Father Turns Daily Texts To Daughter Into Book On Life Advice

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A father/daughter relationship is one of the most special bonds two humans will ever make. Father’s are often on a quest to offer their daughters the best life advice possible. While at times this life advice may prove ‘annoying’ to a child – in the end – it is the best advice around!

One father turned his daily life advice to his daughter into an entire book! It all began when Jeff Atwood’s daughter started her senior year of high school. As the reality that Atwood’s daughter would be graduating high school soon and going to be entering the world on her own – he wanted to offer advice that she could take with her on her journey.

According to News Channel 5, Atwood explained, “When she got to the beginning of her senior year of high school, it caught me by surprise, and I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is sort of our last lap. Does she know what she needs to know?’ I mean, it really was one of those things where, as a dad, you’re like, I mean, ‘This is — she’s gonna go out into the world here and have I done my job as — my wife and I — have we done our jobs helping her?’”

In attempt to ease his mind and help his daughter, Atwood began texting his daughter a piece of life advice every single day.

He said, “I decided, you know, that for her senior year of high school. I would just send her a text every morning of just something I thought she needed to know. Some of them are sweet and some I thought were pretty sturdy. And then you know, some are silly and that sort of thing. But it really was for me a chance to sort of say, ‘these are the things that I need to make sure that you know. I’m your dad, you know, these are things that mom and I have talked to you about for 17 years, and I literally just have to put them in writing or in a text so that you know that these things are so important to us, and we hope that they’re so important to you.’”

Atwood travels a lot for work, so texting his daughter was a convenient way to get his thoughts and advice to her. While travelling, Atwood would often share his texts to his daughter with family and friends. As his family and friends became more and more interested, many told Atwood that he should be writing a book – a book to help other children opposed to just his daughter.

And that is just how he came to write, “Need to Know for Graduates.” His book has all his text messages in it, including a page for the gift-giver to write down their own words of wisdom for their child or loved one.

Atwood’s daughter could not be happier that her father has turned those special messages into a book!

Sharing, “It made me really happy to just hear all these different pieces of advice and wonder [what] the next one was going to be … Some were serious career advice, or one of the fun ones that’s like, ‘Can’t go wrong with a chocolate chip cookie’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah!’ You never know what you’re gonna get. My number one, though, and this is one that a lot of my friends know is ‘just show up.’ And ‘opportunity follows availability.’”

While she loves all the advice her father has give her, McKenzie said the first page of the book is the most important, as Atwood wrote to her, “You are loved always, forever, no matter what. Everything else you need to know is secondary to knowing that you are loved.”