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Is your calendar raising your kids more than you are?

In this episode, Connor and Pastor Scott welcome a special guest to the table — Mark Martinez, husband to Jenna and father of three daughters, Kate, Belle, and Claire. Mark opens up about growing up the son of immigrant parents, a disciplined military dad, and how watching his father live out his faith taught him more than any lecture ever could. That question — what am I actually modeling versus what am I just saying — becomes the thread that runs through the whole conversation.

From there, the guys dig into the real tension every young family feels: the pressure to fill a toddler's calendar with sports, classes, and activities before they can even walk in a straight line. Mark shares why he refuses to force his girls into anything, even as a self-described sports guy, and why the goal isn't building a resume — it's stewarding whatever God actually gifted them with. Connor and Scott push the conversation further into the home itself, landing on the one habit research shows is quietly disappearing from American families: the dinner table. Mark gets honest about not having that fixture growing up, and how his wife Jenna made it non-negotiable in their own home.

The anchor for it all is Ephesians 5:15-16 — "Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of time, because the days are evil." The guys unpack what redeeming the time actually looks like when you're not filling every hour, but protecting the few that matter most.

If your family's schedule feels like it's driving you instead of the other way around, this episode is your permission slip to say no to good things so you can say yes to the best ones.

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Every dad has a moment where the discipline voice turns into the punishment voice, and you don't even notice the switch until it's already happened. In this episode, Connor and Scott get honest about the difference between correcting out of love and reacting out of frustration, and why so few of us were ever actually taught the difference.

Connor walks through the real, in-the-trenches version of parenting Beau and Haven, from the pantry-snack moments that shouldn't warrant punishment to the full meltdowns that do call for discipline. He unpacks how his own anger in those early years was never really about his kids. It was about his own overwhelm, and how getting honest about that changed how he shows up for them now.

Scott brings the pastoral lens, breaking down how punishment and discipline mirror the difference between how people often misread God the Father versus who He actually is. He talks through the Stewart household's approach with Shiloh, the tension of blending two very different upbringings with his wife Shay, and why urgency without intensity has become their working definition of healthy correction.

Together they get into the hard, practical stuff: what to do when your toddler is mid-meltdown in public, how consistency matters more than intensity, why lying is the one thing that erodes trust faster than any single mistake, and how the pause before you react might be the most transformational parenting tool either of them has found.

This episode lands on Hebrews 12:11, the reminder that discipline never feels good in the moment but produces peace on the other side of it. If you've ever disciplined your kid out of frustration instead of love and felt that gut-drop of regret an hour later, this conversation is for you.

Scripture referenced: Hebrews 12:11

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There is a study Connor heard in college that he never forgot — and once you hear it, you won't either. Your daughter is most likely to marry a man who treats her the way her father treated her mother. That single truth is either one of the most motivating things a dad can hear, or one of the most sobering. Probably both.

In this episode, Connor and Scott get into what it actually looks like to raise a daughter with intention — not just telling her she's beautiful (though she is), but building something deeper. The kind of confidence that doesn't crack when a boy breaks her heart or the culture tells her who she's supposed to be. The kind of identity that's rooted in who God says she is, not what the mirror says.

Connor opens up about the pressure he already feels thinking ahead — the high school years, the first heartbreak, the moment some kid inevitably makes Haven cry — and how he's already trying to lay the foundation now, while she's still asking him to be Olaf and Kristoff in the living room. Because the groundwork you pour at two years old is the same groundwork she'll stand on at twenty-two.

Scott and Connor talk about:

• Why the way you treat your wife is the most powerful parenting tool you have
• How to affirm your daughter's character, courage, and identity — not just her appearance
• What it means to model healthy conflict so she never mistakes dysfunction for love
• The coming daddy-daughter days Connor is already planning for when Beau starts school
• Why Haven knowing she is a woman of God has to come before she ever hears it from a boy

The anchor verse for today is Proverbs 31:25 — "Strength and honor are her clothing, and she can laugh at the time to come." That's the woman you're raising. This is how you get started.

If you're a girl dad figuring this out as you go, this one's for you.

Scripture Referenced: Proverbs 31:25