Meet Bo Petterson, a dad of six children who range in age from 28 to 38. But with 1.3M followers on TikTok, it seems like Bo is a dad figure for many more kids at heart out there.
Especially when it comes to daily tasks like changing a tire, unclogging a shower drain or making your boots last longer, Bo’s TikTok is the go-to channel for practical advice, moral support and smart life lessons when your own dad is not in the mood to pick up the phone.
But TikTok’s beloved dad is not just a dad-fluencer. He calls himself a “regular dad” creating videos for the benefit of his daughter Emily, who suffered a traumatic brain injury at the young age of 18. It has given Bo a distraction and a purpose to keep going as social media has helped the family to fund her medical treatments.
So read on for Bo’s bits of dad advice that you can surely put into practice, and be sure to check how you can help with treating Emily’s brain injury right here.
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#1 How To Back Up A Trailer
I have a great advice for you if you ever have to back up a trailer. The easiest thing to remember is to put your hand on the bottom of the steering wheel and move the steering wheel the direction you want the trailer to go. Works every time don’t forget it.
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#2 Advice On Driving In Snow
I have a great tip for driving in the snow and on slippery roads. Just pretend like you have a full glass of water sitting on your dash and you don’t wanna spill it. So, no quick stops, no quick starts, no sharp turns because all of that would spill your water. This helped my kids learn how to drive in the snow.
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#3 How To Carry Yourself In Life
How you carry yourself in the life is really important. Make sure you stand tall, pull your shoulders back, with straight arms turn your palms out. Posture is really important and you gotta remind yourself several times a day. And if you’re a young lady or a young man and you are tall for your age, don’t shy way from that, don’t slump down. Stand up straight and embrace your tallness.
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#4 Driving At Night/Fog/Rain
I’ve got a tip for you if you’re driving at night and somebody is coming at you with their bright lights on. Overt your eyes and look at this solid white line on the side of the road. It’s called the Fog Line. If you look at that rather than looking at the headlights, you’ll stay on the road and not get night blindness. It will also help you in the fog and in heavy rain.
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#5 What Tools Do I Need To Start Out In Life
Everybody should have screwdrivers in their house. Philip screwdriver for tightening up the doorknobs in your house. Flat head screwdrivers for opening up paint. Screw drivers often come in sets so it’s the best if you buy them like that so you’d have several different sizes. Everybody should have a box cutter for opening your amazon packages. Everybody should have a hammer for hanging pictures and pulling out nails. Channel locks are use to to getting your hoses on and off, washer or dryer, your hoses outside, very important. Vise grips used for grabbing stuff when you need to. Tape measure for measuring your blinds and your carpets, and pictures and WD-40 for the squeaky hinges in your house.
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#6 How To Unclog A Shower Drain
Somebody asked how you clean out your shower drain. First of all, at like home depot or other hardware stores they sell these little wands. They’re only a couple of bucks. This is the open version. They have some kind of hook on them and all you have to do is take your drain off. Some of them come off with a screw. And you feed the hook down inside and fish it around a little bit and you come up with some tiny stuff, but that’s how you clean your drains and you know what hair gets in drains and it is what it is.
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#7 Highway Safety Tip
When you are driving on a highway or freeway with multiply lanes be courteous. If you see a car broken down, and if it’s safe, move over to the left, given them space. It’s unnerving to see people pass you at 50/60/80 MPH. Also, if you are in the left lane and you’re getting passed in the right lanes. That’s your wake up call that you are in the wrong lane. Move over to the right, please.
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#8 Hiking Safety Tip
Safety tip when you hiking out in the woods. Take the time every ones in a while to turn around and look back to the direction you just came from. Because when you hike out it’s easy to get disorientated if you haven’t taken a look of a land going the other way.
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#9 How To Start A Fire In The Woods
When your are out in the woods and you’re trying to start a fire without any kind of paper all you gotta do is find the right kind of materials and there is many out there. You can just start with small medium and large sticks. You can use bark, dried bark of a tree, and you can use pinecones it’s a great firestarter. The best place to find dry material is under a log, look under a log if it’s wet out, you’ll find dry material.
