the sweet spot. Enough length to paddle earlier and get into waves with less work, but still short enough to stay maneuverable and fit in the pocket.

The number of surfers who reluctantly moved into this category and then wondered why they waited so long is not small. We’ve heard this story from a lot of dads. The resistance is real. So is the payoff on the other side of it.

Option 3: The Longboard (Stop Pretending It’s a Consolation Prize)

Longboards have survived every trend in surfing for one reason. They work.

If your goal is maximum time on your feet, maximum wave count, and maximum days per year that feel worth paddling out, a longboard is one of the best tools ever built. It is not a surrender. It is not an admission of defeat. It is not something you ride because you have no other choice.

It is a surfboard that has been making surfers happier for longer than most other designs in existence.

There is a reason so many lifelong surfers eventually end up with one in the garage. There is a reason the surf dads who make this move almost universally describe it the same way: they wish they’d done it sooner.

The Almond Boards Worth Looking At

Since we’re talking about right-sizing your equipment, here’s where we’d point most surf dads in the Almond lineup.

R-Series Joy 8’0 — The Dad Board

This is the one. If you’re a surf dad who wants to catch more waves, spend less energy paddling, and actually enjoy the sessions you’re carving out of your week, the R-Series Joy is the move.

Built on Almond’s best-selling Joy shape but constructed from closed-cell foam that does not absorb water, does not need wax, and shrugs off dings. Made in the USA. Over 800 reviews averaging 4.8 stars. It paddles earlier than anything else at this length, which means more waves per session, which means more fun in less time.

That last part matters when you’ve got 90 minutes and a hard out.

If you’re coming back to surfing after a gap, have kids who are just learning, or are honest about the fact that wave count matters more than performance right now, this is your board. Check it out here.

R-Series Pleasant Pheasant 6’4 — The Middle Ground

Not ready to go full longboard but want something with more glide and paddle power than a shortboard? The Pleasant Pheasant is the answer.

A mid-length board that gives you extra foam for effortless paddling without committing to something that takes up your whole garage. Versatile enough for beach breaks, forgiving enough to make smaller days worth paddling out for. Good for the surf dad who still wants to feel like he’s surfing, not just floating.

R-Series Surf Thump 9’2 — The Log That Does Not Feel Like One

For the surf dad who is done pretending the extra foam does not help and is ready to maximize every session, the Surf Thump is the move.

Noseriding stability, effortless paddling, and lively enough to not feel like you’re steering a cruise ship. The board that makes two-foot days feel fun and crowded lineups feel manageable. The board that keeps you surfing more days per year, which is the whole game.

The Real Point

You don’t need to ride a bigger board. You need to keep surfing. You need to make the most of the windows you have. You need to stop fighting your equipment and start using it.

The sessions are fewer now. The responsibilities are real. The margins are tighter.

So when you do get out there, stack the deck. Catch more waves. Stay on your feet longer. Paddle back out with something left in the tank.

The kids are watching from the beach. Make it look fun.

Hat tip to our friends at Almond Surfboards for the original framework on this one. Good people making good boards.

This started as a line in our newsletter.

“You don’t need to become a runner. But you should probably be able to run.”

Enough dads responded that we figured it deserved the full treatment. So here it is.

The Difference Between a Runner and Run-Capable

Nobody is saying you need to sign up for a half marathon. Nobody is saying you need a GPS watch, a foam roller, and a strong opinion about carbon-plated shoes. What we’re saying is simpler than that.

At some point, life is going to ask you to move. Fast. Sustained. Without warning.

Your kid takes off across a parking lot. You’re sprinting up the sideline at a soccer game. A pickup basketball game breaks out and you’re in. You’re chasing a four-year-old through an airport. You’re hiking something that turns steep and your heart rate is telling you things you don’t want to hear.

These moments don’t announce themselves. They just happen. And the dad who can handle them and the dad who can’t separated themselves months or years before the moment arrived.

That separation happens here. In the quiet, boring work of building a basic aerobic engine before you need one.

What the Research Actually Says

The study that got us here was simple and hard to ignore.

Researchers found that even five to ten minutes of slow running per day was associated with significantly reduced risk of cardiovascular disease and all-cause mortality. Not competitive running. Not training for anything. Just slow, regular movement at a pace where you could hold a conversation.

Regular running can reduce the risk of all-cause death and improve heart and vascular function. The benefits are obtained by optimizing the dose of running to moderate levels. That’s the key phrase: moderate levels. The research isn’t telling you to run yourself into the ground. It’s telling you that a little goes a long way.

