Before I dive into today’s post, I wanted to say thank you to everyone who preordered The Daily Dad! If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, I’ll be in New York City TONIGHT at the Barnes and Noble in Union Square at 6 p.m. with my buddy Casey Neistat (ticket includes a copy of The Daily Dad!). And if you’re in Austin on Monday May 8, I’ll be at the Barnes and Noble at the Arboretum with my buddy Austin Kleon at 7 p.m. Click the links for more details, and I hope to see you there!

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At 6:45pm on Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014, I got an email from my friend Seth Roberts, the pioneering and peerless scientist.

I opened it, saw that it was to be the first of a long awaited column called “Personal Science” for the Observer, where I was then an editor. I assumed it was good–Seth’s work always was–so I marked it as unread and told myself it could wait until Monday.

On that Saturday, less than 72 hours later, Seth collapsed of a fatal heart attack while hiking in Berkeley. It would have been so easy for me to reply and and tell him how happy I was with what he had written. Or how much he’d helped me over the years and how excited I was to be working with him. How hard would it have been to give even the courtesy of acknowledging his email?

But I didn’t. And now I will never get to tell him anything ever again. This man who had mentored me, who had inspired me, who had made me rethink how I did so many things…I had left him on hold and now he was dead.

Of course, I was familiar with the Stoic concept of Memento Mori. In Meditations, Marcus Aurelius writes “You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think.” Of course, I knew that any of us could go at any moment. Yet there is, as always, a difference between knowing something and knowing it. And there is nothing like losing someone you care about suddenly and unexpectedly to help you understand how fragile and ephemeral life is.

In an interview shortly after the death of the musician David Crosby, Crosby’s bandmate Graham Nash talked about the falling out they never got to resolve. “He had sent me a voicemail saying that he wanted to talk to apologize,” Nash said. “I emailed him back and said, ‘Okay, call me at 11 o’clock tomorrow your time, which is 2 o’clock on the East Coast.’ He never called, and then he was gone.”

You think you can do it tomorrow. You think you have tomorrow.

You very well may not.

The grudges we hold on to. The strange priorities we hold. The nonsense we get bogged down in.

There is a kind of arrogance in it. It takes tomorrow for granted.

This is the one thing all fools have in common, Seneca wrote. “They are always getting ready to live.” They are always thinking that they have plenty of time. They are always saying that they’ll be able to get to it later. They think that opportunities, that other people, that life can be deferred to the future.

They cannot.

These things exist, as Tolstoy wrote, only in the present.

Procrastination is egotistical. It is entitlement, embodied. I carried guilt about that with Seth for a long time–you can see I was still wrestling with it in the eulogy I gave for him a few months later (Tim Ferris gave a really good one too)–and it’s taken me almost ten years to even be able to write about it.

Meditation on our mortality is not a productivity hack. It’s more than that.

For me, I’ve tried to take from this experience a relatively simple lesson: I tell people how I feel about them when I have the chance.

It wasn’t just Seth that taught me this. I remember I was in O’Hare Airport a couple years ago, and I saw something on a TV I was passing that reminded me of my friend Bret Bearup. I remember thinking, ‘Oh I should message him.’ Then I got distracted and boarded my flight. When I landed, I got a terrible bit of deja vu, more terrible news. He had died taking an afternoon nap.

If a friend pops into my head now, I take it as a sign: You need to reach out. Don’t do it later. Don’t leave them hanging. Don’t assume you’ll get another chance. Take the one that’s in front of you right now. Accept the gift in front of you–it is the present.

It’s very unlikely you’ll regret it. It may well be the last thing you get to do. For instance, in The Daily Dad (out now!) I tell the story of Bob Saget—legendary comedian, longtime host of “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” and Danny Tanner on “Full House”—who got a text from his daughter as he was about to go onstage to perform stand-up. We don’t know what she said, but it wasn’t urgent.

He could have easily said to himself, I’ll respond later. I’ll call her in the morning. We never want to consider that it’s our last chance. We tell ourselves that it’s nothing, that there will be other phone calls, other texts, more good-nights. But that’s not always true.

Saget took a second to send what neither of them could have known would be his last text. “Thank u,” he wrote. “Love u. Showtime!” Hours later, he was found dead, tragically, in his Orlando hotel room at age 65.

No one knows what their last words will be. No one knows how much time they have. So let’s use the time we have, before we lose the time we’re never guaranteed.