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#10 Car Jump Basics
Everybody should have jumper cables in their car, and everybody should know how to use them. First thing you need to know is that jumpers cables are red to red, black to black and that all batteries have red connection and the other connection is the black, red to red, black to black. The firs step is to hook up red to the dead battery. The next step is to hoop up red to the live battery and the black to the live battery. And then final connection is the black on the dead battery then start the live battery car, let it run for couple of minutes and you are ready to start the dead battery car.
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#11 Conflict Resolution Advice
Understand then seek to be understood. Those six words could really help you out the next time you have and argument or a disagreement with somebody. Instead of pounding and pounding your view, stop and take the time to listen what they have to say then you can try to get your point across.
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#12 Dad Advice On Worry
I always told my kids that worry is interest paid on problems yet to happen. So, if they come to me “Oh dad if I can’t pass this test or what if I don’t get this job, or what if, what if, what if.” You can “what if” yourself to death. Worry less and just enjoy life more.
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#13 Winter Car Tips
Make sure you have enough time to get in in your car and completely defrost your windows before you try to drive anywhere. Don’t try to drive if you can only see through a little part because that’s dangerous and don’t turn your windshield wipers on to try to clear the ice. You will actually damage the rubber on your windshield wipers. Lastly, never throw hot water on your windshield. Also, in the winter time make sure to keep your windshield wiper fluid full.
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#14 Job Interview Tips
When you are going out for job interview the first thing you need to do is scout your location. You need to go and see where you are going to be interviewing, so you are not so uncomfortable. Make sure you do a firm handshake, make sure you look your person in the eye, make sure you got the conversation going both ways. Don’t let them just ask questions. They ask questions then you respond with questions and the most important things is make sure you ask for the job at the end of the interview. Ask for the job: “Sir, give me a chance/Mam, give me a chance I am gonna be a good employee for you.
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#15 Driver’s Test Tip
There goes a lot into taking your driver’s test for the first time. What I always had my kids do is go to the area where the test will take place and made them actually park in the DMV parking lot, on a Sunday when it was closed, and then drive up and down every street around there because you don’t know what pattern the instructors are gonna take you on. So, you wanna get comfortable with the entire area.
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#16 Dad Advice On Making Excuses
When I was in sales something I heard and it really helped me out, and that was “You can make excuses or you can make sales, but you can’t do both.” And I think you can relate that to a lot of different things in life. For example “You can make excuses or you can get in shape but you can’t do both.” So, just be careful that you don’t fall into that trap where you are coming up with different reasons why you can’t something done when in reality you probably can you just need to put your mind to it.
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#17 Advice On Buying Used Cars
There’s a couple of things I do when I go to look at a used car or truck that I plan to buy. The First thing that I always check is the oil. Dirty oil means they might not maintain the car very well. I also bring a piece of cardboard and I stuff it under the engine before I get in. Then I start i up I run it for a little while while I check lights, radio, A/C, etc. Then I pull that piece of cardboard and see if there are any oil leeks, any oil stains on it. That’s important to me because I don’t want a car that has an oil leak. Then I suggest to take it for a long, long test drive. Because if anything is gonna go wrong with it, it’s gonna go wrong on that ling test drive.
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#18 Dad Advice On Overthinking
Analysis is paralysis. It means you can overthink something so long that it just messes up decision makes process don’t do that. Weigh your options. figure out what you wanna do, make the decision and then never look back. Because the only thing you get by looking back is a stiff neck.
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#19 Laundry Hack For Kids
We taught our kids to do their laundry as early as possible and a little trick that we used for the kids who left their clothes in the washer or dryer. We had little blocks with their names on them so if someone came in to do their laundry they could tell exactly who’s load was in there and go get then, and say “Get that stuff out.”
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#20 Advice On Finding Love
It took me a couple tries but I eventually found my soulmate and you will too. I’ve heard it said before that there’s lid for every pot and your lid is out there, and your lid is out there probably looking for you just like you are looking for them. So, don’t give up, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there, don’t be afraid to meet new people. It’s gonna happen for you, I believe in you.
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#21 Splitting Wood
Safety tips how to split firewood.