Endurance-based activities like running appear to confer greater longevity compared with power sports. Strength training is essential. We’ve covered that extensively. But the cardiovascular engine matters too. Lifting builds the frame. Running builds the engine. You need both.

The metric that matters most here is VO2 max, which is your body’s ability to use oxygen during exercise. Higher levels of physical fitness as indicated by VO2 max values were associated with reduced all-cause mortality in a dose-dependent manner. In plain English: the more aerobically fit you are, the longer and better you tend to live. And the most effective way to improve VO2 max, short of very specific interval training, is consistent moderate cardio. Running is the most accessible version of that.

The CDC guidelines say adults need 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity per week plus strength training. Most dads are getting the strength work. The cardio is what’s missing.

Why This Matters Specifically for Dads

Here’s the version that should hit home. Your kids are going to get faster.

Right now your five-year-old can’t outrun you. Give it three years. Give it five. You are on a collision course with the moment when your kid is legitimately faster than you and you have two choices: accept it gracefully or build the engine now while you still can.

The soccer sidelines. The driveway races. The bike rides that turn into actual rides. The hiking trips that get more ambitious as the kids get older. The pickup hoops game that materializes at a family reunion. The moment you have to sprint for a reason that actually matters.

Life asks dads to move. The question is whether you’re ready when it does.

There’s also the mental health component that doesn’t get enough attention in the running conversation. Running means something different to everyone, and record participation in events globally continues to grow. What the research consistently shows underneath those numbers is that regular aerobic exercise is one of the most effective tools for managing anxiety, improving mood, and maintaining mental sharpness. For dads carrying a lot of weight, that matters.

The dad who runs is usually the dad who’s also sleeping better, thinking clearer, and coming home with more in the tank. Those aren’t separate things.

The Honest Barrier

Most dads who don’t run aren’t lazy. They’re just not runners.

There’s an identity piece here that matters. Running feels like something runners do. It feels like an activity with a tribe that has gear and podcasts and opinions about split times. And if you’re not already in that tribe it feels like showing up to a party you weren’t invited to.

We’re here to tell you: ignore the tribe. You don’t need to join anything.

You just need to build a basic aerobic capacity. That’s a physical attribute, not an identity. You don’t have to call yourself a runner to benefit from running. You just have to do it.

How to Start Without Hating It

The fastest way to fail at running is to start too hard.

Most people who try to start running do too much too soon. They go out and run until they can’t run anymore. They’re gasping. Everything hurts. They feel terrible and their body tells them this was a mistake. And then they stop.

The approach that actually works is almost embarrassingly simple.

Week 1 and 2: Walk with intention. Go out for 20 minutes twice a week. Walk the whole time but walk with purpose. Brisk. Not a stroll. This is not a warmup for something else. This is the workout. You’re building the habit and getting your joints used to sustained movement.
Week 3 and 4: Add the jog intervals. Same 20 minutes. But every three to four minutes, jog for 30 seconds. Just 30 seconds. Then walk until you recover. Repeat for the duration. This should feel easy. If it doesn’t feel easy, slow the jog down until it does.
Week 5 and 6: Extend the intervals. Now jog for one minute, walk for two. Still easy. Still conversational pace. You should be able to say a full sentence during the jog without gasping.
Week 7 and 8: Flip the ratio. Jog for two minutes, walk for one. By the end of week eight most dads can sustain a slow jog for 20 to 25 minutes without stopping. That’s the baseline. That’s run-capable.

The whole thing takes eight weeks. Two to three sessions per week. Twenty to thirty minutes per session. That’s it.

The Right Pace

Slower than you think. The number one mistake new runners make is going too fast. Your ego wants you to run at a pace that looks like running. Your cardiovascular system needs you to run at a pace that feels almost embarrassing.

If you can’t hold a conversation, you’re going too fast. Slow down until you can. Run that pace for several months before you think about going faster.

This is zone 2 cardio. We’ve talked about it in the context of the Dad Fitness After 40 piece. Zone 2 means roughly 60 to 70% of your max heart rate. Comfortable but not easy. Conversational but not leisurely. This is where the aerobic base gets built and where the long-term health benefits compound.

The goal is not to look like a runner. The goal is to build an engine that runs quietly and reliably for the next several decades.

Gear You Actually Need

Keep it simple.