Let’s make sure we tell people that we care about them.

Let’s make sure we reply to the email, we return the call, we tell those we love how we feel about them while we can.

It’s one of those lines we throw out casually: “I want to spend more ‘quality time’… ” whether it’s with friends, with family, with your kids, or with yourself. We spend an inordinate amount of money and effort at creating opportunities to get this time too. We plan for it. We pay for it. We’re anxious at the slightest delay or weather that might disrupt it.

While it all comes from a good place, there’s a disconnect: The perfectionist side of our brain, fueled by movies and Instagram, wants everything to be special, to be “right.” But that’s an ideal the busy, ordinary, doing-the-best-we-can versions of ourselves can’t always live up to.

The result? An inevitable sense of disappointment. A sense that other people are doing better than us. We feel guilt. We feel pressure. We think “Oh, if only I had more money, or a better job, or lived in France where the child care benefits were different, if I had more custody, then things would be good...”

That’s not fair. And it’s also damaging.

The reason, as I ended up writing about extensively in the new book, The Daily Dad: 366 Meditations on Love, Parenting and Raising Great Kids, is that there is no such thing as “quality time.” Jerry Seinfeld, father of three, put it well:

I’m a believer in the ordinary and the mundane. These guys that talk about ‘quality time’ — I always find that a little sad when they say, ‘We have quality time.’ I don’t want quality time. I want the garbage time. That’s what I like. You just see them in their room reading a comic book and you get to kind of watch that for a minute, or [having] a bowl of Cheerios at 11 o’clock at night when they’re not even supposed to be up. The garbage, that’s what I love.

To be fair, Seinfeld is the master of the mundane. Banality has made him a near-billionaire. But there is a deeper truth to what he’s getting at. Special days? Nah. Every day is special. Every minute can be “quality time.”

The Buddhists say this too. That happiness can be washing the dishes. Happiness can be doing farm chores. That enlightenment is about who you are while you’re doing it, provided that you’re present while you’re doing it.

I remember when my book The Obstacle Is the Way first started making its way through professional sports, I was invited to see the Seahawks training camp up in Renton, Washington. I had just gotten married and my career was really firing, so I asked Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll how coaches manage to make a personal life work with such insane hours. Pete, who has been married for more than 40 years, looked at me and said, “You have to find the moments between moments.”

Another way to say this might be to just say: Take every moment you can.

It’s something I’ve seen inside the buildings of most of the sports teams I’ve visited. Yeah, the coaches and staff often get there before the sun comes up and leave long after it’s gone down. Yeah, they travel a lot. But their families are always around. They’re doing lunches and dinners at the office. They are taking time between sessions to sit and talk, to hang out, to work out, to do things together.

It’s all about the moments between the moments for ordinary people, too. I’ve never understood parents who complain about “being a chauffeur” to their kids. “What am I, your driver?” they say. Sure, it can be a pain in the ass to drive your kids around. To day care. To school. To a friend’s house. To a doctor’s appointment. To soccer practice. Sometimes it can feel like this is all parenting is — driving a little person around. For free.

But instead of seeing the drive as an obligation or an inconvenience, why not choose to see it as a gift? A moment between moments. In fact, it’s a lot of moments. Even better, it’s captive time. You are stuck together! This is wonderful. This is what you wanted, right? An opportunity to connect? To bond? To have fun? So use it!

As many parents with older children will tell you, something changes when kids are in the car with you. Suddenly, you’re not the parent. You’re just a companion, a fellow human being equalized by traffic. Kids will share things in the car they wouldn’t say anywhere else. Better yet, when their friends are in the car too, you fade into the background and suddenly you can watch how your kid is with other people. It’s like you’re a detective watching through one-way glass. You’ll learn things about your own son or daughter that you’d never know otherwise. You’ll get a glimpse into who they are in a way they could never articulate to you directly.

This isn’t only true for kids. Some of my best memories with my wife, or friends, have happened in the car. Or when we were sitting at the gate, waiting for a delayed plane. Sometimes these awkward, in-between moments allow for conversations that never would have happened otherwise. Even some of my best writing and thinking have come when I was stuck somewhere I didn’t want to be, or doing something I didn’t want to do. When you’re out of excuses for being busy, when you can’t defer or plan for some idealized future, you’re forced to just make do with what’s in front of you. The distinction between “quality” time and “garbage” time falls away and you’re left with what simply is.

