Eli Manning is a 'girl dad' whose oldest is about to be a teen: 'I didn't have sisters growing up, so this will be new'

Welcome to So Mini Ways, Yahoo Life’s parenting series on the joys and challenges of child-rearing.

Eli Manning might be known for making his mark out on the football field and covering Monday Night Football on ESPN, but at home, the dad of four is famous for his creative cooking. It’s a skill he especially loves to flaunt on Sundays — a day he’s thrilled to get to spend with his loved ones now that he’s retired.

“When I was playing, I didn’t have my weekends, and I feel like I missed out on so much,” Manning tells Yahoo Life. “[Now, Sundays] are a great opportunity to be around the house. The kids have their friends over, and we have other family and friends over and just enjoy the day hanging out, enjoying some great King’s Hawaiian sliders. It's just become a fun tradition.”

The former New York Giants quarterback, who recently partnered with King’s Hawaiian and shared his go-to turkey ranch sliders recipe, appreciates that sliders are so easily customizable, making it easier to prep a meal that suits various family members’ tastes.

Still, Manning — dad to Ava, 12, Lucy, 10, Caroline, 8, and Charlie, 4 — is eager to broaden his kids’ horizons with different flavors when he can. “[It’s good to] introduce kids to new foods sometimes and get them out of their normal chicken fingers or pasta and butter,” he points out. “My wife [Abby McGrew] is pretty creative and [good at] introducing them to new foods.”

The retired athlete is currently enjoying learning more about his kids’ tastes, talents and interests. "Ava's figured out swimming and lacrosse are her favorite sports, and she's focusing on those," he shares. "Caroline’s playing ice hockey, and Lucy's going into tennis. They all kind of have their own thing that's unique to them.”

Manning just wants them to pursue pastimes they enjoy. “We never forced sports upon them,” he notes. “With kids, it's just about getting them into activities. We went through [theater and music], as well. It's just about finding something that they love to do. We try not to get too serious about it at this age. It's just more about keeping them healthy, [building] friendship, maybe learning some life lessons through sports about teamwork and dedication and dealing with success and failure. It's more about that than about being an elite athlete.”

When it comes to his youngest, Charlie, Manning says he and his wife are “kind of throwing every single possible sport at him to see what he likes.”

“He's coming into his own,” Manning says of his only son. “[The girls] have friends over a bunch. Sometimes you come in the house, and you look around, and there are six, seven, eight girls and little Charlie just kind of right in the middle of it. It's fun to see his personality and how he handles that.”

Manning’s daughters love being big sisters to Charlie, but from time to time, they can’t help but pick on their baby brother — a dynamic that Manning is quite familiar with, having grown up with two older brothers, Peyton and Cooper. “They just get excited and want to wrestle with him and get him all riled up,” he explains. “They don’t cry too often — every once in a while. That's just part of being an older sibling. I had to deal with that with two older brothers picking on me. But I think that'll toughen him up and get him prepared for whatever might happen to him later on in life.”

Manning takes pride in teaching his kids about sportsmanship and being a great teammate. ‘I talk a lot about celebrating someone else when they score a goal or do well, being the first one to give them a high five, to be happy for other people's success,” he says. “It is about the team and the team doing well. It's also about being a part of that team and giving great commitment. If you sign up to play a sport or to be on a team, then you gotta go to practices, and you've got to be committed to it, not letting down your teammates. It’s about being dependable, being reliable and having a great attitude.”

Looking down the road, the proud “girl dad” is preparing himself for a whole new phase of fatherhood: raising a teen daughter. “I didn't have sisters growing up, so this will be new,” he admits. “But [Ava] is doing great in school. She’s very into her activities and sports and friends. She has the cell phone now, so you see the texting with friends is going on. We’re figuring out the boundaries of that. But she still likes her dad, still communicates with me and will talk with me in the car. So we're off to a good start, I think.”

Boundaries around tech at mealtime are a must for the Manningcast co-host, who says some of his best memories involve family dinners spent storytelling and laughing. “[I’m] trying to create some of those same experiences for my family,” he says. “So I just try to make sure around meals, when we're all together, that we — me and my wife included — have the phones away. [We say,] ‘Let's just be focused on everyone that's here and enjoy this time together.’”

Ultimately, Manning prides himself on the way he uses communication to tackle parenting challenges that each day inevitably presents. “I try to be the calm one and just ask a lot of questions to get my kids talking,” he says. “If you don't say much, then they probably won't say much. They'll get on a tablet or phone. Just try to ask them a bunch of questions, get them talking, tell some stories. They love hearing stories about growing up with my brothers, fun stories that they can laugh about. [I’m] just enjoying being around them and learning each of their personalities.”