Shoes that fit your foot. This is the one place not to cheap out. Go to a running specialty store, get your gait analyzed, and buy a shoe that matches how you actually move.

This takes 20 minutes and costs $120 to $160. It will prevent 90% of the beginner injuries that derail people in the first month. Brooks Ghost, ASICS Gel-Nimbus, and New Balance Fresh Foam 1080 are all solid starting points for most dads.

Comfortable shorts and a moisture-wicking shirt. Anything you’d wear to the gym works. You don’t need running-specific apparel to start.

That’s it. No GPS watch required. No special socks. No energy gels. Just shoes and clothing that won’t make you miserable.

If you want to track your effort, the free version of Strava or even just the Health app on your iPhone will log your distance and pace. Useful data, zero cost.

What Run-Capable Actually Looks Like

We’re not asking you to race. We’re not asking you to train. We’re asking you to build and maintain a basic aerobic capacity that makes you more functional for the next 30 years.

Run-capable looks like this. You can jog for 20 to 30 minutes at a slow pace without stopping. You can sprint a short distance without immediately paying for it the next day. You can handle a physical situation that demands sustained effort without your heart rate becoming the main character.

That’s the bar. It’s not high. It’s just higher than where most dads currently are.

And the investment to get there is eight weeks of 20-minute sessions. Three times a week. That’s 24 workouts. Your kids will be faster than you someday. You can’t stop that. But you can make sure that when life asks dad to move, the answer is yes.

Start this week. Walk 20 minutes. Jog for 30 seconds somewhere in the middle.

Get after it big dawg!

The United States is one of the only developed countries on earth with no federal paid parental leave.

Let that sink in for a second. Papua New Guinea is on that list with us.

Meanwhile, Sweden gives parents 16 months. The UK is at 39 weeks. Estonia tops out at 82. And in a growing number of those countries, a chunk of that leave is non-transferable for dads – use it or lose it – specifically designed to get fathers in the room from day one.

We’re not even close.

And yet something has shifted.

Dads want to be present more than any previous generation. Research consistently shows that modern fathers prioritize hands-on parenting – not just as a value, but as an identity.

The new dad isn’t looking to be the breadwinner who shows up on weekends. He wants to be there. He wants to be useful. He wants to know his kid. The problem isn’t desire. It’s policy. And the gap between what dads want and what most employers actually offer is still enormous.

Here’s the honest picture – and the companies that are starting to change it.

The Reality Check: Where Paternity Leave Actually Stands

Let’s start with the numbers, because they’re sobering.

There is no federal paid leave in the United States. The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), passed in 1993, gives eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave – but only if you work at a company with 50 or more employees and have been there at least a year. For hourly workers, newer employees, or anyone at a smaller company? You’re largely on your own.

Only 13 states and Washington D.C. have paid leave programs on the books. The rest of the country relies entirely on employer discretion.

And just 32% of U.S. companies offer any paid paternity leave at all.

For low-income dads, it gets bleaker. One study found that nearly 60% of fathers in lower-income households took zero weeks of paid leave after a birth or adoption. Not a personal choice. A financial impossibility.

The average American dad who does get leave? Takes about a week.

One week. To figure out fatherhood. To learn how to hold his kid, read their cries, spell his partner through the 2am feeds, and show up as something more than a visitor in his own home.

The Census Bureau reported that about 50% of first-time fathers now take some form of paid leave – up dramatically from 23% in the late 1980s. Progress, sure. But we’re still talking about half of new dads piecing together PTO, unpaid days, and manager favors to be home for the most important weeks of their family’s life.

Why It Actually Matters (This Isn’t Just an HR Conversation)

The research on paternity leave has gotten more interesting, and more specific, than the old “bonding is good” talking points.

A 2026 study published in Translational Psychiatry tracked 25 first-time fathers through 24 weeks postpartum using brain imaging and found that the most significant neurological changes happen in the first six weeks after birth. The paternal brain isn’t just bonding emotionally – it’s physically reorganizing.

That early investment pays out for years. A study in the Journal of Marriage and Family found that fathers who took paternity leave had kids with better cognitive scores and fewer behavioral problems from preschool through early primary school – even after controlling for income, education, and other factors.

A Norwegian study found meaningful improvements in school performance at age 16 for children whose fathers took paternity leave. The bond formed in those first weeks sets a pattern – and the dads who establish themselves as equal caregivers early tend to keep that up.

