Happy Sunday, dads.
Andrew here. One thing I’ve learned is that the conversations that matter most with your kids usually don’t show up when you’re ready for them.
They happen in the car. While you’re making dinner. Five minutes after you told everyone it’s time for bed. Right when you’re trying to get out the door.
And most of the time, they don’t sound important at first. It might be, “Dad, something weird happened at school today.” Or, “Do you think I’m good at this?”
The hard part is that kids don’t always tell you when a conversation matters to them. They just start talking.
And as dads, it’s easy to miss the opening. Not because we don’t care. Because we’re busy. We’re thinking about work. We’re trying to get everyone somewhere. We assume we can come back to it later.
Sometimes you can. But sometimes the moment passes. The subject changes. They decide they don’t want to talk about it anymore. That’s why noticing the opening matters.
You don’t need the perfect response. You don’t have to turn everything into a lesson or solve whatever they bring you.
Sometimes the best thing you can do is stop, listen, and ask one more question. Because some conversations only happen once.
This week, don’t force the big talk. Just make sure you’re there when the small one starts.
Let’s get into it.
And if you’re new here, welcome to The Dadder Dispatch. You picked a good weekend to show up.
Most of us think patience means staying calm when the house is loud, the kids are dragging their feet, or something goes sideways. But sometimes patience looks a lot simpler than that.
It looks like not rushing them. Not cutting the story short. Not treating every part of the evening like something to get through. Because when you slow the pace down, you give more room for the stuff you usually miss. That’s what these two challenges are about.
Tonight, do the evening slower on purpose. Slower dinner. Slower cleanup. Slower conversation. Slower bedtime. Not lazy. Deliberate. Most nights, it’s easy to treat everything after work like a checklist you’re trying to finish so you can finally sit down. Tonight, don’t rush to the end of it. Let the evening itself be the point. See what changes when nobody feels like they’re being pushed toward the next thing.
Today, find one moment when you’d normally rush your kid and match their pace instead. Walk their speed. Eat their speed. Let them finish the story at their speed. As adults, we’re almost always trying to move things along. Kids aren’t. For one moment today, stop asking them to catch up to your pace and meet them at theirs. You might notice something you usually move too fast to see.
The DadderUp app drops a fresh Dad Flex daily, built for the kind of dad who doesn’t wait for the new year to level up. Download it and start tomorrow.
From our conversation with Bryan Evans, CEO of The Father Center of New Jersey and a longtime nonprofit leader dedicated to strengthening fathers, families, and communities through emotional support, economic opportunity, and intentional fatherhood.
When I asked Bryan what his work with fathers has taught him about himself, his answer was one word: Listen.
And what he said next stuck with me. You have to understand where someone is coming from before you can respond. That applies to our kids too.
Bryan said one of the things his daughter always wanted was to feel loved, but she also wanted to feel heard. And once she felt heard, she would open up.
I think dads can be so quick to jump to the next part. The advice. The solution. The lesson. The thing we think they need to hear.
But sometimes your kid isn’t asking you to fix anything yet. They’re trying to figure out whether you’re really listening. So when they give you that opening, stay there for a minute.
Let them finish. Ask another question. Make sure they feel heard before you decide what comes next.
Because sometimes the conversation gets deeper only after your kid knows you’re actually in it with them.
“Sometimes my kids start talking at the worst possible time, when we’re late, I’m working, or everyone’s tired. How do I make space for those conversations without feeling like I’m dropping everything else?”
— Amer, dad of three, DadderUp community
I think the first thing is accepting that the timing is almost never going to be convenient.
Kids don’t wait until your inbox is empty, dinner is done, and you’re sitting there fully available. They usually start talking right in the middle of everything.
And no, you can’t drop everything every single time. But you can learn to recognize when something deserves a little more attention.
Sometimes that means stopping for five minutes. Sometimes it means saying, “I want to hear this, but I need ten minutes. Can we pick it back up when I’m done?”
The important part is actually coming back. Because when your kid starts opening up, they’re paying attention to what happens next.
Do you make room for it? Do you remember? Do you follow through?
You don’t have to be available every second. But when you tell them you’ll come back to the conversation, make sure you do.
That consistency is what teaches them they can keep coming to you.
Being in the same room as your kids and actually being present with them are two very different things. I’ve learned that one the hard way.
There have been plenty of times I thought I was doing a good job because I was physically there, only for one of my girls to point out that I was still on my phone or only half paying attention.
And kids know the difference. That’s why I’ve been working on a few simple things.
Put the phone away when we’re together. Look them in the eyes when they’re talking. Ask something better than “How was your day?” Make time to be with each of them one-on-one.
And when something goes wrong, try to be the calm person they feel safe coming to instead of the person they’re afraid will freak out.
None of those things are complicated. But they all send the same message: I’m here. I’m listening. You can talk to me.
And I think that matters because you never really know when an ordinary conversation is going to turn into something your kid actually needed to tell you.
The goal isn’t to be available perfectly every minute. It’s to build the kind of relationship where, when something matters, they know Dad is someone they can come to.
What would make the biggest difference in your conversations with your kids this week?
Bryan and I talk about why fathers need support too, how empathy and listening can strengthen families, and why kids are more likely to open up when they feel heard instead of judged or rushed.
I break down the difference between being physically present and attentively present, with practical ways to help your kids feel seen, heard, and safe enough to keep coming to you.
We’ll keep showing up with the emails. All we ask? Send this to a dad who loves his kids deeply but might need the reminder to slow down when they start talking.
