In a culture that glorifies youth and sanctions the euthanising of the sick and elderly, it’s easy to lose sight of the gift of seniors. Here are three ways that senior couples make marriage better for all of us. Earlier this year, Pope Francis released a series of homilies on the elderly. Each one explores a theme based on a significant figure in the scriptures, including Naomi, Joachim and Anne, Simeon ...

Fatherless father-of-two Rob Kenney has earned the “internet dad” title after millions tuned into a dad-help YouTube channel he created in April 2020. Kenney’s simple “Dad, How Do I?” vlog now has 3.83 million subscribers with over 18.4 million views. The 58-year-old social media “influencer’s” 30-year-old daughter Kristine Ponten attributes his popularity to COVID-19 lockdowns, stating,  “I don’t think it would’ve gone viral in another circumstance. It is definitely pandemic-specific regarding ...

Fathering is no walk in the park. But we can learn and improve by taking in the advice of those who have walked the path before us. Read on for some great practical tips for fathering. “Plans go wrong for lack of advice; many advisers bring success.” These words are found in an ancient book called the book of Proverbs. The bottom line is that if we want to be successful ...

If your child is angry, neither lashing out or bottling it up is a good idea. Here are eight great anger busters to help your child manage his or her emotions. Your child is yelling, slamming doors and having an all-out tantrum – but can he trust you with his anger? Punishing the behaviours associated with anger might be a quick fix, but without instruction, your child will lose out. National ...

It’s a simple question, but sometimes it’s hard to get your children to answer it. Here’s what I discovered works when asking my son about his day at school. “How was school?” “Good.” “What did you get up to?” Silence. “Who did you play with?” Silence. My life has come to this. After years of begging my child to be quiet, now I’m pleading with him to talk to me! “You’re ...

Struggling for motivation? Frustrated that you’re starting things and not getting them finished? Here I expose the principles to staying motivated. Recently I was asked to provide some secret sauce for an Australian Defence magazine on staying motivated. I’m not going to replicate the full report here, so you can check out the source article “My Secrets To Getting & Staying Motivated”. But here’s a summary of steps Anyone can do now ...

The question of identity — who am I? — is a huge one in society today. When everything is stripped away, what makes us, us? I went to a retreat once where the director used a reflection that stuck in my mind and bugged me for ages as I tried to work out what he meant. Who Am I? He asked us to imagine ourselves as a boat floating down a ...

Here are some tips from an experienced mother on how you can succeed in transitioning your toddler from a cot to a bed. This post has been written in collaboration with Sleepmaker This year, Phoebe will be out of a cot and into a bed and I’m not sure how I feel about it because, being my last baby, this will mean this is the last time the cot will be ...

Cherish is a seven letter word and full of meaning. My first thought of the word is the way the NRL Grand Final winning team held onto the winners’ trophy, a trophy highly treasured by one and all. Perhaps the real meaning of the word cherish happened at the same event when Brian To’o put love into action. News.com.au puts us in the picture. Moments after the final siren, To’o found ...

The best marriage advice I have ever received came from an 80-year-old, Scottish widow. Sitting beside her a few weeks before my wedding she told me, “The only marriage advice I’ll give you is this: cherish.” The word didn’t come with any commentary, and I would spend the next 23 years unpacking its meaning and value. My wife and I married young. We even recited vows that included the words, “to ...

When extreme perfectionism becomes embroiled in a family context, it invariably leads to deep discontent. This is part 1 in a series on perfectionism and how to find peace in the midst of it. When you get right down to it, most perfectionists are searching for peace. Basically, we want to be able to look around at the world we’ve created and proclaim, like our Creator, “Everything is very good” and so ...

Did you know that you can mess up most things about being a dad to your daughter and yet still raise a successful young woman? You just need to answer one question for her. In this post, Guy explains what that is and how you can answer it. Being a dad can be complicated.  Anyone who is a dad knows this well. I remember well the months and even years leading ...

Orlando Battista said, “The best inheritance a parent can give his children is a few minutes of his time each day.” Orlando Battista is right. Our children don’t want things, they want us.  The team at our friends at the Fathering Centre in Kansas City USA had this to say in an article titled, “Kids Say THIS Is the Best Way to Be a Better Dad”. “As is often the case, ...

Other than headlining Hollywood blockbusters, Denzel Washington is also a sharp, and gifted public speaker. Staying true to the latter, Washington delivered a 30min address during this year’s Better Man event in Orlando, Florida.   The John Wayne Formula In a sit-down interview with the Reverend A. R Bernard, Washington talked about the meaning of manhood in today’s world, and how faith takes centre stage in his life. Addressing the Better Man ...

A few months ago, our young Australian Shepherd went to doggie boot camp. Over five weeks she was trained by professional dog-handlers to walk calmly, socialise nicely and keep her focus under the pressure of distractions.   Video footage taken by the trainers proved she was capable. What really remained was the question: can her owners be similarly trained?  When the time came to do the pickup, the trainer talked about ‘trigger stacking’. This is the idea that stresses on the ...

How much tech time is too much tech time for a Dad? The general rule of thumb through which I measure this is by the degree of immersion. Some technology is a flat-out grind. It’s designed to draw in, keep and convert its prey.    Tech is Designed this Way To be fair, all this is done to incite repeat customs. There’s nothing inherently unethical about this since designers operate on ...

We recently analysed the feedback from 400 participants in our online marriage preparation course. The results to the question, “On which of the following areas would you like more formation/education”, surprised us; the most requested item among eleven options was, ‘Improving Communication’. Communication and Relationships Why the surprise? Everybody knows that communication is foundational to happy relationships. The surprise is that most people we talk to believe that they are already ...

Fatherhood is an adventure like no other, but most men are not ready when they jump and are left trying to catch up right from the start. But fatherhood can be done well. In this podcast, 4 men with 29 kids share some secrets on how. Fatherhood.  It is a word that means so many things.  Joy to some, pain to others and everything in-between. For those of us who are ...

The life story of Professor Gregory W. Slayton is a story that is hard to believe. It is the story of how rejection turned into acceptance and led to the creation of a legacy that still looks impossible. You will be inspired and encouraged, guaranteed. Do you know how to be a better dad today? Do you have the 10-tool toolkit needed to make it happen? You can begin to discover ...

When you are faced with the failure of much of what you believed about life and yourself, where do you turn? Can you reset your life? How do you begin? What do you do when the way you were committed to living has not worked out, and you come to a point of realising it never will? When your life has suddenly changed — perhaps a midlife crisis, career change, health ...