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Building Unbreakable Bonds: Chris Singleton on Fatherhood and Love

July 20, 2026 by dadofdivas

In the latest episode of The Dad and Daughter Connection, host Dr. Christopher Lewis welcomes an extraordinary guest: former professional athlete, best-selling author, and inspirational speaker Chris Singleton. This heartfelt conversation dives deep into fatherhood, resilience, and the profound ways dads can nurture strong, confident daughters, even amidst life’s toughest challenges.

Chris Singleton opens up about the joy and responsibility of raising his young daughter, sharing intimate stories—like their first daddy-daughter dance—that remind us how essential it is to be present and cherish each moment. He emphasizes intentional fathering, recognizing that quality time matters more than quantity and that even simple routines, like reading together or affirming your child’s beauty, play a vital role in building self-esteem and resilience. As Chris Singleton says, “Your presence, it matters. Even when you think they don’t see you there… your presence, it matters” 28:18.

A powerful part of the conversation addresses difficult topics: teaching compassion, navigating conversations about differences, and helping children process a sometimes divided world. Inspired by his personal journey through tragedy and the loss of his mother, Chris Singleton shares how he uses children’s books and open dialogue to foster empathy and curiosity in his children. He encourages dads to model respect for all, even when encountering different beliefs or backgrounds, and to proactively address hard questions rather than shying away from them.

Other highlights include practical advice for approaching conversations about race, mistakes Chris Singleton made early in fatherhood, and strategies for raising compassionate, curious kids in the age of social media. Vulnerability plays a central role; letting children see emotion and grief, he explains, not only builds trust but also reassures them that it’s okay to feel and share openly.

Ultimately, the episode offers a hopeful message: embracing love, forgiveness, and open-mindedness at home can prepare the next generation to lead with unity and understanding.

To every dad looking to grow deeper connections with his daughter—and to anyone seeking inspiration in today’s world—this episode is a must-listen. Hear the full story and practical tools by tuning in to The Dad and Daughter Connection—it may just change the way you parent, and the way you see the world.

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TRANSCRIPT

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

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:53]:
Welcome back to the dad and Daughter Connection, where every week we have a great opportunity to be able to talk together, to work together to help you to be able to make those meaningful connections with your daughters one step at a time. It’s not always going to be easy. It takes time, it takes effort, and you do have to work at it. But it is so important to put in that work and to know that putting in that work is you are going to be able to build those connections and build those true bonds with your daughters that you want to have every week. I love being able to bring you different people with different experiences that are offering you an opportunity, an opportunity to be able to learn, to grow and to put some, I’m going to say, tools in your toolbox that you can take with you. And you may not take everything, but my hope is that you have an opportunity to be able to take something, whether it’s one thing, five things, 10 things that you’re like, ah, that’s something that I’m connecting to. And, and today we got another great guest. Chris Singleton is with us.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:55]:
And Chris is a former professional athlete who played for the Chicago Cubs. And following the loss of his mother in a racially motivated mass shooting, Chris has now become a nationally renowned inspirational speaker and best selling author. And he travels all over the United States and beyond to be able to spread a message of love, of compassion, and of really helping others to be able to think, think differently about the world around us and how we talk to one another, work with one another. But even beyond that, he’s a father of three and he’s got one daughter. So we’re going to be talking about his own experience in being a father to a daughter. And we’ll also talk about some of the journey that he’s been on and some of the things that he has been doing with his own kids to be able to help them to live in the world that we’re in today. So I’m really excited to have him here. Chris Singh, thank you so much for being here today.

Chris SIngleton [00:02:53]:
Absolutely, man. I’m grateful to be on talking about my baby girl. Girl, love it.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:57]:
Well, I’m really excited to be able to be here today and to talk to you. I know we just saw each other at a recent conference that you were speaking at, and this is a topic that you don’t always get to talk a lot about. You mentioned your daughter in your speech, but I love it when we get to delve into fatherhood. And I guess first and foremost, I wanted to ask you about that relationship with your daughter. And I know she’s still young, but in her life so far and in your life with her so far, what’s one of the most meaningful moments that you’ve been able to share with your daughter thus far and what made it so special?

Chris SIngleton [00:03:28]:
Yeah, I think one of the most meaningful moments thus far is the first daddy daughter dance we did. You know, she’s almost three. And so at two years old, that daddy daughter dance and she was actually dancing. I was like, oh, it’s just going to be just her standing around and no, she was getting after dancing and wiggling and we had a great time. And there was a point where, you know, one of the older girls at their school started dancing with her and I just saw her. I was getting like a little emotional. Like, man, this is what a blessing it is that I get to be her dad and not only protect and provide for, but just be her friend. As she grows older and I’m looking at her, I just started getting emotional.

Chris SIngleton [00:04:06]:
So that was probably a moment where I actually stopped and just felt the moment. Because so frequently you have these experiences with your kids and you’re just like, oh, it’s an experience. You don’t really stop and just take it all in. And that’s one that I know in 20 years I’m going to remember that first daddy daughter dance that we did and how I was getting emotional. Like, man, how cool is that? I get to be her dad. So that was one so far.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:04:27]:
And like you said, your daughter is still young, but I’m sure that there are some ways in which some intentional things that you’re trying to do to be able to strengthen your bond with your daughter. So talk to me about some of those things that you tried to do intentionally with your daughter to be able to build that Unique bond with her versus what you’re doing with your sons.

Chris SIngleton [00:04:46]:
Yeah. And I think it’s super important because my boys, I coach them in baseball, I coach them in sports. And so she sees me doing this. We know. Even when we do bedtime, sometimes we’ll take the boys to bed first, and they’ll be talking about me coaching them. They’ll be talking about something baseball. And then my dad said. Then my daughter says something about, hey, Daddy, what about me with ballerina? Or what about me with this? And I’m like, you know, daddy loves that too, sweetie.

Chris SIngleton [00:05:09]:
And, you know, I can’t wait for you to go to your ballerina class on Friday. And so we have those same moments where it’s like, yes, I have my time with my boys, and I kind of combine the time with the boys sometimes, but I need to do a little better about splitting them up. Hey, older son get some time. Younger son gets some time. And most of the time, it’s like, hey, Daddy, with the boys. And then it’s like, daddy with baby girl. And whether it’s just reading with her the other night, I noticed it because I didn’t notice this with my boys. How.

Chris SIngleton [00:05:33]:
And I don’t know if you know, the stereotype is girls learn so much quicker. They’re so much smarter than boys when they’re young. But my daughter was literally sitting down in her. In the rocking chair that we usually sit in before bedtime, and she was flipping through this book as if she knew exactly what she was doing at 2 years old, and she’s pretending like she’s reading, and I’m sitting there smiling at her, and it was a beautiful moment. I’ve got this nickname for my daughter, and of course, I told you guys at the conference that I call her Chocolate Chip. And so every time I’ll say, hey, who’s my Chocolate Chip? And she’s like, I am. And I said, do you love dad? She’s like, yes, I love Daddy. And so we have these little small moments.

Chris SIngleton [00:06:07]:
But I know one day when she’s a little older, I might be dropping her off at school. And I’m like, who’s Daddy Chocolate Chip? She’s like, dad, come on. So I got to cherish these moments right now. And I surely, and I truly am

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:06:17]:
now, no dad is infallible. We all make mistakes. We’re humans. And I guess even this could be with your sons, too. But with your daughter, what’s a mistake that you’ve made? And what did you learn about fostering positive connections? With your daughter?

Chris SIngleton [00:06:33]:
Yeah. I think the biggest mistake so far is just thinking when I’m spending time with all three of my kids, that I’m spending time with every single one of them. And I didn’t do that with my daughter. I’m picking my boys up from school, we’re taking them to the batting cage real quick, Then we’re going back to get baby girl. Or it’s like, hey, my middle child likes to play golf, and so I’ll go play golf with him. I’ll let the oldest stay at home. And I’m spending quality time one on one with my older boys. And I wasn’t doing that with my baby girl.

Chris SIngleton [00:06:57]:
And my excuse, because we have to give ourselves excuses. I used to say, man, she’s so young. Can I do with her? And I realized you can do literally everything with her, too. And so I started to try to be more intentional about saying, hey, maybe this Friday I’m picking baby girl up early, and I’m taking her with me. Whether I’m riding around to the bank or whatever it is, just having her with me, spending that quality time, not just all three kids, but just with her. And I think that was probably a mistake I made early, is just having the excuse. Well, she’s so young, I don’t know if I can do anything with her. And I realized once I started bringing her with me, it doesn’t matter.

Chris SIngleton [00:07:28]:
You can take her just about anywhere. Even if we’re on the golf course, she’d like to just sit in the golf cart drinking juice box by herself and watch Ms. Rachel. So, like, sometimes it’s just bringing her with me and not using the excuse, oh, well, she’s too young. I think that’s a mistake that I made early on.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:07:43]:
Every one of us, as fathers of daughters, are doing what we can to be able to try to help our girls to feel both valued and heard. What have you done thus far to help your daughter feel that in your relationship to date?

Chris SIngleton [00:07:59]:
Yeah. I think every kid, but especially daughters, they find their confidence, they find their beauty, and they’ll ask daddy or mommy, hey, do I look beautiful? And my daughter is obsessed with those words. And so every morning when we get baby girl dressed and we’ll put clothes on her, she doesn’t like it, she’ll let us know immediately if she doesn’t like the clothes. So we already know at a young age she’s going to be some type of fashionista. And so she will put on her clothes. If it’s not a dress, she doesn’t want it. So we have to change her clothes and put on a dress and we finish and we do her hair, whatever it is, she’ll always give a little twirl and say, daddy, do I look beautiful? And I think she’s asking for that recognition. And I tell her every time I say, baby girl, you’re beautiful before, and yes, you’re beautiful right now.

Chris SIngleton [00:08:41]:
And so just hearing those words, I think is so important. Building that self esteem, knowing, hey, in my faith, I’m fearfully and wonderfully made, like God made me the way that I am, and I’m beautiful on the inside and out. And just hearing that from dad, I think it hits deep. Because yes, she asked mom, but she always runs to me and asks me to, hey, daddy, do I look beautiful? And she does a little twirl and I say, baby girl, you look so beautiful. And you see that smile, you see that confidence. And I never want that confidence to waver. And so as kids grow, there’s middle school where kids use mean words for no reason, but it’s just part of the gig. And there will be a time where I’m sure somebody’s going to say something about my daughter that, you know, isn’t the nicest thing.

Chris SIngleton [00:09:19]:
And my hope is that she’s heard from her mom, from her dad, from her family, like, I am beautiful, I am amazing, I am smart, I am courageous, I am all these different things. And so if she hears otherwise, it should be in one ear and out the other, because she knows she is. And that’s what I’m trying to instill at this young age. And hopefully she gets older. I’m sure there’s going to be still be those parts of her where she’s, you know, crying because X, Y and Z happened. But I want her to know deep down inside, hey, I’ve always heard who I am as a person. And so if somebody has something else to say about me, that’s a problem with them and not with me.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:09:52]:
I mentioned at the beginning that you speak all over the world. You have been bringing a message of love, your neighbor, to the world in many different ways. And your message of love, your neighbor really came out of an incredibly personal tragedy. How has becoming a father changed the way you think about that message today?

Chris SIngleton [00:10:14]:
Yeah, well, I think initially the only reason why I started writing children’s books is because I’m thinking, how do I even tell my own kids about my story? It’s very traumatic. It’s very glass half empty type of story. Not message but story, I mean, just losing my mom the way that I did and having to tell your kids that, you know, unfortunately there are some people that hate others because of the chemical in their skin that makes them the color that they are or telling your kids, hey, unfortunately, there’s people that judge others based on their first language and all these different things that they’re hard conversations to have with your kids, especially when there’s tragedy involved. And so writing children’s books is the way that I said I can talk about tough things in a non traumatic way. And so yes, there’s going to be conflict in my children’s book, but it’s not conflict of losing a life. It’s a conflict of maybe a kid gets picked on because the clothes that they wear or maybe their hair is a little different or maybe they wear glasses or whatever it may be and so they feel a little different. But in the end of my stories, they’re always celebrated, no matter where they’re from, what they look like or what makes them different. And sharing this with my kids, sharing it with kids all across the country in the world, kids start to look at each other a little different, like, oh man, okay, so we all have something that makes us different.

Chris SIngleton [00:11:17]:
Maybe my grandma does raise me, that makes me a little different. I don’t have my mom and dad raising me. But you know what, that’s okay. This person’s a little different because maybe they’re on the spectrum or maybe they wear glasses or I’ve even had kids would say, hey, Chris, I’ve got six fingers and I thought I was the weirdest kid in the world until you showed that everybody has something that makes them different. Now, you know what? I’m not ashamed of my difference. It’s what makes me who I am. And so sharing this with my kids, sharing it in children’s books is the easiest way for me to talk about tough things in a non traumatic way. And it’s been a blessing to be able to do that.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:11:47]:
As I thought about that, as parents, many of us want to raise our kids who are compassionate and empathetic, but we also know that the world can be divided. What would you say are some practical ways that dads can intentionally model love and respect at home?

Chris SIngleton [00:12:01]:
Yeah, I think first and foremost, I think there needs to be. You have to teach your kids there’s a certain level of respect we have for everyone. In doing so, you say, hey, this is maybe not the way that we do it in our family, but some families out there do it that Way. Now, you don’t compromise on the things that you believe in and things that you hold near and dear to your heart and your morals, but you acknowledge that, hey, to your daughter, like, hey, this is the way that some people do it. Now, we don’t think that way, we don’t believe that way, but we still going to respect them because that’s how they think, and that’s how they believe. I think having that conversation early on and letting them know you don’t have to compromise on who you are to just acknowledge that somebody else does something different is powerful. So doing that, I think it’s been really cool to see that in the progression. And then it also, when your kids ask you questions, you got to be able to answer them, because even at a young age, it’s like, hey, well, dad, what are they saying? It’s like, oh, well, that’s Mandarin, right? That’s not what we speak, but that’s a language out there.

Chris SIngleton [00:12:55]:
Or you see families that look totally different than yours. You’re like, well, dad, what is that? And you’re like, well, hey, that’s not the way that we do it, but that is out there. And so I just want to teach you and let you know that things may be different out there, and maybe that’s not what you believe or what I believe as a family, but that’s out there. And I think sharing that early on helps people, especially our daughters, understand. Okay, just because it’s different doesn’t mean we have to hate or doesn’t mean we have to do that, because that’s not what we do. But we can still acknowledge that that could save some kids and our daughters from. From learning things elsewhere and not talking to us about it.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:13:30]:
I mentioned that you speak to organizations and schools and other groups across the country about and connection. What conversations do you think that parents are avoiding right now that they actually need to be having with their kids?

Chris SIngleton [00:13:46]:
Yeah, just the one I just shared, right? Talking to kids about how some families may look different or how, like, I’ll give you a prime example. When my oldest was five years old, he went to school and he told me how one of the. One of his classmates had two moms, and he’s like, well, dad, you know, where’s. Where’s your dad? And I was like, hey, well, this is how they do things, their family, dad. It’s a little different than what mommy and daddy have, but that is out there. And so sometimes as parents, we’re like, man, I don’t want to talk about that, like, they’re shying away from it instead of leaning in and letting their child know, hey, this is out there. But that’s just not what we do in our family, in our household. And as awkward as it is, as nervous as it makes you to talk about certain things, believe it or not, the kids are seeing it, and they’re putting two and two together in their own minds.

Chris SIngleton [00:14:29]:
And so they need Daddy to be there. They need parents to be there to kind of navigate that for them so that they’re not questioning everything else. That’s what I’d say is important. And don’t shy away from it. You gotta lean into it. In one of my books, I say loving everybody, whether their skin is darker or lighter, whether their skin is looser or tighter, their hair is looser or tighter, whether their skin is wrinkled or rough. Why should it matter? Love is enough. And so we’re talking about different people and different things.

Chris SIngleton [00:14:54]:
You know, some people are on the back end of life, and we just share all these different intricacies about being a human being, and we’re talking with kids about that, and I think that’s beautiful.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:15:03]:
So the reality is that difficult events happen. Things do happen. People see it in the news, and some of these do involve race, hate, or violence. How do you think that fathers can approach those conversations with their kids in age appropriate but meaningful ways?

Chris SIngleton [00:15:18]:
I will say one mistake I made as a. As a dad is sometimes I talk to my oldest. Because, you know, you’re your first. Your oldest is like your guinea pig. You’re just. You’re doing everything you can trying to figure it out, right? And I wouldn’t let my son have Nerf guns. I wouldn’t let him play, like, shooting video games. And one day he finally like, why can’t we do this, dad? And I said, because, you know, Daddy lost his mom to a person with a gun, and it was a very hateful guy.

Chris SIngleton [00:15:41]:
And so then my son became very scared of just anything with guns. And I said, man, I probably told him that a little too young. And so what I should have probably said, going back is like, hey, we’re not gonna do that, because Daddy doesn’t like those. And when you get a little older, they’ll tell you why. And so when things happen in our world, maybe explain it in a way that, you know, maybe that’s not teaching love. Maybe that’s not loving people like we should and how Daddy’s gonna teach you. But that is out there, and that’s why I’m. It’s so important that I’m teaching you this because I never want you to feel that same way too.

Chris SIngleton [00:16:10]:
And so explaining it in that way early on is important. And then as kids get older, especially middle school, oh, my goodness. We think because middle school is the age where you want to shelter them, but life is being thrown at them because some kids are growing up a lot earlier than others and so they’re hearing stuff. And so we have to be proactive in saying, hey, this is what we think, this is what we believe. And yes, this is happening in the world and it’s terrible and you know, we hate to see it, but that’s why I’m teaching you the lessons that I’m teaching you, because I want you to know I want us to lead with unity and love the way that I think that we should.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:16:40]:
You know, your story is rooted so much in forgiveness. How do you teach either your kids or other kids the difference between forgiveness and ignoring wrongdoing?

Chris SIngleton [00:16:51]:
That’s beautiful. I think even when we give consequences to our own kids, it’s like, hey, I was in a small group with parents and one of our themes was I learned it from a dad who was phenomenal. So I use it all the time. And when we discipline our kids, we say, hey, I’m doing this to either keep you safe or make you better. Single time. I’m either doing this to keep you safe or make you better. Well, dad, why can’t I do X, Y and Z? Because I want to keep you safe. Doing that is going to hurt you or hurt somebody else.