And here’s the angle most HR departments should probably hear: companies that invest in parental leave and childcare see measurable gains in retention, engagement, and talent attraction.

Patagonia, which has run an on-site childcare program since 1983, estimates it recoups 91% of its childcare program costs through a combination of tax benefits, reduced turnover, and increased productivity – and turnover for parents in their childcare program runs 25% lower than the general employee population.

The Gap: What Most Dads Are Actually Doing

Here’s what the patch job looks like for most dads right now.

FMLA covers unpaid leave – so if you can afford to go without income, you have protection. But most families can’t swing that, especially with a newborn adding new expenses.
If you’re lucky enough to be in one of the 13 states with paid leave programs (California, New York, New Jersey, Washington, Colorado, Oregon, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, Delaware, Rhode Island, Minnesota, and Maine), you can access partial wage replacement regardless of your employer’s policy. But coverage levels and caps vary widely, and navigating the paperwork alone can be a job in itself.
For everyone else, it’s a negotiation. PTO burned down to zero. Sick days stretched. Side arrangements with a sympathetic manager. The best case scenario for a lot of dads is two weeks stitched together from multiple buckets – and then back to work while their partner is still recovering and the baby is still waking up every two hours.

This isn’t a rant. It’s the math. And the math is why who you work for matters more than most dads realize.

The Companies Setting a New Standard

* Starbucks covers hourly partners working 20+ hrs/week. Most others are salaried employees only.

A small but growing group of employers have decided to actually do something about this. They’re worth knowing – both for the dads reading this and for any employer who wants to compete for the talent that cares about this stuff (which, increasingly, is everyone).

Netflix – Up to 52 Weeks

Netflix has long held the title of most generous in the U.S. Their policy: up to a full year of paid leave for new parents of any gender. Their official stance is essentially “take care of your baby and yourself” – most employees end up taking four to eight months. The policy applies to salaried employees and has been widely reported to be one of the main reasons top talent chooses them.

Worth noting: there was some noise in late 2024 about whether the policy was being quietly walked back, but Netflix’s Chief Talent Officer went on record saying the policy has not changed. They’ve been consistent: this is real, it’s paid, and it’s for dads too.

Spotify – 6 Months + 1 Transition Month

Spotify’s policy is built on Swedish DNA, and it shows. Every full-time Spotify employee worldwide is eligible for six months of fully paid parental leave, plus a seventh month for transitioning back. No gender qualifications. No tricks.

Their words: “Regardless of how your family is configured or your gender, if you have a baby, you can use this time in 2-month increments up until the child is 3 years old.” The U.S.-based employees have taken this benefit at strong rates – notable given that American workplace culture still tends to make men feel sheepish about actually using what they’re offered.

Etsy – 26 Weeks for All Parents

Etsy’s 26-week fully paid leave policy is gender-blind by design. When then-CEO Chad Dickerson adopted his son, he took his full leave and talked about it publicly – specifically to signal to working dads that taking leave is not something to apologize for.

The data from Etsy is remarkable: when they tracked who was using the policy, moms and dads were taking leave at nearly equal rates. Of the employees who took leave, 35% were promoted during or after. The policy is open to birth parents, adoptive parents, and parents who used surrogates.

Atlassian – 20 Weeks for Non-Birthing Parents

The Australian-American software company gives birthing parents 26 weeks and non-birthing parents 20 weeks – a meaningful number for dads. They also layer in parenting resources, behavioral and mental health support, and childcare services. Atlassian is known for being transparent about its benefits, and this policy is listed clearly on their public careers page.

Patagonia – 12 Weeks + On-Site Childcare

Patagonia has been doing this longer than almost anyone – their on-site childcare program dates back to 1983. Dads get 12 weeks of paid paternity leave, and Patagonia pays for a caregiver to accompany traveling new parents on work trips. The on-site childcare at their Ventura, CA headquarters and Reno, NV distribution center is subsidized and has been running continuously for over 40 years.

The result: 95–100% of Patagonia parents return to work after leave, compared to a national average of around 79% for mothers. The company’s argument is simple: this isn’t charity, it’s strategy. Turnover for parents with kids in the on-site program runs 25% lower than the general employee population.

Google – 18 Weeks for All Parents

Google bumped paid parental leave to 18 weeks for all parents in 2022, and up to 24 weeks for birthing parents. They also offer up to 8 weeks of paid caregiver leave annually. For a company of Google’s size and headcount, this is significant scale. They’ve also built out a gradual return-to-work program and additional transition support for new parents.

