Do you have a daughter that you are trying hard to bond and connect with but are struggling? Today in this episode you’re going to get inside access into the relationship between a real father and daughter, what makes and keeps them close and how you can have the same relationship with your daughter.My guests are Reena Friedman Watts with her dad and co-host of the Better Call Daddy podcast and show, Wayne Friedman.To connect with Reena Friedman Watts or Wayne Friedman or listen to the Better Call Daddy Podcast, visit https://bettercalldaddy.com/Special thanks to Zencastr for sponsoring The Fatherhood Challenge. Use my special link https://zen.ai/CWHIjopqUnnp9xKhbWqscGp-61ATMClwZ1R8J5rm824WHQIJesasjKDm-vGxYtYJ to save 30% off your first month of any Zencastr paid plan.Transcription - Inside a Real Father Daughter Bond---Do you have a daughter that you're trying hard to bond or connect with but are struggling?Today in this episode you're going to get an inside access look into the relationshipbetween a real father and daughter and what makes and keeps them close and how you canhave the same relationship with your daughter.If you're ready to be inspired and ready to make some changes, help is on the way injust a moment so don't go anywhere.Welcome to the Father the Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere totake great pride in their role and a challenge society to understand how important fathersare to the stability and culture of their family's environment.Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.Greetings everyone, thank you so much for joining me.My guest is Rina Friedman Watts with her dad and co-host of the Better Call Daddy Podcastand show Wayne Friedman.Rina and Wayne, thank you so much for being on the Father her Challenge.Thank you for having us.We're excited to be here.Wow, I love that radio voice.Let's start out with my favorite question of all.What is your favorite dad joke and this is to both of you.When I think of dad joke, I think my dad loves to say, you know what your problem is?You like me.Oh, you fall this mustache.Your father's mustache.Yeah, at the end of every reaction that we do, my dad continues to surprise me with hisreactions, by the way.Sometimes I don't know what he's going to think about the guests that I've interviewed.He's always like, when I have a good reaction to his reaction, he's like, you know what yourproblem is?You like me?I'm like, yeah, I do.Then I put that in my intro even because we say it so much to each other.It is a true story.I've listened to a few episodes and that's exactly what happens.He does.Wayne definitely says that.Well, Wayne, let's start with you.It's obvious you and Rina have a bond.You can't co-host a program or podcast with your daughter without that strong bond.So where did that begin?Well, I think I've tried very hard to have a bond with all three of my girls and you know,you have to find what interests them and you have to be part of their show.In the beginning, you would think that a father, whether he has sons or daughters, wantsyour children to be part of your show or my show, but it turns out that trying to forceor trying to put your values onto theirs, they have to accept it on their own.It's got to be their choice.And if it isn't their choice, it's really not going to work because eventually when someoneis telling you what to do or telling you how to feel or instructing you of what you cando and what you can't do, eventually a person is going to revolt and say, you know, I'vehad enough of that spaghetti in meatballs.I want to try something else.And I think a parent has to try to set some guidelines, but you have to be able to giveyour children an opportunity to stand on their own two feet and be able to blossom and betheir own person.And the best way to do that is to have communication that's not just one-sided.It's got to be where it's reciprocal, where they have a voice that is going to be heard.And if you can't get it from your father and your mother, where are you going to getit from?And if you get it from other places, it's sometimes a very tough learning experience.It's a lot nicer if you can get it at home.That's interesting.So, if we go a little deeper into that, and if I'm understanding you correctly, what you'rereally doing is you are modeling those values, but in the world of your daughters.That's correct.Rina, you've referred to your dad as your best friend whom you can share anything with.What are your earliest memories of your dad that have made you feel close to him?I was thinking about this question, and one of the earliest memories I have is decoratingmy dad and our dogs with stickers and jewelry.And he was always willing to kind of like play along to my shenanigans.And you know, that progressed as I grew older.I was putting on like musical performances and he would sit on the couch and clap his handsand then you know, when my grandparents were in a nursing home, he encouraged me to go singfor them and sing for the residents.And I think that goes along with what he was saying, you know, encourage your kids' talents.Each one of us kind of had our own talents.I like to sing and I had a sister who played the violin and she played baseball and I hadanother sister that was very into art and painting and whatever interest we had, he reallygot us the lessons and went to our games and you know, cheered on the sidelines and wasthere with, you know, my parents, my grandparents and it became a family affair.I mean, as you can imagine, having three daughters, there was always us competing for our parentsattention and our interests and what we wanted to do versus, you know, what they wanted us todo.But they did make us believe that we could do anything that we set our minds to and I thinkthat that's really cool.Like they never said you can't major in vocal music or you can't major in sports medicineor how about physics or how about becoming a doctor.Like I was pre-med for two and a half years and then switched my major to communicationsand broadcasting and they were really okay with it.They're like, okay, if that's what you want to do with your career and I did end up doingthat for my career but I was much closer to a bachelor's of