Chris SIngleton [00:17:17]:
But dad, why can’t I do X, Y and Z? Well, I want to make you better. You’re not getting better as a person by doing that. So that’s why we have this consequence, right? And so in every scenario, sharing that has been really neat. And so I use it for everything. I mean, literally everything. Daddy, why can’t I have, you know, candy right now? It’s 9:30. You know, eating candy right now. You know, you probably don’t want to brush your teeth like you’re supposed to.

Chris SIngleton [00:17:40]:
That’s not going to keep you safe, right? You’re going to have cavities. You’re going to do X, Y and Z. It’s been a huge tool for me even as my kids get older. Well, dad, why can’t you buy me the nicest car? Well, I don’t think that’s going to make you any better. You got to have some sweat equity in this deal. And so if I give you everything, I’M not making you better. And so I’m going to use that with everything. And I think that’s the tool that all dads should have when they.

Chris SIngleton [00:18:01]:
They had to discipline their kid or have to say no.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:04]:
You know, a lot of dads worry about saying the wrong thing when talking about race or bias with their kids. What kind of encouragement would you give to parents who want to start these conversations but are feeling uncomfortable?

Chris SIngleton [00:18:16]:
Yeah, well, we have to do the work on ourselves first and figure out, make sure we’re in a good space to teach. Because the worst thing you could be is a hypocrite and you’re telling your kid to do something and you’re doing the exact opposite. And so I think that’s the number one thing. You lead by example. I don’t want to touch back on the whole forgiveness piece just really quick, because I don’t want to rush past that. When I think about forgiveness, forgiving doesn’t mean that there’s no consequence. There’s no accountability. Right.

Chris SIngleton [00:18:41]:
So if I forgive my daughter for doing something, I’m still going to say, hey, you still got time out. I still love. You know, I love you, but you still have to sit in time out for a minute because that was not kind to do. That was not smart. You didn’t listen. So it doesn’t mean that I forgive and just pretend like it didn’t happen. No, you’ve got to learn from your mistakes. But I also say my faith, belief, forgiven.

Chris SIngleton [00:19:00]:
And we all are forgiven if we receive that. And so it’s a line where it’s like, hey, there’s accountability, but there’s also grace. And I think you got to have both. And so I want to just touch on that really quickly because I don’t want people to think that forgiveness is letting the person off the on the hook. No, there’s going to be consequences, But I forgive to move forward. And I think that’s big.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:19:18]:
Some of the things that you’re talking about really are. I’m hearing you, that you’re encouraging your kids to be curious. They really try to see the world in a broader view. What are some simple habits that, that dads can build into their lives that help their kids to grow up with a mindset of curiosity instead of fear toward others?

Chris SIngleton [00:19:38]:
I think a big one is watching sports. You know, I said, we’re gonna talk too much sports. But, you know, you got the World cup coming up. You had the Olympics. You know, when the Olympics are here, learning about different countries. Well, dad, what’s Botswana. I don’t know. Let’s look it up real quick.

Chris SIngleton [00:19:51]:
Let’s look up what they do in Botswana. Let’s look up their culture. So having these. These conversations is really cool. In our household, soccer is big because my wife is from Brazil. And so because my wife’s from Brazil, I’m sure my daughter’s gonna grow up playing soccer because mommy’s gonna want her to play soccer like my wife did. And so, you know, you’re gonna learn about different cultures. You know, the more that you play sports, and if you’re a dad that likes sports, you know this.

Chris SIngleton [00:20:13]:
The longer you play sports, the more that you’ll play with people that are from different places, different cultures, different whatever. And that’s a beautiful thing to teach your daughter. One of my friends, his daughter was actually really, really good in soccer. And then she started playing in college, and she started playing with girls from around the world, and she’s like, whoa, you know, there’s different levels to this. And you realize that once you start playing at a higher level. And so watching sports, learning about different countries, the World cup, the Olympics, and then you dive deep when you watch with your daughter, like, hey, let’s look up Morocco. I always love looking up language, food, and where it is on the map. And so those are three things I love looking up.

Chris SIngleton [00:20:49]:
And so if we’re watching France, because we think France is going to win the World cup, and we’re like, let’s look up France. Let’s see what they got going on over there. And having those conversations, it’s fun, and it’s in a proactive way. And then when something may happen in the world, you’re not, like, circling back, man. I don’t. You’ve never talked about this place before. It’s like, no, we want to be upfront about different places in the world.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:21:09]:
I’ll ask you one other question about sports, and that really comes down to the fact that I’m sure that there are things that have happened in your life through sports that have provided you some lessons and things that have helped you to be the father that you are. So what lessons from sports or teamwork have influenced the way in which you father your kids? Kids?

Chris SIngleton [00:21:27]:
Yeah. Well, I. I’ve read some statistic, and I’m going to butcher it, but I. I saw, like, most women in leadership played sports at a young age, and I don’t know what the percentage was, but it was a high percentage. A high, high percentage. And so, dad, you guys can look that. That percentage up So I think sports are good just to put your daughters in sports. I think it teaches accountability, it teaches leadership.

Chris SIngleton [00:21:46]:
It teaches leading by example, because your teammates won’t buy into anything you’re saying unless you’re doing it too, so you got to do that. It also teaches failure. Failure and realizing, hey, we’re not going to succeed in everything all the time. But how you respond to that failure is everything in life. And so if we turn the ball over in basketball, or we strike out with the bases loaded in softball, or if we miss a free throw when we really needed to in basketball, like, whatever it is, how we respond to that is how we will make up majority of our lives. So those are some things that sports has taught me as an athlete.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:22:16]:
You know, I think about the world today and how social media has really created a lot of division. How do we help kids hold on to hope and kindness when they’re constantly exposed to negativity online and in the media?

Chris SIngleton [00:22:31]:
Yeah, I actually did some work with our legislators about this because I saw that social media has just become so divisive. And I love the stories where it’s like the kid with a lemonade stand out at the first tee, raising money for his buddy in school that has cancer. I love those stories. We need more of those stories. But it seems like we get pushed and we get fed the beast of the algorithm is anything divisive just gets. Gets pushed to us even more. And so censoring or monitoring what our kids are watching are engaging in is important. And then making sure, because we have to make sure that our kids aren’t the ones that are bullying or on the other side of that.

Chris SIngleton [00:23:07]:
And we all think, especially our daughters, like, oh, our daughter is just. She’s so amazing. She’s the nicest person ever. She would never. Until we started reading some of the stuff that they’re posting, we’re like, hey, we might have to have some conversations. So being proactive and not being blind to that is important as well, because we never think it’d be our kid to be the bully until we find. Find out that it’s our kid that’s the bully. And so just monitoring what they’re watching, what they’re saying.

Chris SIngleton [00:23:28]:
And then I always say there is. It is a blessing and a compliment to have high expectations for your kids. And so with our daughters, I have high expectations that you won’t do this online, you won’t say this online, you won’t be that person online. And so if that’s my expectation for you, it May be high because I’m monitoring your stuff. I’m making sure you don’t say X, Y and Z. I’m doing that at a place of love because I have these expectations for you. You. And making sure that the algorithm that they have isn’t one that’s going to fuel hatred and division.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:57]:
You know, you’ve inspired a lot of audiences through vulnerability and honesty in what you share in front of the groups. How important is it for dads to let their kids see emotion, grief, and healing?

Chris SIngleton [00:24:11]:
Oh, my goodness. It’s so big. Because if our daughters, our kids especially, just grow up thinking that dad doesn’t show any emotion, sometimes they’re gonna think they shouldn’t show emotion or they’re not going to come to us because he won’t understand. Because I’ve never seen him get sad, right? So if they’re sad, you know, I probably can’t tell dad because he won’t understand. I’ve never seen dad sad before. Now, if we’re open and vulnerable, it’s like, you know, I can come to dad with anything because I’ve seen him have the same emotions that I felt and he’s going to feel with me when I share this with him. I think that’s big. And for so long as husbands and fathers, we think, man, we have to be that rock that nothing shakes us.

Chris SIngleton [00:24:46]:
Us, right? We’re the foundation of the family, and nothing should shake us or hurt us. But in doing so, sometimes things won’t get to us because, hey, he’s not going to understand. He won’t get it. Because I’ve never seen him say that he messed up, or I’ve never seen him say that he’s grieving right now. And so I think it’s so important that we’re open and honest with our feelings and our emotions. Even other day, I’m watching a video in the car, and I saw this video. It’s like this kid had his dad at one of his games, and before the game, he got his son a new baseball bat. He hit a home run for his dad on Father’s Day, the dad catches it outside of the fence, and he’s like, I got it.

Chris SIngleton [00:25:23]:
I got your home run ball. And you see the son kind of point to the dad, the outfield. And I’m crying real tears, man. And my daughter, my son, they’re like, dad, are you okay? I said, daddy’s fine. But this made me feel emotional because this is a beautiful moment. And so I have happy tears right now, guys. And so like having those conversations, them, they see that dad has feelings too. And yes, we’re strong, yes, we’re going to protect our baby girls, our daughters.

Chris SIngleton [00:25:48]:
But they need to know, hey, we have feelings too. So anything that they feel they can share with us as well.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:25:53]:
What legacy do you hope to leave not only through your speaking, but through your role as a father?

Chris SIngleton [00:25:58]:
Yeah, one non negotiable that I have as far as my legacy is. I don’t want my kids to ever think daddy made a huge impact on the world, but he didn’t make a huge impact on us. I think that’s a, a huge failure as a man that I could have is if I do that, I want them to say Daddy was an amaz person. Not only to people around the world, but to us. He was dead. He was at our daddy daughter dances, he was at our games where we had our first hit or our first home, whatever it may be, he was there. It’s just being active and knowing that they have somewhere to run to or to talk to is huge. And then all the life lessons that I share with them, you know, I just hope that they keep 10% of them.

Chris SIngleton [00:26:32]:
That’d be my legacy. Right. I’m sharing stuff all the time and make sure you’re saving. We’re gonna do a Roth IRA for you young so you can do X, Y and Z. All these things. I just hope that they remember something of this stuff that I’m instilling in them and in doing so, maybe they run into a problem when they get older and they’ll say, you know, my dad always told me, and then they’ll share something else and that’d be huge legacy for me.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:26:52]:
So if every family embraced the idea of loving their neighbor, how do you think the next generation would look different from the one we have today?

Chris SIngleton [00:27:00]:
Man, what a beautiful question. I think that kids will grow up knowing that there’s going to be differences in the world. There’s going to be different faiths, there’s going to be different languages, there’s going to be different. Different Everything doesn’t mean different means bad. My wife is from Brazil and in Brazil the culture is all family. You don’t really move away too much in their culture, right? You don’t go away for college. I know you’ve got daughters that are going to college and all this stuff and they’re kind of moving away. And that’s not really the culture in Brazil.

Chris SIngleton [00:27:26]:
It’s all about family and having dinner together on Sundays. And so sometimes we could say you know what? Maybe I want that culture for me, even though I’m American. When you learn about something different, when you learn that, you know, sometimes times in some cultures they don’t use technology, they just sit around the table and talk and have meals together on certain days. I like that. And so maybe we can put that into our family values as well. And that’s beauty. When you see that when kids growing up, that different doesn’t mean bad. Different just means different.

Chris SIngleton [00:27:54]:
I think our world would be a lot better place now.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:56]:
I always finish our interviews with what I like to call our dad connection. 66 more questions to delve a little bit deeper into you as a dad. You ready?

Chris SIngleton [00:28:03]:
Let’s do it.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:28:03]:
What’s one word that describes your relationship with your daughter?

Chris SIngleton [00:28:08]:
I’d say right now it’s just very gentle. Right now, gentle is my word.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:28:12]:
What’s the best piece of dad advice you’ve ever received?

Chris SIngleton [00:28:17]:
Your presence matters. Is the best advice I’ve received. Your presence, it matters. Even when you think they don’t see you there and you’re just there for six hours, or are they really going to care? They’re so young. Your presence, it matters.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:28:30]:
What’s one activity that you and your daughter love doing together?

Chris SIngleton [00:28:34]:
Right now I’d say he’s reading books together. She loves that. So reading is our activity right now.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:28:38]:
If you could give your daughter one life lesson in a single sentence, what would it be?

Chris SIngleton [00:28:44]:
Hard work is important. Would probably be. My biggest thing is like, hey, working hard is important. In a world where AI makes stuff easy and there’s shortcuts to everything, hard work is still super important.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:28:55]:
And what’s one thing that you’ve learned about yourself since becoming a dad?

Chris SIngleton [00:28:59]:
I’ve learned that sometimes I need to stop and take in the moment more because I’m young guy and I had to grow up really quick and so I’m always ripping and running and doing that, you know, all these different things. But sometimes stopping and just being present in the moment is the greatest blessing we could ever receive. And so that’s something I’ve learned about myself.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:19]:
And what advice would you give to other dads who want to build a lasting and meaningful relationship with their daughters?

Chris SIngleton [00:29:26]:
I’d say having high expectations for our baby girls is important. And never get so caught up in that you have to provide that you forget that being there matters just as much.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:37]:
Now, if people want to find out more about you, what you’re doing, your books, etc, where should they go?

Chris SIngleton [00:29:43]:
My website’s chrissingleton.com and I got all the social medias. If you just search up C. Singleton underscore two or just search up Chris Singleton, you’ll see all my content and stuff there.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:54]:
Well, Chris, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for not only sharing about your own journey as a father today, but sharing your message of love thy neighbor and help us think a little bit differently about the way in which we not only talk about this, but treat others. I truly appreciate the message. I truly appreciate the time and I wish you all the best.

Chris SIngleton [00:30:15]:
Thank you so much.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:17]:
That’s a wrap for this episode of the dad and Daughter Connection. Thanks for joining us on this journey to build stronger bonds and raise confident, independent daughters. Remember, being an engaged dad isn’t about being correct perfect. It’s about being present. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and share it with a fellow dad. And don’t forget, you can find all our episodes@dadanddaughterconnection.com until next time, keep showing up, keep connecting, and keep being the dad she needs.

Musical Outro Performer [00:30:47]:
We’re all in the same boat and it’s full of tiny screaming passengers we spend the time we give the lessons we make the meals, we buy them presents and bring your A game cause those kids are growing fast the time goes by just like a dynamite blast Calling astronauts and firemen carpenters and muscle men get out and be the world you down Be the best dad you can be Be the best dad you can.

Building Meaningful Bonds: Rick Walker on Presence, Purpose, and Raising Confident Daughters

July 21, 2025 by dadofdivas

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If you’re a father searching for ways to build a deeper, more meaningful relationship with your daughter, the latest episode of the Dad and Daughter Connection podcast is a must-listen. Host Dr. Christopher Lewis sits down with Rick Walker—business leader, father of three teenage daughters, and author of the upcoming book, Nine Steps to Build a Life of Meaning: How to Unlock Your Mind, Happiness, Power, and Your Enemy’s Demise—for a powerful and honest conversation about the realities and rewards of fatherhood.

Throughout the episode, Rick shares invaluable insights not only from his professional life but, more importantly, from his lived experience as a dad. One of the central themes is the importance of truly being present. Rick describes making family dinners a priority, and how even simple rituals—like driving home from summer camp or sharing milkshake runs—can be crucial opportunities to listen and connect. He emphasizes the need to go beyond just showing up: “Attention is the only resource I have to offer,” he says—highlighting that those everyday moments of real engagement are what matter most.

Rick also touches on the challenges of fatherhood: balancing guidance with allowing independence, recognizing each daughter’s individuality, and pushing through discomfort during tough conversations. He admits that sometimes daughters will push their dads away, and it’s up to us not to give up, but to keep returning, reaffirming our love, belief, and pride.

A particularly inspiring message from the episode is the idea that meaning often comes from confronting challenges. Drawing from his book, Rick discusses how fathers—and their children—grow through adversity, and why “avoiding an ounce of pain means drinking a gallon of regret.” For dads feeling stuck, burnt out, or disconnected, he gently suggests that often, the thing you least want to face is where real growth—and renewed connection—can be found.

Practical advice abounds: tell your daughter daily that you’re proud, that you love her, and that you believe in her. And, most importantly, let them see you strive not just in your career, but in being the kind of person you’d want them to choose as a partner one day.

If you’re ready to laugh, reflect, and gather actionable wisdom for your own journey as a dad, be sure to check out this heartfelt episode of the Dad and Daughter Connection. It’s a reminder that you don’t have to walk this path alone—and that every father has the power to be the dad his daughter needs. Listen now and start building that lasting connection today!

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

Rick’s Book (9 Steps to Build a Life of Meaning): https://amzn.to/4nGYDFq

Rick’s Newsletter: https://funnel.rickwalker.com/optin?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=hostlastname

Rick on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@rickwalkertx
Rick on X: https://x.com/RickWalkerTX
Rick at Lumicre Private Equity: https://lumicre.com/
Rick’s Website: https://www.rickwalker.com

TRANSCRIPT

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

Rick Walker [00:00:12]:
If you’re looking to build a stronger bond with your daughter and help her grow into a confident, independent woman, you’re in the right place. I’m Dr. Christopher Lewis, and the dad and Daughter Connection is the podcast where we dive into real stories, expert advice, and practical tips to help you navigate the incredible journey of fatherhood. In every episode, we’ll bring you conversations that inspire, challenge, and equip you to show up as the dad your daughter needs. So let’s get started, because being a great dad isn’t just about being there. It’s about truly connecting. Welcome back to the dad and Daughter Connection. I’m so excited that you are back again this week as we walk on this path together on this journey of raising amazing daughters.

Rick Walker [00:01:03]:
And, you know, none of us have to walk on this path alone. It’s so important that we’re willing to put ourselves out there to be willing to learn and to listen and to hear the journeys of other fathers. Because as you and I both know, the journey of fatherhood is not always easy. There are challenges, there are bumps, and sometimes you can get some bruises along the way as well. But you can learn so much from other fathers and see what they’re doing, take what they’re doing, adapt it, adjust it, make it your own, and identify ways in which you can take that learning and turn it into something amazing that’ll help you to be the dad that you want to be. That’s why this podcast exists. We want to have amazing connections with our daughters, and that’s not always going to be easy. We have to learn and grow along the way.

Rick Walker [00:02:05]:
We have to better understand the journey that they’re on. And that’s why every week, every week, I love being able to have you here to be able to learn from other fathers. And that’s why I bring someone new to you every week that allows for you to do just that. This week, we’ve got another great guest.

Christopher Lewis [00:02:21]:
Who?

