A Pittsburgh Dad, His Son, and 26.2 Miles of Perspective

Some stories don’t need much explaining. You meet the people, spend a little time with them, and pretty quickly realize there’s something there. Something worth slowing down for. Something worth sharing.

That’s how we felt about Mike Medved.

Mike is a dad of three in Pittsburgh. He’s a middle school history teacher, a musician, a former professional basketball player in Europe, a husband, and the kind of guy who seems to carry a lot without making a big show of it.

He’s also Simon’s dad.

Simon, Mike’s oldest son, has severe cerebral palsy. And earlier this year, Mike pushed Simon through the Pittsburgh Marathon.

Twenty-six point two miles. But this story was never really about the marathon.

It was about a dad making sure his son was part of the adventure. It was about the daily choice to show up. To keep going. To find joy inside the hard stuff. To bring your people with you, even when the road is heavier than you imagined.

That’s why we made this film.

Our Go West series exists to tell stories of dads across America who are choosing the harder, more meaningful road. Dads who are building, sacrificing, creating, leading, and loving their families in ways that deserve to be seen.

Mike’s story is one of those stories.

Over several months, we followed Mike and his family through training runs, music, fatherhood, the marathon, and the everyday rhythm of life with three kids. What we found was not a perfect story. It was better than that.

It was honest. It was joyful. It was heavy at times.

And it was a reminder that strength does not always look like powering through on your own. Sometimes strength looks like bringing your son with you. Into the crowd. Into the city. Into the noise. Into the adventure.

Thanks for watching. And thanks to Mike, Hillary, Simon, Ruth, and Aaron for letting us into their story.

Most podcasts for dads sound like a parenting seminar. Experts with credentials. Frameworks with acronyms. Advice delivered from somewhere above you, not next to you.

That’s not what Guys Being Dads is. And that’s kind of the whole point.

How It Started

Two best friends. Post-college guys who never really stopped talking. Adam Kunes and Ben Petchel go back. Way back. These are guys who ran a travel company together called Have Fun Do Good. They’ve been stuck on mountains in Costa Rica together. They pulled someone out of the water at Lake Powell. They’ve guided groups through Zion, Bryce, and Yosemite.

When you’ve navigated that kind of stuff with someone, conversation comes pretty naturally.

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When they finally started recording, Ben was a dad-to-be. Adam was expecting his third kid. No agenda. No content calendar. No vision document. Just: we already have this conversation every week anyway. What if we hit record?

Worst case, nobody listens and they still got to catch up. Best case, something comes from it. Never know. That’s the whole origin story. There isn’t a more complicated version.

What It Actually Sounds Like

Raw. Not raw in a produced, aesthetically-intentional way. Actually raw. The kind of conversation that happens in a car on the way somewhere, or at the end of a long week when you finally have a minute to breathe and call your friend.

They talk about what they’re going through. Business. Fatherhood. Trying to be present when your head is somewhere else. Trying to show up for your family when you’re also trying to build something. The tension between the two. The moments when you get it right. The moments when you don’t.

No filters. No scripts. No expert panel. Just two guys being dads.

Why We Think There’s a Gap Here

Most content for dads is aimed at the problem. Here’s how to be more patient. Here’s how to be more present. Here’s a five-step framework for a better morning routine.

That’s all fine. We do some of that too.

But Guys Being Dads is aimed at something different. It’s aimed at the feeling of being a dad right now, in real time, while you’re also a person with a career and friendships and ambitions and a brain that doesn’t stop running just because you walked in the front door.

That version of fatherhood doesn’t get a lot of airtime. The messy, unresolved, still-figuring-it-out version. The one that doesn’t have a neat takeaway at the end of each episode.

We think a lot of dads live in that version. We know we do.

We’re 13 Episodes In

Thirteen episodes. Over 6,000 plays across Spotify and Apple Podcasts. For a show that started with zero marketing budget, zero audience, and nothing more sophisticated than two friends and a record button, we’ll take it.

More importantly, the feedback from the guys listening has been consistent. It feels like a conversation they want to be part of. It sounds like something real. It doesn’t feel like content.

That’s what we were going for.

Who It’s For

If you’re a dad who’s also trying to build something, whether that’s a business, a career, a body, a marriage, a life worth being proud of, this one is for you. If you want polished production and expert interviews, there are plenty of good options out there for that.

If you want two real guys talking honestly about what it’s actually like to be a dad and a person at the same time, come hang out with us. New episodes are on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Search Guys Being Dads and you’ll find us.

Drop us a review if you like what you hear. It helps more than you know.

Episode thirteen, recorded just ahead of Ben’s very first Father’s Day as a dad. Six weeks into life with a newborn, he’s got real, fresh advice for anyone in the thick of it right now, plus an update on Dad Day’s most personal Go West film yet.

What This Episode’s About

Adam and Ben catch up ahead of Father’s Day (Ben’s first one). Ben, six weeks into fatherhood, shares what he’s actually learned so far: mostly that everyone online will tell you something different, and the only advice that matters is what works for you and your wife. They also cover the new Go West episode on Mike Medved (whose son Simon has cerebral palsy) and a shoutout from Huckberry.

The Big Takeaways

• Tune out the noise, find your own system. Ben’s biggest lesson from six weeks in: “You can go to the internet, you can go to a bunch of different things, but it’s kind of like what you and your wife decide on is the most important.”
• The internet will contradict itself constantly. That’s fine. Ben again: “We’ve had family over suggesting things, we’ve seen things online, we’ve ChatGPT’d things, and everything is different. The best thing was just setting a time that works for us rather than worrying about what everybody else is saying.”
• Protect your own hour. Both Adam and Ben make time to work out solo while the other covers the baby. Ben: “Give yourself that hour, that hour and a half where you can feel human and not strapped down to the baby.”
• Be picky about whose advice you take. Adam’s line on parenting forums and social media: “The internet is just an ocean dumpster fire. I would say pick and choose the people you want to take advice from.” The Dad Day Slack exists specifically as an alternative to that.
• Alligator skin helps with unsolicited advice. Ben on family and friends meaning well but getting the timing wrong: “They’re probably not trying to offend you, but trying to help. Sometimes that advice is just poor timing.”

Best Quote of the Episode

“You’re gonna hear it from every single person on how you should be doing things. Take a pause. You don’t need to listen to everyone. You need to figure out what works for you and your partner.” — Adam, paraphrasing a Conan O’Brien podcast clip that stuck with him

Listen to Episode 13
Spotify | Apple

Related Reading

Love Is the Glue — Guys Being Dads Ep. 14
Watch: Go West Featuring Mike Medved
Why We Built the Dad Day Slack Community

Join the Conversation
First Father’s Day coming up, or been through a few now? Drop your best “what actually worked for us” tip in the Dad Day Slack, or call it in to 833-DAD-SHOW. We might play it on the next episode.

Father’s Day is a good time to stop and ask the question we don’t ask enough.

Not “what are you getting for Father’s Day?” Not “what’s your parenting philosophy?” Just: what does fatherhood actually look like for you right now? The good stuff. The hard stuff. What your kids have taught you. What you’d tell a new dad if you had one minute with them.

We asked our community. Dads from across the country answered.

Here’s what they said.

