Only a few days ago, I got a call from the eldest daughter of a dear friend telling me that her Dad had passed way from a heart attack. Ian was at his work, and without any apparent warning, he collapsed and died. He was comparatively young and in good health. After the phone call, I was in a state of shock. We didn’t see each other a lot but we ...

Richard Branson said, “If happiness is the goal – and it should be, then adventures should be top priority.” It is the priority of adventure that makes being out in the bush with a bunch of dads and their kids really exhilarating. Wollondilly River Station, the place for our annual Dads4kids Bush Camp, is set in a deep valley not too far from the famous Wombeyan Caves in the Southern Highlands ...

“A merry heart does good like a medicine,” is a quote from the Book of Proverbs that is backed up by all the modern sciences. Raising a family can be exasperating beyond belief. That is why the team behind Dads4Kids believe you must never lose your sense of humour. I have often said that Dads must be the laugh leaders in my weekly Dads4Kids newsletters. To drive that point home, let ...

“What’s Happening to Our Boys?” is the title of a book by well-known author Maggie Hamilton and released by Penguin Books. We have covered this book before, but this content is still incredibly relevant. All the more relevant as we approach International Boys’ Day on 16 May 2019. Put it in your diary now! Gary Bryant, from the Western Australian Men’s Advisory Network, says of ‘What’s Happening to Our Boys?’: As ...

Most weekday mornings Alison and I get up at about 5.40AM, push each other out of bed, and go for our early morning ‘Gym & Fitness Walk Session’, at least that’s what I call it. We walk down to the gym about 2-3 minutes and hold hands as we walk. We work out together and then we take a longer route back to our home all the while holding hands with ...

I can always remember Dr Bruce Robson, Australia’s best-selling fatherhood author, telling the guys at the ‘Good to Great’ Fatherhood Course about Janis Joplin’s father. For those who don’t know her musical history, Janis Joplin was one of the great female vocalists of the late sixties. The movie ‘The Rose’ released in 1979 was based on her life story. Rolling Stone magazine has placed her in the top 30 female vocalists ...

‘Healthy Dads – Healthy Kids’ rolls off the tongue pretty easily. It almost replicates the saying, “He/she’s a chip off the old block”. Researcher  Jessica Ball released a research paper for the Public Health Agency of Canada, showing that ‘involved dads’ results in children following positive health outcomes such as the following: enhanced self confidence fewer accidental and premature deaths less substance abuse less distress greater wellbeing marital stability/happiness less hospital ...

David Parker simply asked his school, that he be notified when the teachers discussed homosexuality and transgenderism with his 5-year-old son in kindergarten. David Parker then calmly refused to leave the school premises until he received an answer to his reasonable request. All he wanted was to allow his children to ‘opt out’ of such politically correct nonsense. For his trouble, the school had David Parker arrested and put in jail ...

Motherhood is fast becoming a dirty word. My daughter-in-law, mother of five girls  under 10 years of age was telling me how she is still getting asked, “When are you going back to work?” Her response is simple, “I’m a mother first and I am in no rush to leave my beautiful girls. I love being a mother.” When talking to other young mums I hear how they are made to ...

‘What Children Want Most is a Ban on Divorce, Says Poll’ was a headline in a major UK paper several years ago. The poll question was: “What rules would you make if you ruled the world as King or Queen?” #BanDivorce was the number one request. Nationwide research of children under 10 years of age was carried out by Luton First, sponsors and organisers of National Kids’ Day. Patricia Murchie of ...

Nelson Mandela said, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” If that is the case, our society is sick beyond belief. Not only are some of our retail stores involved in promoting the overt sexualisation of our children, but government-funded programs in our schools are actively indoctrinating our children in subversive sexual ideologies. We can choose where our children ...

My good friend Wayne Butler from the Shared Parenting Council would contend, in his courageous and exhaustive article reprinted in part below, that A Sickness has Fallen on the Family Law System. The team at Dads4Kids would contend that a sickness has fallen on society at large and this sickness is now being reflected more and more in its institutions and laws. That condition is seen in the current push for ...

We live in an age of astonishing scientific and technological development that has given human beings an amazing number of ways to communicate. However, it could be argued that real communication is taking place less and less. Concurrently, we are facing an unprecedented explosion of knowledge, but it could be argued that we now know less than we ever have, because we are drowning in a sea of information. Information overload, ...

As a boy my dad used to tell my brother and I stories before we went to bed. We would even sing a song, “Tell me a story” if he was short off the mark. Our favourite stories were Dad’s Snake Stories, most of them real. They would always end with Dad killing the snake and putting the dreaded killer snake on a nearby ants’ nest. The ants then threw a ...

Some time ago I went on a retreat with a group of men.  One of the subjects for discussion was the place of our families in our lives.  Most of the men were professional, ‘middle management’, if there is such a thing.  Most of us felt the intense pressure of ‘trying to keep the customer satisfied’.  Many had put their careers in front of their children and their families.  Others seemed ...

We start the school year knowing that Australia’s educational standards are dropping and yet Australians, on a median basis, are the wealthiest people group in the world. Is more money spent on education the answer, or is something else the missing part of the educational puzzle? Educational experts in Australia have argued in favour of billions of dollars of extra government funding to be spent on education to help Australia return ...

Life has its challenges, and being a father compounds those challenges.  Someone has got to be the leader in the family.  The buck has got to stop with someone. Herein lies the challenge. I believe that fathers are called to be leaders in love.  Being a leader requires making decisions on behalf of those you lead that are open to question.  It also requires that you are prepared to take the ...

My father gets a faraway look in his eye that’s unmistakeable.  As his craggy face turns towards the horizon and his eyes seek out the glint of snow-capped peaks, we all know what he is thinking.  Mountaintops have always had that magnetic effect on him. The feature story in a Reader’s Digest began with the above quote.  It was a most interesting article about Edmund Hillary written by his son Peter ...