Rick Walker [00:02:21]:
Rick Walker is with us. Rick is the author of a upcoming book called nine steps to build a life of meaning, how to unlock your mind, happiness, power, and your enemy’s demise. And he is a renowned leader across multiple domains. He’s been a founder CEO of a 400 employee company, and he scaled that up from there. And he also scaled a 2020 team member nonprofit into 53 countries as a chairman. So he’s done a lot of stuff. But even beyond that, he is a Father of three daughters, three teenage daughters at that. And I am really excited to be able to not only talk to him about his upcoming book, but also to talk to him about his own journey as a father.

Rick Walker [00:03:08]:
Rick, thanks so much for being here today.

Christopher Lewis [00:03:10]:
Christopher, it’s joy. Looking forward to our time together.

Rick Walker [00:03:12]:
Well, I’m really excited that you’re here today. And as I, as I said, you are a father of three daughters, and I always start these conversations with an opportunity to get to know you a little bit more as a father yourself, and especially a father of a daughter. As I said, that connection that we want to build is so important. And as you think back to the moments that you’ve had thus far in your life with your three daughters, what is one of the most meaningful moments that you’ve been able to share with your daughters thus far and what made it so special?

Christopher Lewis [00:03:41]:
One of the more meaningful moments has been with my daughters whenever they would finish up that summer camp. And so we’ve always tried to make it a point of being there to pick them up from summer camp camp and drive them an hour home just to hear everything. And if you’re a dad of a teenage daughter, what you know is you get one of two things. You either get the talkative girl when she’s with her friends a lot of times, or you get the quiet one who’s too cool to talk to mom and dad. But sometimes if you haven’t seen them in a week and they’ve been through a lot and they’re all together, you can get them to talk. And so just being able to listen to them and hear their stories after camp, after not seeing them for a week or so and them also not seeing their sisters for a week, that’s always just been a joy. So we do that every year. But yeah, I do find that it’s more difficult to get them to open up.

Christopher Lewis [00:04:25]:
And those handful of times where we can get them to really open up unguarded, that’s always a very meaningful time.

Rick Walker [00:04:31]:
I said that you had three daughters, and I know they range in age from 12 to 17. And every father that has kids knows that your kids are not going to be duplicated of one another. They are very unique individuals. They have different personalities, and you have to come to understand who they are as individuals. Talk to me about, I mean, you’re a busy guy, so talk to me about how have you been able to. To really identify those unique aspects of your own daughters to. And how have you been able to make those strong connections with each of your daughters individually so that you can have that connection that you want with each one of them.

Christopher Lewis [00:05:10]:
Very early on I stumbled across the work of Dr. Meg Meeker, which I imagine you’ve probably spoken about her a number of times on your podcast and began reading some of her work. And some of the work was life changing. Just the idea that if I could find opportunities to be able to share with my daughter that I, I love them, that I’m proud of them, I believe in them, that that makes all the difference sometimes between a daughter that follows a winning path versus one that doesn’t. And so that’s always been a joy to be able to do that. And so from the time they were very young, I always encouraged them to try a number of things and we always would have them in one academic activity, one musical activity, and then one sports activity at least. And so having those three things going at the same time kept us very busy. But over the long term they eventually found one thing that they really loved or two things that they really love and it’s helped them.

Christopher Lewis [00:05:57]:
But the musical capacity we’ve always found. My wife and I were musicians, we’ve had musicians on my wife’s side of the family. I have a bachelor’s degree in music. I believe that music certainly helps children with their mathematical prowess as well as their ability to I guess, consider the imaginative aspects of the intellectual. And so we’ve made that a very strong priority in our kids upbringing. And we’ve got at least one of them that’s pretty dedicated to her music. But then the sports also, the sports help develop the social and seeing them differentiating in the sports element, my 17 year old, she’s a pre professional ballerina, so that is an art and a sport. The these girls, they’ve got more muscle mass than a lot of these high school football players do, but it’s a lot of artistry too.

Christopher Lewis [00:06:37]:
And so just trying to figure out where they are has been really impactful. And my wife and I, and then My daughter, my 12 year old, she’s the rule follower and she can do anything. She can do academics, she can do sports, she can do music, she can do anything. And so we’re excited about her, but she just has a natural gift to be able to get along with people. But trying to expose them to those three different areas from very young has given us a little bit of a glimpse of what they can and they can’t do. And they’ve been able to convince themselves that they can excel in certain areas and they can sell in certain relationships dynamics.

Rick Walker [00:07:05]:
As you’re raising your daughters, you have to find that balance of being able to guide your daughters while also giving them the independence to become who they’re becoming. Talk to me about what you’ve done to be able to do just that.

Christopher Lewis [00:07:20]:
Yeah, so it’s a trade off. And every child is different. We have one child who’s very, very independent or middle one and she’s in middle school. I wouldn’t second guess leaving town, leaving her at home for a week by herself. I’ve never done that. But I wouldn’t think twice about it because she’s just, she’s so independent. She has such high emotional intelligence and she just sort of figures stuff out. She’s reliable.

Christopher Lewis [00:07:41]:
But then we have other kids that, that they need to be engaged on a regular basis because they’re more social creatures and they just don’t do where do well in certain social environments with either a large number of people like a public high school or a small number of people. So you have to sort of find that mix there. But it’s my objective to obviously get them acclimated to a wide variety of social structures and social environment. But they’re not always to do that. Especially during these critical teenage years. You have other things emotionally and socially and even spiritually in play that us as men from what I found anyway, we just can’t relate to that. And so my wife, she had to speak a lot of wisdom into those, those interactions over the past number of years.

Rick Walker [00:08:22]:
What are some intentional ways that you’ve worked to strengthen your bond or your connection with your daughters, especially during challenging times.

Christopher Lewis [00:08:29]:
So one of the things I read very early on was that what teenage daughters will do is they’ll, they’ll tend to push the dad away. They’ll push them away at some see if he’s going to come back for her. And if the dad doesn’t come back for her, she begins to self reinforce this idea that I’ve got to go and find another man that’s going to sort of fill that void. Not basically the father void, but just some sort of masculine type of presence in their lives. And so I’ve always been one that whenever they sort of push me away, I encourage them, but then I’ll pursue them. They have to know that there’s nothing that they’re going to do that will get me to give up on them, to back down from my commitment to have a relationship with them and also to I guess not encourage them to be on a healthy path. Going forward. Obviously, we all make stupid decisions in our lives, with our lives, but there’s also some.

Christopher Lewis [00:09:14]:
There’s also something special about having at least one person in the world that really believes in. In you unconditionally. And that’s the role that I want to. I want to play. Not that I approve of every decision or every action, but I approve of the person themselves. And I believe that my daughters can be called higher into a better future than even they can imagine themselves to be in.

Rick Walker [00:09:33]:
I know that as a father, I’ve made my share of mistakes along the way, and I think every father makes some mistakes along the way. What’s a mist that you made as a father? And what did you learn about it? Not only about yourself, but about fostering positive connections and communication with your own daughters.

Christopher Lewis [00:09:51]:
For me, anyway, I failed to listen to my gut a number of times. And whenever I didn’t listen to my gut, and I thought, no, I’m just overthinking this. I’m over worrying what may or may not be happening. I made a grievous error to doing that over the years. And so what I believe is that obviously this child who is a part of me, that there is some sort of resonance there there. That whenever I suspect there’s an issue there, I feel something kind of within my bones, that there’s something that I need to address that when I don’t address it, it’s an offense to the gods, if you kind of get what I’m saying there. It’s an offense to fathers everywhere that I need. It’s my job to be proactive, not be reactive.

Christopher Lewis [00:10:27]:
And so I’ve got to be proactively engaging in these relationships. And when I’m not, that always tends to be a failure in that situation. In the long run, eventually. But love is always a sacrifice. It’s always a sacrifice. And you often will put yourself out there. You’ll make that comment, you’ll make that assertion. You’ll call that that child to do something that she doesn’t want to do.

Christopher Lewis [00:10:45]:
And it’s always fun.

Rick Walker [00:10:46]:
No, it’s not always fun. And I definitely hear you in that. What do you do intentionally to make your daughters feel valued and heard?

Christopher Lewis [00:10:54]:
So, first of all, you’ve got to give them eye contact. The only thing that I have to offer anyone in the world’s attention, that’s the only thing I have to offer. That’s the only resource in the entire world, is attention. And so if I can’t give them eye contact and understand, let Them understand that I’m hearing what they’re saying, I’m processing it and repeat it back for them, and they can correct me if I misunderstood. That is a great deal of it. The other thing is we try to do family dinners as often as possible. Obviously, we’re scattered, doing all sorts of activities, and we can’t do that every night because we’ve got everything going everywhere with sports and music and stuff. But and having a sort of a protected dinner time, protected family time around the table, that is really, really critical.

Christopher Lewis [00:11:32]:
I suspect that if a man doesn’t get his dinner table right and doesn’t get his books right and he doesn’t get his quiet time right, he can’t get his life right. Like, those are the really only three, three things that matter in your life. And so focusing on the dinner table, focus on that time together is really important. And when you can’t do that, hey, you know, I’m the chauffeur. I’m driving kiddos to practices and we’re talking. Even though they’re exhausted, I’m letting them know, hey, I saw you make this play. What if we did this next time? What is this person saying on the court? How can we encourage our team members? And then we also talk about their future? I’ve also found, I’m a big believer in Viktor Frankl’s work, that if we can get people focused on their future and what their future self would want them to do in the present, well, then that gets to open up an entire world of opportunity for these girls. And it gets them off the idea that my present is the only thing that matters.

Christopher Lewis [00:12:14]:
But, no, I’ve got a future self that has certain expectations of me now, and I have a responsibility to that future self.

Rick Walker [00:12:18]:
I mentioned at the beginning that you’re the author of an upcoming book, nine steps to build a life of meaning. How to unlock your mind, happiness, power, and your enemy’s demise. And, you know, as I was looking and reading through the book, one of the questions that came to my mind is right at the beginning, you dedicate the book to your wife and daughters. How is being a father to three girls shaped your understanding of a life of meaning?

Christopher Lewis [00:12:42]:
Pent up in the idea of meaning. And people often confuse purpose and meaning to be the same thing. Purpose is a. As a condition of meaning, oftentimes. But pent up in these ideas, you have this notion of relevance. And relevance has to do with endurance, this enduring presence that I want to leave behind to the world whenever I’m dead and Gone. And I suspect for me, the most important endurance or relevance that I’m going to leave behind to the world are these three daughters and their kids and their grandkids someday. And so if I want to live a life of meaning, I have to figure out how do I get the ideas and the beliefs that I have to endure in the long run, because only by their enduring can I have a chance that they’ll be relevant long term.

Christopher Lewis [00:13:26]:
Because I think it was Lewis that said this, and this is a common quote, you’ll see Mother’s Day some years on these cards. He said that it’s not what you do, but who you raise that makes your life matter. It’s not what you do, but who you raise that makes that makes your life matter. And I suspect most of us, that’s the state. So it’s not our jobs, it’s not these hobbies that we have. It’s not these grand podcasts that you and I host. It’s not any of this stuff. It’s our kids, and they’re sitting there.

Christopher Lewis [00:13:51]:
That’s the irony of life. The most important things are the most obvious things that you most want. And most tend to snub because they’re just so commonplace. They’re there all the time. They ignore you all the time, but those are the most important things. And our kids, man, the kids. If my kids don’t love me and I don’t love my kids, none of this other stuff matters.

Rick Walker [00:14:08]:
Also in the book, you talk about picking a worthy enemy. How does that principle show up in your parenting, especially when guiding daughters through challenges in today’s world?

Christopher Lewis [00:14:19]:
So the book is primarily written towards men that are in the midst of this meaning crisis. This is the group of men that are sort of 25 to 45, sometimes up to 50, that don’t have a worthy purpose of their lives. They don’t know what they want to do. And guys like me, coming out of the business world, we always tell people to pick a goal instead of vision, and let’s work the objectives and the tactics to get back to that. Let’s accomplish your goals. But men that don’t have a vision of what the future could possibly be, they don’t have any goals. And it’s impossible for us to tell them to go do something, to be something where they can’t even envision a world with goals. And so my argument in the book for pick one worthy enemy is that you need something that breaks your heart.

Christopher Lewis [00:14:55]:
You need something that’s worth giving your life for. Some Evil to overcome in the world. And there’s evil manifesting all around us. You look at pornhub, you look at the children that have been just taken completely advantage of on that platform. Well, a man giving up his life to go fight against that manifestation of evil, well, that’s a worthy cause because you’re protecting people, you’re protecting innocents who can’t defend themselves. So we look for worthy enemies. And that pursuit against the worthy enemies is what gives us not only the energy that we need to go out and try some stuff, because that’s the main issue, is we’re not trying. We don’t have goals, we don’t try.

Christopher Lewis [00:15:26]:
But we need the energy. And we find that cause that problem that just shatters our heart that will give us the energy. And somehow, I don’t know how it happens, but we get sort of a divine onslaught of resources to help us in that fight. We find friends that want to help us in that fight, and we can begin building coalitions and purposes. And so it starts small with our daughters. It starts on the lacrosse field, on the soccer field, it starts on the basketball court. How are we going to overcome this 10 point deficit? What are you going to call forth out of your teammates? What are you going to do on the defensive end so that you can have an offensive upset? This is the way that I’ve got to talk to my daughters. Because if I don’t give them that level of pursuit, if I don’t give that mentality that they can overcome their challenges, what kind of man are they going to marry? Look, the type of man that they’re going to be looking for without that sort of mentality is a weak, defeated man who’s used to losing.

Christopher Lewis [00:16:11]:
No, I want my daughters focused on winning, overcoming challenges, realizing that there’s failures, there’s very real failures in life, but those are overcomeable as long as you have one breath left.

Rick Walker [00:16:21]:
I know you just talked about that target audience for the book, and I’m going to say that a lot of dads, especially in that target audience, some of those dads, feel stuck either in a job that they don’t love or routines that feel, I’ll say, hollow. Based on the nine steps that you list in the book, what’s the first step that a father should take when he realizes he’s lost his sense of purpose.

Christopher Lewis [00:16:44]:
You need to take a step. You need to make a move. And that move may be trying to discover what really breaks your heart. And I hate to really simplify it like that, but. But what angers you that you see out in the world? It may be something you see in your children’s school, maybe something you see in the school district, maybe in a local church, your local synagogue. It may be something that you have around you, but it may be some sort of societal issue or some online issue. Just start working against that. And the more evil that problem is, the more divine the energy you accrue fighting against it.

Christopher Lewis [00:17:14]:
I mean, the purpose of the light is invade the darkness. The purpose of the good man is invade the evil. It’s. This is the way that the nature of the world works. If you want to be a good man, you want to be a man that has definition, purpose and pursuit and energy, you got to combat that which is not good. I mean, it’s that simple. So we’re looking around for something, and I would put a cap on it. I would say I’m going to identify something in the next two weeks.

Christopher Lewis [00:17:34]:
And Sunday night at this time, this is what I’m going on. And I’m going to give it until this happens. And you’ve got to leave it out on the field. As they told us when we were growing up, you got to give it your all. And I’m not saying you ignore your family, I’m not saying you ignore your job to do this, but you’ve got to find something that you can pick up a bit of passion out of. Just a bit of passion, just a bit of energy. And that bit of energy will give you the spark that you need, need help the other steps fall in place. But we’ve got to pick up an idea about what’s possible.

Christopher Lewis [00:18:02]:
What difference I can make? Once you have an idea about what difference you can make, you have a potential for relevance.

Rick Walker [00:18:06]:
Also in the book, you say that aiming low is the only sin. How can fathers aim higher in their everyday lives? Especially when they’re exhausted, they’re overwhelmed, or they’re just feeling like they’re trying to keep their head above water?

Christopher Lewis [00:18:20]:
The widest mind looks into the most distant future for the most valued reward that he can purchase with the currency of the present. Let me repeat that. The wisest mind. This is the wisest father. The wisest mind looks into the most distant future for the most valuable reward that he can purchase with the currency of the present. And what you have in the present is your time and your attention. And so you’ve got to figure out what in the future is worth you giving your only life for. And it’s not something that’s lower than what you have, you have kids, you’ve got daughters around you, you’ve got people that you can call forth more out of.

Christopher Lewis [00:18:51]:
You can say these difficult things. If you’re not used to talking to your daughters like this, all it takes is or three times, you have to be prepared to be uncomfortable in that, in that conversation and just blurt it out, say, hey, I believe in you, I love you, I trust you, and know that you’re going to have a commanding future. Or ask them questions like this, like, what would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail? Or think about your most perfect ideal future self? And what would that perfect future self tell you to do? Ask reflective questions about the future to your daughters. And it’s going to be uncomfortable the first three, four, five times you do it. But the more you do it, the more easier it gets and the more the relationship grows and it becomes one of trust, not just one of immediacy and putting out fires.

Rick Walker [00:19:29]:
You also say in the book, no joy requires pain. For dads who are numb, burnt out, or emotionally disconnected, how can they reconnect with that joy? Even if it hurts first, you have.

Christopher Lewis [00:19:42]:
To say the things that you least want to say. It’s that passing comment that you thought you should have said five years ago to your wife, I’m sorry for ignoring you, or your wife, I’m sorry for going to golfing with the boys, or I’m sorry for drinking so much. It’s those little things, those little steps of humility. Because what you least want to do is the thing you most need to do next. What you least want to do right now is the thing that you most need to do next. And it is that immediate pain of doing the thing that you’ve been putting off, the thing that your, your mind and your comfort have been enslaving you to preserve. It’s that thing that’s keeping you from your future. That’s what.

Christopher Lewis [00:20:18]:
That’s what it is. And it’s that pain. If you can get rid of that pain and comfort is the number one pain, one or one thing that pain is protecting or that your comfort’s protecting, it’s protecting you against pain. If you can burst through that, then you’ve got a little bit of a glimmer of joy. But as long as you don’t do the things you know you should be doing, your life is a lie. And so we’ve got to say the things we know we’re expected to say the same things we’ve been talking about the last few Minutes, the encouragements, the love, the support, the belief in. I’m proud of you. Tell your wife she looks beautiful.

Christopher Lewis [00:20:47]:
I mean, I don’t care how crappy your marriage is. Tell her she looks lovely. Tell her that she is. Is the most amazing, whether she is or not. And you’re proud and you’re honored to be in this with her. I mean, say the most difficult thing. The worse your marriage is, the more you need to say it and the more you need to. To live like you mean it.