The Favorite Parts

We could have predicted some of these. We couldn’t have predicted all of them.

Nick Cook from Durham, NC, a graphic designer and dad to a 2.5-year-old son, put his right at the top: “Getting to embrace my inner child and be silly with my son. His laugh is contagious.”

Devon Garcia from Portland, OR, a Solutions Engineer at Slack whose daughter is eight months old, described it as “a free jolt of pure joy and dopamine from a simple laugh.”

Same feeling. Different words. Dad after dad came back to this one. The laugh. The specific, irreplaceable laugh of your specific kid.

Casey Stevens from Columbus, OH, who has a six-year-old and two-year-old boy/girl twins, described coming home from work to “the pitter patter of tiny feet racing to the door” and hearing “Daddy’s home.” He’s not alone. That sound came up in multiple forms across the responses.

Andrew Vossler from Charleston, SC, an executive coach with four kids ranging from five months to six years, described experiencing ordinary things as brand new again: “They didn’t know churros existed. The other day we went out on a mission to find and enjoy churros. Their minds were blown.”

Austin Bergstrom from Charlotte, NC, a mortgage loan originator with a 16-month-old daughter, said it simply: “How curious she is, and how much she loves us right now. All she wants to do is be outside, play, and be around us.”

And then there’s Jon Harris from Knoxville, TN, who has a unique vantage point on the whole thing. His son is 25. His daughter is 23. His youngest daughter is 19 months old. He became a dad again at 46, and he’s not taking any of it for granted.

“Every day she learns a new word, discovers something new, or finds a reason to laugh. I don’t take any of the so-called little things for granted.”

A second chance to do it with full awareness of how fast it goes. If that’s not a Father’s Day story, we don’t know what is.

The Hard Parts

Nobody pretended it was all churros and contagious laughs.

Nick Cook went straight for it: “Potty training, hands down. It is not for the faint of heart.”

Chris Reed from Phoenix, AZ, a customer success manager with a two-year-old and another baby due in November, named what a lot of dads feel but don’t always say: “Balance and patience. I want to do the best I can in so many things, but that can cause stress that eats away at other parts of my life.”

Austin Bergstrom said it differently but landed in the same place: “Always being on the go and rarely having my own time. Every day is a constant battle of getting all my work done to be able to spend time with my wife and daughter.”

Taylor Marton from Woburn, MA, a stay-at-home dad with a three-year-old and a newborn, described “managing the intense three-year-old mood swings and not letting his emotions dictate my emotions.” Anybody who has spent time with a three-year-old knows exactly what he means.

Luke Lasiloo from Flagstaff, AZ, a warehouse manager at a food bank with a two-year-old, got honest about something a lot of dads feel but rarely say out loud: “He is really attached to mom right now and only wants mom. It hurts my soul every time. But once I rip him away and it’s just the two of us, things are fantastic. It’s a real battle to not want to check out and melt into the background.”

That last sentence. That’s the one.

Christian Thorndike from Greenville, SC, an attorney with two boys ages two and three, is currently solo parenting for five weeks due to a family medical situation: “When stress, sickness, trying to be a good parent, work, and setting boundaries all combine, it becomes a bit overwhelming. But I’d rather have the bad days with them than days without them.”

And Rob Hogan from North Georgia, a forensic accountant whose daughter is 11, described the first moment in his parenting journey where he genuinely felt out of his depth: navigating puberty with his daughter. “It doesn’t matter how many books I read or women I talk to. I will never understand the emotional and physical changes she’s going through. It’s the first time I’ve felt genuinely ill-equipped to help her.”

There’s no hack for that one. Just showing up.

What Their Kids Have Taught Them

This was the section we weren’t fully prepared for.

The answers came in different words. And almost all of them said the same thing. Slow down.

Taylor Marton: “They’ve taught me to slow down and not rush so much. Our society is always in such a hurry to do everything, and my toddler has really challenged me to slow down and not make everything a rush.”

Jon Harris: “My older kids taught me that the years fly by. My youngest reminds me not to rush through them. She wants to stop and look at bugs, throw rocks in the creek, and dance to the same song over and over. Most days, she’s right.”

David Case from Edmond, OK, a forklift driver with a one-year-old: “She’s taught me to slow down and enjoy the moments. To really pay attention to life’s moments.”

Christian Thorndike: “Being present and enjoying even the smallest things in life.”

Stan Navrude from Overland Park, KS, a retired pharmaceutical professional whose sons are now 34 and 30, offered the long-view version: “Patience. I find myself emulating them at times.”

Brandon Jackson from Northeast Pennsylvania, an ESG reporting controller with a two and five-year-old: “Kids are a mirror, and I need to lead by example.”

Luke Lasiloo: “Gratitude. Hearing his little voice say ‘thank you’ every time you hand him something makes you really step back and look at what’s really important.”

And Rob Hogan’s 11-year-old daughter keeps him honest in the most direct way possible: “She will call me out if I try to preach something I don’t practice or if I’m not living up to my commitments. It’s a good reminder that we are what we do, not what we say.”

Chris Reed from Phoenix distilled it to one line: “Even the simplest things can be fun and bring a smile.”

What They’d Tell a Brand New Dad

This is the part we’ll be coming back to.

Nick Cook: “Be kind to your partner, be kind to yourself. The early days are a blur, but patience, teamwork, and a sense of humor will get you through.”

Devon Garcia: “No one has it completely figured out. There’s a lot of knowledge out there, but we’re all in it together of not knowing what we’re doing. Advice is take or leave. You have to tinker and try things, and that’s the fun part.”

Chris Reed: “Find community. It’s okay to be bad at this, it’s your first time. Communicate with your partner.”

Mike Tarnovsky from Marblehead, MA, a software sales professional with a 2.5-year-old son and a 2.5-month-old daughter: “This too shall pass. No matter the hardest days you have, your kids will do the smallest thing that makes you laugh and everything is forgotten. Also, don’t forget about your wife. Get her flowers or coffee on a random day of the week. She’ll appreciate it more than you’ll ever know.”

Taylor Marton: “Give yourself, your kids, and your partner lots of grace. We are all trying to be the best parents and kids we can be. No one is perfect.”

Brandon Jackson: “The clichés are true. Enjoy the little things, they grow up fast. Give your kids, your partner, and yourself some grace.”

Casey Stevens: “The days are long but the weeks are short. Time flies. Stop to take a moment and enjoy these days.”

Christian Thorndike: “Days are long, years are short. You don’t realize when you’ve done something for the last time until it’s really gone, like rocking the kid to sleep. Don’t rush it, no matter how difficult the days are.”

Dakota Carter from Birmingham, AL, a maintenance mechanic who is raising a 14-year-old nephew and has a 13-month-old daughter: “Don’t rush anything. Don’t rush to have kids. Don’t rush through the newborn stage. Don’t rush the moments that feel insignificant. In my experience, that’s where I’ve had the best conversations.”

Andrew Vossler from Charleston said something we think every dad needs to hear: “Do it in a way that is authentic to you and your partner. And do it with a larger community. Family, friends, church, neighborhood. I believe strongly we are not designed to parent in silos.”

Jon Harris, with 25 years of fatherhood behind him and a 19-month-old in front of him: “You don’t have to be perfect. You just have to keep showing up. The ordinary moments are the ones you’ll miss the most. Be there for them.”

