If you want to spend more time with your kids, as we said recently, the important thing is that you don’t drive them away. Yet that’s exactly what so many of us do.
We worry, we care, we struggle to find the right balance—and our well-meaning efforts backfire. Consider John O’Connor’s mom, whose smothering tendencies drove her son to move from California to Arizona just to get some distance. She never intended this outcome, but her actions made it inevitable. Or take Tim Hardaway Sr., whose drive to make his son a great basketball player nearly pushed Tim Hardaway Jr. away from the sport entirely. Many of us make similar mistakes with our own children.
In the February 9 entry in *The Daily Dad* (grab our new premium leatherbound edition of the book here), Abraham Lincoln reminds us that the best way to bind our children to us is through affection and love. Not all children flee at 18, never to return. Not every family drifts apart as children grow up and build their own lives. While relationships and living arrangements naturally evolve, some families actually grow closer over time.
The secret to keeping your kids close isn’t gripping tighter—it’s supporting them, encouraging them, and helping them become who they truly are, not who we want them to be. Our role is to be a resource, a shoulder to lean on, an ancestor—not a haunting, controlling, terrifying ghost.
You say you don’t want to lose them, that you want to see them, that you want the crowded table. But what do your actions say? How do they make your kids feel? Is your table truly an inviting place where they can be themselves? If not, perhaps it’s time to let go. Admit your mistakes. Apologize. Otherwise, that empty table will be of your own making.
P.S. For more wisdom from one of history’s greatest dads, check out our new video “5 Parenting Lessons From Abraham Lincoln” over at The Daily Dad YouTube channel. From teaching with stories to setting his children up for success, Lincoln’s example as a father remains as relevant today—on what would have been his 215th birthday—as it was in his time.
Watch the video here and make sure you don’t miss any of our upcoming parenting videos by subscribing to The Daily Dad YouTube channel today.
