It can be revealing, when you put it all down on paper. Whether it’s looking at your monthly spending or your daily eating habits, sometimes you don’t know until you see it all recorded. And then, once you do, you’re prompted to change.
A couple of weeks ago, in Daily Dad Society (our members group for dads—which we’d love to have you join), one of the dads wrote in something really eye-opening along these lines:
I didn’t grow up in a touchy-feely family and we rarely said ‘I love you.’ A mental health professional once told me to spend a week doing a ‘hug counter’ on the amount of times daily I hug my daughter. I was averaging around 2-3 hugs, which she told me was unacceptable. It’s been roughly 2 years now of giving lots of hugs and it’s improved the household in so many ways.
What are some things you might audit for in your own household? Affection is a powerful one. You could audit for criticism—how often are you being negative? You could audit for yelling. You could audit for compliments and encouragement. You could audit for how often you check your phone when you’re with them (or conversely, how often you are present when you are with them). You could audit for losing your cool. You could audit for choosing time with them instead of whatever else you’re doing.
And when you see it there in black and white, you can do something about it.
P.S. These are the kinds of things you’ll get out of Daily Dad Society. It’s a community of parents just like you, trading ideas, sitting with the hard questions, and holding each other accountable for the type of parent they want to be.
And every month, I join the community on a live call—we talk through what’s on our minds, share advice, vent our frustrations, and provide support to each other. It was during one of these monthly discussions that this idea of an audit came up, and we all walked away thinking about what we needed to audit in our own lives, with our own kids. What needed to change. What we needed to do to make it happen.
If you’re committed to raising good humans and having these types of conversations, we’d love to have you with us.
Join Daily Dad Society today at dailydad.com/society.