1. Use eye protection
2. Clear the area around you (including cars and dogs)
3. Use a big base
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#22 Dad Advice On Potty Training
I’ve got a great potty training idea for your toddlers. Worked on all six of my kids. Very simple, you get some kind of candy, you put it up high where they can’t get to it. If they go number 1 they get one piece of candy, number 2 they get 2 pieces of candy, but if they don’t go at all you don’t give them any candy. You’ve gotta be strong. We got all of our six kids potty trained that way. Quick and easy, works like a charm.
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#23 Mixing Concrete At Home
I show you how I mix concrete. All I’m doing is putting one fence posts in the ground, so, I don’t need a lot to do it. All you need is a five gallon bucket and a trowel and your concrete. Start by having water in your bucket already, and just add a little bit of concrete at a time, little bit of concrete, a little bit of water. Keep stirring till you get the consistency. But here’s the big trick. Make sure you only make half buckets because full five gallon buckets are heavy.
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#24 Basic Car Tools
Well, the basic tools you need in your car at all times are flashlight, obvious reason you need that. Flathead screwdriver for prying things off, Phillips screwdriver. A lot of the screws in your cars are going to be Philips related channel locks.
Don’t laugh at my crescent wrench. You don’t need one this gigantic size, unless you’re using it for security reasons. They make them a lot smaller, but they’ll fit on just about every nut and bolt you have in your car, electrical tape in case some of your wiring comes loose and you have to put it back together.
And duct tape is important. If you have a rupture in any of your coolant lines, sometimes you can wrap the duct tape around that and survive till you get to the next gas station.
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#25 Advice On Goal Setting
Goal setting is important for everybody. I’ve got a little trick that I’ve always done and is every night and every morning right by your bed, write down what your goal is on a piece of paper. If your goals is to buy a pair of shoes, get a better job, get a promotion, whatever it happens to be write it down on that piece of paper every night and every morning and it keeps it on the top of your mind, keeps you thinking what you need to do to get there.
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#26 Car Maintenance Advice
When you get in your car, truck in the morning and start it up let it run for a little bit before you put it in gear and start driving off. Gives your fluids a chance to get moving and mechanically it will be much better for the long run. If you start it up and just start driving is like waking up somebody up off the dead sleep and telling them “Go run a marathon.”
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#27 How To Hang Christmas Lights
How to hang Christmas lights. Always make sure to plug them in before you hang them so you don’t have to take them down if they are not working. Always follow ladder safety rules. I use a few exterior extension cords and I prefer to put my light on with nails rather than with plastic clips that go in your gutters. I do that because I can wrap the cord around the nails, and it holds tighter so it don’t droop.
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#28 How To Check Your Oil
How to check your oil. Just make sure that your car is relatively level, that it’s been sitting for a while. All you do is grab your dip stick, wipe it off with a clean paper towel and you are gonna see a minimal and a maximum fill mark at the end of your dip stick. Then reinsert it all the way in and when you pull it out it’s gonna tell you the level of your oil and what color it is, darker means you gotta get an oil change.
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#29 How To Shave
Today I’m going to show you how I shave and this is the way my dad taught me and the way I taught all my boys, your way is different. Okay? The first thing you got to do is start with a good quality razor and I use this dollar shave club razor because it has six blades on it. Works good for a guy like me that doesn’t have much of a beard and I shave every day. But they do make a four blade for those guys that have heavier beards, the next step is to put on either some shaving cream or some shaving butter. But here’s the technique to shaving. Draw yourself an imaginary line from your jawbone straight across your chin, and when you shave, everything from the top goes down to that line, and then everything from the bottom goes up to that line. After you’ve done your shaving up and down. There might be one or two extra wild hairs around you just got a feel for them and give them a quick pass. And remember, no matter who you are, everybody cuts themselves every once in a while
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#30 Quick Tire Fix
Make sure to carry a can of “Fix a Flat.” If you ever have a flat tire and it’s in a place where it’s unsafe to try to change it or if you like my daughter and you are not strong enough to get the lug nuts off. A can of “Fix a Flat” will inflate your tire, temporarily plug the hole for you and help you get from where your tire got flat to where you can get it fixed.
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