Rob Hogan: “Get a day planner and use it as a journal. Take a few minutes every day to jot down a couple of notes. I’ve been doing this for a while and it’s amazing to look back and see moments that made an impression at the time. I know it’s cliché to say they grow up fast, but this has been one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received.”

And our favorite of the whole thread, from Chris Rodinsky, a therapist in California with two kids ages one and two: “Be the pier, not the PA system. Kids and wives need somewhere safe for their emotional waves to land. Your relationship is the pier. Your voice is just the PA system. Never confuse the two.”

What We Took From All of This

Different dads. Different cities. Different jobs, different ages, different stages of the fatherhood journey from eight months in to 35 years deep.

And the through line across every single response was the same.

The little moments are the big moments. You don’t know which ones will matter until they’re gone. Slow down. Be present. Give grace to everyone in the house, including yourself.

That’s not a parenting philosophy. That’s hard-won wisdom from men who are in it every day, figuring it out in real time, doing their best with what they have.

Happy Father’s Day to every dad in this community. You’re doing better than you think!

We asked. You answered. We put a simple question to the Dad Day community: what’s motivating your workouts right now?

Hundreds chimed in. And what came back wasn’t what the fitness industry would have you believe drives men to the gym. No six-pack goals. No beach body season. No before and after transformation energy.

What came back was something a lot more real. And honestly, a lot more interesting.

The Numbers

General health ran away with it. Nearly 54%, said general health is their primary workout motivation right now.

Weight loss came in second at around 12%. A race or event was close behind. Keeping up with kids landed fourth. About 9% said they don’t currently work out at all. And a small but vocal group selected “other” and had some of the most honest responses in the whole poll.

On the surface, general health winning by that margin might seem obvious. Of course dads care about their health. But dig into the comments and a much more specific picture emerges.

What “General Health” Actually Means to a Dad

When a 35-year-old dad says he’s working out for general health, he’s usually not thinking about cholesterol numbers. He’s thinking about the next 20 years.

One dad in our community put it perfectly: “Want to surf into my 70s and beat my son at basketball for at least 10 more years.”

That’s not a health goal. That’s a fatherhood goal wearing a health goal’s clothes.

Another dad framed it the same way from a different angle: “Signed up for a race to hold myself accountable but end goal is keeping up with the kids on a daily basis. Not for the present but for 10-20 years from now.”

This is the theme that runs through almost every response in this poll, regardless of which category the dad selected. The real motivation isn’t physical. It’s relational. It’s about being the kind of dad who can still show up fully, physically and mentally, years from now.

General health is just the category. The reason underneath it is almost always the kids.

The Quote That Stopped Us Cold

One dad who selected weight loss wrote something we haven’t been able to stop thinking about:

“The whole genesis of my weight lifting 2.5 years ago was because I was so tired after holding my kids. I thought as a 35-year-old, I can’t wait any more to get the muscle I should have already had. And after I got started, I hated how long it took me to get stronger, given that I waited until I was 35 to really commit to it.”

Read that twice.

He didn’t start lifting because he wanted to look different. He started because he was getting winded holding his own kids and that was unacceptable to him. The regret he felt about waiting wasn’t about vanity. It was about capability.

That’s a very different conversation than the one most fitness content is having. And it’s the one that actually resonates with dads.

Sanity, Not Vanity

The phrase that showed up in one form or another across multiple responses: working out for sanity, not vanity.

One dad said it directly. Others said it differently. “The energy outlet helps me manage anxiety and stay mentally sharp.” “Stress management/mental health.” “Training for a race, my overall health, mental and physical, and showing my kids and others around me that if you set your mind to it you can do hard things.”

The mental health angle in men’s fitness is still underdiscussed. But our community is clearly already there.

Dads are using physical training as a tool for emotional regulation, anxiety management, and mental sharpness.

That’s not a side effect of working out. For a lot of these dads, it’s the primary reason.

The Race/Event Crowd Gets It Right

About 11% of respondents said a race or event is their primary motivator. And the comments from this group are some of the most tactically useful in the whole poll.

“I found that signing up for a couple of half marathons every year gets me a solid six-month recovery and training cycle that I can maintain.”

“Having something on the calendar, especially with someone else in great shape, was definitely a motivator.”

“55-mile gravel charity event in September. With a 3.5 and 1.5-year-old boys it’s really a great way to get out on a long ride and hold me to training for something.”

What these dads understand that the general motivation crowd sometimes misses: the goal is the container.

When you have a specific event on the calendar, everything before it has a purpose.

The training isn’t abstract. It has a deadline, a distance, a day.

This is one of the most reliable fitness systems a dad can build. Sign up for something real. Let it pull you forward. Repeat it every year. One dad said it better than we could: “It kicked my ass, but having something on the calendar was definitely a motivator.”

The Four Boys Dad

We have to share this one in full because it’s everything.

One dad selected “Other” and wrote: “A mix: general health, keeping up with 4 boys, but most importantly, in my opinion, being an example for those 4 boys, showing up, putting in the work, being healthy, you name it. And of course, a tiny bit of being eye candy for my wife, haha.”

That’s the whole thing. In one response. Health as infrastructure. Kids as motivation. Marriage as a bonus. Self-awareness to be honest about all of it.

This is exactly who Dad Day is built for.

The 9% Who Aren’t Working Out

About 9% of respondents said they don’t currently work out.

We’re not going to pile on. Fatherhood is exhausting. Life is complicated. Time is the scarcest resource a dad has and exercise often gets cut first when the schedule gets tight.

But given everything else in this poll, given the dad who got tired holding his own kids and decided enough was enough, the dad building a training cycle around two toddlers and a 55-mile gravel ride, the dad who wants to surf into his 70s, we’d just say this:

The best time to start was years ago. The second best time is now.

Even 20 minutes three days a week is a different body in six months. And the mental health return on that investment starts almost immediately.

What We Actually Learned

The fitness industry sells transformation. Dads are buying something different.

They’re buying energy for the long game. They’re buying the ability to keep up with their kids at 45 and 55. They’re buying the mental clarity to show up better at home after a hard day. They’re buying the ability to be an example worth following.

General health was the category. Fatherhood was the answer.

That’s what hundreds of dads just told us. And we think it’s worth sitting with for a minute. Thanks to everyone who responded. Keep showing up.

There’s a version of your kid you’ve never met.

Not the one at the dinner table negotiating screen time. Not the one in the backseat of the minivan refereeing a sibling argument. Not the one performing for the whole family at a holiday gathering.

The one who only shows up when it’s just the two of you. Somewhere new. No agenda. No audience.

That version of your kid is worth knowing. And a solo trip is one of the fastest ways to find them.

This isn’t a new idea. But the research behind it is getting hard to ignore. And the dads who’ve done it, whether it’s a weekend camping trip with a six-year-old or a flight to somewhere meaningful with a teenager, consistently describe it as one of the best things they’ve ever done as a father.

Here’s everything you need to know.

What the Research Actually Says

One-on-one parent-child travel is officially a trend. The 2025 Hilton Trends Report found that 70% of parents of Gen Alpha kids are actively planning one-on-one travel with their children, involving them directly in destination and itinerary decisions.