Lululemon – Up to 6 Months

Lululemon offers up to six months of paid parental leave for all types of parents – birth, adoptive, and foster. The amount of time you get scales with tenure, so long-term employees get the full benefit. Given that lululemon is a retail and athletic brand – not a tech firm – this stands out as an example of a consumer company taking the benefit seriously across its workforce.

Starbucks – 12 Weeks for Non-Birth Parents, Hourly Workers Included

This is the one that deserves special attention – not because 12 weeks is the longest number on this list, but because of who it covers. Most of the companies above are tech or professional services firms. Their “generous” policies often reach a workforce of salaried employees who already have financial cushion. Starbucks is different.

Here’s how this policy actually came to be: CEO Brian Niccol started visiting stores after taking the top job. Partners – hourly employees – told him directly that the existing leave wasn’t enough time for their families. He made the call to expand it within a week of hearing that feedback.

Starting March 2025, Starbucks more than doubled paid parental leave for U.S. store partners working an average of 20 or more hours per week. Non-birth parents – dads included – now get 12 weeks of fully paid leave. Birth parents get up to 18 weeks. This covers retail hourly workers. Baristas. Shift managers. The people who most need the income and least often have this kind of policy behind them.

Niccol put it plainly: “No other retailer offers a better parental leave benefit for new parents.”

We talked to Max, a Coffeehouse Leader who’s been with Starbucks for eight and a half years – starting as a barista, working his way up, and earning his bachelor’s degree through the Starbucks College Achievement Plan along the way. He used the parental leave benefit when his son Callan was born, and he didn’t hold back on what it actually meant.

On the first weeks home: “Weeks one through four, you’re kind of just in the trenches – blacked out, every three hours you’re changing diapers, feeding, burping, making sure he’s going back to sleep. But that next six, eight, ten weeks was really where me and Callan’s bond truly developed. We got a lot of alone time together. And it truly changes the way me and Callan are now – we’re best buddies now.”

On the financial reality: “When we were on leave, my wife and I were able to save. In April, we bought a house. It was something we didn’t even have to stress about.”

Max also mentioned something worth noting: since going through the process himself, other Starbucks partners have been reaching out to him for guidance – questions about paperwork, California disability, the logistics.

He’s become an informal resource. “Starbucks makes the process so extremely easy,” he said. “It never feels like there’s a bad time to call someone. There’s always someone there to take away the stress.”

It’s one thing for a tech company to offer six months with full pay. It’s another thing entirely when a barista working 20 hours a week can afford to be home with his newborn – and come back talking about buying a house.

Beyond Leave: What a Truly Dad-Friendly Employer Looks Like

Paternity leave duration is the headline metric, but it’s not the whole picture. And not every company has the resources to offer six months of fully paid leave – that’s reality. But weeks isn’t the only lever. The best employers stack their benefits thoughtfully.

Here’s what to look for beyond the weeks:

Flexible and remote work. The ability to work from home, compress your schedule, or shift your hours doesn’t disappear when the baby is six months old. Ongoing flexibility matters more than most people realize going into parenthood.
Phased return programs. Some companies – Hewlett Packard Enterprise is a notable example – let new parents work part-time for up to three years as they transition back. That ramp matters, especially in the first year.
Childcare support. On-site centers (Patagonia, a handful of tech giants), backup care programs, or direct subsidies. The U.S. childcare system is broken. Employers who acknowledge this and help bridge the gap are operating at a different level.
Mental health resources. New fatherhood is a significant identity shift. Companies offering EAPs, mental health platforms, or parenting support programs are acknowledging the full picture of what new parents are navigating.
Leadership modeling. This one’s cultural, not policy. A company can have a 20-week paternity leave policy and still have a culture where no man actually takes it because no one senior has ever done so. Look for organizations where leaders – especially male leaders – visibly use parental leave. Etsy’s CEO setting the example by talking openly about his adoption leave was more powerful than the policy itself.

If You’re a Dad Navigating This Right Now

Most companies are still not on this list. Here’s how to work the system you have.

Know your FMLA rights first. If you’ve been at your job for a year and your employer has 50+ employees, you’re entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave. It won’t pay the bills, but it protects your position. That’s the floor.

Check your state. If you’re in one of the 13 states with paid leave programs, you may be entitled to partial wage replacement regardless of what your employer offers. Look this up before you assume you get nothing – a lot of dads leave this money on the table.