Christopher Lewis [00:21:04]:
Whether you mean it or not is irrelevant at this point. We’ve got to say those important things that we’ve been holding back, because that is only the way that we can burst through the pain, burst through the comfort to get to joy on the other side.

Rick Walker [00:21:14]:
So really, you know what I’m hearing, and I saw this in the book too, that you’re talking about in some aspects that you have to make some sacrifices. And many men afraid in many ways to take that leap, leaping into something new, something that. That makes them sacrifice. The things that they feel are. Are the things that make them who they are, whether it’s time or money or ego or whatever it might be. What does your book teach? Or what would you say to that person about embracing sacrifice as a path to meaning?

Christopher Lewis [00:21:46]:
No one ever knows that you love them unless you sacrifice something to be with them. If I’m going to give my daughter her attention, that means I’m sacrificing the rest of the world for her. Everything else is a sacrifice to what I’m giving my attention to. And that’s why attention connotates meaning. It means meaning. And that’s what we’ve got to do. There’s also sacrifices. Of the things that are useless in your life, you’re doing a hundred useless things that have no upside whatsoever.

Christopher Lewis [00:22:11]:
I can think about the golf with the buddies. I can think, for a lot of men, the drinking. Like, why are you going out and drinking two or three times a week? It has no upside. It only has catastrophic downside. Some of this stuff is just the most foolish thing you can imagine. Look, if you’re taking an infinite downside risk for zero upside payout, that’s kind of a foolish thing to do. That’s a great thing to sacrifice and replace it with the thing you most need to do. And that what that thing you most need to do is give attention to someone who is committed to you and you’re committed to and develop that relationship because all you have left after you die is your relationships.

Christopher Lewis [00:22:43]:
That’s all that you have. And so what we’ve got to do is try to figure out what are we sacrificing? Because you’ve already sacrificed your past. All your prior moments have been sacrificed to your present. This is all you’ve got. And all you’re going to do is sacrifice a series of presences to be able to dictate and determine what your future is. And so we’ve got to realize we’re living a life of sacrifice, whether you realize it or not. And what we sacrifice determines what we love, and what we love determines how relevant and how meaningful our lives will be. But everything worth keeping is worth sacrificing.

Christopher Lewis [00:23:13]:
Nothing not worth keeping is worthy of offering everything you value is worthy of sacrificing to someone that is higher, to a future that’s more distant and a reward that is better. Because anything you have now is always worth sacrificing for those relationships and the future that you want to see happen.

Rick Walker [00:23:33]:
So inevitably, there’s probably some dads that are listening right now that are feeling like they have failed. They failed in some aspect of their life. And whether it was at home or at work or with themselves. What would you tell him about redemption and legacy and starting again with meaning?

Christopher Lewis [00:23:54]:
I failed a lot. In fact, whenever I try something new, I’m assuming I’m going to fail 99 times before it works. Once, I failed a lot. And this book is a story of my failures. Where I’ve. I’ve been devastated on national news, where I’ve had my love with my wife just completely shattered, where I’ve had all these failures. I had a surgery that went bad and just distorted my mind for many, many years. And I had all these things.

Christopher Lewis [00:24:18]:
Things fail and just stupid things that I’ve done, just failure after failure. But what I’ve realized is the people that failed, those are the ones whose lives are actually interesting in the end. Those are the lives that have the potential to be redeemed out of this sort of muddy mire that they’ve been stuck in. And the redeemed man, in a world that’s interested in stories, a redeemed man is more perfect than a man who’s never needed to be redeemed. Because what we’re saying is that a man who’s lived a beautiful life and redemption is a beautiful act that if you’re focused on telling a beautiful story with your. That redemption is the ultimate type of beauty and the ultimate type of story that you can tell with your life. And so the worse the man the higher the upside. It’s not about the man who’s always been good.

Christopher Lewis [00:24:59]:
He got a little bit better. That’s an interesting. That’s not a story that anyone wants to hear. What I want to hear is about a man that’s been in the depths of hell, that’s made all the mistakes you could ever imagine, and he’s bounced back from that. It’s about the delta between your lowest point, your highest point, and where you in. And that delta is what matter. It’s the contrast from where you were to where you’re going, not the contrast of how good you are. And that little mediocre change that you made when you.

Christopher Lewis [00:25:25]:
When you did this or did that. It’s not about that. And so what life is. Life is just a string of failures with the occasional moment of perfection. It’s just a string of failures with just an occasional moment of perfection. And however many moments of these of perfection that you can. You can get together in a life, that’s what makes a life of relevance and a life of beauty and a story that people want to hear. And so for the men out there that have just been down on themselves, that have just made mistake after mistake, that just don’t know how they’re to come overcome it, and they just assume everything’s lost, I can tell you that I understand where you’ve been.

Christopher Lewis [00:25:59]:
I’ve made the catastrophic mistakes that many of you have made. And I can tell you there’s hope. And let me convince you with this. I’m going to convince you literally that there’s hope for you. That if a drop of hope exists, exists anywhere, it threatens all hopelessness everywhere. If a drop of hope exists anywhere in the world, it threatens all hopelessness everywhere. So my drop of hope that I have, I don’t have a lot of hope. I’ve got a little of a drop of hope right now.

Christopher Lewis [00:26:23]:
My drop of hope is now threatening your hopelessness right now. And you have a choice whether or not you’re going to allow my hope to invade your hopelessness, whether you’re going allowed my light to invade your darkness, that thing that you’re trying to protect, that comfort that’s enslaving your potential, and if you will allow my hope to invade the comfort now enslaving your potential, it’ll be ripped away. It’ll be ripped away. And you’ll be able to see that there’s a future and there’s a hope, but you could never get there unless you believe hope is possible. You believe a Future is possible unless you believe that there is beauty rising out of the act of redemption. The man that turns himself around is more beautiful than the man that was always headed the right direction. That’s not the story I want to hear. I want to hear story about a man that always had it together.

Christopher Lewis [00:27:03]:
I want to hear about a man who confronts evil with good. I want to hear about a man who finds meaning out of meaninglessness. I want to figure out a way to hear a story about a man who takes his pain and inverts it to joy. That’s what a real story is about. And if you want your kids and your grandkids to talk about you, that’s the sort of life that you need to live.

Rick Walker [00:27:21]:
So talk to me about how you have taken these nine concepts, these nine pieces from your book and how are you incorporating them into how you’re raising your daughters.

Christopher Lewis [00:27:31]:
They have to understand, and this is something, this is a job of me as a dad, is that we’re going to have pain. We’re going to have pain in our lives, we’re going to pain in relationships and tragedy, we’re going to pain the sicknesses. But a painless world would only birth joyless lives. A painless world would only birth joyless lives. And so if I can encourage them to look at that spread, to look at that spread between pain and joy, that the broader that is, the higher the joy is, then they can see that there’s hope for them even in their downfall, even in their tragedy, even in these, these moments that teenage girls just assume, which is the worst thing, and it’s unsalvageable. They have to understand that there’s a mechanism that, where they can be able to tell more beautiful, more lovely story with their lives. And these are lessons that they’re going to teach their own kids, their own grandkids one day. These are all just learning opportunities for them and even for us.

Christopher Lewis [00:28:19]:
But I’ve got to convince my kids, and you’ve got to convince your kids as well, the listeners do, that there is hope on the other side of pain. And the way that we get, we, we get there is we got to convince ourselves and we got to convince our kids that whenever we see a threat, there’s always an opportunity on the other side. In fact, that’s what defines a wise person. Not only that they look in the most distant future for the most maximal reward, but that they see threats and they figure out a way to turn them into opportunity. And so if we realize that every threat we see is an opportunity. Every pain is a potential joy. And we’re able to ingrain that in our mind. Then we begin to see that there’s hope on the other side of the darkness.

Rick Walker [00:28:55]:
Now, if your daughters were to describe you using one of the nine steps from your book, which step would they say that you live out the most? And which one would they say you’re still working on?

Christopher Lewis [00:29:07]:
They know dad can be just absolutely brutal with someone who tries to come after one of my kids or someone that I love. The the first rule, pick one worthy enemy. They know that dad can just be utterly savage if he needs to be. Obviously you never turn that aggression in where that’s for protecting your inner circle, those you love from the exterior. But one of the difficulties in that I found is that we have to set forth the difference between an enemy and a counterparty. A counterparty is not an enemy. A counterparty is someone that you’re negotiating with. You’ll be able to operate in a good faith effort to be able to find a winnable outcome for both parties as much as possible.

Christopher Lewis [00:29:44]:
But an enemy, you don’t negotiate with enemies, you destroy enemies. And so I think, I think if my kids had to say one thing, they know that dad loves a good fight, but it’s got to be worthy enemy. It’s not just a counterparty.

Rick Walker [00:29:56]:
You’ve also, you’ve advised presidents, you’ve led nonprofits across the 50 states and countries. And yet you also do ballet drop offs and milkshake runs and other things that a dad would do. What’s the most unexpected place you found wisdom about being a dad?

Christopher Lewis [00:30:12]:
I found this book about daddy daughter dates. I forgot who wrote the book, but it was like 100 daddy daughter date ideas. And I kept this book on one of my tables in my office for years. I would pick it up and thumb through it maybe once a week and try to find an idea. When the kids were young and they had this, this one date idea where you would leave the house and your daughter would have a quarter and she would flip a quarter. If it’s heads, you turn right tells you turn left and you’d side in advance how many flips you would do. So you would do eight, nine, ten flips. Well, you can be a long way from your house if you’re doing 10 flips.

Christopher Lewis [00:30:40]:
But the rule is you have to eat dinner together at the nearest place that serves food. And oftentimes it’s a gas station. It’s just a gas station. And so this idea that you can have Fun would just complete and utter nonsense sense. That’s something that has been useful in the past. It is still useful today that we can just do stuff, just to do stuff, just because we’re goofing around together. And that’s been something because I’m not naturally a playful person and that’s helped me let the guard down, hear from my daughters about what’s really going on in their lives, what’s what they’re saying. And obviously we don’t get to do that as much as we used to back in the old days with all the activities and stuff.

Christopher Lewis [00:31:15]:
But it takes, it takes different forms. Takes different forms. Listen to silly music, watching silly videos together in these milkshake runs. These milkshake runs are fantastic. If you, if you’ve never been do a chick fil a after, let’s say 7:30 any night of the week. It’s an entirely milkshake business. It’s milkshake and fries after 7:30. And there will be a run on the milkshake machine.

Christopher Lewis [00:31:33]:
You’ll find 20 cars lined up and everyone’s getting milkshakes. And that’s part of the deal. So you got to figure out a way how to have these little routines, these little rituals in with the family, wherever you can fit them. And that’s been one of the useful things, these daddy daughter days and sort of these playful times of just complete, utter nonsense.

Rick Walker [00:31:47]:
Now we always finish our interviews with what I like to call the dad connection. 66 more questions to delve into you as a dad. Are you ready?

Christopher Lewis [00:31:55]:
Yeah.

Rick Walker [00:31:55]:
What’s one word that describes your relationship with your daughters?

Christopher Lewis [00:32:00]:
Productive.

Rick Walker [00:32:01]:
What’s the best piece of dad advice that you’ve ever received?

Christopher Lewis [00:32:05]:
Tell them you’re proud of them every day.

Rick Walker [00:32:07]:
What’s one activity that you and your daughters love doing together? Going to eat Mexican food and then getting shakes afterwards.

Christopher Lewis [00:32:14]:
Oh, absolutely. You got to get a shake afterwards. Yeah.

Rick Walker [00:32:16]:
Now, if you could give your daughters one life lesson in a single sentence, what would you leave with them?

Christopher Lewis [00:32:22]:
Avoiding an ounce of pain. You will drink a gallon of regret.

Rick Walker [00:32:26]:
What’s one thing you’ve learned about yourself since becoming a dad?

Christopher Lewis [00:32:30]:
That if I want my daughters to marry someone who I believe is worthy, I’ve got to be prepared to act like that most worthy example for them. Because they’re not going to marry someone that’s too far away from how good or how bad a father I want.

Rick Walker [00:32:47]:
Now, you’ve given a lot of pieces of advice today, a lot of ideas for men for fathers to think about and to incorporate into their own lives. As we finish up today, what advice would you give to other dads who want to build a lasting and meaningful relationship with their daughters?

Christopher Lewis [00:33:03]:
Tell them the things that they need to hear and make it every day and make it uncomfortable to hear. Sometimes it’ll sound like routine. But if you let them know, I’m proud of you, I believe in you. You’re awesome. I love you. If you haven’t told your daughter I love you, some other man will. But he won’t mean it. And he’ll tell it for a different reason that you won’t like.

Christopher Lewis [00:33:21]:
So tell your daughters that you love them. Tell them that you’re proud of them. Tell them that you believe in them. They need to hear those three things from you every single day. And if we can give them those ideas that they’re loved, they’re believed in, and there’s someone out there that’s proud of them. Oh, and he just happens to be the only man who they were born in the world to be in relationship with for as long as he lives. Well, that’s just a side benefit, but we’ve got to get our daughters used to hearing and believing the things that will uphold them going forward and the things that confirm their identity in such a secularizing culture that we live in now.

Rick Walker [00:33:56]:
Well, Rick, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for all that you’ve been sharing today. If people want to find out more about you about the book, where should they go?

Christopher Lewis [00:34:03]:
So my website is rickwalker.com rickwalker.com and I send out a newsletter about every one or two weeks is a three, two one model. So you get three bangers. So these quotes that I’ve been dropping, you get three of those, I call them bangers. And then I’ll give you two videos. So one will be teaching for the most part, another one will be an interview and then the third thing I’ll give you is either an essay or some reflective questions to think about. So either a long form essay or reflective question. These are big idea essays or big idea thoughts. Those are the best things.

Christopher Lewis [00:34:31]:
The book is available beginning July 5, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Walmart, anywhere you buy your book books and you can actually pre order it right now. So Kindle ebook. I just wrapped up the audiobook yesterday so that’ll be available for pre order as well and hardback and paperback.

Rick Walker [00:34:46]:
And I will put links in the notes today so you can check out this book for yourself. And Rick, again, thank you, thank you for all that you’ve shared today for what you’re putting out into the world to help other men to be able to live that life of meaning that we’ve been talking about. And I truly wish you all the best.

Christopher Lewis [00:35:04]:
Christopher, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed our time together. That’s a wrap for this episode of the dad and Daughter Connection. Thanks for joining us on this journey to build stronger bonds and raise confident, independent daughters. Remember, being an engaged dad isn’t about being perfect, it’s about being present. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and share it with a fellow dad. And don’t forget, you can find all our episodes@dad dadanddaughterconnection.com until next time, keep showing up, keep connecting, and keep being the dad she needs. We’re all in the same boat and it’s full of tiny screaming passengers we.

Rick Walker [00:35:49]:
Spend the time we give the lessons.

Christopher Lewis [00:35:55]:
We made make the meals we buy them presents and bring your A game Cause those kids are growing fast the time goes by just like a dynamite blast Calling astronauts and firemen Carpenters and muscle men get out and be the world to them Be the best dinosaur you can be Be the best dad you can.

Connection Before Correction: Building Strong Parent-Child Bonds with Eran Magen

July 14, 2025 by dadofdivas

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Parenting is a continual journey, one that evolves as our children grow and as we, too, learn new ways to connect with them. This week on the “Dad and Daughter Connection” podcast, Dr. Christopher Lewis sits down with Dr. Eran Magen—father, relationship expert, and creator of the Parenting for Humans and Divorcing Dads resources—for a heartfelt and refreshingly honest conversation about fatherhood, connection, and resilience.

Presence Over Perfection

One of the central themes of the episode is the power of presence. Eran shares that being fully present—and putting away distractions, especially digital ones—lays the groundwork for genuine connection. Whether through playful activities like acro yoga or watching a favorite show together, the focus isn’t on orchestrating perfect moments, but on truly showing up for our kids, time and time again.

Respect and Emotional Safety

Eran emphasizes treating children with deep respect, validating their feelings, and giving them true space to express themselves. Instead of rushing to fix problems or dismissing their emotions, he advocates for really listening—even paraphrasing back what they’ve shared—to make sure they feel heard and understood. This builds not only trust but helps children develop a positive, self-compassionate inner voice that stays with them for life.

Connection Before Correction

Drawing from his work at ParentingForHumans.com, Eran introduces the concept of prioritizing connection over correction. When the bond between parent and child is strong, discipline becomes less about control and more about collaboration. It’s about building relational habits—like kindness, presence, and respect—into everyday life, so that challenges are easier to navigate when they arise.

Navigating Divorce and Co-Parenting

For fathers navigating separation or divorce, Eran offers wisdom and hope. He urges dads not to let shame or fear of disconnection hold them back from seeking support, or from fighting for meaningful time with their children. Even in limited circumstances, quality of presence trumps quantity—being truly engaged makes all the difference.

If you’re finding yourself in this position, then don’t agree to any schedule immediately. Instead, go to a divorce lawyer to learn more about what’s reasonable in your specific situation. In many cases, they’ll be able to provide in-depth guidance and even negotiate with other parties on your behalf. Understanding where you stand early on and your co-parenting situation keeps the focus where you want it: on spending time with your kids instead of arguing with your ex.

Whether you’re a dad seeking fresh ideas, a parent amid big transitions, or simply someone passionate about fostering strong family relationships, this episode is an inspiring listen. Tune in for practical tips, honest stories, and compassionate advice that will help you nurture lasting bonds—one present moment at a time.

Ready to be inspired? Listen now to the full conversation on the “Dad and Daughter Connection” podcast!

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

TRANSCRIPT

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

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:05]:
Welcome back to the dad and Daughter Connection, where every week I love being able to talk to you about this connection that you want to build with your daughters. And we do that every week because it is a process. This journey that you’re on is going to be one where you’re going to have to learn, you’re going to have to grow, you’re going to have to be willing to be open to finding new ways to build that relationship day by day. Because as your daughter grows, you can’t just think that one way of doing things is going to happen and stay the same. You got to keep adjusting and being there, being engaged and helping your daughter one step at a time and being engaged and connected to your daughter in so many ways throughout their life. That being said, that’s why every week I bring you different guests, different people with different experiences to help you along this journey, to give you some tools for your toolbox and to allow for you the opportunity to learn and grow, to be able to find new ways to build those stronger connections and to leave every episode with an opportunity to be able to start something new from the end of that episode on. This week we got another great guest. Dr.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:28]:
Aran McGinn is with us today. And Aron is someone that, as he says, he believes in relationships, believes in people and helps people to have better relationships. Perfect fit for you as a dad with a daughter. He’s also a father of a son, so we’re going to be talking about his own journey being a father. He’s been working with individuals for quite a few years and most recently he’s been created two new resources that are definitely going to help you as a dad. He has a site by the name of Parenting for Humans as well as divorcingdads.org we’re going to talk about both of these resources and some things that may help you along the way, depending on your own situation and where you’re at. And I’m really excited to have him here today. Aron, thanks so much for being here.

