A coach for founders and CEOs argues that 75% of parenting happens before age 12, so show up for it. Create systems: specific family nights, home before dinner, full attention. A doorway ritual—pause, breathe, remind yourself to be present and kind—shifts the whole household energy.
A frequent topic in my coaching sessions with founders and CEOs is finding the way to be a whole human at home as well as at the office. So our personal relationships. And literally today I had a talk with a client who is starting to make real good progress in his business life, which is what we said out to do, and now we're switching focus to his personal life. And the thing he said was, how do I make sure that in 20 years my daughter looks back and says, my dad was there, that she feels close to me, that we have that connection? And so I started by giving him the sobering stat that roughly 75% of the time we spend with our children is spent with them before they turn 12. And so when they are young is the time that we need to prioritize. So when we find ourselves thinking, I'm a bad parent because I'm not spending enough time with our children, start by doing this. What am I actually doing with them? Am I there for soccer matches? Am I there for birthdays? Do I pick them up from school or kindergarten on occasion? Am I emotionally available to them when they need me? What is the actual track record? Because typically we judge ourselves too harshly, and actually we're doing much better than we think. So start by doing that. Then secondly, like many other things, apply a system to it. For example, if you go to the gym 2 nights a week from 4 to 6 or 5 to whatever, And the other nights you stay longer at the office. Take one of those other nights and make sure that you come home well in advance of dinner time or bath time, depending on the age of your children, so that you can spend time with them, really spend time with them. Sit down, hear how their day was, help with homework if they have it, play a game, just be there with them. Be near them without your phone, without anything else. Because what you do in those 2 or 3 hours between the time you come home and they probably will need to be going to bed, the stuff that you're missing in the office can wait. You can do it later that night if you want to. You can do it the next day. It's not going to matter in the grand scheme of things. And if you have a hard time making that transition when you come home, here's another trick. As you pull into your driveway, if you're driving your car, or as you're parking your bike, or if you're getting ready to enter your apartment building, take a moment, take a breath. Say, how do I bring my whole self into the house? How do I bring my whole self into the house? I do that by knowing that all my family wants from me, all my kids, if you have them, all my partner wants from me is a present and kind person. So present and kind, 2 simple words. Remind yourself of that as you walk through the door or before, and you'll start entering your home in a different way. It'll create a different energy. Your loved ones will feel it. You won't have, you know, that hour where everybody's hungry and tired because there will be a different energy coming home than they're used to. So try that the next time you feel like you're a bad parent. Think about what you're actually doing with them. Think about what you're doing with your partner if you don't have children. Put a system to it. Decide actively a day a week, 2 days a week to be there. And when— before you go into your home, switching from work to home, think about being present and think about being kind.