But beyond the trend, the science behind why it works is solid.

Dr. Julie Cederbaum, an associate professor at USC whose work focuses on child and adolescent wellbeing, puts it plainly: “One-on-one travel, in particular, really allows for focused time with and attention to that child, increasing attachment and creating shared positive memories.”

University of Oxford research found that daughters with strong bonds to their fathers are significantly more likely to have healthier relationships with partners later in life.

University of Minnesota research confirmed that shared experiences like travel create lasting memories and strengthen emotional bonds in ways that routine daily interaction simply cannot replicate.

And on the father side?

Studies consistently show that dads benefit too. Lower stress. Higher sense of purpose. A clearer picture of who their kid actually is outside of the family system.

The mechanism isn’t complicated. When it’s just the two of you, the dynamic changes completely. There’s no partner to defer to, no siblings competing for attention, no household logistics pulling focus.

It’s just you and your kid, figuring it out together. That specific combination of shared challenge, undivided attention, and new environment accelerates bonding faster than almost anything else you can do.

Why These Trips Hit Different Than Family Vacations

Family vacations are great. We’re not arguing against them.

But here’s what happens on a family trip. You manage logistics. You negotiate between competing preferences. Someone is always tired or hungry at the wrong time. The adults end up coordinating more than connecting. The kids orbit around the family unit instead of stepping into their own.

A one-on-one trip removes all of that.

Your kid gets your full attention for the entire trip. Not shared attention. Not divided attention. Yours.

And something happens when a child realizes they have a parent entirely to themselves in a new place. They open up. They get curious. They say things they wouldn’t say at home.

One father who took his daughter to Bergen, Norway described it this way: his daughter’s confidence acted as an icebreaker, and they interacted with far more people than he would have if traveling alone. The trip changed how he saw her. And it changed how she saw herself with him.

That’s the thing nobody tells you before the first one. You don’t just learn more about your kid. You become someone different to them.

The Age-by-Age Guide

Toddlers and Early Kids (Ages 3 to 5): Keep It Close, Make It Magic

The first solo trip doesn’t need to be ambitious. At this age the magic is entirely in the fact that it’s just you two.

A one-night stay at a hotel with a pool. A train ride to a nearby city. A camping trip an hour from home. The destination is almost irrelevant. What matters is that you planned something just for them, you’re giving them your complete attention, and they get to stay up a little later than normal because the rules are different when it’s just Dad.

At this age kids are deeply present. They don’t need itineraries. They need you on the floor with them, letting them take the lead on what they want to explore next.

Keep it short. One or two nights maximum. Don’t overschedule. Build in downtime. And bring snacks. Always bring more snacks than you think you need.

What this trip does: Establishes the pattern early. Creates a reference point your kid will remember and ask to repeat. Builds trust and security in a novel environment with you as the anchor.

Elementary Age (Ages 6 to 9): The Sweet Spot

This is the golden era for dad-kid trips.

Kids this age are old enough to engage with new experiences, form real memories, and participate in the planning. They’re young enough to still be fully amazed by things. They haven’t hit the self-conscious years yet. They want to be with you.

This is the age to go somewhere that genuinely means something. A national park. A city with history they’re learning about. A sporting event for a team they love. A fishing trip. A road trip to somewhere neither of you has been.

Involve them in the planning. Ask where they want to go. Give them two or three realistic options and let them choose. Research shows these trips are enhanced specifically by the fact that kids have been involved in the planning. Ownership of the decision increases investment in the experience.

Give them a job on the trip. Navigator. Photographer. Chief snack manager. Kids this age thrive when they have a role.

Keep the schedule loose enough that you can follow their energy. If they want to spend three hours at one thing, let them. You’re not running a tour. You’re building a memory.

What this trip does: Creates some of the most vivid shared memories of their childhood. Builds confidence through navigating new environments with you. Starts a tradition they’ll want to continue as they get older.

Preteens (Ages 10 to 12): Go Somewhere That Challenges You Both

Something shifts around age ten.

Your kid is becoming a person. They have opinions, interests, and an emerging identity that’s separating from the family unit. They’re starting to care what their peers think. The window of easy access to them is narrowing.

This is the age to go somewhere that challenges you both. Not just a nice trip. An experience. A hiking trip with real elevation. A city in another country. A multi-day canoe trip. Something that puts both of you outside your comfort zones and gives you something to work through together.

Shared challenge is one of the most powerful bonding mechanisms that exists. When you and your kid are both a little uncertain, a little tired, figuring out something hard together, the relationship changes. They see you as a person, not just a parent. And they discover something about themselves they couldn’t have found in a comfortable environment.

Let them carry real responsibility on this trip. Let them navigate. Let them make some of the calls.

If something goes sideways, work through it together instead of fixing it for them. That’s where the real growth lives.

What this trip does: Deepens the relationship before the teenage years hit. Gives your kid a reference point for their own capability. Creates the kind of shared story that gets retold for decades.

Teenagers (Ages 13 to 17): This One Matters More Than You Think

A lot of dads back off during the teenage years. Kids get busy. They want their independence. It feels awkward to push for connection when the kid seems to be pushing back.

Don’t back off.

The research on father-teen relationships is consistent: teens who maintain strong bonds with their fathers show better outcomes across nearly every measure. Mental health. Academic performance. Resistance to negative peer pressure. Confidence in relationships.

And here’s what we know from talking to dads who’ve done it: the teenage years are when these trips mean the most, even when the kid acts like they don’t care.

They care.

Take them somewhere they’ve expressed genuine interest in. A city with a music scene they’re into. A country they’ve been curious about. A sporting or cultural event. Something you can both get genuinely excited about.

Drop the agenda on this one. Don’t use the trip as a vehicle for the conversations you’ve been wanting to have. Just be with them. Let the trip be the trip. The conversations will happen on their own when you’re in the right environment and neither of you is performing for anyone.

Some of the most important things a dad ever hears from his kid happen in a car, or at dinner in an unfamiliar city, or on a hike when there’s nothing else to fill the silence. Create those conditions and then let it unfold.

What this trip does: Keeps the connection alive through the hardest years. Signals to your teenager that they’re worth your individual time and attention. Creates a foundation for the adult relationship you’re going to have with them in a few years.

How to Actually Make It Happen

The biggest reason dads don’t do this isn’t motivation. It’s logistics. Here’s how to remove that excuse.

Pick a date before you pick a destination. Put it on the calendar first. An open “someday” trip never happens. A booked flight does.

• Start smaller than you think you need to. The first one doesn’t need to be ambitious. One night somewhere nearby. A day trip to a place they’ve been wanting to go. The point is to establish the pattern. The trips can get bigger as the tradition grows.
• Involve your kid in the planning from the start. Send them a text with two options and ask which one they want. Show them the map. Let them pick the restaurant for one dinner. Ownership creates anticipation.
• Protect it. Work will try to take this day. Something will come up. Protect it like you’d protect a client meeting. Your kid noticed you put it on the calendar. They will also notice if you cancel it.

Aim for at least once a year per kid. It doesn’t have to be exotic. It doesn’t have to be expensive. It just has to be intentional. One trip a year, solo with each kid, is one of the highest-return investments you can make in your relationship with them.

The Thing Nobody Says Out Loud

You are going to be a different dad on these trips.