Eran Magen [00:02:18]:
My great pleasure. Thank you for inviting me on.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:21]:
Well, it is my pleasure having you here. And as I said, you are a father of a son and I am really excited to be able to delve a little bit into you as a dad to get to know you and your own journey. I guess as you think back to the time that you’ve had with your son thus far, what’s one of the most meaningful moments that you’ve been able to share with him and what made it so special?

Eran Magen [00:02:41]:
I’m glad you want to talk about my son, because it’s my favorite topic. And, you know, if we don’t watch ourselves, we’re going to have the podcast equivalent of me showing you every photo of my son except an audio version that I have. I’m. I’m one of those people. There are a lot of good moments. The most recent, I’ll go with the most recent that, like, stood out to me, which was really fun. And then I’m happy to scan backwards, if you want, and come up with even better ones. I do a thing called acro yoga, and Acroyoga has very little to do with yoga and more to do.

Eran Magen [00:03:04]:
Like, sometimes people call it partner acrobatics. It’s when. When people balance on each other. And a lot of parents do this with their kids, right? The parent lies down on his or her back, and the kid is on the parent’s feet, sort of belly down, arms forward, Superman, right? Like, we. We all do this with our kids, but it gets much more sophisticated, and you can do many more interesting things. People can sit on other people or stand on other people or flip around on other people and so on. And you can do it with grownups, and you can do it with kids, obviously. And it’s easier with kids because they’re little, alert.

Eran Magen [00:03:31]:
And so this is something that I’ve been doing with my son since he was little, and we do it a little bit. I kind of wish he was super into it and he’s kind of into it, but he’s the most into it when he can show off to other people, when it’s just the two of us. He’s like, I don’t know if I need to do it right now. But we were playing soccer in his school after I picked him up, and we’re playing with another kid that often plays with us there. And then my son went off and did something else. And in the meantime, I was doing some acro yoga with this other kid, introducing him to it, and his mom, who was there and consented to the whole thing. And my son ran back and really wanted to do some acro to show the other kid that he knows more. That was very motivating for him.

Eran Magen [00:04:06]:
And then we did, and it was fun. But then the next day we came out, and it was sort of the first day of spring here in Connecticut, and we. We just stepped out to the yard, and out of nowhere, my son says, dad, do you want to do some acro yoga? Do you want to practice? And my heart just Expanded. It was just so nice because he, he, you know, I didn’t suggest it, I never mentioned it, but it was sort of back on his mind. And it’s just so nice to feel like our kids are into things that we’re into and they want to spend time together doing those things. That was a really fun moment, but they’re just thousands of these stories. This is the most recent. I keep a spreadsheet that I made when he was born.

Eran Magen [00:04:36]:
When he was born, I did two things. I created an email inbox for him, which I occasionally write to things that I can’t say now that he wouldn’t understand. So I write stuff that I want to tell him, letters for later, and I’ll give him the login credentials when he’s. Or 18 or something. And the other thing I did is start this spreadsheet called Milestones and Memories and First Times. And I just sit down and write stuff that happened every once in a while. So I have like this long list that I can go through and see the things that were exciting for me. When he was 2, when he was 4, when he was 6.

Eran Magen [00:05:04]:
It’s really fun. And this is one of those moments.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:05:06]:
As your son is getting older and you are trying to guide him and work to be able to mold and meld him into the adult that he is becoming, how do you balance guiding your son while also giving him the independence to grow into his own person?

Eran Magen [00:05:23]:
I think my job is mostly to provide kind of safety and nourishment and let him grow where he grows. I’m not trying too hard to move him one way or another. I’m vegan, for example. I don’t insist on him being vegan. Not my job, not his problem. I keep my home vegan because it’s more comfortable for me. But if he really wants to bring something into that, we’re in the supermarket and we’ll buy stuff and he really wants to get something that isn’t, that’s fine. Then we will.

Eran Magen [00:05:47]:
Certainly, if we’re out in the world and he wants to get something or word a party and he wants to eat a thing, everybody eating totally fine. And so I’m not trying exactly to mold him into anything. I’m trying to provide good supports for him as he grows into things. There’s a little bit of a gray line, right? Because if I see him kind of starting to spin out about something, be really anxious about something in a way that I think is not necessary, I’ll try to help him figure out ways to not be upset about it. And so is that molding? I sometimes ask myself. Yeah, but it feels very kind of benevolent and not coercive. You know, this. This feels more like me removing roadblocks than forcing him to go down a specific path.

Eran Magen [00:06:24]:
And so I really think there are many ways to describe the job of parent, and many people have lots of ideas about what those jobs are. I think they’re probably all true. I think one of the most important parts of being a parent, one of the most important jobs, is creating the voice that kids have inside their head, how they talk to themselves, because that voice will stay on for many, many years. And changing that voice requires a huge amount of therapy. And so that, to me, is a very, very important part of what I think about as a parent. How I hear him talking to himself and helping him adjust that voice. I’m not trying to tell that voice what to tell him to do. Right.

Eran Magen [00:06:56]:
It’s more how he relates to himself. So in a real sense, one of my primary jobs is making sure he has a good relationship with himself. What he grows up to be is up to him.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:07:04]:
What are some intentional ways you’ve worked to strengthen your bond with your son, especially during challenging times?

Eran Magen [00:07:11]:
I would divide the ways into two big categories. I think one is just helpful habits, and the other is maybe specific events or specific things in time. The most important habit by far is bringing my full presence. Right. My phone is away. My phone is often on do not disturb. It’s 100% focus on him when I’m with him. And I think that makes an enormous difference.

Eran Magen [00:07:31]:
He’s not orbiting. We do stuff together. And when we’re not doing stuff together, then we’re not. Then we’re doing stuff separately. But if we are connecting, I’m fully there. I’m not splitting my attention. And I think that’s enormously important. The other thing that I do, I don’t want to make it sound like I am the first person to do this or the first to have thought about it, but I just think it’s so important, is I communicate with him with great respect.

Eran Magen [00:07:55]:
I treat him as a person, not as a soldier or a servant or an ignorant person or any of those things. If he has a question or if he has a thought, we really discuss it for as long as he wants to, basically. And when I see that he’s starting to look in different directions and is getting antsy, then we’ll go do something else. Like, we don’t have to belabor the point, but really taking Very seriously. His thoughts, his questions, his ideas, his opinions, they really count. So these are all things that I would put in the relational habits bucket in terms of the, like, more specific things that I do to strengthen the bond. We really do a lot of this stuff together. So for example, videos, YouTube, you know, or shows on Netflix or whatever, we watch those things together and we’ll talk about them.

Eran Magen [00:08:37]:
It’s a big part of what we talk about later. And I think it’s helpful to help him process and understand what he saw and what his opinion is and whatever. But I don’t just like send him off to watch a thing and then we do our next thing. A lot of this kind of activity is something that, that we’ll do together and it creates a huge amount of shared language and shared jokes and shared things. We also do just a lot of activities together. I’m into a lot of stuff and I’ll offer these things to him and if it’s of interest to him, then we’ll do it and we’ll go, you know, ice skating or practice proto jiu jitsu on the carpet or cook together or whatever, whatever it is. But a lot of time and a lot of shared activities. So I think this combination of doing lots of stuff that we both enjoy together and being very respectful of his preferences and opinions and thoughts and questions and ideas, and interacting him as though he’s an actual person and not less of a person than I am.

Eran Magen [00:09:26]:
These are probably the main columns supporting the relationship.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:09:29]:
What’s a mistake that you’ve made as a father and what did you learn from it about fostering a positive connection?

Eran Magen [00:09:37]:
There are a couple of things. I remember where I noticed my son having difficulties with some things. And I thought, ah, the world will correct this. I don’t need to step in. And that’s sort of a, I don’t know, call it like a general tendency that I have. I guess in some contexts it’s good, in some contexts it’s bad but. Or helpful and unhelpful rather. I guess.

Eran Magen [00:09:53]:
But I tend to wait until stepping in and intervening with something and often that’s a good thing. Like, you know, a lot of parents are really worried about their kids still using a pacifier when they’re X months old or. And I’ve never seen a kid in college with a pacifier in his mouth. You know, like these things tend to work themselves out, but people can get super worried. And so I’m usually of the opinion that like the world will fix this. We just give it time and this will work out. But there are some things where he really had difficulty, and I waited too long to step in and do what I would consider a more significant intervention. Right.

Eran Magen [00:10:27]:
Like some kinds of. I want to be mindful of my son’s privacy as well, because in 60 years, when he chooses to do something, or in 40 years or 20 years, you know, somebody digs up, the podcast says, oh, you used to do this thing. So I’m actually. I’m very mindful of the privacy of kids in sessions that I do, including, I guess, when I’m interviewed. This is the first time that I’m talking about this. But he had some social challenges that he was going through and were noticeable to me. And I thought, oh, the world will polish this off. This will be okay.

Eran Magen [00:10:53]:
And I think it was like, it. It required some sort of a more thoughtful, intentional intervention that eventually the school recommended, and then we did. And I think it’s been very helpful and not. Not too hard. We didn’t catch it super late. Like, no crisis resulted, but I could have done it earlier. I felt sad for not doing it, because it just would have made, I think, life a little easier for him during those, I don’t know, two, three years. And now there’s something that there’s a pathway that got laid down that was not the most helpful.

Eran Magen [00:11:20]:
And changing something and undoing something is always harder than it is just correcting course earlier on. So I don’t know if this is exactly answering your question in terms of, like, a relational mistake, but this is a parenting mistake that I feel that I made and learned from.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:11:33]:
No, it definitely does. And I think that, I mean, learning that is definitely something that all of us have to do along the way as well. Is there anything that you intentionally do to make your son feel valued and heard?

Eran Magen [00:11:45]:
There are a few things that I do. And really, a lot of how I relate to my son is in service of making him feel valued and heard. And so I’m trying to pick out the more specific things that I do because a lot of this is on my mind, kind of ongoing. How do I make sure that he feels like he has a voice? And so a few things that I can say when he’s upset about something. I remember this when he was two, and I remember this two weeks ago when he was seven and a half. I don’t shut down the upset. I spend some time, a good deal of time, letting him express the upset, and I’m still comforting him during the process. But I don’t say it’s not a problem.

Eran Magen [00:12:19]:
I don’t say, you know, stop crying. I don’t say, you know, I ask him to explain what happened and what was so upsetting. And I’ll kind of sit in it with him and I’ll paraphrase and say it back and so on. But I’m not trying to shut it down or fix it too quickly. And I think that’s really important because I’ve seen him develop this habit of as a result, I believe, of when something upsetting or surprising or scary happens, he’ll have the reaction, but then he’ll narrate the process back to me and sort of calm himself down as he more or less immediately gains an understanding of this story and what made him upset. I think that’s been really useful. But I think just in general, it’s a nice thing for people to do with one another, right? Not shut down the upset, but rather sit with it for a little bit and sit in it together. His opinions really matter.

Eran Magen [00:12:57]:
If he suggests things that didn’t occur to me, I’ll consider them really seriously. He’s at this point, he’s suggested some ideas for not just ways to spend a day, but like a vacation destination or a totally new activity that we’ve never done that he just heard about from a friend, and that becomes a real thing. We’ll research it together a little bit, and if it seems appealing, we’ll go and give it a try. So he really gets to to lead when he wants to, or at least suggest directions, and then I’ll operationalize it. But he has a real voice and a real say in how we spend time individually and as a family.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:13:30]:
Now, I mentioned at the beginning that you have a few different resources that are available. You have your parentingforhumans.com website as well as divorcingdads.org and both of those were created not only to help others like yourself that were going through similar things, but also in your work and your engagement with people and seeing the need. You expanded that. And there are a couple of questions that came up when I looked at both of these sites. And I think first and foremost, when I was looking@parentingforhumans.com, your site emphasizes connection before correction. Can you explain what that means and why it’s so crucial for parents, especially fathers?

Eran Magen [00:14:12]:
It’s my strong belief and also my consistent observation that when the relationship between a parent and a child is good, everything is easy. There’s just not the constant conflict. There’s not the badgering. Do this now, like I told you a thousand times, things are just easy and smooth. And when people have a stronger relationship, then there’s more trust and there’s more willingness to be vulnerable and honest on both sides. And there’s more forgiveness and there’s more cooperation. And so spending time just laying the foundations and having a good relationship just preempts and prevents all these negative things that then need to get corrected. It’s sort of like living a life and eating well and doing a reasonable amount of exercise and sleeping enough, socializing and having enough fun, and then you just have to deal with a lot less, fixing medical problems.

Eran Magen [00:14:57]:
Right. They just tend to happen. And I think it’s very much like that in relationships too. Just spending time building a strong relationship rather than relying on occasional forceful corrections which leave everybody, I think, unhappy, basically. And for a lot of people growing up, the role of the dad is often as the disciplinarian. At least that’s the caricature. I’m not totally sure that that’s always true or even true the majority of the time. I know a lot of soft dads, and I know a lot of harsh moms, and I know a lot of harsh dads and a lot of soft moms.

Eran Magen [00:15:26]:
But I do think that a lot of men, certainly from the past three generations, grew up not being taught how to show affection in a soft way and how to connect in a way that feels warm and comfortable and consistent, as opposed to occasionally dropping in and doing some big gesture, but in the meantime being sort of cold or reserved or stoic. And when you don’t have a strong relationship, inevitably things start, start sliding and then you need big corrections to happen, which I think damage the relationship further. So I’m a big, big believer of creating that foundation of just a strong relationship through good daily, call it relational hygiene, just developing good relational habits. Things that we do without thinking over the course of the day as, as a habit that we, we adopt. And through that, strengthening the relationship constantly.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:16:13]:
Now, many parents want to be more supportive, but fall into that problem solving mode. How can dads become better listeners and emotionally attuned to their kids?

Eran Magen [00:16:23]:
There’s one technique that I think is magic and keeps us safe. It keeps us from making these kinds of relational mistakes. And the technique is not only magic, but also super simple, which is what’s so nice about it, which is paraphrasing. Learn to say back what the other person said to you. And the, the thought behind it is the thought we want to have behind it when we’re paraphrasing. Is, am I understanding your experience correctly? Just that, right? So our kids come in, our kid comes in and looking, you know, unhappy. And we say, what’s going on? And kid is in a sharing mood that day. And she says, oh, my friend Jessica is being a pain at school.

Eran Magen [00:16:59]:
And so to be able to say in our heads, huh, let’s see if I understand correctly my kid’s experience and saying, so Jessica is being mean to you because that’s what we understood. And then our kid might say, no, no, she’s not being mean to me. She’s being super nice to me. But I know that behind my back she, blah, blah, whether we get it right or we get it wrong, it doesn’t matter. Just putting herself in a position and in kind of a mental stance of trying to understand our child, child. And all we need to do is say back what we heard. We don’t need to interrogate, we certainly don’t need to diagnose, definitely not give advice. Just getting in the habit of when our kid looks upset to just once, just for one turn, try to paraphrase, try to say back what we understood.

Eran Magen [00:17:40]:
And seeing what happens. And very often they will share more and more. And it’s kind of amazing because parents often feel like their kids, once they hit a certain age, will not share with them anymore. But if we’re not trying to shape their experience, they want to be heard, right? And as we build trust with them, they share more and more. So if I could suggest one single thing, which I think is what you, you were asking me to do, I would say try paraphrasing once as the first thing you do in a conversation and see what happens. And then if you can, keep on paraphrasing as they continue talking.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:07]:
Now, you also talk about emotional safety and parent child relationships. What are some simple everyday ways fathers can do that?

Eran Magen [00:18:15]:
So I’ll continue a little bit from my previous answer and then I’ll give a couple of other things. The huge power of paraphrasing comes not just from having the child correct you yes or no, but we’re showing so much when we’re trying to check if we understand the child’s experience right. We’re showing that we want to know. We’re showing that we’re not judging and we’re not taking charge of the conversation. We’re letting the child lead. We’re showing that we’re curious about the child’s experience and validated. There’s just so much power there. And we do all this pretty Implicitly, through the process of paraphrasing.

Eran Magen [00:18:44]:
I think also doing it explicitly is very, very important. So a lot of us grew up not seeing examples of. Well, some of us just grew up without having people around us saying, I love you or I care about you or any of those things. And then we feel awkward saying them ourselves to other people. And likewise, maybe we never saw examples of people saying something like, your happiness is the most important thing for me, or I really care about how you feel, and I want to know what. What could make things better for you, in your opinion or any. Any of those things. And I think that the assumption of telepathy, or the hope of telepathy, silent relationship killer, including between parents and kids.

Eran Magen [00:19:22]:
Right? Because we know parents occasionally will say in anger, everything I do, I do for you. How could you possibly think that I don’t care? And usually when it’s done in anger, it happens because it’s. It’s too late into the process. And the kid really didn’t understand. The kid really didn’t see it. And being able to verbalize it earlier is so important. So I think getting into the habit of telling our kids, not in anger, but in great warmth and happiness to say, I’m so happy to see you happy. Let’s say something good happened.

Eran Magen [00:19:48]:
Our kid, you know, did something that our kid feels good about. And to say, this is awesome. I’m so glad to see you so happy. You know, I love seeing you happy like this. Like, just remembering to say these things rather than just say, good job, you know, punch in the shoulder, move on with our day. It’s so important to verbalize it. And when our kid is upset to say, I can see you’re upset, you know, and I really want to help you solve it. Or if our kid says, I really want to get into band at school.

Eran Magen [00:20:11]:
And then two days later, we realized that it would be a good idea for a kid to spend more time practicing the oboe or. Or whatever it is using to get into band. And to say, not just, I think you should be practicing your oboe. Like, if you want to get into band, I think you should just. But to lead with. I remember a couple days ago, we were talking about how much you want to get into band. And their kid goes, yeah. And we say, you know, I.

Eran Magen [00:20:31]:
I want to see you achieving your goals, right? I want to see you happy and doing things you want to do. And it looks like band is one of those things. And. And I was thinking about ways, you know, things you could do or we could do to help you get into band. Do you want to talk about this? Do you want to hear what I’m thinking? Right. But just being explicit about our goodwill toward our child, ridiculous as it sounds to many parents, is so important because the kids don’t know. How would they know this is their first time around. Right.