Yet I also look at other encounters we had in similar moments and feel regret. Because I let that delay get to me–I spent the 40 minutes nervously pacing, or being irritable or worse. I was so eager to get where we were going that I didn’t appreciate that we were already doing something that could be fun. My inability to accept deprived me of what actually was quality time all along.

Often when we are trying really hard to attain something, we end up missing the fact that we’ve had it in our hands the whole time. Sure, letting your kids blow off school for a fun day together can be wonderfully special — but so can the 20-minute drive in traffic to school. So can mailing a letter or watching a garbage truck meander through the neighborhood.

All time with your kids — all time with anyone you love — is created equal. What you do with it is what makes it special. Not where. Or for how long. Or at what cost.

Think back to your own childhood. Rushing around to get somewhere on time. Packing for that trip to Disneyland. Getting dressed up for those ridiculous matching group photos. “Why are we doing this?” you asked when you were old enough to notice that it seemed really stressful and not fun. The answer was always something like: “Because we’re a family.” As if you couldn’t be a family anywhere, doing anything. As if you couldn’t do it right here and now (and without the matching shirts).

This is worth remembering in all facets of life: You can be a family without getting dressed and leaving the house. You can be in love in the McDonald’s drive-through. You can be romantic near the eggs at the grocery store. You can be a writer as you ride the elevator down to take out the trash. You can be a good person in how you answer the phone or how you send emails.

There’s a Tolstoy quote I love: “There is no past and no future; no one has ever entered those two imaginary kingdoms. There is only the present.”

No vacation, no special experience, not even a family outing, just happens on its own. There is planning. There is time off work. There is the expense. There is the intention–and this is wonderful and it should be celebrated, soaked in when it happens. Just be sure not to give yourself too much credit because you booked a trip to the beach or got them excited for ice cream or the movies.

Because in some ways, this is actually the easiest option. What’s tougher? To just be present right now. Anyone can wow their kids with dessert or Disneyland–but can you make them feel special playing Legos on the floor? Just sitting and talking about life?

All time is quality time…if you choose to make it so. And you can’t let your future plans–to have a great time together, to go do something together, to all be together–let you off the hook right now where you are also together, in the living room, at the doctor’s office, FaceTiming from the business trip.

This moment in front of you is a gift. It’s everything you’ll ever need and ever want.

Should you choose to accept it. Should you choose to embrace it.

As parents, we worry about having all the right answers.

But I think it’s better to focus on asking the right questions.

The right question at the right time can change the course of a life, can still a turbulent situation, can provide a totally different perspective.

While every situation can generate its own, here are 15 questions that have challenged and helped me the most every day both as a parent and then as a writer, as I researched and wrote what became The Daily Dad: 366 Meditations on Parenting, Love, and Raising Great Kids, (it would mean so much to me if you could preorder it!!!). These 15 questions from some of the wisest philosophers, most incisive thinkers, and greatest parents that ever lived.

I’m not saying I know the answer to any of them, but I can say there is value in letting them challenge you. Certainly they have challenged me and continue to challenge me…

Start now by asking:

Will I Be An Ancestor or A Ghost?

In his Broadway show, Bruce Springsteen—whose songs have often focused on the painful legacy of our parents—explained the choice that all of us have as parents.

“We are ghosts or we are ancestors in our children’s lives,” he said at the beginning of his broadway show Long Time Comin’. “We either lay our mistakes, our burdens upon them, and we haunt them, or we assist them in laying those old burdens down, and we free them from the chain of our own flawed behavior. And as ancestors, we walk alongside of them, and we assist them in finding their own way, and some transcendence.”

Will you be a ghost or an ancestor to your children? Will you be the kind of example they need? Will you leave the kind of legacy that will guide them? That will inspire them to be decent and disciplined, great and good? Or will you haunt them with your mistakes, with the pain you inflicted on them, with the things left unsaid or unresolved?

Of course, we all know which of those two we want to be, just as Bruce’s flawed father surely did. But then our demons, our issues, the ghosts of our own parents, get in the way.

That’s why we go to therapy and read good books. That’s why we stay up at night before bed talking to our spouse about how hard this parenting thing is, to exorcise those demons by bringing them into the light. It’s why, wordlessly, when we hold our kids, we promise ourselves to do better, to try harder, to not repeat the mistakes we endured growing up. Because we want to be an ancestor—someone who guides them and inspires them. We don’t want to haunt their future selves like a ghost.