Without the daily logistics, without the other kids, without the full household running in the background, you’ll find yourself more patient. More present. More genuinely curious about the kid sitting across from you.

And they will feel it.

“The dedicated time to just be together truly deepens the parent-child bond,” as one researcher put it. That’s a clinical way of saying something every dad who’s done this already knows.

You learn things about your kid on a solo trip that years of daily life never surfaces. What they’re actually thinking about. What they’re scared of. What they’re proud of. What they want. Who they’re becoming.

That knowledge changes how you parent them when you get home. It changes how you see them. And it changes how they see you.

Book the trip.

The story of Sunski didn’t start with a business plan. It started with a salsa bowl.

Tom Stewart and Michael Charley graduated in 2009, right into the teeth of a recession. No dream jobs waiting. No clear path. Just two guys with big ambitions and a product idea Tom had sketched on a napkin in high school: a ceramic bowl with a curved lip designed to keep salsa on your chip.

They went all in. Ordered 3,000 units from a manufacturer in China. Two-thirds arrived defective. They moved back home to South Philadelphia and started cold-calling retailers from the basement.

It didn’t work. By spring 2012, they had $273 left in the business account and were ready to quit.

But a few years earlier, on a surf trip to Australia, Tom had wandered into a beach shack selling off the last remaining stock of a defunct 1980s sunglass brand called Sunski. He bought a few pairs. Wore them constantly. Got compliments everywhere he went.

Then one afternoon on a beach in San Francisco, a stranger walked up and said: “Those are rad sunglasses.”

The stranger was a retail buyer. That was it.

The Book That Reframed Everything

When we sat down with Tom and Michael to film the third episode of Go West, one thing that came up early was The 4-Hour Work Week.

Not the hustle hacks. Not the outsourcing tricks. The bigger idea underneath it: that you get to design your life. That work and freedom don’t have to be in opposition. That the whole point of building something is to build it on your terms.

That landed with us. We read the same book. A lot of dads in this community did. And it shaped how Tom and Michael went about everything after Sunski took off.

They launched a Kickstarter in July 2012 with a $9,800 goal. They hit it in two days. The campaign closed at $157,000. They were suddenly, as Michael put it, “accidentally running a sunglasses company.”

The $273 Moment

There’s something about that number that sticks with us.

Not because it’s inspirational in a poster-quote kind of way. But because it’s real. Most people would have looked at $273 in the bank and called it a lesson learned. Tom and Michael looked at it and decided to try one more thing.

That’s the Go West spirit. Not recklessness. Not blind optimism. Just the refusal to quit before the last card is played.

They designed the frames themselves. Tom’s architecture background meant he could do 3D modeling. Their years of scrapping through the Salsabol failures meant they already knew how to deal with manufacturers, handle freight logistics, and move fast.

They launched. It worked. And then they had to pack 6,000 pairs of sunglasses in a rented artist’s studio in four days.

When the studio manager asked what their medium was, Tom said: “Cardboard.”

What They’re Actually Building

Here’s what makes Sunski interesting in 2026: Tom and Michael could probably exit. They’ve built a real brand, a loyal customer base, a proprietary recycled frame material they spent three and a half years developing. The outcome is there if they want it.

They’re not taking it.

Instead, they’re doubling down. Elevating the brand. Building something they believe can have long-term impact. Not just as a product, but as a statement about how a company can operate.

Part of that is sustainability. Sunski has donated 1% of revenue (not profit, revenue) to environmental non-profits since day one. Their SuperLight frames are made from post-industrial plastic scraps. This wasn’t a pivot to values. It was baked in from the start.

But the bigger thing we captured in this episode is the why behind all of it.

Screens, Nature, and the 16-Year Problem

We’re on track to spend an average of 16 years of our lives on our phones. Let that sink in for a second.

Tom and Michael brought this up on camera, and it hit hard. Because it’s not just a stat about adults. It’s a stat about what we’re modeling for our kids. About what we’re teaching them to value. About the world we’re handing them.

Both of them are fathers now. And the tension between a world pulling kids toward screens and their own instinct to push them toward nature, toward the outdoors, toward something real shapes how they think about Sunski’s purpose.

Sunglasses are a product. But what they represent is a reason to go outside. To be somewhere that matters. To be present in a way that a phone can’t give you.

Getting back to our ancestral roots, moving, being outside, paying attention to the physical world, is something both of them talk about with real conviction. Not in a preachy way. In the way dads talk when they’re actually worried about something.

The Team Is Family. They Mean It.

One more thing we captured that doesn’t always make it into founder stories:

Tom and Michael don’t take their team lightly.

Sunski has stayed small and independent. They know the people who work there. They feel the weight of that responsibility. When we asked about it, you could tell it wasn’t a talking point. It was something they carry.

That’s rare. And it’s the kind of thing that makes a brand worth rooting for.

Go West, Episode 3

The film is live now. Watch it above.

Tom and Michael’s story isn’t really about sunglasses. It’s about what happens when you read a book that reframes how you think about life, fail at a salsa bowl, find a pair of vintage shades on a beach in Australia, and decide, with $273 in the bank, to try one more thing.

We think you’ll love it.

Go West is a Dad Day original series about dads carving their own path. If you know someone whose story belongs in this series, reach out at dadday.com.

Warren Buffett was selling gum door-to-door at age six. Mark Cuban started selling trash bags at twelve after asking his dad for expensive sneakers and being told they couldn’t afford them. Daymond John sold customized pencils in first grade.

IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad was riding his bike to neighboring houses selling matches at age five, buying them in bulk and reselling them individually at a markup. Same efficiency mindset that eventually built one of the biggest companies on earth.

The pattern across the most successful people in history is remarkably consistent. And almost none of it involves elite schools, trust funds, or any particular advantage most of us don’t have access to.

It’s about a handful of deliberate habits introduced early. That’s it. Here’s what the research actually says.

They Were Given Chores. Real Ones.

This is the one that surprises people the most because it’s so unglamorous.

Harvard ran an 85-year multigenerational study tracking over 700 high achievers and found…

a strong, consistent connection between doing household chores as a kid and later professional success and life satisfaction.

Not because scrubbing a toilet teaches business strategy. But because kids who contribute to a household develop something specific: they understand they’re part of something bigger than themselves.

That builds self-worth. Work ethic. Empathy. Confidence.

A separate longitudinal study confirmed it: kids who did chores regularly in kindergarten were significantly more likely to score in the top percentiles on social competency, academic ability, peer relationships, and life satisfaction by third grade. The kids who rarely did chores? Significantly more likely to land in the bottom quintile on all of the same measures.

The key is framing. “We clean up together” lands differently than “go wash your dish.” One makes them part of the team. The other makes it feel like punishment.

Start at age three or four with simple stuff. Sort the laundry. Set the table. Pick up toys. It doesn’t need to be complicated. It just needs to be consistent and real.

They Were Taught to Fail on Purpose

Sara Blakely is the founder of Spanx and the first self-made female billionaire.

Every night at dinner her dad would ask her one question: “What did you fail at this week?”

If she hadn’t failed at anything, it meant she hadn’t tried hard enough. That reframe, repeated over years, built a relationship with failure that most adults never develop. It directly contributed to her ability to survive years of cold-call rejections before landing her first retail deal.