science and I was on a fullscholarship at a college and I ended up transferring from the University of Charleston where I wasdoing a little bit of partying to Purdue, which was a much more serious university andI left behind a singing scholarship and decided I wanted to try something else and I didn'treally see a lot of resistance there.You both co-host a podcast and show called Better Called Daddy.Where did you come up with the idea of working together and how was that decision made?How do that decision make you both stronger?My dad is always who I've called.He's always the one that can stay on the phone for hours at a time and pretty much handlemost situations that I've been in.So that has been a common theme through my life.I think I decided that would be a good idea for a show after I worked for a top podcaster.I worked for Kathy Heller host of Don't Keep Your Day job and I was like seven months pregnanthelping her produce a 350 person event.This was also after I had co-hosted the next level people show so I had kind of already workedin radio, co-hosted another podcast, then worked for a top podcaster and my dad was in LAon business meeting a colleague and I was seven months pregnant putting out tables forsponsors and keeping the guests happy in the green room and he was like, I will help youput out the tables.I will help you set up the booths.I will make sure this event runs smoothly.He was worried about me moving chairs.He was like my production assistant for the day.I've been behind the scenes, kind of got my start in television at the Jerry Springer showright out of college and worked in reality TV for a while and then like I said worked fora bunch of influencers and I felt like during the pandemic it was kind of my opportunityto step in front of the camera and use all of these skills that I had learned for allof these years and I knew my dad wouldn't back out on me that he would be the best co-hostand that he really synthesizes my thoughts well and he's there for me and I thought thathis wisdom and his intergenerational flare would make a good show.Everything I'm hearing from what you're saying is comes back to the earlier question of yourdad actually modeling this idea of being in your world of helping you thrive in your worldand helping you grow.And his parents modeled that too.He worked with his parents for 40 plus years and he learned every aspect of the businessand that's something that my grandfather encouraged.He said if you want to have your own business then you need to learn all of the departmentsnot just had to manage people but had to do the work that you're asking the people todo and so my dad worked alongside his parents saw them model that and you know it wasn'tjust working together in the factory it was once he came home to you know they learnedhow to invest in the stock market together.We had a close-knit family where we got together on weekends.I mean I spent the night at my grandparents house until I was about in fifth grade they hadlike a special mattress for me in their own room.I remember my grandmother on the typewriter doing the time cards and my grandfather alwayshad the news on and I grew up with my grandparents like a five minute drive away and whenever I calledthem my grandfather was like be right there a little girl you know.So my grandparents were a big part of my life like my you know I grew up in Kentucky sopeople get married young and my grandparents were like second parents to me.Everything I just heard you say I think can be summed up in one word and this is what I seehappening in the dynamics between you and your dad and that word is legacy.There's a legacy generations deep that's being left and I think that's absolutelyamazing.Yeah thank you.I appreciate that because that's what the better called daddy podcast is about is reallysharing not only our legacy but asking people to investigate the legacy of their own familiesand with their own experiences so that really coincides with what the theme of the show isabout.So let's dive into the spiritual dynamics.What dynamics of your father daughter relationship mimic the image of God and how does that relateto all of us is in a true that at least in our family and with the religious backgroundthat we have were obligated to really pass to the next generation everything that we'velearned and values were supposed to be able to pass down as the belief of God to the rightthings and to be spiritual and to be educated and grow your whole life.That's a legacy that we feel is very close to God and the fact is is that we just don'tlive forever and the only way that we can have a chance of living forever is if we passon through the generations our knowledge and our wisdom and pass that along and hopefullyif you're successful in business a little bit we can give a tool of passing on and someinheritance financially as well but it doesn't take much to blow the money.So we better make sure that we pass down good values as mentioned already earlier that yourchildren and your grandchildren your great grandchildren want to learn and grow and havevalues of caring about others and not just yourself and try to make humanity a goal notjust individual goals.I love that it's funny to you because he always says have a couple kids your own you'll seehow easy it is.It's a big job and the funny part is is that it only took a second to make arena but thefact is is that it's a life long commitment it's a life long I don't know how to say itI guess it's really where you have to set the right example for your children alwaysthey don't necessarily follow what you say they follow more your actions of what you doso you really have to set a good example hands on your whole life because your childrenare watching you at all different ages of their development are are following what yourlead is and I think we have a responsibility to do the best that we can to set the bestexample and like I said it's got to be done to where an individual has to understand thatpart of our existence is to be able to give your children every opportunity to have a continuumand without that I think our individual lives are would be more shallow.There's something really profound that you're bringing up