This toddler sure knows how to give a pep talk!
D'Anthony Ward took his son Taj, 2, to the park last month in Lawrenceville, Georgia, a city and suburb about 32 miles northeast of Atlanta, to give him some space to run and play while their family was in the middle of a move.
"He loves to climb on things and as soon as he got to the playground climbing wall, he got up there and wanted me up there," Ward told TODAY Parents. "I was like, 'I am a little too old.'"
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Taj seemed to interpret his father's excuses that he's too old and too big for the wall as fear. He immediately started to encourage his dad. When it was clear he wasn't going to give up on the adorable motivational speech, Ward started filming the cute moment.
“You can do it, Dada! You can do it," Taj said from the top of the climbing wall.
"I can't. I'm too big," Ward told his son.
"You can do it! You put your foot right here," Taj said, instructing his father on how he made it up the wall. "Climb to me!"
Even when his dad kept trying to explain why he couldn't, Taj wouldn't take no for an answer.
“I know you can! Come on, you can do it!" he said.
Ward is used to taking videos of fun father-son moments to share on Instagram and his YouTube channel, The Dad Vlog. He said this motivational speech made him particularly emotional, since it showed how his son "believes in me with everything he has."
"It's how I talk to him. I’ll say, "Come on, you can do it,'" Ward said. "He repeats everything he hears from me. Those lines are exactly what I say to him."
The video went viral and brightened plenty of peoples' days.
"Awwww Taj!! My eyes are sweating!" one person wrote. "I need to save this for my most challenging days."
"This made me emotional. He is so adorable and intelligent, you are doing an AMAZING job," someone else added.
Ward said he's happy the video resonated with so many people.
“I like the narrative of it all. It’s a sense of representation and pride in being a dad, especially for me," he said. "I like to put these videos in story mode in digestible small pieces that are entertaining so people can absorb the story."
He also said this is typical of Taj and shows how much kids soak up from their parents.
“He is very happy. Very vocal. He expresses himself a lot. He really wants to get his point across. He has an awesome vocabulary and is very extroverted," he said. "I think he is like me times ten!"