Happy Sunday, dads.
Andrew here. I think social media has made it really easy to look like you’re absolutely crushing fatherhood.
The birthday post. The soccer picture. The family vacation. The first day of school. The concert where everybody is smiling and, somehow, nobody is arguing about where to eat afterward. You get the picture.
And listen, I’m guilty of it too. I love documenting things with my girls. I love looking back at the pictures and videos. Some of my favorite memories are sitting right there in my camera roll.
But lately I’ve been thinking about something: The picture isn’t the relationship. Your kid doesn’t experience you as a collection of your best moments.
They get the Dad who wakes them up when everyone is running late. The Dad driving them to practice. The Dad sitting next to them when they’re upset. The Dad who’s tired after work. The Dad who puts the phone down when they start telling some ten-minute story that could’ve been thirty seconds.
That’s where most of fatherhood actually happens. And nobody posts much of that.
There’s no highlight reel for patiently answering the same question six times. Nobody takes a picture when you apologize because you handled something badly.
You probably aren’t uploading the random Tuesday night when you sat on their bed and talked about absolutely nothing for twenty minutes.
But I’d bet those moments are doing more for your relationship than we realize.
So this week, don’t worry so much about creating a moment worth documenting. Pay attention to the ones already happening when nobody’s watching.
Because your kid doesn’t need your fatherhood to look impressive. They just need Dad. Let’s get into it.
And if you’re new here, welcome to The Dadder Dispatch. You picked a good weekend to show up.
A good relationship with your kids usually isn’t built by accident. It’s easy to look at the big moments. The trip. The game. The holiday. The picture everyone remembers. But a lot of what actually shapes your family happens quietly, through the things you decide matter and then keep showing up for. This week’s challenges are about getting specific about what you want to build before the rest of the year gets away from you.
October starts the final quarter of the year. Tonight, ask yourself one question: What is one thing I want to be true about my relationship with my kids by December 31? Not “spend more time together.” Make it specific. Maybe you rebuild a bedtime routine that disappeared. Maybe you start a weekly tradition. Maybe there’s a conversation that needs to be repaired. Maybe there’s something you’ve been saying you want to do together that finally needs to make it onto the calendar. Pick one outcome. Then work backward. What needs to happen in October so November and December don’t turn into another blur? Because December gets here whether you plan for it or not. Leadership means deciding what matters before the calendar decides for you.
Today, choose one standard you want your kid to hold this fall. One. Maybe it’s the homework routine. Bedtime. Screen time. Effort at practice. How they treat people at school. Then actually say it out loud. “This fall, in our house, we’re holding this.” Don’t make them guess what the expectation is because they only hear about it when they miss it. Name it. Explain why it matters. Then be consistent enough that it becomes something you’re both working from. Because the standards that shape your home shouldn’t live only in Dad’s head.
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 my conversation with Robin Bossert, founder and executive director of Navigators USA, a co-ed scouting movement built around respect, honesty, service, and community.
Robin has spent years working with kids from all kinds of backgrounds, including some who didn’t necessarily want to be there in the first place.
And when I asked him how he broke through to some of the tougher kids, his answer wasn’t complicated.
Be attentive. Let them know you’re interested in them. Make them feel like they’re important enough for your time. That stuck with me.
Because as dads, I think we can put a lot of pressure on ourselves to create something bigger. The awesome trip. The perfect weekend. The big experience they’ll remember forever. But sometimes your kid isn’t asking for any of that.
They’re asking, Do I have your attention right now? Do you care about what I’m saying? Do you actually want to be here with me?
Robin talked about how simply showing up and giving a kid that kind of attention can give them a sense of value.
And maybe that’s the reminder for us this week. You don’t always need to create a better moment.
Sometimes you just need to fully show up for the one already happening. No audience. No picture. No proof.
Just Dad making sure his kid knows: You’re important enough for my time.
“I don’t think I’m an absent dad at all, but I know I’m distracted more than I want to be. What’s a realistic way to work on that without pretending I can shut everything else off?”
— Robert, dad of three, DadderUp community
I think the first thing is being honest about what “distracted” actually looks like for you.
Because most of us aren’t disappearing for five hours. It’s usually smaller than that. Checking one email. Answering one text.
Looking at something for thirty seconds that somehow turns into ten minutes. Thinking about work while your kid is talking even though your phone is technically face down.
And realistically, you’re not going to shut the rest of your life off every time your kid walks into the room.
I don’t think that’s the goal. The goal is creating pockets where they get all of you.
Maybe it’s dinner. Maybe it’s the drive to practice. Maybe it’s the first ten minutes when you get home. Maybe it’s bedtime.
Pick a few moments where Dad is actually unavailable to everything else for a little while. And when you mess it up, because you will, catch it faster.
Put the phone down. Look back at them. Ask them to finish the story.
You don’t need to become some perfectly unplugged dad.
You just want your kids to experience enough moments where they know, without having to compete for it, that they have your attention.
One of the harder things I’ve had to learn as a dad is this: What I mean and what my kids feel are not always the same thing.
There was a point where my oldest kept calling me out for being on my phone. Not once. Over and over.
“Daddy, put your phone away.” “Daddy, you’re always on your phone.” And at first, I got defensive.
Because in my head, I knew how much I loved her. I knew how hard I worked for my girls. I knew I would do anything for them. So part of me was thinking, *How could she possibly feel like she’s not important to me?*
But then I realized something. She can’t see what’s in my head. She can only experience how I’m showing up.
And if she’s talking to me while I’m answering an email, checking a text, or half listening, the message she gets isn’t, “Dad loves me more than anything.” The message is, “Something else has his attention right now.”
That was a tough one to swallow. Because I wasn’t an absent dad. I was there. I just wasn’t always fully there. You know what I mean?
So I started changing the little things. Putting the phone away during certain parts of the day. Actually looking at them when they talk. Getting into the things they care about instead of waiting for them to care about the things I care about. Listening without immediately jumping in with the solution.
And none of those things are big. They’re not the moments you post. They’re not the moments somebody else sees and thinks, *Man, what a great dad.*
But my girls feel them. And at the end of the day, that matters a whole lot more than whether anybody else sees me doing it.
What would help you show up better in the moments nobody else sees?
Robin Bossert, founder of Navigators USA, joins me to talk about quiet leadership, community, and what kids can learn when an adult simply shows up, pays attention, and makes them feel like they’re worth the time.
I break down why physically being there is only the beginning of presence, plus three things I’ve had to work on myself: putting the technology away, getting into the things my girls care about, and listening without immediately trying to fix everything.
We’ll keep showing up with the emails. All we ask? Send this to a dad who’s great at showing up for the big moments but could use the reminder that the ordinary ones count too.
The car rides. The bedtime talks. The random questions. The moments nobody posts. That’s where a lot of the relationship gets built.
