Maybe you can’t afford what some of the other parents can buy for their kids. Maybe because of your job, you can’t be there for every game and every milestone. Maybe you can’t give them a famous name or a nepo job. Maybe you can’t quite keep up with them like the younger parents can, maybe you can’t get them the gadget that’s trending.

But you know what you can do? What you can do almost every single day?

You can give your kids ten good minutes. You can be fully present and connected for ten minutes in a row. You can enter their world, show them you care, show them you’re interested, have fun with them.

This is actually something we talked about recently on one of our Daily Dad Society calls (if you want to join the group, here’s the info—we’d love to have you). We all have a lot of responsibilities and obligations that keep us busy and keep us away. But none of us are too busy, too important, that far away, that we can’t connect with our kids for this concentrated, special bit most days. We can do more and we should try to do more, but let’s make sure we are at least doing this.

Because it’s a lot. It adds up. These days, being present is so rare. We’re tied up looking at our phones. Our work emails. Doomscrolling the news. Checking Instagram. So yes, ten minutes matters in a world where we’re constantly busy and distracted. Ten minutes is actually a rare and wonderful thing. They’ll feel it and they’ll appreciate it. You can give that to your kids every single day.