Eran Magen [00:20:54]:
We’re just. We’re expl. Expecting them to know all these things that they. They might not. And so being explicit about our goodwill toward our kids is enormously important. So that’s one thing. And the second thing I’ll say much more briefly is remembering to be present is number one, to be nice is number two, and to be respectful is number three. So being present, I talked about this already.

Eran Magen [00:21:13]:
Just actually having times when are dedicated to our kids and everything else on the side. Being nice. By being nice, I mean remembering to actually say thank you, remembering to praise, remembering to tell them how good we feel when we’re around them or we see that they did certain things. These are all so important and don’t happen often. And then number three, in terms of being respectful, I touched on this before. Treating them like we would treat people who are farther from us, like we would treat colleagues in terms of the level of respect. So not just kind of waving your hand at them when it’s time for them to leave or do a thing, but actually turning our body and looking at them and saying, why don’t you? Blah, blah, blah, or would you please? Or things like that, instead of shouting instructions from a distance, coming over and speaking with them and saying about the things that we want them to do. So being present, being kind, being respectful goes an extremely long way in just developing habits around that into our daily behavioral, relational repertoire.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:22:05]:
Now, I mentioned that you have another resource called divorcing dads.org and I know that you created that not only for yourself, but for others that are going, that went through or are going through divorce and what they can do to be able to not only stay connected to their child, but be advocates for their child, etcetera, etcetera. And I know that divorce can bring a sense of failure or shame. When I’ve talked to dads that have gone through this in the past, that’s definitely the case. What’s the first mindset shift that you encourage fathers to make when they go through a separation?

Eran Magen [00:22:39]:
I think the very first act to do when going through a separation is to connect with support. Like you said, a lot of people are blocked because they feel ashamed of what’s happening, whether or not they Feel it’s their fault. They feel like this is a shameful thing and not to discuss or they don’t want to talk about it with other people. It’s very common. I agree. But to connect with support is step one. Step one is not to eliminate the shame or remove the shame. That can take a long time.

Eran Magen [00:23:01]:
Connect with support anyway, right? Just going to deal with the shame. You don’t have to change it right away. We do want to change it later on. But step one, by far the most important thing, connect with support. Friends, family, people who care about you, counseling, faith leaders, you know, a hotline, whatever it is. But just connect with somebody. Start getting support. Don’t, you know, sit alone in your dark home despairing.

Eran Magen [00:23:23]:
That road leads to very bad places. Just immediately reach out and connect with support.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:27]:
Now I know that in looking at your site you’ve said that co parenting is more like being co workers than ex lovers. How can dads adopt a more businesslike approach to parenting with an ex without sacrificing empathy or communication?

Eran Magen [00:23:44]:
There are many flavors of co parenting, you know, depending on how the separation and divorce happen. I know co parents who used to be be romantic partners. They have a very good relationship and it’s very easy and fluid and supportive and friendly and that’s wonderful. And I think that’s ideal. And sometimes that doesn’t happen, right? Sometimes there’s neutral at best relationships or sometimes there’s a lot of bitterness and hostility and stress. And still things need to happen, right? Decisions need to happen about the kids. Logistics do need to be coordinated one, one way or another. So what I’m going to say now, I’m referring to these more high tension in or more conflict ridden relationships.

Eran Magen [00:24:19]:
Not the super friendly. If it’s super friendly then, then great, be super friendly. You don’t need to force collegial relationship on a friendship. If there’s a friendship there, that’s ideal, that’s wonderful. But if there isn’t, how do we still communicate? So tension will rise as conflict rises. Anything we can do to reduce conflict, I think is worth doing. And you know what, I’ll take another little detour here. There’s this, I think myth floating around that kids are hurt by divorce.

Eran Magen [00:24:40]:
The divorce is bad for kids. That’s not the case. What’s bad for kids is being exposed to parental conflict whether or not the parents are married or divorced. And you can see this easily in very bad relationships where people stay together. The kids have a very difficult time and will carry that difficult time for a long time and divorces that are friendly and cooperative and work well, the kids are doing fine later on, it’s so important to insulate the kids from parental conflict. So ideally reduce conflict and at any rate insulate the kids from the conflict. And so first principle is whatever we can do to reduce conflict, we should. And if we’re able to discuss it with the other parent in advance, things that we disagree on but can agree on, on solutions that work for everybody, great.

Eran Magen [00:25:18]:
If we can’t do it on our own, go to a mediator, work on that, go to a co parenting coach or counseling or something like that. These things exist and work and are well worth it in terms of treating the parent as a colleague. Create boundaries, Create boundaries that work for you and ideally work for the other parent as well. But certainly they have to work for you. Whatever makes you feel safe physically, emotionally, relationally is fair game. You can ask, please don’t contact me during these and these hours unless it’s an emergency or you can say, let’s limit our communication to email. Email, I’d rather not talk on phone or it’s too spontaneous or make up a reason or whatever you need. Right? But if it’s too activating for you to talk with the other parent or you get kind of sucked into conflict this way, then find communication methods that do work for you and respect the wishes of the other parent about this.

Eran Magen [00:26:02]:
Right. Because the goal is to reduce tension. There’s so much stuff that can easily activate either parent and so find ways to communicate that cause the least amount of activation for the other parent. And the other is like in a work setting, just have very clear delineation. Here are the to do on items. Here’s what you’re going to do. Here’s what I’m going to do. Is this correct? Just assume nothing, make it super, super clear what’s going to happen.

Eran Magen [00:26:26]:
And lastly, if the other parent is acting in ways that are upsetting to you or uncomfortable to you as you’re trying to do something for your child, just do your best to put aside, ignore the emotional layer of the communication. Focus on the logistical so you can do that. Just like if you had an annoying co worker and there was nothing you could do about it because you tried fixing it and the language didn’t change and you went to HR and they don’t care and they’re like, well, well they’re technically within the balance of whatever and so you can’t change their behavior. But focus on the actual specifics that need to happen in Order to make sure you’re taking care of your kid. And remember that this person is no longer your anything other than the parent of your children. Right. I think it’s a very helpful semantic switch to go from my ex to my kid’s mom because it’s actually true. That is the function of the person in your life right now.

Eran Magen [00:27:12]:
And I think it helps us remember also that this person is actually very important. Important. And we need to treat that person with the right level of respect and consideration because our kids need their mom. It’s like they need their dad. And it reminds us to just tread a little more lightly because we don’t want to actually hurt our kid’s mom or distance our kid’s mom. The kids need their mom. We just need to figure out how to coordinate.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:27:34]:
Some fathers worry about becoming less present or connected after a divorce. What can they do to maintain a strong bond with their kids, even if custody time is limited?

Eran Magen [00:27:45]:
Feminine There are a few things to do and I’ll say them in no particular order. One is work to have more time with the kids. It can happen through discussion and agreement or it can happen through legal action. But don’t give up on having more time with your kids. That’s really important because it’s very easy to perceive a societal message that says there’s no reason for you to have more time with your kids or of course they should be spending more time with their mom. It’s kind of a societal default at this point and you don’t have to accept the default default. And it’s okay for you to want to and act to have more time. So again, first and foremost, express your wishes clearly.

Eran Magen [00:28:19]:
And if your wishes can’t be met, if you’re not able to see them as much as you would like, consider pursuing them possibly through legal action. That’s a possibility. Consult with a lawyer and see what can happen. Or at least I mean start with mediation and then ideally go to non adversary legal representation, which is a whole thing that I wasn’t aware of before, where it’s a lawyer who, who signs an agreement with you in advance to never represent you in court. And so they’re incentivized to keep you out of court because if you go to court, you stop working with that lawyer. So the incentives become aligned through that kind of practice. So if you and your kid’s mom can get with a non adversarial practice, that’s a huge win. And if necessary, yes, go to court, of course.

Eran Magen [00:28:54]:
But step one, make your wishes known. Step two, argue and work to actualize your wishes. Having said this, in the meantime, what do you do in terms of connecting with your kids? One really important thing to remember is that, that it’s extremely hard for kids to become disconnected from their parents. There are many kids, I’m sure that all of us know, and maybe some of us have been, who see their dad once a week, twice a month, once a month, three times a year. And still as kids had this sense of like, this is my dad and it’s exciting, I’m going to go see my dad. Where, you know, as the dad in the story, you’re like, this is horrible. I’m never seeing my kids and I don’t know what’s going on with them. But the kids remain very connected to their parents.

Eran Magen [00:29:31]:
It takes a lot to disconnect, connect the kid from the parent. And so fear less, have less fear about your kids becoming estranged from you. Again, do what you can to have more time. But, but it’s unlikely your kids will stop thinking about you as their dad or as their parent and want to connect with you. So that’s, number one, just kind of reduce intensity internally. Number two, during the times that you do have together, be a hundred percent present, especially if you don’t have a lot of time together, 100% present, zero distractions, block everything off. It’s, it’s amazing what the impact of this kind of quality time is. And if you look around at friends who have access to their kids all the time, you may discover that they have a lot less quality time with their kids than you do because they’re not as focused, they kind of take it for granted.

Eran Magen [00:30:12]:
And you can build an amazing relationship off of a handful of times a week for a relatively short amount of time. If you’re 100% focused and present on the relationship, you don’t need to do crazy stuff. You don’t need to constantly bombard them with gifts. You do not need to play catch up with the things that they do with the other parent or compete on gifts and excitingness and whatnot. Just focus on being the best father you can be while you’re with them. It’ll take you such a long way and they will stay connected to you. Just be present, Just use that time that you have well.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:30:46]:
You also provide scripts and guidance for difficult conversations. What’s a good way for a dad to explain the divorce to his child in an age appropriate, supportive way?

Eran Magen [00:30:57]:
So back to first principles. It’s really important to insulate kids from parental conflict. Exposing Kids to parental conflict and parental animosity is just very bad for the kids. The kids are strongly connected to both parents. They can’t help it. Asking them to acknowledge that you’re upset or hurt or, you know, what have you, it is tearing them apart. It’s just so damaging. And so leaving that part out, I think is very important.

Eran Magen [00:31:23]:
Maybe that’s something you talk about with them when they’re 30. It’ll still hurt when they’re 30, but by then they will have figured some of it out. But leave out the hurt and the nastiness. And I would say talk in terms of friendship. Talk in terms of, we were such good friends for a long time, you know, and we lived together and we had you and we had your sister, and we were so happy in doing this. And at some point, and then whatever the actual story is, I think it’s fair to say maybe it was your decision, maybe it was Mom’s decision, maybe it was a mutual decision. But you could say, like, you know, at some point we realized that we don’t want to live together anymore. We want to live separately.

Eran Magen [00:31:53]:
And we, of course, continue to be our parents. And that’s a point to keep emphasizing. Right? We both love you so much, and you. You are so important to us. But we didn’t want to continue living together. We decided to go more or less our separate ways, but to continue to be your parents and make sure that we’re taking care of you and all of this and kind of present it fairly lightly. I wouldn’t say nonchalantly. It’s not like, I mean, unless that’s the model of relationships you want your kid to have in their head, if that’s how you’re thinking about it.

Eran Magen [00:32:18]:
But for me, personally, I don’t want to present it as, oh, yeah, you know, we were super committed to each other and lived together and then decided not to. And, you know, we’ll see what happens, happens next. Like, it’s a big thing. Maybe it’s a big, important decision, and it’s okay to say it was. It was sad for us or it was hard to figure out how to continue from there. But, you know, we knew all the time that the most important thing is to take care of you, blah, blah, blah. And I think that about covers it. So just kind of sanitize it a little bit in terms of conflict.

Eran Magen [00:32:41]:
Sanitize the conflict out of it. Explain that you reached a decision that was ultimately mutual. Right. Even if, let’s say it was. It was Mom’s idea And you really didn’t like it. Eventually you agreed to the separation, obviously. Right. You’re not camping out under mom’s bed against her wishes.

Eran Magen [00:32:55]:
Like you agreed at some point that this needs to happen. Sanitize the conflict. Emphasize that was a mutual decision. Emphasize repeatedly that you are committed to your kids, that they’re important to you, that you love them, that you want to do the right thing for them always. And that’s about it. You don’t need to dwell on it an enormous amount. Kids, especially when they’re younger, up until, I don’t know, maybe nine or so, are so amazingly self centered. They don’t dwell too much on like your experience of things.

Eran Magen [00:33:20]:
It doesn’t really matter to them. They just need a story that makes sense to them, to them. And I think that version of the story is reasonable that you tell them later on as they get older. If they want more detail, maybe you can share. But I would encourage everybody to not disparage the other parent ever again and not start kind of hearing the kid in both directions or say things that are can be upsetting about the other parent. And if you hit a point where the kid asks a question, which they will at some point about the other parents motivation or about the other parent’s thinking or about why would the parent do this thing? The answer is, you know, I really don’t totally understand it myself, but I respect your mom’s wishes or you know, her choices. And I don’t have a better answer that sometimes people do things that we don’t understand completely, but they still get to make the choices that they make and leave it at that. If the kid wants to go talk to the other parent about it, fine.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:34:07]:
We always finish our interviews with what I like to call the dad connection six where six more questions to delve into you a little bit deeper as a dad. Are you ready?

Eran Magen [00:34:16]:
I am ready.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:34:17]:
What’s one word that describes your relationship with your son?

Eran Magen [00:34:20]:
Joyful.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:34:20]:
What’s the best piece of dad advice you’ve ever received?

Eran Magen [00:34:24]:
I’ll give you a twofer actually. As I was going through the separation process and I was very worried about my son becoming essentially estranged from me because I didn’t see him a lot the first few years and a friend taught me to ask two questions whenever I start kind of spinning out. One is how’s my son doing? And the other is how’s my connection with my son? And as long as the answer is good and good, then there’s nothing to worry about. Sure. I might want to See him more. Sure, I might worry about what will happen in the future, but right now, he’s well, he’s taken care of. He’s fine. And my connection with him is great.

Eran Magen [00:34:50]:
And so the problem is more in my head than in the world. So learning to ask these two questions, specifically, going through a divorce or separation, how’s my son doing? How’s my connection with my son?

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:34:59]:
What’s one activity you and your son love doing together?

Eran Magen [00:35:02]:
There’s so many. I’m gonna have to go with wrestling. I’ve been doing jiu jitsu for many years now, and I love it. And I’m very careful not to sort of impose it on my son, but I would say at least every other day, he’ll sort of tackle me to the ground and then start climbing on me and kind of shriek and enjoy himself. And it’s just super fun. It’s so physical. It’s not violent. Like, we’re very gentle with each other.

Eran Magen [00:35:21]:
There’s so much physical contact that happens that’s really fun. Sometimes it’ll stop and ask a technical question, and then I feel good about being able to explain something, but it’s. We’re just messing around most of the time, so just kind of rolling around on the carpet or the beanbag. It’s just super fun.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:35:33]:
If you could give your son one life lesson in a single sentence, what would it be?

Eran Magen [00:35:38]:
I think about this a lot. One life lesson, one advice for life that I would give my son. Son feels so momentous. A message that I often convey to him is, you can learn anything. You can become great at anything if you’re willing to put in the work.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:35:53]:
Finally, what advice would you give to other dads who want to build a lasting and meaningful relationship with their kids?

Eran Magen [00:36:02]:
Have focused, present fun with your kids, starting now, and never stop. It’s not a later thing. Just right now, start having the relationship you want to have all the time.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:36:11]:
Well, Aran, I just want to say thank you. Thank you for being here today, for sharing your journey as a father, but also the resources that you have created. If people want to find out more about you, where should they go?

Eran Magen [00:36:22]:
Well, first of all, thank you for your very thoughtful questions and responses. I really appreciate it. Like, it’s clear that you’re so connected and interested and thoughtful about it. It’s really. It’s such a pleasure to get to think about my own parenting this way to learn about me. I. Yeah, the two places would be either parenting for humans.com that you mentioned or divorcing dads.com that you mentioned then I’m very easy to find and contact through these places.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:36:46]:
Well, again, Aran, thank you. Thank you for being here today and for sharing this and I wish you all the best.

Eran Magen [00:36:53]:
Likewise. Thank you so much.

What to Say When Your Daughter Feels Like She’s Not Good Enough

June 6, 2025 by dadofdivas

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Hey dads! Welcome to Dad Connections in 5, your quick, practical guide to building a stronger bond with your daughter—one meaningful conversation at a time. I’m Dr. Christopher Lewis, and today, we’re tackling a tough but important topic: What to say when your daughter feels like she’s not “good enough.”

Maybe she’s struggling in school, feeling left out with friends, or comparing herself to others on social media. No matter the reason, hearing your daughter doubt herself is heartbreaking—and as a dad, you want to fix it.

But here’s the thing—you can’t just tell her she’s amazing and expect her to believe it. Confidence doesn’t come from just hearing “You’re great.” It comes from learning how to face self-doubt and push through it.

So today, I’ll share why she might feel this way, what NOT to say, and three powerful things you CAN say to help her build confidence.

Why She Might Feel Like She’s Not “Good Enough”

Kids, especially girls, are under so much pressure—to be smart, pretty, talented, popular, successful. And if they don’t meet these impossible standards, they start believing:

“I’ll never be as good as everyone else.”
“I’m just not talented enough.”
“No matter how hard I try, it’s never enough.”

This self-doubt can come from school, friendships, social media, or even just being too hard on herself.

What NOT to Say

When she’s feeling down, you might be tempted to quickly reassure her, but some common responses can actually backfire.

“That’s not true, you’re amazing!” (She won’t believe it in the moment.)
“Stop being so hard on yourself.” (She doesn’t know how to stop.)
“Other people have it worse.” (Minimizing doesn’t help—she just wants to be heard.)

Instead of trying to fix it immediately, help her work through it.

3 Things to Say When She Feels “Not Good Enough”

“It’s okay to feel this way, but let’s look at the facts.”

Self-doubt often comes from feelings, not facts. Help her step back and see the bigger picture.

“I hear you. You feel like you’re not good enough—but is that really true, or just how you feel right now?”
Let’s look at all the ways you’ve improved or worked hard.”

When she separates emotions from reality, she can start to reframe her thinking.

“What would you say to a friend who felt this way?”

When kids doubt themselves, they’re often much kinder to others than to themselves.

“If your best friend said, ‘I’m not good enough,’ what would you tell her?”
“Why don’t you deserve that same kindness?”

This helps her recognize her own worth—on her own terms.