Am I Cherishing The Garbage Time?

We save and plan for elaborate vacations. We anticipate for months and months. And when it inevitably isn’t as special or elaborate or photo-worthy as we’d hoped, we feel awful, like we’re not enough, like we haven’t done enough.

Yet the comedian Jerry Seinfeld, who has three kids, questions the “quality time” that so many of us chase.

I’m a believer in the ordinary and the mundane. These guys that talk about “quality time”—I always find that a little sad when they say, “We have quality time.” I don’t want quality time. I want the garbage time. That’s what I like. You just see them in their room reading a comic book and you get to kind of watch that for a minute, or [having] a bowl of Cheerios at 11 o’clock at night when they’re not even supposed to be up. The garbage, that’s what I love.

Special days? Nah. Every day, every minute, can be special. All time with your kids—all time with anyone you love—is created equal. Eating cereal together can be wonderful. Blowing off school for a fun day together can be wonderful—but so can the twenty-minute drive in traffic to school. So can taking out the garbage or waiting in the McDonald’s drive-through.

In my pocket, I carry a medallion that says Tempus Fugit (”time flies”) on the front and “all time is quality time” on the back, so I’m constantly reminding myself to cherish the “garbage time.” Because it’s the best kind of time there is.

Am I Doing What I Want Them To Do?

The bestselling author and father of two Austin Kleon talks about how this is the hardest part of parenting: You have to be the kind of human being you want your children to be. You have to do the things you want your kids to do.

“I find this with parents all the time,” he said. “They want their kids to do things that they don’t do themselves.” He wants his kids to be readers, so he makes sure they see him reading. He wants them to explore different hobbies and interests, so he makes sure they see him practicing an instrument or tinkering in a sketchbook. He wants them to work hard and find work they care about, so he makes sure they see him working in his studio. He wants them to treat others with respect and kindness, so he makes sure they see him giving their mother something he made for her.

Who you are forms who they will be. So be who you want them to be. Do what you want them to do. It’s hard, but it’s the only way.

Does This Really Matter?

Your kid wants to go swimming, but you have to make this phone call. Your kids want to wrestle, but you have to cook dinner. Your kids want you to come tuck them in, but it’s a tie game with forty-two seconds left in regulation.

We pick these things because they’re urgent. Because they’ll only take a second. But mostly, we pick them because we can get away with it.

If something seemingly more urgent or out-of-control were to intervene, you would push the phone call. If you were stuck in traffic, you would order delivery. If the boss called and needed something, you would find out later who won the game. Yet here you are, telling your kid (and their earnest request to spend time with you) that they are not as important. Here you are choosing it over your kid.

Most of whatever we’re doing can wait. Not indefinitely, of course. No one is telling you to put it off forever. But this moment right now, you won’t get back. Take it. Play. Sit with them. Talk with them. Pause the TV. Save the draft and come back to it. Let dinner get cold. Tell so-and-so you’ll have to call them back.

Your kids are more important than any and all of that stuff.

What Am I Putting First?

Queen Elizabeth II had just returned from a six-month trip abroad. Her kids had been aboard the royal yacht for days, eagerly awaiting her return. Did she have presents? Would she tell them wonderful stories? Would she smother them with kisses?

As she stepped aboard, Prince Charles ran to her. Always a stickler for protocol, however, the queen politely greeted a group of dignitaries first. “No, not you, dear,” she chided him, finishing her business before embracing her family.

Even some sixty-five years after the fact, even if you have an important job, even if you’re an avid rule follower, even if you don’t like Charles, it still breaks your heart. Especially when we know that she knew better, having moved her weekly meeting with the prime minister to be there for her babies at dinnertime.

But now, after that much time apart, those were her first words to her six-year-old son? What changed? Couldn’t she see the awful symbolism? Literally putting work before family? After having already put them on pause for six months?

Your kids must come first. Not just in the very first months or years but always. You must say to them, “Yes, you, dear,” and never the opposite.

Am I Setting Them Up To Thrive?

Several years ago the writer Malcolm Gladwell pointed out how surprising it is that even in the NBA, which is filled with objectively talented and elite athletes, it sometimes requires a team change or a head coaching change (or a mental skills professional) for a player to thrive. They might have bounced around to two or three places, had multiple disappointing seasons and then suddenly, when the environment around them is right, when they have the support they need, bam, they’re great.

