War stories have always caught my attention, especially manly acts of courage and chivalry. Maybe others feel like me and that is why the Art of Manliness featured Adam Makos, the writer of ‘A Higher Call’ in a recent podcast with a fuller story about the book on their blog. Alison, my wife, knowing how much I love inspirational stories, borrowed the book from the local library over the holiday period. ...

Sun Tzu was the general of an army in ancient China in 600 BC. I have heard about his writings for over 30 years. This Christmas I received a copy of the Art of War by Sun Tzu. It was exciting to read the book for myself for the first time. Many would argue he was a great philosopher and psychologist as well as being a great general. I was struck ...

Just as today is the first day of the rest of your life, so the New Year 2015 is the first year of the rest of your life. Why not make it the best year of your life? What do I mean by ‘the best’? Well, make it what you want it to be. There are three types of people in the world. Those who ‘make’ things happen, those who ‘watch’ ...

One of the really good reasons why we as dads need our children is to keep us laughing. Adults laugh an average of 17 times per day, our children laugh about 400 times a day. Laughter is infectious, which is why TV sitcoms have a laugh track. Laughter is so contagious; it can even reach epidemic proportions. In 1962, in the African country known as Tanzania, a few schoolgirls began to ...

Two friends sitting together were reflecting on the tragic events of the week. One of them shared that he was due to be in Martin Place for a meeting on Monday morning 15th December and would have dropped in to the Lindt café for a coffee. The meeting was postponed and he found himself instead watching the act of terror unfold on TV. They were encouraged by how many times the ...

The saying, ‘the friendless owner of the world is poor’ could well be changed to, ‘the friendless owner of the world is sick’. Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles, have identified a distinct pattern of gene expression in immune cells from people who experience chronically high levels of loneliness. ‘The study provides a molecular framework for understanding why social factors are linked to an increased risk of heart disease, ...

It is that time of year again and we are getting emails from all over the world. Yes, it’s International Men’s Day on 19 November 2014. Why should we be getting emails? Well, Dads4Kids has been and still is the digital driving force behind International Men’s Day. The team behind Dads4Kids registered www.internationalmensday.com  on 13 June 2008 with the purpose of building a website and producing videos to help promote and ...

When my wife and I first started Dads4Kids in 2002, we discovered that fathers, and men in general, are barely noticed in government policy. Dads4Kids is a Harm Prevention Charity and our fundamental role is to work at a grass roots level, encouraging individual men to go for gold as fathers, for the sake of their families. Our initial research showed us that men are largely invisible to government agencies and ...

Some parents bring up their children on thunder and lightning, but thunder and lightning never made anything grow. As a dad with strong opinions about injustice and a passion for the truth, I can easily fall into this trap myself. No doubt at times I have. Thankfully my children have forgiven me for my occasional rants. This week, you will have to as well. The topic is ‘Working Together for Men ...

You as a father have a lot of reasons to be happy. Each of your children gives you well over a million reasons. Add your wife and family as a total unit and you now have well over a billion reasons to be happy. In the light of all this, being happy on Father’s Day should come easy to you. Could it get any better? We know that we all have ...

In the last newsletter we posted a video called First Date. It now has 8.3 million hits. Last week we posted the news story with an interview about this touching father daughter story on our Dads4Kids Facebook page. See the Daddy-Daughter Date Goes Viral below. The TV news story description said, “Some viewers are calling the father-daughter date heart warming, while others say it’s “very creepy.” The response on our Facebook ...

Sociologist David Papenoe said that no civilisation ever survived after its family life deteriorated. But if you don’t believe him, listen to GK Chesterton, “This triangle of truisms, of father, mother and child, cannot be destroyed; it can only destroy those civilisations which disregard it.” If three words could ever sum up the work of Dads4Kids it would be ‘father, mother, child’. These three words are the foundation for everything we know. ...

I am getting older, so my testosterone is dropping, but when I see a naked woman, it is hard not to look twice. The trouble is that these days, naked women are everywhere and they always seem to be looking straight back at me. When I go to the newsagents to buy my daily copy of the Australian, the naked women on the news stand are always looking at me.   When ...

The Dads4Kids Fatherhood Foundation will be running ten week fathering courses called, ‘Good to Great’ in the later part of this year. ‘Good to Great’ is not a pushover fathering course but a course that is highly interactive and brings real challenge to any aspiring father who wants to go to a much higher level of excellence in his fathering. ‘Good to Great’ is inspired by the SAS, the elite of ...

Dads4Kids is going through a period of change. We need to connect more with you, our readers. We need to consider what we have achieved, who we are doing it for and what we might do better. Improvement is always possible and none of us can ever say that we’ve got it all together. Sometime ago a good friend of mine, Darryl Mills, sent me this story about a young girl ...

Fatheroos and Socceroos – we have a lot in common. We both make mistakes. We have our wins and we have our losses. We need encouragement. We need our fans. We need our coaches and we need to work hard at training to get better. The similarities between the challenges of playing for the Socceroos and being a father are striking to say the least. As Samuel Goldwyn famously said, “The ...

I am a sook. Yes, it is now out in the open. Everyone knows now! I rarely go a week without crying. Tears are an occupational health hazard if your mission is to turn the tide of fatherlessness. I am crying for others or crying for myself or maybe a bit of both. Sometimes it is hard to know. Did I say that tears are good for your health? Well, it ...

Having a father is a human right. ‘Kids need a Mum & Dad’. To you and I this is obviously unquestionable. The Universal Declaration for Human Rights was ratified by the United Nations after World War II on 10 December 1948. It says in the preamble: “Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, ...

Manhood is a wonderful creation, as is womanhood. The masculine is magnificent as much as the feminine is fabulous. Men and women are gloriously different. It is only those who are obsessed with the ideology of gender androgyny who refuse to accept the facts. Dr John Gray, the author of Men are From Mars – Women are from Venus has sold over 50 million copies of this revolutionary book. It became ...

I must be one of the stupidest people I know. Some time ago I was invited to speak at the opening of a local charity called ‘Assist’ run by Brian Pember, a friend of mine. I wrote the address down in my diary when Brian invited me to speak. I took my diary with me in the car but, guess what, I didn’t look at my diary and ended up going ...