Here are some excellent Australian support groups for men going through the painful process of divorce. No man is an island. By supporting single dads, we also support their children, their new romantic partners and other family members. We all need friends. Robert Louis Stevenson said, “No man is useless while he has a friend”. Sadly, many men feel bereft of friends, especially if they are single dads going through a ...

To guide your children through the throes of their teen years, help them form genuine relationships and find their purpose. Having a goal directs their energies in a productive and life-giving direction, instead of frittering their youth away with a YOLO attitude. This generation of teenagers is worrying parents like never before, throwing their talent out the door and accepting minimal wages to focus on a life of partying and binge ...

A family needs other families for friendship, support and mentoring, especially in hard times. It takes a village to raise a child, and it also takes a village to sustain a family. Be open to growing alongside other families, sharing love and care for one another. Recently my wife and I received a message from a close friend of ours, “Mum’s condition has rapidly deteriorated and she is now just sleeping… ...

Parenting can be so all-consuming that we end up disconnected from other parents who need our support and who can support us. We end up becoming a band of lonesome chiefs with no communal village. How can mothers connect and support one another more during these vital years? Do you have a village to help you raise your family? I’ve noticed a trend with many mums (myself included) that there are ...

What does John D Rockefeller, a nameless Melbourne businessman and an ancient King all have in common? In this post, Guy answers that question and outlines how you can avoid the same legacy-burning mistake that trips up many men on your way to real wealth. A few years back I sat at a famous Melbourne restaurant -The Flower Drum – for lunch.  The FB is a restaurant that you need deep pockets ...

In October a few years ago, the Australian bishops called the entire Catholic community to pray for marriage and family. The initiative was joined by around thirty other Christian churches making it the largest ever prayer campaign in the nation. It raises the question: does prayer really make a difference? Cynics might say that a prayer campaign is just a badly disguised way of making a value statement. It’s certainly true ...

When a crisis hits you out of nowhere, what do you do next? When Guy faced nearly losing a child, he learned 13 lessons before the crisis was even over. Sometimes in life you have experiences that profoundly and permanently change you. Experiences either solidify your existing beliefs, assumptions and expectations, or they challenge and change what you thought you knew. Some are so small you don’t even notice them. Some ...

Help comes from the most unexpected places in the most unexpected ways. This has been the case since the beginning of Dads4Kids in 2002. My wife and I have been truly humbled by the amazing support Dads4Kids has received over that time. When we started Dads4Kids there was a desperate need to see positive change for men and fathers. Thankfully, we saw significant support from conservative liberal parliamentarians too numerous to ...

Dads in Distress hold weekly meetings to enable fathers who are affected by relationship and custody issues to come together in an atmosphere geared toward practical support, progress and healing. We don’t denigrate woman at our meetings, in fact we encourage men to look in the mirror to understand what part of the blame they own, if any. We simply guide men to become the cause of their future and not ...

The DIDs story, Part 1. My name is Tony Miller, and I am the founder and national coordinator of a group called Dads in Distress, a dedicated support group of men whose immediate concern is to stem the present trend of male suicide due to the trauma of divorce or separation. Current statistics indicate that 5.3 males per day or 37 males per week (ABS Information Paper, Suicides 2001) will take ...

On Father’s Day Sunday 1 September 2002, we launched the very first Dads4Kids weekly newsletter for men. Sign Up Here. We have not missed a Sunday since. It is up to eight hundred and ninety-nine issues later, and no, I am not counting. Let me share the reflection from the very first newsletter. I believe the greatest thing a father can do for his children is to love his wife. Love ...

Dads in Distress Inc has announced the formation of ‘Mums in Distress’, a support group based on the same concept as ‘Dads in Distress’. There are no winners in divorce and separation, especially our children. The reality is mums suffer just as much as dads, with the end result of our children ending in distress. We receive thousands of calls and emails from mums, especially within the second marriage scenario, who are ...

Just took my little boy back after our access weekend. Feeling low! I guess it’s just that same feeling every dad goes through when he drops his kids off after spending such little time with them. Some don’t even get that. So I guess I am blessed. ‘An every-second- weekend-dad.’ I hate it and so does he. It just goes too quick. There’s just this emptiness that pervades your inside. It ...

I was speaking at a DIDS meeting in rural New South Wales last night and I was commending the group for becoming real lifesavers in reaching out to each other in support. I told them that this country was once renowned for its mateship, and sadly I believe we have lost that somehow. We have lost the knowledge of what being a mate is all about. It is my belief that ...

Firstly, I would like to thank all of you who contact me; it’s your support and kindness that keeps me going. I was out on the town one night this past week. One of our volunteers is a muso, and he and his band were playing a gig in a local hotel. It was a great night, mainly because of the fact that a whole lot of our other volunteers turned ...

I was travelling through Queensland a few weeks ago opening new Dads in Distress groups, and was convening a meeting that was being held in the back of a new church that had been established in an industrial estate. It was a new meeting and so we didn’t know what to expect, how many would turn up or what would happen. As I sat there at the back of this huge ...

Tonight is the start of the school holidays; I am allowed to pick up my son.  I feel extremely emotional about this, because I know only too well what it feels like when these times come for men who are deprived of the opportunity to spend time with their little ones. It took a court order to get to this point. What a shame, what a shame on this society, that ...

A few years ago I was a happily married man — a beautiful wife, three sons, a home  that  was well on the way to being paid off, a job, and settled in the community.  We had just had our 10-year anniversary — a night on the town for the family.  A few bumps along the way, including some really tough surprises with our sons’ births, but everything was fine — ...