Valuable Lessons That Pixar & Marvel Can Teach Us to Become Better Dads

Storytelling is an essential skill to being a better parent and father.

Learning to tell a vivid story can help you capture and retain your kids’ attention and teach valuable lessons. Dads can learn from the storytellers at Marvel and Pixar.

Story is Part of Being Human

Everything we consume for entertainment is a story: music, books, art, movies, poetry. We are captivated by a good story and will wait weeks to discover how it ended. Every conversation we have is laced with stories.

A good story will keep us engaged for decades. Just look at Star Wars.

Storytelling Begins at Birth

As soon as they are out of the womb, we start encoding them with stories of family history, culture, language, and food stories.

These stories start to shape their identity.

Our people have these traditions. We pray to this God. We are patriotic citizens of this nation. We cheer maniacally for this sports team.

These are all stories stacked on top of stories on top of stories.

We’re Already Natural Storytellers

But dads tend to tell tired old stories that don’t age well. We go on and on about the good old days or some nonsense that isn’t relevant to our kids today.

Try this instead. Share your hero journey.

• Where did you start?
• What dreams did you have?
• What difficult obstacles did you face?
• Who showed up and showed you the way?
• Who did you have to become accomplish your dream?
• What lessons did you learn?

Repeat it Throughout Their Lives

One day, you will hear them repeat word for word, your hero story. They will be so proud to tell their friends.

If you don’t have great stories to tell, then it’s time you create some now with them.

New stories experienced together are the best.

-

Read this and many more essays on being a better father and human on Teevee.mx