Bill Gates’ father had a similar approach. He encouraged Gates to do things he wasn’t good at, exposing him to failure as a learning mechanism rather than a verdict.

Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck’s research on growth mindset confirms what these parents understood intuitively.

Kids who are praised for effort and process rather than natural talent develop a belief that their abilities can grow.

She found that adding one word to a setback made a measurable difference: “You haven’t figured it out yet.” That single word changed how kids related to their own capability.

Three things you can do starting now. Praise the process, not the result. Share your own failures openly with your kids. And let them see you attempting hard things yourself, including when you struggle.

They Talked About Money Early and Often

The most iconic entrepreneurs in history were running small operations before they hit high school.

Warren Buffett bought his first stock at eleven. By thirteen he had six stocks in a portfolio. The money wasn’t the point. The practical education was. How to identify a market. How to handle rejection. How to reinvest. How to understand the relationship between effort and outcome.

Research on wealthy families shows that rich parents tend to deliberately teach financial literacy, while average families unconsciously pass down limiting beliefs about money. The gap isn’t income. It’s intentionality.

Here’s what the research says actually works. Introduce allowance around age five or six and tie part of it to contribution. Teach the save, spend, give split early. Aim for roughly 70% spend, 20% save, 10% give as a baseline. Use real transactions, grocery shopping on a budget, comparing prices, to make money concrete and not abstract.

Let kids experience the natural consequences of their spending decisions without bailing them out.

And if your kid has earned income at any age, even from a lemonade stand, you can open a custodial investment account and let them watch compound interest work in real time. That’s a lesson no classroom teaches.

They Read. A Lot. And Their Parents Made It Happen.

This one shows up everywhere.

Bill Gates has read roughly 50 books a year since childhood. Warren Buffett’s father pushed him to read widely and ask questions. Buffett now reads five to six hours a day. These aren’t coincidences. They’re habits formed early that compounded over decades.

A study of more than 10,000 young adolescents found that kids who read for pleasure early perform significantly better on cognitive tests, show better mental wellbeing, have fewer behavioral problems, and have measurably larger brain volumes in regions critical to cognitive function.

The optimal amount? Around 12 hours per week. That breaks down to less than two hours a day. That’s genuinely achievable.

Evan Williams, co-founder of Twitter, Blogger, and Medium, famously kept hundreds of physical books accessible to his young children instead of iPads. Small detail. Big signal about what he valued.

Read aloud from infancy. Create a screen-free space for reading in your home. Model it yourself. Let your kids see you reading for pleasure. Library trips where they choose their own books are underrated. Let them pick the weird one. The weird one is fine.

The Tech Founders Banned Their Own Products at Home

Steve Jobs told the New York Times in 2011 that he limited his kids’ use of the very products he was building.

Bill Gates enforced a no-phone policy for his children until age 14 after watching his daughter develop an unhealthy fixation with a video game. Wired editor Chris Anderson put parental controls and strict time limits on every device in his home.

The reasoning is consistent across all of them. They drew a line between consuming and creating. Watching YouTube is consuming. Building something, drawing something, writing something, figuring something out, that’s creating. Successful parents pushed their kids toward creation.

Elon Musk took this further. He pulled his five sons out of traditional school and founded his own on the SpaceX campus, eventually evolving it into Astra Nova. No grades. No foreign language requirement. No rote memorization. Just first-principles thinking, decision-making, and collaborative problem-solving.

You don’t need to build a school. You just need to be intentional about the difference between screen time that consumes and screen time that creates. One has a return. The other mostly doesn’t.

They Set High Expectations and Then Actually Helped Their Kids Meet Them

Research from Duke, UCLA, and others consistently finds that high parental expectations are among the strongest predictors of a child’s success, specifically when paired with real support to meet those expectations.

Psychologist Angela Duckworth calls this “wise parenting.” High standards plus genuine support and empathy. Not pressure without backup. Not coddling without challenge. Both at the same time.

Duckworth’s “Hard Thing Rule” is one of the most practical parenting frameworks we’ve come across.

Here’s how it works. Everyone in the family, including the parents, commits to working on one hard thing that requires practice and persistence. You cannot quit on a bad day. You see it through to a natural stopping point. And the child chooses their own hard thing, because self-selected challenges build intrinsic motivation in a way that assigned ones don’t.

The key ingredient: parents do it too. When your kid watches you train for something, learn something hard, or push through a difficult stretch in your own work, they absorb a message that no lecture can deliver. Effort and discomfort are how growth happens.

They Let Their Kids Experience Real Life Alongside Them

Jeff Bezos’ mother was a teenage parent who couldn’t afford childcare. So she brought baby Jeff with her to night school in a duffel bag packed with textbooks and baby supplies.

She wasn’t giving him a lesson. She was just living her life in front of him. And what he absorbed was what determination under constraint actually looked like in practice, not theory.

Elon Musk brings his kids to the factory floor regularly. Warren Buffett raised his children in one house their whole lives and kept things deliberately normal, famously saying his goal was to “leave them enough so they can do anything, but not so much that they can do nothing.”

The longitudinal data from the National Child Development Study is clear. Teacher-rated creativity at age seven predicted higher educational attainment and success well into adulthood.

The most creativity-stimulating environments weren’t the ones packed with enrichment activities. They were the ones where kids had space to explore, get bored, make mistakes, and figure things out.

Boredom is underrated. Let them be bored sometimes. That’s where the good stuff comes from.

They Had Real Conversations About Real Things

Research from Duke identified social skills developed early as one of the strongest predictors of long-term success.

Kids with strong social competence in kindergarten were significantly more likely to graduate from college and hold full-time jobs by age 25. The mechanism isn’t complicated.

Regular real conversation with parents, not logistical coordination about schedules and homework, but actual conversation, teaches kids how to relate to people across generations, read a room, build trust, and communicate with fluency.

Those are the same skills that determine whether someone can pitch, sell, lead, and build.

Alexis Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, credits dinner table conversations with his father, a travel agent who started a business during the first tech boom, for showing him what the internet could actually become. Those weren’t formal lessons. They were just a dad talking about what he was seeing in his work.

That kind of access matters more than any curriculum.

One Thing the Research Got Wrong for Years

For decades the famous marshmallow test was cited as proof that a child’s ability to delay gratification predicted lifelong success.

A 2024 study following 702 participants from the original experiment into adulthood found that it wasn’t strongly predictive at all. A UCLA meta-analysis confirmed it. Once you controlled for family background and socioeconomic stability, the predictive power largely disappeared.

The real variable wasn’t willpower. It was trust in the environment. Kids who lived in stable, consistent, reliable homes waited longer for the second marshmallow because experience had taught them that waiting pays off. The people who kept their promises always came back.

The implication for dads is significant. Building a consistent, trustworthy home, one where you keep your word and expectations are clear, may do more for your child’s future than any specific activity, lesson, or curriculum you could ever introduce.

Be someone they can count on. Everything else builds on top of that.

The Short Version

None of this requires money. All of it requires intention.

Give them chores and mean it. Let them fail and reframe it. Talk about money like it’s not a secret. Read with them and in front of them. Limit passive screen time. Set high expectations and help them meet those expectations. Bring them into your real life. Have actual conversations.