“Let’s focus on growth, not perfection.”

Perfectionism is a major reason kids feel like they’re not good enough. Teach her that progress matters more than being the best.

“You don’t have to be perfect to be valuable.”
“Every mistake is a chance to learn and grow.”
“What’s one thing you can do today to take a step forward?”

By focusing on small wins, she learns that effort is what really counts.

Quick Takeaways: Start Today!

Here’s your challenge: The next time your daughter says she’s not good enough, don’t just tell her she is—help her believe it.

? Validate her feelings without minimizing them.
? Help her see facts, not just emotions.
? Encourage her to treat herself like she would a friend.
? Shift her focus from perfection to progress.

Your words won’t just lift her up in the moment—they’ll shape how she talks to herself for years to come.

That’s it for today’s Dad Connections in 5! If this was helpful, share it with another dad who wants to help his daughter believe in herself. Until next time—keep listening, keep encouraging, and keep showing her that she is more than enough.

Navigating Period Conversations: A Dad’s Guide with Al Zonsius

April 14, 2025 by dadofdivas

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In the hustle and bustle of modern life, finding the time and approach to foster strong, meaningful relationships with our children can be challenging. This is especially true when it comes to the deep and nuanced bond between fathers and daughters. In a heartwarming discussion from a recent episode of the Dad and Daughter Connection podcast, Dr. Christopher Lewis and guest Al Zonsius of The Period Academy explore themes that resonate beyond the confines of typical parenting advice, offering powerful insights into building lasting connections.

Presence Over Perfection

One of the standout themes is the importance of being present over being perfect. Al Zonsius shares personal stories about her relationship with her father, highlighting the rollercoaster ride filled with both highs and lows. She emphasizes that the consistent act of showing up and being there, even amidst imperfections and disagreements, builds a foundation of trust and support. This theme urges listeners to focus less on being flawless and more on being there, listening, and engaging in the little everyday moments that matter most.

Educating for Empowerment

Another vital theme revolves around education and empowerment. With Al’s background as a student nurse midwife and co-founder of the Period Academy, the conversation underscores the importance of equipping daughters with knowledge about their bodies. Fathers are encouraged to step into this dialogue confidently, fostering an environment where their daughters feel empowered, informed, and unashamed about natural processes like menstruation. This educational empowerment extends beyond physical health, imparting self-esteem and confidence that carry into other areas of a young woman’s life.

Bridging Emotional Gaps

Fathers often grapple with understanding the emotional landscapes their daughters navigate, especially during puberty. The podcast discusses strategies for bridging these gaps, such as offering support, practicing empathy, and creating spaces where daughters feel comfortable discussing their feelings. Acknowledging and validating emotions builds a framework for open communication, making daughters feel heard and understood. In turn, this emotional availability strengthens the father-daughter bond.

As you reflect on these themes, consider tuning into the Dad and Daughter Connection podcast for further insights and practical advice. Listening to real stories and expert opinions can inspire and equip you to enhance your relationship with your daughter. Because at the end of the day, being an engaged dad isn’t about knowing all the answers—it’s about being there, learning together, and growing stronger, one conversation at a time. So, why not take a moment, listen in, and start building those bridges today?

TRANSCRIPT

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

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:00:12]:
If you’re looking to build a stronger bond with your daughter and help her grow into a confident, independent woman, you’re in the right place. I’m doctor Christopher Lewis, and the dad and daughter connection is the podcast where we dive into real stories, expert advice, and practical tips to help you navigate the incredible journey of fatherhood. In every episode, we’ll bring you conversations that inspire, challenge, and equip you to show up as the dad your daughter needs. So let’s get started. Because being a great dad isn’t just about being there, it’s about truly connecting. Welcome back to the Dad and Daughter Connection. I’m really excited to have you back again this week to really delve deeper into that relationship that people have between dads and daughters to be able to build those strong connections that will help to create that, not only communication, but that relationship that we all want to have with our daughters. And every week, I love being able to have you here, to talk to you, to help you, to give you some resources to draw upon, to help you to become the dad that you want to be.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:01:25]:
Because it is so important to be able to have resources at your fingertips because the bond that you are creating, the connections that you’re creating with your daughter are so important. And anything that you will read, any person that you will talk to will tell you how important that relationship is. And it may not always be easy, but it is so important to put in the time, the effort, and be willing to put yourself out there to build that strong relationship. And every week, I love being able to have different guests to help you along that journey. And today, we got another great guest with us. Al Zanzias is with us today. And Al is a student nurse midwife, but also she is the cofounder of the Period Academy. And one of the most awkward conversations sometimes that dads are most concerned about concerned about having is talking to their daughters about their period, talking, going into that stage of their life when their bodies are changing.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:23]:
And as a dad, you’ve not gone through that and you don’t always know what to say or how to support your daughter. And this academy that Al has co founded is one resource that’s out there that can really help you to be able to start not only understanding it for yourself, but to also be able to be a good resource for your own daughter. And I’m really excited to be able to talk to her about her own experience as a daughter, but also to talk about the Period Academy. Alf, thanks so much for being here today.

Al Zonsius [00:02:54]:
Thank you for having me.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:02:55]:
You know, I’m really excited to have you here. And I always start these conversations really delving a little bit deeper into the relationship that you had with your own father. And we were talking beforehand and I said, Sometimes those relationships can be positive, negative, or somewhere in between. But I always love having these conversations because I think that not only do I learn something, but others will learn things about ways in which we can build those stronger relationships. So, I guess, thinking about the relationship that you had with your father, what’s one thing that your father did that made you feel truly seen, heard, and valued as a daughter?

Al Zonsius [00:03:35]:
That is a great question. So, it’s funny you say that some are positive, some are negative. And my dad and I had a very roller coaster ride of a relationship. At times, it was really wonderful, and we were really bonded. And at times, it was pretty negative, and we were very disconnected. But I will say the times that I remember so fondly as a child or as a young teenage girl were times where my dad would go above and beyond to be present with me. He actually traveled quite a bit for his job and was on the road a lot in and out of town. And I happened to be a big athlete when I was young, and there would be days that he would fly in just to come see me play basketball.

Al Zonsius [00:04:17]:
He would fly in just to come see me play volleyball, and I just knew how much effort that took. And not that it has to be every single day, every single game, every single moment going above and beyond, but I just remember the, like, just full body joy I would feel watching him show up in the gymnasium for a game knowing that he was, you know, across the country just, you know, that morning before. And so I remember those moments and, you know, having that up and down relationship with him has really kind of encouraged me to encourage my partner to kind of go above and beyond in those moments when he has the opportunity to do so because that was so impactful for for me as a child.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:04:58]:
You know, I I wanna unpack. You said that you had a roller coaster of a relationship, and and that can be challenging, of course. I mean, but I guess as you think back to that and where you are today as a person, how has that relationship and the experience that you had, and you already talked about talking to your own partner and how they can support you, but how did that relationship with your father influence the way in which you navigate life relationships and challenges today?

Al Zonsius [00:05:27]:
As an adult woman now, I would say that something that I that will always be with me as as the daughter of my dad is that he was always so strong in his stance on morals and beliefs. He wasn’t that he was closed minded. He was always open to learning. He was always trying to learn something new. But it makes me very, very strong in my beliefs and how I wanna advocate, whether or not it’s just in my daily life as a mom of my daughters or as my role as a clinician in the hospital. I mean, I’ll really put up a fight for every single patient I encounter, and that I know deep into me in my soul is because of him, because he was that way. And that’s probably why we had those negative moments in our roller coaster ride together because we both were heavy handed in that way. We both had, like, big, big opinions and big, big feelings, and we would stand our ground.

Al Zonsius [00:06:24]:
And so I think we battled a lot because of that, for sure.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:06:27]:
And you’re not the only daughter that goes head to head with their dads, and there are definite points in time in a person’s upbringing where that happens, but also sometimes in life, it just happens in regards to the relationship. Talk to me about what did you have to do to try to bridge that gap in the moment? And are there things that you might say to other dads that are having those tumultuous times that might help them to bridge the gap with their own daughters?

Al Zonsius [00:06:58]:
Yeah. I think gosh. I think that what and by the way, my dad actually passed two years ago, and so I keep talking about him in the past tense. But he would you know, we would have years, months go by where we wouldn’t speak because we had a little argument. We disagreed about something, and that argument turned into, I’m not gonna re reach out to him first, and then he would think the same thing. I’m not gonna reach out to her first. And I guess for me now as a an adult woman, I would say that because he was the parent, he should have always been the one to reach back out. In my mind, I was most of the time being stubborn, teenage, early adult years, making, you know, crazy decisions in life, learning life lessons as we go.

Al Zonsius [00:07:45]:
But I always needed him to reach out and to restart, rekindle the conversation of and just kind of get back into our relationship. And as we grew older as he grew older, him reaching back out became fewer and far between. And I always really had a difficult lot of resentment for sure too. And I just say, like, when I think about the future of dads and, like, what they can do is just always remember that you are the parent, you’re the nurturer, you’re the protector, you’re the safe place. And so don’t stop ever reaching out to your children. Don’t ever stop trying to reconnect with your kiddos, especially if you’re in a kind of a bumpy relationship, especially with a daughter, because it might not be that one day that you send a text message or that she’s gonna respond, but two weeks later, she might really need you to reach out. So just never give up on them.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:08:35]:
I love that, and I think it’s so important that the last point you just said is to never give up on them. And I think that too often when people dig in, and it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault, and they’re not willing to meet in that middle. And I appreciate you saying, you know, you’re the parent. And yeah, that you may not see eye to eye, but you’re still the parent. And you can meet in the middle. You might not always have to agree on things, but you can still unconditionally love your child, and be there for them, even if you don’t agree with everything that they are doing, or the way in which they live, or whatever it may be. So I really appreciate you sharing that because that’s it’s not an easy thing to take in, but it is so important to internalize and to be able to think for yourself, Where am I at right now, and where do I wanna be? And I guess let me ask you this, and if it’s too personal, you don’t have to answer. Your father passed away a few years back.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:09:32]:
At some point, at toward the end of his life, were you able to get to that point of understanding? And if so, what did you have to do to get there?

Al Zonsius [00:09:42]:
We did and we didn’t. I was actually one of the final people with him when he was kind of put to rest. And I feel like in those moments, I could picture us back in the, you know, good old days when I was a little kid, and I was, you know, just obsessed and adored my dad. But leading up to that, we were still in a very kind of rocky, unknown. Communication was pretty minimal, not very deep. And so I wouldn’t ever say that we were perfect when he passed. I did get closure in a lot of different ways just being with him in those last moments and saying a lot of things to him. But I think the way to get to it, which was part of your question, I guess, would be I had to also meet him in the middle even though I feel and felt a certain way about, you know, certain things, how I wanted to manage my family.

Al Zonsius [00:10:34]:
And so, yeah, there was things that I had to be sacrificed in a way to ignore and push beside to have a relationship with him. And so we both had to do that. And I think if we would have had more time, I think we could have gotten back to a really good place, but he passed very suddenly. And so I yeah. I always have a lot of regrets though. And I think that if any dads are listening who have daughters, like, just know that every day is not promised and that you gosh, you don’t wanna leave this earth in a rough situation with your kids. I mean, I think about it all the time, how many more conversations I would have loved to have with him.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:11:10]:
Well, I appreciate you sharing that and and being willing to to go down that path because it’s not always an easy thing to talk about, but I appreciate you sharing that even though it wasn’t always the most positive experience. Now I talked about the fact that you’re co founder of the period academy. And as I said, talking about a period with your daughter is not only awkward for the dad, but it’s awkward for the daughter too. And a lot of times your daughters may not wanna talk to you about their periods, but it’s still very important as a dad to understand what they’re going through, how it’s impacting their bodies, but also their mindset, their etcetera. And I, as a father of two daughters that are now 17 and 20, You know, I’ve gone through this and definitely something that I wish that I had had the Period Academy at the time when things were first happening. So I guess one of the questions that came up when I heard about this was first and foremost, tell me the origin story and why you decided to go and become a cofounder of this organization, the Period Academy.

Al Zonsius [00:12:20]:
Yeah. Of course. Okay. So, honestly, it really started the company came about for many, many different reasons that just kinda kept telling me to do something, telling me to create some sort of educational platform. For me as a clinician, I work as a nurse now, and you mentioned I’m a student nurse midwife. And so I’m in my kind of final months of residency to be a midwife. But we take care of I take care of kids from very early age when they start to experience puberty all the way up until menopausal time for women. And so I see a big spectrum of different patients.

Al Zonsius [00:12:51]:
And a reoccurring theme in this field I’m in, and I’ve been in this field for almost ten years, is adult women didn’t get educational resources as children. They they are very unaware of basic anatomy. They’re also often unaware of what a period is and what is actually happening to their bodies. And I see it in the clinic, and I see it when they go to have their babies at the hospital. So that was a hospital. So that was a big thing that started to come up for me a lot, is that I was like, oh my gosh. Like, this is not this woman’s fault that she doesn’t have this knowledge. We must have missed something.

Al Zonsius [00:13:23]:
And the other reason is I was 11 when I started my period as a young kid, and I did not know what the heck was happening to my body at the age that a lot of women my age, and I’m in my late thirties, but a lot of my age women and even probably younger, like, it was very taboo. It was a very stigmatized conversation. My parents did not prepare me at all. And it still has a lot of stigma around it, which shocks me, but it does. And it is hard to talk about. And so what I started to notice is because of my experience in the healthcare field doing reproductive health, I also have two daughters and my daughters are four and six. And they are a little early for this talk, but I will tell you, my four and six year old know a heck of a lot about periods because I’ve been exposing them since they were born. You know, they ever since they could crawl after me into the bathroom, they have been exposed.

Al Zonsius [00:14:16]:
They’ve been desensitized almost to it. It’s a very normal thing in our home. And I’ll explain to you some, like, very easy things fathers and dads can start doing at home. But but yeah. So I actually started to have friends reach out to me. Hey. Do you have any tips of how we can get this conversation started with our kids? And I said, well, actually, funny you ask. I do.

Al Zonsius [00:14:34]:
I have so many opinions about it, and here’s what you can get started with. Here’s just a couple of easy ways to just start the conversation and start it as soon as you can. Because what we know is girls can start their periods as early as eight years old. That’s a normal range, eight to 17. It’s a big range, but we’re starting to see girls start their periods earlier and earlier in life due to many different factors. But I just always tell people start sooner than you even think you would ever need to start because before you know it and you won’t even realize it, they’re gonna start to get information from friends at school. So start having those conversations. I started giving tips out and talking to parents about it.

Al Zonsius [00:15:09]:
And then I mentioned it to my partner one day, and my husband and I said, listen. We think we need to create some sort of period educational something, seminar, presentation because nobody is doing this. And why not? And, you know, I started to research what are kids getting in public school systems, and it’s so minimal. And I was just, like, shocked by it, really. And I was also trying to explore who’s doing this, who’s educating our kids so that the parents because, you know, because we have this lack of comprehensive, standardized period education, menstruation education in school systems, it all falls on the dad and it all falls on the mom. The parents are expected to do it all. And that’s a big burden, in my opinion, as a parent myself, to put on parents who maybe don’t have the experience I have. I talk about periods every single day with about every single patient.

Al Zonsius [00:15:57]:
I ask them about their period and we talk about their period. And so for me, it’s very easy. Right? The language, the tools, it’s easy, but that’s not the same for every household. So the Period Academy was born, and my husband really was a cheerleader of it. Created a really wonderful kind of world of illustrations and how we could teach it. And then it just took off from there, and it was such a beautiful thing to see at the very beginning stages. We start we kinda opened up shop last summer, and hearing all of the parents just be so grateful that it’s a great starting point. It gives them the language to use at home.

Al Zonsius [00:16:30]:
And then I’d always have moms leave and parents leave, like, telling me how much they learned. Even though I’m really focused on my teaching is really kid focused. Right? I’m not teaching as if it’s adult people. I’m teaching them as kids where they’re at. You know? And this is, like, age kind of eight, nine, 10, 11 is where my target usually is. So that’s kind of how it all started, and now it’s going really well. And it’s amazing. And I feel like maybe I can make a little dent in some of these kids’ brains and give them a lot of education.

Al Zonsius [00:16:59]:
And my really ultimate goal is for a kid to start her period and not be scared. If just some kids could start and feel empowered and feel ready, like they have the tools and that they know they’re gonna be okay, because it is a very terrifying life, you know, transitional moment for most kids.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:17:16]:
Many fathers may feel unprepared or even uncomfortable discussing menstruation with their daughters. What advice do you have for dads who want to be supportive, but aren’t sure how to start the conversation?

Al Zonsius [00:17:30]:
Yeah. No. That’s a really good question, and I’ll start it with this. And this I’ll be interested to hear how this feels as a dad. Right? So I would say one of my number one questions I get from kids and I teach kids in groups of, like, 10 to 15 kids at a time. And the number one question I get is what if my mom’s not home and only my dad is home? So we’ve already built this society, this norm, this world where young girls assume they can only go to their mom. Now this is assuming we have a traditional household. Right? We have a mom and a dad that they’ve grown up with that dynamic.

Al Zonsius [00:18:05]:
So we’ve already spent however many years, eight, nine, ten, eleven years of that child seeing their parents that way. And I would say to that is how can we shift that? Because I know when I talk to dads, I know that they would feel so humbled and grateful if their daughters knew they could go to them if they needed help. And so they start their period, Mom’s not home, maybe mom’s on an out of town trip, and they start their period at school because most kids we know most kids will have their very first period at school. It’s because they spend so many hours during the week at school, or they might be at, like, a camp or, you know, an extracurricular activity. So sorry to go back, but we know that this is already in their brains. So which really every time I get asked this question, it hurts my heart because I know the dads in this world wouldn’t make them feel like they did something wrong. They’d be so supportive, and I know they would. So how can we get this shift to happen in

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:18:59]:
the

Al Zonsius [00:18:59]:
household? And the advice I always give is for dads to not exclude themselves from the conversations. Every adult person and even older sibling in the household should be part of the conversation and should contribute to it. So if we’re maybe starting to introduce anatomical parts to our children, you know, one, we know we always need to use appropriate anatomical terms for body parts. That’s a big part of my the very beginning of my presentation. Use appropriate terminology with your kids. And then also like, make sure that you know what those are for a girl. Know what the difference is between a vulva and a vagina. Help teach your kid that because if you can start that early, early on, you’re gonna always be seen as a safe space for your daughter.