and that is the fact thatwe have a spiritual responsibility and accountability as fathers for our children for the legacythat we leave our children we are accountable we are responsible for that that's what itmeans that's this whole idea of mimicking the image of God which is the way he set itup this is the way it was designed to be and if I really dive into the emotional componentof it to me that's overwhelming that's that actually I would probably just go aheadand say it's a scary thought to me when I look at it that way does it ever feel overwhelmingto you.Always certainly can be and sometimes when you even think you've done a terrific job itcan all blow up in your face because events can occur out there in the real world thatcan give you a major setback and the fact is is that we have to learn to pivot we haveto learn to understand that it's not the end of the world and we just have to find maybea new path or a new way of moving forward but we can't allow the pitfalls to stop everythingthat we're trying to build.Well the good news is we don't have to do it alone God has promised to help us if he'sgiven us a responsibility that great he doesn't typically give responsibilities like thatwithout access to helping resources from him to accomplish that.I agree with you 100 percent.Wayne and Reena I've been told by experts that eye contact is essential to a bond and connectionwith your daughter is this true and what's your experience with this?Oh absolutely.The funny part is is that I can tell when I'm looking at Reena whether she really hearsme or if I have surprised her with an answer it shows up on her face just like she's writtena book to me.So I think that expression or facial expressions as long as you know going with the eyes aswell I think you can get a good read you can sometimes really know if somebody's gotsomething in their hand by the way they're acting that's why a lot of times they have a haton or a hood and dark glasses because they don't want to give away the emotion of theirhand at all where they're trying to just be a blank because I do agree that we our bodiesgive us a lot of communication of how we really feel where it's very hard to fake that.So I agree with you that eye contact facial contact whether a person is you don't havethem see a sweat okay or be extra nervous because like I said when it comes to being inthe clutch you want someone that can step up to a higher level when you're competing whenthe pressure is on not someone who's going to melt.I think I have your eyeballs.My face says it all.Right.It's like I said she can be communicating just by her reaction to things and sometimes I haveto spend a little extra time calming her down even when she has said nothing okay justfrom the facial expressions.And I think a mother has that instinct even with her own children.I mean even in the way that she's able to pick up baby cries that's what I was thinkingis you know you can tell when they're hungry you can tell when they're hurt you can tellwhen they're sick.So I think a lot of it is instinctual and another thing that I wanted to say too was my relationshipwith my dad and even my grandparents has led to a belief in God because my dad always toldme as a young kid that as long as he's alive nothing bad will ever happen to me and I thinkyou know when I'm having a hard time I even am like if you love me like my dad loves methen help me out right now like I know he puts up with a lot.You know I talk to God like that because of my relationship with my dad I feel like I'mable to believe in God and in the hardest times.Oh wow yeah that's powerful and I think that's another form of a legacy that's being left.I would and I would argue maybe the I would argue maybe that's the most important one.They're all very very important but that's the most important legacy because that's whatwas really designed all the way from the very very beginning the very first book.Scripture is about that.If that's being achieved that speaks to a huge success that's a big win as a parent.You touched on a different dynamic and that is the the mother daughter relationship.The very same thing happens there.Yeah I think that it's important to be able to talk to to both of your parents to feelunderstood and even in what we're trying to achieve with our show and I think what you'retrying to achieve with yours as well is by hearing people's stories and by giving themtime and not rushing through that and and making people feel like their story matters orthat their experience matters or that they can help someone that literally can save people'slives.That literally can give people legacy and purpose.It's truly unbelievable what listening to someone tell their story can do.My dad even encouraged me to put ear pods on his 93 year old mother and have her tell mestories of where she came from so that I could get that before she wasn't able to tell thatstory anymore and now I'm so glad that I did that and he found a recording of his dad whenhe was clearing out the factory that they used to work at together.It was like a cassette recording of he was getting ready to fire an employee and the other employeewho had referred him to the company was like I'm sorry I referred that guy like he was makingme look bad and he was like well you know thank you for letting me know that but I thinkmy grandfather was like hitting record just to document what he was getting ready to doand I had that cassette transferred to an MP3 and I did an episode where I interviewed mygrandmother and then did a little transition explaining that I had found this tape and soI had my grandfather in the same episode and his philosophy on work and then my dad respondedto the episode so it was like a triple generation episode me and my grandparents and my dadand that too is like the power of storytelling the power of legacy and the power of documentingfor the next generation.I think even your daughter was part of that show I think it was four generations.Yeah my kids have participated even in the podcast through creating intros asking someof the guests that I've interviewed questions coming up with different commercials with me.I think that if you have skills that you can pass on to your kids