'Shut up' and listen: Trace Gallagher shares 'unexpected' wisdom learned from being a 'girl dad'
For 30 years as a broadcast news anchor, Fox News chief breaking news correspondent Trace Gallagher has built his career on knowing exactly what to say when the camera turns on.
Yet when it comes to raising daughters in an increasingly hyper-connected and chaotic world, the veteran newsman says the most powerful tool in a father’s arsenal is paying attention in silence.
"These are different people," Gallagher said with a smile about his two daughters, now 25 and 22.
"When they have a problem, they don’t really want you to talk to them about their problem.
They just want you to hear them about the problem.
You need to sit, you need to shut up and you need to listen." TRACE GALLAGHER: COMMON SENSE IS ALIVE IN AMERICA, WE JUST NEED TO LISTEN In an era defined by fast-moving feeds, constant commentary and increasing mental health challenges for young women, fathers often fall into the trap of trying to repair, analyze or lecture their way through their daughters' anxieties, he suggested.
Gallagher, who details his parenting journey in his new book "Turns Out They Were Right All Along," admits that overruling his own instincts to speak was an important step in making use of the good advice he's received over a lifetime.
"I’m a talkative guy.
My career is talking," Gallagher said.
"When I was younger with them, I would try to explain what I think." Gallagher figured out that his daughters did want to hear from him.
5 REASONS MORE AMERICANS ARE CUTTING OFF THEIR OWN PARENTS, ACCORDING TO PSYCHOLOGIST What they wanted was to simply be heard.
"So then you learn through the years, you just listen, and you nod, and you only jump in when they ask you to jump in," he said.
When daughters know their fathers are paying quiet, steady attention without rushing to judge or correct, it fosters a unique sense of security — which Gallagher has learned firsthand.
"They want to be heard, they want to get it off their chest," he said.
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