His point was this: If athletes being paid millions of dollars to perform need this, how can we possibly just expect kids to succeed in any old classroom we drop them into? We are so quick to write kids off—even our own kids—as not good at math, as a so-so student, as ADD or whatever. So quick!

But of course, environment is everything. The right supporting cast is everything. Timing is everything. We have to be patient. We have to be flexible. We have to take a page from these sports teams that, understanding they have a very valuable asset on their hands, do not despair when things don’t immediately click. No, when things aren’t working, they invest more. They don’t blame the star. They blame the system…and then try to fix it.

Am I Making Deposits or Debts?

Here’s a quote from Charles R. Swindoll: “Each day of our lives we make deposits in the memory banks of our children.”

Deposits are made when we love them, when we support them, when we protect them. Being there, helping them, nurturing them, cheering for them, giving them space to make mistakes and grow—this is how we fund that account.

But we also have to understand that we make debts our children will have to pay. When we lose our temper, fight with their mother or father, forget about what really matters—these things linger and haunt them for years and years into the future. This is why the writer Jancee Dunn got the advice from a therapist to keep a photo of their daughter in the bedside table:

Whenever I was about to lose my temper with [my husband], he told me, I was to run to the bedroom, pull out the photo, and say to it: I know that what I’m about to do is going to cause you harm, but right now, my anger is more important to me than you are.

As you can imagine, she writes, this was an exercise that did not need to be done more than a few times. Which is why we should each try a version of this in our own lives. Because so much of what we get angry about is not only not more important to us than our children or our marriages…it’s not important at all.

What If We’re Actually Just Hungry?

Any experienced parent can tell you about the magical panacea called food.

Why is your kid screaming? Why are they terrorizing their sibling? Why can’t they focus during homeschooling? Why can’t they fall asleep? Why is your teenager so moody?

The answer is simple. They are hungry. They’re hangry. And they don’t know it.

Moms have long carried snacks in their purses for a reason. Because it will solve most problems. Soothe most frayed nerves. Calm down most difficult situations.

Somebody always forgets to eat. So feed them. Ask them if they’re hungry. Remind them that they’re hungry. Keep a tight meal schedule. Watch what happens.

Oh, also, when you’re grouchy and frustrated and anxious and short with your spouse and your kids—you might be hangry yourself. In 2014, researchers from Ohio State University found that most fights between couples are because someone is hungry. So, like taking a walk or taking five deep breaths, grabbing something to eat will probably solve most of your adult problems too.

What Are They Really Trying To Say?

It doesn’t matter how old your kids are. It doesn’t matter where you’re from or how many tutors you’ve hired for them. It doesn’t matter if they’ve gone to therapy. It doesn’t matter if you have the most connected and open relationship. It doesn’t matter if they’re in college studying language.

The primary language of children is behavior. Not words. This is for one simple, undeniable reason: they don’t have the words yet.

This is why we need to ‘listen’ to our kids in more ways than just the obvious, literal way. We have to watch them. We have to be patient. We have to understand that a tantrum—even if it’s screaming about the iPad—is almost certainly about something else. We have to understand that lethargy or sliding grades are statements. So is wanting to dye their hair, so is getting arrested. It’s your child speaking to you through behavior. They’re telling you they are hungry. They are telling you they are stressed. They are telling you they don’t feel secure, that they need something, that they need someone. Even if they are saying the opposite of those things.

The question is: Will you hear them? Will you be able to talk to them about it? Not just with your words but with your own actions.

What Am I Measuring?

Tracee Ellis Ross has a famous, successful mother: the singer Diana Ross. You might think someone that successful would care a lot about success. Indeed, it’s a pretty common pattern: the driven parent drives their children—to get good grades, to win games, to be the strongest, prettiest, or most popular. They want to continue their pattern of excellence down through the college their kids go to or the profession they work.

But Tracee got lucky. Her mom did it right. While most parents would ask their kids, “How are your grades?” “Did you win?” “Are you number one in your class?” Diana Ross would ask, “Did you do your best? How do you feel about it, Tracee?” Tracee, who amidst some fits and starts would go on to become a very accomplished actress, would explain that her mother’s emphasis taught her an essential perspective shift: “How to navigate a life through how it feels to you, as opposed to how it looks to everyone else.”