chances are they havesome of those talents and they might even not not know that they have those talents so ifthere's something that you're good at I'm even trying to tell my dad teach teach my kidshow to invest you know teach my kids how to take care of the yard teach my kids how totake care of their grandparents I think them seeing me wanting to go see my 95 year oldgrandma even though it's their spring break but you know how many years do I have leftwith her I think that that teaches them lessons just in in going to visit remember youractions sometimes speak louder than words.Yeah I saw a news article that they opened like a child care center in a nursing home theyare testing that model because old people love babies and kids and kids love old peopleand there is I feel like that it's missing from society today like kids live away from theirparents and parents live away from their parents me my dad flies to Florida like once a monthto go help out with his mom and you know we're also spread out and like I said earlier inthe episode I grew up with both sets of my grandparents within a five ten minute driveaway and they were coming to all of my performances or all of my school events and grandparentsday now grandparents day is like a parent coming or an aunt coming or a friend coming fromthe community and and that's great to it's just there is wisdom from those other generationsand I think we still need to kind of incorporate some of that for learning.I want to move on to a different direction why is it essential for dads to drop their angerimmediately and always when they interact with their daughters.The truth of the matter is is that if you want your daughter to have a relationship witha man down the road you have to give even an example of what a man should be like toyour daughter so you have to treat her right first you have to be understanding first youhave to be easy with your tone first because if you don't do that what can happen is thatthey will meet someone out there and if you're yelling at your daughter or if you're overdoingit or if you're being holding them back or telling them what to do and they can't do thisthen they can't do that.Well guess what then they're going to use that example and say well I love my dad andmy dad was like that maybe I've got to find somebody that's like my dad but not necessarilyin a good way but in a bad way and then that's how girls can end up in an abusive relationshipbecause they think that that's normal so I think it's very important especially witha daughter that a father has to be extra extra extra patient and understanding and set thebest possible example.You want to be a little rough with your son you want him to be a little tougher but witha daughter you got to treat her like she's a piece of pie with whipped cream and a cherryon top.Love that answer.You know what are your thoughts on this?I think that my parents got married super young and to be honest my dad was very passionatein his younger years with expressing himself and even if there was some yelling I thinkit's really important just to tuck your kids in at night and let them know that you lovethem and to drive them to school in the morning and ask them what's on their mind and if theywant to talk for an hour or two at a time do that and if there are things that you can'ttalk about like you know I went to a grandparent so that's what comes to mind for me is thereare going to be times where you guys don't see eye to eye or that you're not going to beas close I mean even when I was in college I was definitely figuring out myself and wantedsome years to do that but just let your daughter know that kind of like what you stand forand what your values are and that you're going to be there and you're going to be acceptingand you know that you can call it any hour.How can dads listening connect with you both with any questions or to learn more aboutwhat you're doing or to just listen into your podcast?BetterCallDaddy.com and we love when people have questions for us that's something that wedo at the end of every episode we say is there anything that you would like to ask mydad and it can be around business it can be around a personal struggle that you're havingpeople have even said that they want to adopt my dad and that is the biggest form of flattery.As we close what is your challenge to dads listening now?Dad should express to their daughters what they're proud of them about.I don't think that dads do it enough maybe they just don't think too and I think it'sreally powerful to do that.Let your kids know that what they've done is good and that you see that in them.I think letting your kids know that you see their gifts stays with them for a really longtime.It's something that they can always draw from.But dad really has to be able to step up and be able to show that they're going to bethere for their daughter no matter what.I feel the same thing about a son too.You've got to be there unconditionally and sometimes it's hard because if they're doingcertain things that are against the grain that you don't believe in but you have to tryto put your you know how the shoe fits on the other foot and try to see where they're comingfrom despite your own beliefs.But it's hard.Sometimes it's really hard but you have to be willing to at least try to find some middleroad if you can.Wayne Reena it has been a pleasure having you both on the fatherhood challenge.We've given us so much wisdom, much needed wisdom.I've been looking forward to doing this episode for a long time because I knew it was goingto be packed with so much wisdom and certainly true today.Thank you so much for being on the fatherhood challenge.Thanks for having us again.We appreciate it.Thanks Jonathan.Loved your questions.Thank you for listening to this episode of the Fatherhood Challenge.If you would like to contact us, listen to other episodes, find any resource mentionedin this program or find out more information about the fatherhood challenge.Please visit thefatherhoodchallenge.com.That's thefatherhoodchallenge.com.[MUSIC]Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/thefatherhoodchallengepodcast/donations

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