And keep your word. That’s the whole playbook. It’s been working for a very long time.

Nobody warned us that flying with kids is basically a different sport than flying alone.

Same airport. Same plane. Completely different experience. When you travel solo you show up 45 minutes before, breeeze through security, grab a coffee, and board. When you travel with a two-year-old you show up two hours early, sweat through security, lose a pacifier somewhere near the TSA bin, and board last because you were in the bathroom.

But here’s the thing.

Flying with kids is absolutely doable. We’ve done it across every age and stage. And the dads who struggle aren’t underprepared. They’re just not prepared for the right things.

This guide covers everything. From flying with a newborn to managing a seven-year-old on a four-hour flight. Real tips, real gear, and zero sugarcoating.

Before We Get Into It: The Right Mindset

Lower your expectations by about 40% and raise your patience by the same amount.

The goal of flying with kids is not a perfect flight. It’s a successful one. Those are different things. A successful flight means you land at your destination with your kids and your sanity mostly intact. Nobody has to be happy about it the whole time.

Dads who go in expecting the worst-case scenario and plan around it consistently have better flights than dads who hope for the best and bring two snacks.

Plan for chaos. Anything better than that is a win.

Booking Smart: Where Most Dads Leave Points on the Table

Book direct whenever possible. Every connection is a new opportunity for something to go wrong. A missed connection with a baby is a nightmare. With a toddler it’s a crisis. With a school-aged kid it’s just a really bad day. Direct flights are almost always worth the extra cost when kids are involved.

Book early morning flights. Planes that fly the first departure of the day are almost always already at the airport from the night before. That means significantly fewer delays. Early morning also means kids haven’t fully ramped up yet, airports are less crowded, and security lines move faster. Yes, 5:30am is brutal. It’s still the right call.

Buy the seat. Under two, kids can fly free as lap infants on domestic flights. The FAA recommends against it and we agree. It’s safer and honestly less exhausting for you to have the kid in their own seat with a car seat or CARES harness. If budget is tight and the flight is short, a lap infant is manageable. For anything over two hours, buy the seat.

Consider the seat assignment carefully. More on this below but book your seats immediately. Don’t let the airline assign them at check-in. You will end up in a middle seat next to a stranger with a three-year-old and no overhead bin space.

Seat Selection: The Seats That Actually Work for Families

For babies and infants: the bulkhead row. The bulkhead is the row directly behind a wall or divider. On most long-haul international flights, bassinets attach to the bulkhead wall and let your baby sleep flat. Even if you’re not on a bassinet-eligible flight, the bulkhead gives you more legroom and space to maneuver. The downside: no seat pocket in front of you and bags go overhead before takeoff. Pack accordingly.

For toddlers: bulkhead or aisle. Toddlers move. Constantly. An aisle seat gives you the ability to stand up, bounce, walk the aisle, and make emergency bathroom runs without climbing over strangers. The bulkhead works here too for the extra space. Avoid window seats with toddlers unless your kid is unusually calm. The novelty of the window lasts about four minutes.

For preschoolers and big kids: window seat for them, aisle for you. At this age kids want the window. Give it to them. You take the aisle. Middle seat goes to mom, another adult, or your least favorite travel companion. This setup lets you manage everything from the aisle while keeping the kid entertained with the view.

General rules: Never book exit rows with kids. Nobody under 15 can sit there and a flight attendant will move you, no exceptions. Avoid the last rows near the galley or bathrooms. Yes they sometimes have extra space. No the noise and smell are not worth it. Aim for the front third of the plane where possible. Shorter walk to the bathroom, faster boarding, faster exit.

TSA With Kids: How to Get Through Without Losing Your Mind
Security with kids is where most family travel falls apart. Here’s how to make it fast.

• Prep before you get to the line. Everything that needs to come out of your bag should be accessible before you even approach the belt. Laptops, liquids bag, shoes. Do not be that family doing archaeological digs through a packed stroller bag while the line builds behind you.
• Kids don’t need ID for domestic flights. TSA does not require identification for anyone under 18 on domestic travel. Adults need a REAL ID-compliant license or passport. Kids walk through. This surprises a lot of dads. It never hurts to carry a copy of a birth certificate. Now you know.
• Baby liquids and formula get a pass. Formula, breast milk, and baby food pouches are allowed in quantities beyond the standard 3.4 ounce limit. Declare them at the checkpoint. Keep them separate and easy to grab. TSA may test them. That’s fine and normal.
• Strollers and car seats go through X-ray. They’ll go on the belt. You’ll collapse the stroller, fold it, and send it through. Then you’ll carry your baby through the metal detector. TSA agents are generally decent about helping here if you ask.
• Use TSA PreCheck. If you don’t have it get it. $78 for five years. Shoes stay on. Laptops stay in the bag. Liquids stay packed. With kids this is worth every single cent. Kids under 12 can use the PreCheck lane with an enrolled parent.
• Give yourself more time than you think you need. Whatever you think security will take, double it. Then add 15 minutes for the bathroom trip that will inevitably happen right as you reach the front of the line.

Flying With a Baby (0 to 12 Months)

Counterintuitive truth: babies are the easiest age to fly with.

They can’t walk away. They don’t have opinions about what movie they want. They don’t kick the seat in front of them on purpose. They either sleep or they don’t. And when they cry, it’s usually fixable.

The ear pressure issue. The biggest baby flying problem is ear pressure during takeoff and landing. Babies can’t equalize pressure the way adults do. The solution is simple: feed them during takeoff and landing. Nursing, bottle, or pacifier. The sucking motion equalizes the pressure. Time your feeding for those windows.

Bring more diapers than you think you need. The general rule is one diaper per hour of travel time, including airport time. Then add two extras. On a four-hour trip that means six diapers minimum. Airplane bathrooms have fold-down changing tables. They’re small and awkward. You’ll manage.

The changing table situation. Not all airplane bathrooms have changing tables. Some are men’s room only. If you need to change a baby and can’t find an available table, let a flight attendant know. They can usually work something out. Don’t change a baby in your seat. For everyone’s sake.

Bring a carrier. A soft carrier or wrap is one of the best baby travel tools there is. Keeps them close, keeps your hands free, and the motion and warmth tend to knock them out faster than anything else. TSA will ask you to take them out for the scanner. Once you’re through, back in.

Book a bassinet seat on long international flights. If you’re flying internationally with a baby, call the airline and request a bassinet seat when you book. These seats are limited and go fast. The bassinet clips to the bulkhead wall and gives your baby a place to lie flat. Game changer on anything over four hours.

Flying With a Toddler (1 to 3 Years)

Okay. This is the one.

Toddlers are the hardest age to fly with. No debate. They’re mobile, opinionated, loud, unpredictable, and not yet old enough to reason with. They also don’t understand why they have to sit still for two hours when they could be running.

Accept this. Plan around it.

• Buy the seat and bring the car seat. At this age a car seat in their own seat is not just safer, it’s your best management tool. A toddler strapped into their car seat in a familiar restraint tends to do better than a toddler on a lap with no boundaries. The FAA recommends this. We agree.
• If you don’t want to lug a full car seat through the airport, the CARES harness is an FAA-approved alternative that weighs one pound and works with kids 22 to 44 pounds. Worth every dollar for the travel convenience.
• The Wayb Pico is the best travel car seat. If you want an actual car seat that works on planes, the Wayb Pico is the current gold standard. Folds flat, fits in an overhead bin, weighs 8 pounds, and is fully FAA-approved. Expensive but worth it for families who fly regularly with young kids.