What really matters? Not school. Not grades. What matters is what your kids learn about the world through these things, the priorities they pick up and the values they absorb. So that’s the question: Are you teaching them that test scores matter, or that learning counts? Are you teaching them that success is winning arbitrary competitions, or that it is becoming the best version of themselves?

Results don’t matter, not the obvious ones anyway. What counts is the person you are shaping them to be. What counts is who they are shaping themselves into.

How Can I Use This?

In the 2008 American presidential campaign, Barack Obama famously used the Reverend Wright scandal as what he later called a “teachable moment”—a chance to discuss race with the American people. Whatever you think of Obama’s politics or of that scandal, it’s hard not to like that phrase. A “teachable moment?”

It’s an essential fact of parenthood: everything that happens is an opportunity, a chance to teach your children.

The question is, will we seize that chance? Will you take advantage of that opportunity? And are you paying close enough attention on a regular basis to notice when these opportunities arise?

The mistake your daughter made. The knock on the door at 2 a,m, from a police officer bringing your son home, having caught him getting into trouble. The failed math test. A room they forgot to clean, again. That nasty remark you heard them make. None of it seems good, but there is something teachable inside each one of those things.

It might not be obvious, and it won’t necessarily be easy, but you have to find it.

What If I Took A Walk?

Seneca said that “delay is the greatest remedy for anger.” That’s the truth.

And there is no better way to delay than by taking a walk. Because a walk is the best way to let your mind clear, to make sure you don’t do something you will later regret. Anger is an exaggerator. It magnifies the worst in every situation. Anger is an exacerbator too. It takes a bad situation and makes it worse with the overreaction it produces in us.

Taking a walk makes sure that doesn’t happen, that anger doesn’t win. The next time you’re angry, take a walk and see if you can get yourself that wound up again. It’s next to impossible.

No one is saying you can’t respond at all. You probably will have to address whatever has made your blood boil. You will have to say something. But wait a minute. Take a walk and think about the best way to respond. Make it a teachable moment. Teach them that it’s possible to control how you react.

Am I Being A Fan?

Jim Valvano wasn’t yet out of high school when he first told his dad he had decided what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He wasn’t just going to be a collegiate basketball coach, he told him: “Dad, I’m going to win a national championship.”

A few days after Jim told his dad about his dream, his dad called him into his bedroom. “See that suitcase?” his father asked, pointing to the luggage in the corner. Confused, Jim replied, “Yeah, what’s that all about?” “I’m packed,” his dad explained. “When you play and win that national championship I’m going to be there. My bags are already packed.”

“My father,” Jim would later say in his legendary ESPY speech, “gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person: he believed in me.”

Have you given this gift to your children? Our job is to spur our children to conceive of big dreams, to encourage them to go after them, to give them the greatest gift anyone can give another person: belief. If you don’t believe in them, who will? If you aren’t their biggest fan, who will be?

Will I Have A Crowded Table?

It’s helpful to sit back and really think about what parental success looks like.

First, of course, it’s having healthy kids who survive to adulthood—that’s obvious.

But second, when you flash way forward into the future, what is it? It’s that beautiful phrase captured in the title of the Highwomen’s hit “Crowded Table.” At Thanksgiving. On birthdays. At some summer house on the beach you all rent as a family. That is, having kids whom you get to see, whom you have a good relationship with, whom you want to spend time with . . . for the rest of your days.

If you want a garden, the song reminds us, you’re going to have to sow the seed.

And if you want a crowded table, you’ll need to make the right decisions now so they’ll want to make the decision to fly from their homes to yours when they’re older and have families of their own. You’ll have to plant a little happiness, give a little love, if that’s what you want to reap.

You’ll need to set the table today to have the one you’ll want tomorrow.

Ask Them This Question Every Day

Those are 14 questions for you.

But here’s a question to ask them every day, one I try to ask my son when I pick him up from school each afternoon

What did you do that was kind today?

Instead of asking your kids if they behaved well or performed well or even if they had fun, be sure to check in with them about whether they did something kind. Ask them, every day, What good turn did you do today? What was something you did for someone else? Who did you help?

Think of the message this sends. Think of how it makes them think about their own day—to review their own actions through the lens of empathy, how their actions affect others. Think of the priorities it sets through your monitoring–that their parents are on top of not how many answers they got right but how many right things they did. Think about how much better the world would be if everyone thought this way, if everyone was raised this way.