Ask HR specific questions. Don’t just ask “what’s the paternity leave policy?” Ask: Is this available to non-birth parents? Does it apply to hourly and salaried employees equally? Can I stack PTO with leave? Is there a phased return option? The details matter, and most HR departments will answer if you ask directly.

Start the conversation early. Don’t wait until your partner is eight months pregnant to figure out your plan. The earlier you raise it, the more time you have to negotiate, plan finances, and set expectations for coverage.

Make the business case when negotiating. If you’re asking for more than what’s on paper, frame it professionally. Research what comparable companies in your industry offer. Point out retention data. Make it about value to the organization, not personal preference – even if it is both.

Plan the finances. If unpaid leave is your only option, treat it as a fixed expense and start saving six months out. Even banking three to four weeks of cushion changes the math on how much time you can actually take.

Use what you’re given. This sounds obvious, but data shows that even when paid leave exists, many dads don’t take the full amount. Workplace culture, guilt, and pressure from managers all play a role. Take the leave. It exists for a reason. The research is clear: those weeks are foundational to the kind of father you’re going to be.

The Bottom Line

We’re in an era where modern dads genuinely want to be present – from the first hours, not just the first few weekends. The culture has shifted faster than the policy. And right now, there’s a real gap between the dads we want to be and the systems we’re working inside.

Some companies are closing that gap. The ones listed here are worth knowing – whether you’re considering a job, negotiating a benefit, or making a case internally for why your workplace should do better.

Because those first weeks aren’t a perk. They’re when fatherhood actually starts.

KiwiCo Showed Up at Our Door. Our Boys Haven’t Stopped Talking About It.

What We Got

How It Actually Went

Why We’re Keeping the Subscription

What KiwiCo Actually Offers

Our Honest Recommendation

Join the Family

Why This Isn’t Just Feel-Good Fluff

What the Science Actually Says

The Window You Have Right Now

What to Actually Have Your Kids Say

How to Actually Make It Happen

The Bottom Line

What This Episode’s About

The Big Takeaways

Best Quote of the Episode

Related Reading

Join the Conversation

The Trap Nobody Warns You About

This Isn’t About Rushing It

What Thinking Ahead Actually Looks Like

The Specific Thing Most Dads Miss

Join the Family

The Practical Version

The Stage You’re In Right Now Is Worth Paying Attention To

1. A Running Toilet

2. A Flat Bike Tire

3. A Clogged Drain

4. A Wobbly Chair or Table

5. A Door That Won’t Stop Squeaking

6. A Punctured Pool Float or Inflatable

Join the Family

7. A Loose Doorknob or Handle

8. A Computer or Phone That’s Running Slow

9. A Bike Chain That’s Fallen Off

10. A Hole in Drywall

11. A Sticky Zipper

12. A Wifi Router That’s Acting Up

13. A Broken Promise to Your Kid

14. A Tense Moment With Your Partner

15. A Kid Who’s Having a Hard Day

The Common Thread

What Confidence Actually Is

The Two Kinds of Kids (And Which One You’re Raising)

Let Them Struggle. On Purpose.

Praise the Right Thing

Answer the Why Questions

Teach Them to Disagree With You

Join the Family

Talk About Bullies Differently

Let Them Own Their Interests. All of Them.

The Most Important Thing You Can Model

Further Reading

The Philosophy First

Babies and Infants (0 to 1 Year): You’re Training Yourself

Toddlers (1 to 3 Years): The Chaos Stage

Preschool and Early Elementary (3 to 6 Years): The Golden Age Begins

What works at this age:

Elementary School (6 to 10 Years): Level Up

Tweens (10 to 13 Years): The Critical Window

Teenagers (13 and Up): Invest Harder Than Feels Natural

The Through Line

The Honest Conversation Every Surf Dad Eventually Has

Option 1: Stay Short, Add Foam

Option 2: Embrace a Little Length

Option 3: The Longboard (Stop Pretending It’s a Consolation Prize)

The Almond Boards Worth Looking At

The Real Point

Join the Family

The Difference Between a Runner and Run-Capable

What the Research Actually Says

Why This Matters Specifically for Dads

Join the Family

The Honest Barrier

How to Start Without Hating It

The Right Pace

Gear You Actually Need

What Run-Capable Actually Looks Like

The Reality Check: Where Paternity Leave Actually Stands

Why It Actually Matters (This Isn’t Just an HR Conversation)