Al Zonsius [00:19:43]:
Your daughter will feel like she doesn’t have to hide her period in the bathroom until get mom gets home the next morning or or whatever it might be. Just be part of the conversation. I think and this is a big expectation, but the moment I had a daughter, I had a very high expectation for my husband to be able to be the default when it comes to those things because I work a lot. When I go to the hospital, I’m there fourteen hours. That’s a long time to be gone. And and if my daughter were to need help, I always have told him, I want them to feel so safe with you that they can come to you and not even think twice about it. Mom’s not home? Okay. I’ll call dad.

Al Zonsius [00:20:19]:
Oh, dad’s in this room. It’s a little closer than that room. Like, I can just go to dad. That’s my expectation for him. And my husband, you know, he also helped me build this company, but he really did put in an effort. And that’s what I think it is. I think dads just have to put in a bit of effort to know basics about period. You should also know basics about anatomical reproductive parts for boys and girls, and you should know the basics about a period, especially just how to manage it.

Al Zonsius [00:20:43]:
Pads, tampons, period underwear. How because that’s what your daughter’s gonna come to you for. Right? She’s gonna have a period at school, and she’s gonna be probably very overwhelmed, and she’s gonna want, you know, know what to do next. The other tip I give to people in their households, not only being a part of this conversation, and this conversation, by the way, is very ongoing. Right? We’re talking about it all the time, is to start to expose your kids in the home to menstruation products and, like, actual in the moment menstruation. And sometimes my kids well, even today and my kids are a little unique, right, because I’m their mom. But, you know, sometimes I’ll be in the bathroom and my six year old will be like, do you want me to go get you a pad? Are you on your period? I make it so it’s such a normal day in the month that sometimes in my period I’m on my period, and sometimes I’m not. I actually and if parents are comfortable with it, and I know that not all parents are, but invite them into your space, especially when they’re really little.

Al Zonsius [00:21:36]:
Right? When they’re really little. Because the more you show them period blood, pads, what you when you wipe and you have very bright red blood, the more you show them that you’re sitting on that toilet and you’re okay, you’re not hurting, you’re okay, it desensitizes it, It normalizes it. It becomes a very normal part of life, and it’s very, you know, and it’s every month for, you know, most adult women. As long as they’re regular, it’s every month. So it’s such a normal part of life. And so just by exposing them, don’t make it a big deal. Yeah. This is just period blood.

Al Zonsius [00:22:08]:
This happens to your mom every, you know, twenty five days. And, you know, it doesn’t bother me. I have pads and I have tampons. This is what I use. You know, my kids love to play with pads and tampons. Have you ever given a three year old a tampon? It’s awesome. They love it. It’s very fun.

Al Zonsius [00:22:20]:
And so exposing them. Having products out in the open, I’m big advocate of this. Having a basket of your pads out in the open so kids can ask questions, especially when they’re really young. Let them ask questions. Dads know how to use a pad, know how to put it in the underwear, know how to take it away, know that they can only wear it up to eight hours, know that they should really wash their hands before and after. Those are things that dads should know, and moms too and parents too. But, yeah, those are kind of like the general and the go to things I say. These are the things that you guys can start doing that’s not really gonna need a lot of effort is just to start to increase exposure in the home to periods.

Al Zonsius [00:22:55]:
And I always joke, and I recently was interviewed. And I always say, like, the big reduction of stigma moment for me is when I go to a bathroom in a public space, I always hold my tampon or my pad outside of my pockets because I just want it to feel like this is a normal, physiological, natural thing that half the world’s bodies do. And we’re so scared of it and scared to talk about it. And I just wanna keep finding ways to make it less scary, less stigmatizing.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:23:23]:
Now you kind of already talked about this, but one of the things that I was thinking about when I looked at your curriculum is that it covers a lot of the topics like period management, self care, puberty. And I guess, how can dads help to normalize periods and ensure that their daughters feel confident rather than embarrassed about this natural process.

Al Zonsius [00:23:45]:
And not only in a way of periods, but I think dads can build confidence in girls, which I think is something that’s really needed in our world today. Right? We need to kinda make young women, young girls more confident, have higher self esteem because we’re seeing it kind of at a big downfall right now. And I think if you can build your kids up from day one, always be their biggest cheerleader, always be their biggest fan. And I personally, and my husband too, like and it’s really easy. It’s just the language you choose to use. So when my kid has, like, a new outfit on, I try not to say you look really cute or look really pretty, but I always tell her, you look super brave, or you look really confident, and you look really kind today. Because those words in their brain are going to go far, far deeper than just this idea of, like, an outfit. Right? So ever since they were babies, it’s like, you’re look you’re being so brave.

Al Zonsius [00:24:37]:
It’s not you look so cute. I mean, my kids are adorable. Don’t get me wrong. They’re I’m obsessed with them. They’re the cutest things on the Earth. But I try to impede their brains with language of how brave they are, how smart they are, how autonomous they are, how important decisions they make are could be life changing for them. And so building those kids up. And then when it gets to time where you start to experience puberty, because we know you’re gonna start to notice puberty for your kids probably before they have a period, we do have an expectation that you’re likely gonna have breast buds.

Al Zonsius [00:25:08]:
You’re gonna likely grow some pubic hair, maybe some underarm hair, have a big growth spurt, and may even start experiencing vaginal discharge right before you have your very first period. I think that would be a great time for dads to really start to empower their kids. Have a moment where you see, like, okay. Maybe maybe you’ve noticed your daughter has some pubic hair or some breast buds, or you noticed when you did laundry that when you helped with laundry one day that there was vaginal discharge in her underwear. This is a great, great time for you to make sure she’s ready when she’s away from the home. It’s also a great time to make sure she’s ready at home. Make sure you have pets. Make sure she knows where they are.

Al Zonsius [00:25:46]:
Make sure they’re teen sized or preteen sized pads and that you can assume she’s gonna use what the other adult female in the house uses because it’s different, you know, tampons and pads. And we do know that I mentioned tampons here and there all the time because kids kinda get forced in a tampon usage, which is another conversation. But most children will use pads for a very long time. So dads can assume if they have an eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 year old that they’re gonna need to use pads first. Okay? So you don’t even need to worry about tampons quite yet, but really focus on having pads available and access to them. Like, where are they? And then also having something in their backpack for them so that they know it’s there. And I would encourage dads to I give kids at my seminars. I give them all a period kit, but it’s not like anything that is hard to do.

Al Zonsius [00:26:31]:
It’s just a little canvas bag, and it’s got pads in it, a moist towelette. And I also put a little note in there, and it’s an encouraging note that says, you got this. You’re gonna be okay, and we are here to support you. This is a big day for you. And so we are here if you need us. And I think if it had put that on a little piece of paper, like, you’re gonna you’re you’re great. You’ve got this. It’s gonna be okay.

Al Zonsius [00:26:54]:
I know it’s overwhelming because we can have prepare and prepare and prepare. But the first time you bleed, it’s a lot. It’s a big you know, and most adult women would probably be able to tell you where they were, maybe even what they were wearing, what the bathroom looks like that they were in, and what they felt in that moment. And and so being an outspoken empowered women, I can kind of assume that I have unique experiences in those ways, but most women are very shut down and fearful about it. So, yeah, if a dad can just give her the tools, make sure she’s got something in her backpack. Even a spare pair of underwear would be ideal. Right? Because you can assume she might either first start her period when she goes to sit to go pee. And we this happens often because your pelvic floor rests at that time, and so period blood can come out.

Al Zonsius [00:27:39]:
It might be noticed on toilet paper when she wipes, or she’s gonna have some in her underwear. And that is very overwhelming for kids. Kids ask me about that a lot too. What if I bleed through my undies? And so I like to say, put a pair of underwear in your backpack as well to always have, always have maybe an extra pair of shorts or something like that as well. And then just remind your kid, you can call me if you need me. I will come bring you clothes. I will come bring you pads. I’m always here.

Al Zonsius [00:28:05]:
Just communicate with them that you are accessible and that you are supportive. And if you don’t have all of the answers, I think that’s fair too. Right? Because I don’t have all the answers either. And I have kind of started to become very knowledgeable about periods for young girls, but but I don’t have all the answers. Sometimes kids will ask me a question and I’ll be like, oh my goodness. I gotta get back to you on that. And I think dad’s being, like, very humble and and transparent. Like, I don’t know the exact answer you need from me right now, but I do know how we can go find it, and we can kind of help you.

Al Zonsius [00:28:34]:
Just be supportive and communicate with your kids and remind them that they can always come to you. Just keep keep reminding them. I’m always here. You can always come to me even And this sorry. I’ll my answers are so long, but this is one more thing I’ll always mention. I like to tell kids when we have these conversations, whether it be puberty conversations, period conversations, sex conversations, that it is very normal to have a feeling in your body and in your mind that is a little strange and uncomfortable. And that’s normal to have this uneasy feeling. And I think if dads just expressed that to their kiddos, like, I know talking about these things with me might make you feel a little weird in your body, but it’s still something important we should do, and I need you to know you’re safe with me.

Al Zonsius [00:29:21]:
And that’s kind of a big deal, making kids feel safe when they use their words and they have big feelings and wanna talk to you. So that’s something I would suggest too is to always tell your kids, you’re gonna feel weird about this, but you’re safe with me. And that’s you know, I feel weird. And he would tell him, I feel weird about it too. You know, it’s a hard conversation to have. Be honest with your kids. You’re human.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:29:44]:
Now I know that puberty can also bring mood swings, PMS, and other emotional shifts. How can fathers recognize when their daughters need emotional support, and what strategies can they use to help without overstepping?

Al Zonsius [00:30:02]:
Yeah. And I you talk about premenstrual syndrome, PMS, in the presentation, and I talk about it because it becomes a very big part of your life when you start to have a cycle. And for some people, it can be a very debilitating part of your life. And so I talk about what is expected, what’s the most common, and then when is it too much or an issue where we would wanna maybe speak to a clinician. But when it comes to mood disturbances, irritability, a little less patience, even anxiety can increase as your period’s approaching. These are huge, huge, huge feelings that your daughter is probably feeling. And in your mind as an adult parent, you’re probably thinking, oh my gosh. Who is this child? One moment, they’re crying.

Al Zonsius [00:30:38]:
The other moment, they’re happy singing in the car. And so it’s like very it can be very roller coaster ride. I think just reminding yourself that oftentimes mood disturbances and irritability and that kind of anxiety that kids can get right before a period is something that’s really generally out of their control. And that’s because hormones, when they come in, they come in hot. And so and it’s something that’s very difficult to understand, especially when they’re experiencing it for the first time. And they’re really young and they’re, like, preparing to go through these stages. So I would just say, instead of taking this approach of, oh, you’re you must be PMSing. I mean, we’ve all heard it.

Al Zonsius [00:31:14]:
Right? Mom’s PMSing. Go, you know, go clean your room. Or mom’s PMSing. Don’t talk back. Do the dishes. Do your chores. I think instead of if you approached it in like, you know what? It seems like you might be having some bigger feelings these days, and I wanna know if there’s a way I can support you. Because sometimes kids will be able to tell you that, yeah.

Al Zonsius [00:31:33]:
You know, I just don’t wanna talk about it. But they also might say, oh, yeah. I’ve noticed that too, and I don’t really know the way I could use support right now. And then you can give suggestions. I oftentimes try to take my kids’ leads, you know, and it’s not a perfect example, but when my kids are tantruming or we’re in a moment and all parents know these moments, right, where your kid is not thinking logical. They’re tantruming. They’re not logical. They’re having definitely some hormone stuff happening.

Al Zonsius [00:32:01]:
And I always just ask them, do you want me to give you space, or would you like me to sit here with you? And I think sometimes as parents, that’s just needing to sit there and be quiet is a great way to show support and to hold space for your kids. And and even ask them, would it be better if I sat out right side the door and you let me know when you would like me to come in? Do you wanna maybe listen to some music together? Do you wanna go on a walk together? Do you want me to give you more ideas of how we can kind of support you, or do you wanna let me know when you have some ideas? And I think just making sure you’re not abandoning them in those big, big feeling and moments, and you’re giving them the opportunity to have autonomy over what they’re experiencing. You’re telling them that they can tell you what they need, and that’s so empowering for a young girl. Right? Being being very open. Like, is there something that specific I could do for you? Sometimes my daughters will ask me they’ll be in that headspace that’s out of control, but I’ll just say, would you like me to be here with you, or do you want some space? And they’ll all the time say, I want you here with me, but I don’t want you to talk. And so they’re just telling me they need the space. They need the sound and this chaos to slow down, but they need somebody in there to also hold on to all of that chaos with them until they’re ready to then talk about it. Sometimes I just offer, you know, let’s go sit outside for a second.

Al Zonsius [00:33:20]:
Let’s just go take a couple deep breaths. Let’s listen to some music we both like. Let’s put on a record we both like and just sit and just sit. Let everything slow down a little bit. But I think giving your kids autonomy over what they need is so huge. Those kids, eight to 12, is a tough age. It is a tough age. They’re experiencing a lot of things in that lifetime.

Al Zonsius [00:33:41]:
So, yeah, giving them the choice how they can be supported.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:33:45]:
Well, I truly appreciate you sharing that. And, you know, your your mission is so much more than just periods from everything that you have just said. It’s from what I’m hearing, it’s about not only periods, but helping young people to understand and feel comfortable with their bodies. And I guess as we finish up today, is there anything else that you’d wanna say in regards to how fathers can truly contribute to their daughter’s overall sense of body confidence and autonomy in a way that fosters trust and empowerment?

Al Zonsius [00:34:17]:
That’s a big question. I’m gonna try not to carry on like I have. I would say try not to always let the default for when it comes to very feminine things in life always go to the mom. I think starting to show that maybe because you’re a guy, you’re a male figure, that you don’t have any kind of understanding of those things for kiddos. I think, like, there’s nothing more wonderful than, like, my husband taking out my girls and then picking out a a Barbie and a really sparkly dress. And, like, that may be seen as something that I would do with them, but he loves having those moments where they can be in their feminine selves. And and I he sits down and paints their nails, and they sit down and paint his nails and, like, just kind of really desensitizing this idea that all the feminine times in your life have to go towards one way. And like I said, you know, girls really do have these fears, about being only with dad when they are in the most, you know, vulnerable time of their life.

Al Zonsius [00:35:16]:
And that to me just shows me that dads just need to do more inside the home, be part of more conversation inside the home. Maybe it’s not something you’re comfortable talking about, but maybe you have, like, a pamphlet or a brochure. I have a good print off on the our website on theperiodacademy.com, and it’s like it’s like the stages of puberty so that when you know, like, your period might be getting close, just give that to your kiddo and say, I found this. I thought it might be helpful and supportive of you to know kinda where you are at in your puberty years And when we know the period’s coming, bring her things home. If she’s PMSing and starting her period or she’s on her second cycle or whatever it might be, like, bring her something sweet home. Bring her a bouquet of flowers home. Make her feel feminine. Make her feel good.

Al Zonsius [00:35:56]:
Make her feel empowered. Build that relationship so that you are such a safe space for her that you can be like that forever. Be that guy that’s, like, really hard to compete with when she’s an adult woman, you know, looking for her life partner. And I think that would be the best. Right? I want our kids, my children to always say, like, you know, their future partners in their lifetime, if they so be you know, happen to be males, you have to compete with the love and the safety my daughter my dad provided me. And I think that’s, like, the goal dad should have for sure.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:36:27]:
Well, well, Al, I just wanna say thank you for sharing all of this today. And I guess as we conclude and we finish things up, as you think about fatherhood and your dad and other dads that are out there, what advice would you give to other dads who want to build a lasting and meaningful relationship with their daughters? What would you say to them?

Al Zonsius [00:36:51]:
I would say to as much as you can, when you’re together, to be very present with each other. We live in this world where we’re kind of being overpowered by technology, and I have found it greatly affects kids. And for myself too, I always find myself answering emails on my phone or messages on Instagram or whatever it might be. And in my brain, I’m like, I’m working. I’m working. I’m always working. But when you’re in the same room as your kids, try to find those moments to be super intentional. Turn off all the technology and be just intentional with your time.

Al Zonsius [00:37:24]:
Even if you do have work to do, give your kids an hour of your undivided attention because that is starting to become very rare for a lot of relationships with kids. And especially for dads who maybe are the breadwinners and who maybe work a lot, you know, just like even if it means scheduling it. Scheduling, you know, from twelve to two, like, everything’s off just me and you, kid. Like, what do you wanna do? What do you wanna get up to? And I think, you know, that’s a good kind of tool of advice for a lot of parents and even for myself to remind myself to really kind of carve out time to be intentional and be really kind of mindful of your interactions and make them be something that is clear to that child that you are engaged with that child in that moment, whatever their kind of game they’re playing or wanna do. I think that’s really important.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:38:07]:
Now for anyone that wants to find out more about the Period Academy, where should they go?

Al Zonsius [00:38:11]:
You can go to the periodacademy.com, or you can find us on Instagram. On Instagram, I do a lot of tips and kinda teaching tools, and I share a lot of videos about how we can kind of approach certain topics based on periods. And then also on TikTok, I’m in my late thirties, remember, so I’m getting better and better at TikTok, but I’m trying. And, so, yeah, the period academy at the period academy on all the social medias.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:38:33]:
Well, Al, I just wanna say thank you. Thank you for sharing your story today. Not only your story about your own relationship with your father and the things that you had to do in your life with that, but also in what you’ve created and what you’re continuing to create to help parents, not just dads, to help their daughters to be able to maneuver through this time in their life that can be kind of tumultuous, but also concern thing, it can also be a questioning time for them, for you as a dad, and I truly wish you all the best.

Al Zonsius [00:39:06]:
Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Thank you.

Dr. Christopher Lewis [00:39:09]:
That’s a wrap for this episode of the dad and daughter connection. Thanks for joining us on this journey to build stronger bonds and raise confident independent daughters. Remember, being an engaged dad isn’t about being perfect. It’s about being present. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe and share it with a fellow dad. And don’t forget, you can find all our episodes at dadanddaughterconnection.com. Until next time, keep showing up, keep connecting, and keep being the dad she needs.

Musical Outro Performer [00:39:40]:
We’re all in the same boat, and it’s full of tiny screaming passengers. We spend the time. We give the lessons. We make the meals. We buy them presents and bring your AK. Because those kids are growing fast. The time goes by just like a dynamite blast, calling astronauts and firemen, carpenters and musclemen, get out and be the world to them. Be the best dad you can be.

Musical Outro Performer [00:40:32]:
Be the best dad you can be.