Dad Pens Daily Lunch Notes to Daughter
For busy parents, it can be challenging to find time to connect with your children. Chris Yandle lost his high-profile public relations job in college athletics after moving his family from city to city for his career opportunities, and he felt guilty for not being more present for his then 9-year-old daughter, Addison. “I felt like I had let my family down, specifically my kids,” Yandle told Today.
One morning, Yandle quickly wrote a note to Addison on a Ziploc bag while packing her lunch for school. “And the rest is history,” he said. He began writing Addison lunch notes every day to support her through the tween years as she was starting her fourth school in just five years. Yandle recalls moving around often for his father’s job when he was a child, too. “I never really had a place that I could call home,” he said. “I didn’t want to do that to my kids, but I ended up doing that to them anyway.”
Yandle and his wife, Ashleigh, realized Addison was facing some bullying at school, picking up on signs through her body language and slipping grades. He switched the tone of the notes to help Addison get through it.
Yandle does not believe in the stereotype that fathers do not know how to interact emotionally with their kids. So, he decided to publish a book of his lunch notes to Addison in 2018, “Lucky Enough: A Year of Dad’s Daily Notes of Encouragement and Life Lessons to His Daughter.”
Now up to 600 notes, he is still writing notes to Addison daily, even as she completes seventh grade from home due to the pandemic.
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