Pack activities in layers. Don’t put all your entertainment in at once. Reveal things slowly. A sticker book. Then some snacks. Then a small figurine they haven’t seen. Then the tablet. Spacing out the novelty is the key. If you hand over the iPad at takeoff you have nothing left for the descent.

Snacks are currency. Pack more snacks than you think is reasonable. Not sugary snacks that will send them into orbit. Familiar, filling snacks they actually like. Snacks extend the calm period. When the snacks run out, things get harder.

Walk the aisle. When it gets bad, walk. Most flight attendants are fine with a toddler walk-about in the galley area during cruise. Ask nicely, be quick, and don’t make it a habit. But that five-minute walk can buy you another 20 minutes of relative peace back in the seat.

Tablets loaded before you leave the house. Download everything before you get on the plane. Do not rely on in-flight wifi. It will be slow, expensive, or unavailable. Netflix, Disney Plus, and most streaming apps have download options. Use them. Headphones too. Kid headphones with volume limiting are worth it. Puro Sound Labs and Onanoff BuddyPhones are solid options.

The meltdown will happen. Here’s what to do. Stay calm. The more stressed you get, the worse it gets. Offer something new, a snack, a new toy, a walk. If nothing works, just ride it out. It ends. Every parent on that plane either has kids or had them. Most people are feeling empathy, not judgment. The ones who aren’t don’t matter.

Flying With Big Kids (5 to 8 Years)

By this age flying is actually pretty fun.

They’re excited about it. They can handle the full experience. They can manage their own bag. They can watch a movie start to finish. They can sleep on longer flights. They understand directions.

Your main jobs at this age are keeping them fed, keeping them entertained, and making sure they’re not kicking the seat in front of them.

Download their content specifically. Don’t just hand them a tablet and hope for the best. Sit down with them the night before and download what they actually want to watch. Let them be part of it. This creates anticipation and makes them more invested in the flight.

Give them a window seat and a job. At this age being in charge of something matters. Let them be the official altitude announcer when the pilot comes on. Let them keep track of the flight map. Give them a small task. Kids who feel trusted behave better.

Bring headphones that actually fit. Adult headphones are too big. The ones that come with the iPad are too small and fall out. A decent pair of kid-sized headphones makes a four-hour flight significantly more pleasant for everyone. Volume-limiting ones protect their ears. Puro Sound Labs BT2200 are our pick.

Talk to them about airplane etiquette. No kicking the seat in front. Inside voices. Headphones when watching anything. Respect for the people around them. This is genuinely a good teaching moment and most kids this age take it seriously when you frame it as grown-up responsibility.

The Packing List: What Goes in the Carry-On

For every kid in your travel group, pack:

One full change of clothes for them. One extra shirt for you. At least one diaper per hour plus two extra (if applicable). Snacks for the full travel day plus backup. Headphones. Fully charged tablet with downloaded content. Small new toy or activity they haven’t seen. Wipes. Hand sanitizer. Any medications including children’s Tylenol or Motrin. A gallon bag for any wet or soiled clothes.

For the overhead bin:

A neck pillow for any kid who might sleep. A light blanket or hoodie. The car seat if you’re bringing one.

What to leave home:

Anything you can buy at your destination. Bulky toys. Heavy books. Every single stuffed animal they want to bring. Pick one. One.

The Tips Nobody Puts In Articles

Gate check the stroller. Most airlines gate-check strollers for free. You keep it all the way to the jetway. It’s waiting for you when you land. This is far superior to checking it with your bags where it may arrive at baggage claim damaged or hours later.

Ask about family boarding. Most major airlines offer family boarding between first class and general boarding. Use it. Getting on early means you get the overhead space you need and get settled before the boarding chaos.

Board strategically. One adult boards early with the carry-ons and gets everything situated. The other stays in the terminal with the kids and burns energy until boarding is almost complete. This is the move. Kids who board early and then wait on a plane are harder to manage than kids who board last and sit down immediately.

Feed them during ascent and descent. This handles ear pressure for any age. Gum for older kids. Snacks or a bottle for younger ones. The chewing and swallowing equalizes the pressure. If ears are already hurting, yawning or swallowing helps. For babies, nurse or bottle every time.

Don’t feel like you need to apologize in advance. Some parents make an announcement to the surrounding rows apologizing for their kids before the flight even starts. You don’t need to do this. Your kid has as much right to be on that plane as anyone else. Fly with confidence. Most people are fine.

Bring cash for tips. If a flight attendant goes above and beyond helping you with a tough stretch, a folded bill in a handshake goes a long way. Frank Sinatra called it duking. We call it good manners.

Here’s the deal…

Flying with kids is not easy. But it gets better every single trip. The first flight is the hardest. The second is easier. By the time your kid is six or seven, you’ll look back at the toddler era and barely remember how you did it.

Plan ahead. Lower your expectations. Pack twice as many snacks as you think you need. Give yourself more time than is comfortable at every step.

And when it gets hard at 30,000 feet with a screaming two-year-old and a full diaper and three hours left on the flight, remember this: you are making memories. Even the terrible ones become great stories.

No polish on this one. Construction noise in the background, both guys running on fumes, and a genuinely useful conversation about burnout that a lot of dads will recognize immediately.

What This Episode’s About

Adam and Ben get real about burnout, running a business and a family with zero buffer, and the lack of built-in family support nearby. They talk through how communicating with their wives about workout time turned into a game changer, plus updates on Dad Day’s new beach umbrella gear video and the Go West YouTube series.

The Big Takeaways

• Stop waiting for a routine. There isn’t one. Ben’s line that landed for both of them: “No day is the same, and there’s no routine. It’s just being at peace that this is your life now.”
• Communicate the need instead of assuming guilt. Ben used to think taking an hour to work out was selfish. The fix was simple: “We came up with a plan. Hey, you get your hour workout in, I’ll take care of the kid, and then I get my hour workout in.” One conversation with his wife changed everything.
• Taking care of yourself isn’t optional. Adam’s take: “Taking care of yourself is numero uno on the list, because I don’t know how else you show up with a clear mind for your wife and your kid.”
• You don’t have to do it alone, even when it feels like you should. Ben’s family drove out to help with food prep and yard work during a rough week. Reaching out wasn’t a failure, it was the move.
• Outsourcing isn’t always the answer, but burnout catches up either way. Adam on running Dad Day solo while wearing every hat: “Sometimes it’s just better when you do it yourself… but it turns into wearing so many hats that you just hit this stage of, man, I am legitimately burnt out right now.”

Best Quote of the Episode

“It’s finding that balance of even communicating to my wife, like, hey, I wanna work harder for you guys. It’s not that I don’t wanna help out.” — Adam

Listen to Episode 12
Spotify | Apple

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Join the Conversation
Dealing with burnout right now, or found a system that actually worked for splitting workout time with your partner? Drop it in the Dad Day Slack or call it in to 833-DAD-SHOW. We might play it on the next episode.