Episode Details
Back to EpisodesI Want My Kid to Call Me When He's Drunk at 17. Here's Why That Starts Right Now.
Description
Robbie's five-year-old woke him up in the middle of the night, grabbed him by the neck climbing into bed, and nearly got demolished by a dad who wakes up swinging. He didn't. He got a hug, got walked back to his room, got his head rubbed. And it got Robbie thinking about what it actually means to be the person your kids run to instead of away from.
Not the safe space in the college campus sense. The real one — the kind where your teenager calls you from a party instead of getting in the car with a drunk driver, because they know you'll be angry but you won't stop loving them. That kind of trust doesn't happen when they're 16. It starts being built right now, in the small moments.
Topics covered: why being a disciplinarian and being a safe space aren't opposites, what it actually costs your kids when you lose your temper on small things, why Robbie worries more about his kids going to the internet than coming to him, how to validate a fear without validating what they're afraid of, and the long game of building the kind of trust that makes your kid choose you when it really matters.
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