I'm definitely a better father because of a bunch of the self help books I've read. Things like better ways to communicate with my son, more effective ways to transfer knowledge, encourage independence, etc. Other areas of my life have definitely improved too though I agree when people say most self help books could be a blog post and in cases where it's an expansion of a blog post I'll generally just go read that.

With these types of books(and I read a lot of self help) I generally expect to get like 1-2 good pieces of advice/ideas per 200 pages so I generally just scan through them until I hit areas that seem high value then read those areas more deeply. I've read all of Tim Ferriss' books and haven't really gotten anything I can think of from his stuff to be honest they are a bit too general for me but I've gotten some good advice from his podcast though I only listen to maybe one episode in 10 when it is with someone or about something that sounds very interesting and even then I tend to scrub through it since there is a lot of filler in a 2 hour podcast.

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rfc3092 23 minutes ago | parent [-]

Please share “better father” books.

	▲	sanswork 11 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		The self driven child was one I just finished 2 weeks ago that I really enjoyed and felt had a lot of good advice that ran counter to my natural tendencies. The How to talk books(there are a few of them for different ages), no drama discipline. Cal Newports books while not specifically about parenting have helped me with disconnecting more from my tech which has always been a challenge since it's my job and a part of a lot of my hobbies which has definitely led to being a better father.
	▲	AnimalMuppet 17 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Here's the problem: You can be a bad father by being too strict, or you can be a bad father by being too lenient. In Zion National Park there's a hike called Angel's Landing. You wind up on this ridge, with a 1000 foot cliff on one side and a 500 foot cliff on the other side. And the ridge is not very wide - only a couple of feet in some places. Parenting is like that. You think, oh, I see people causing problems by being too strict, so I want to back away from that cliff. But there's a cliff behind you, so don't back too far... And the problem with parenting books is that, if you're the kind of parent who needs the books warning you about being too strict, then the books that warn against being too lenient are probably the ones that resonate more with you. That is, you're drawn to the ones you don't need, not to the ones that you do need. All that said, yes, get books and read them. Be sure to get a variety of them. I can't give specifics off the cuff, as I'm well past that phase now.