---
title: What do I do? Hope for dads
description: Good news, you’re not broken and neither is your family. What the science and studies have shown is this–families can overcome a lot and thrive when you do two things.
image: https://www.mikelepis.com/hubfs/April%20wk1.png
---
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April 9, 2025
# What do I do? Hope for dads
 By [Mike Lepis](https://www.mikelepis.com/parent-dad-coach/author/mike-lepis) · 1 minute read
Between spring break and parent coach training the weeks have flown by. I’m deep into learning, exploring, and coming up with ideas to help us parents (of a certain generation). That takes time, I'm excited to share soon.
Parenting is hard as it is, and when you toss on any number of challenging scenarios, and they add up over time, you can get pretty low and lose hope. And if you are doing the same thing over and over because you don’t know what else to do…. that’s not a great place to be.
Good news, you’re not broken and neither is your family. What the science and studies have shown is this–families can overcome a lot and thrive when you do two things:
1. Make sense of your past
2. Commit to keep showing up
10 words you can kick around in your head that will give you a lot to think about. Easy? Not really but a worthwhile investment to explore. If you are struggling it can sometimes help to look back and begin to connect the dots.
Dad’s only section below. The rest of you can move along.
Dad Q/A:
Why make sense of my past? It’s in the past.
Yeah, good point. But if you don’t study history, you are bound to repeat it, no? The modern parenting sciences call this ‘creating a cohesive narrative of your past’. You’ll begin to put words to what it was like for you when you were a kid. You might find you are parenting like it’s 1984.
What do you mean ‘showing up’? I’m here every day. WTF?
You know what I mean–don’t phone it in. There are two types of a-hole parents out there: loud and quiet. ‘Showing up’ is finding that sweet spot between those two where you can listen, teach, apologize, and have fun. And it starts before you are toe to toe with your young tormenter. Figure out what you need to do to show up ready to parent, not babysit.
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