Our Boys: Raising strong, happy sons from boyhood to manhood

With special guests:

• Richard Aston & Ruth Kerr
  …in onversation with Bill Kable
  

On this program we get to talk to good people who are making a difference in our society. Our guests today, Richard Aston and his wife Ruth Kerr, fit this category and they speak to us from across the ditch in New Zealand.

For 15 years Richard and Ruth through the Big Buddy program provided fatherless boys with a buddy, someone who can show them the way to manhood. These buddies are volunteer mentors who are carefully chosen by going through a detailed screening. The boys know they can rely on their buddies to turn up when expected and listen to what is happening in the boys’ lives. And they get to do fun things.

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The Greatness of Dads

With special guest:

• Kirsten Matthew
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Kirsten Matthew was inspired by her father to take on the Big Apple where she worked as a journalist for ten years. This is a huge achievement considering that she arrived in New York without even a green card, no job offers, not even any friends. At a low point Kirsten rang her father who gave some simple advice to get on with it and that was enough to get her established.

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Reflective Parenting

With special guest:

• Dr Alistair Cooper
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

“She has a mind of her own” is something we hear often enough when parents are talking about the challenges they face in trying to relate with their children. Yet if parents accepted this as fact and tried to find out what was going on inside this other mind the world would become a lot less complicated for both parent and child. With co-author Dr Sheila Redfern our guest today Dr Alistair Cooper has written a new book Reflective Parenting: A Guide to Understanding What’s Going on in Your Child’s Mind showing how to read your child’s mind and use this knowledge to improve your relationship. If you follow the principles of reflective parenting in everyday interactions it will help your child achieve her full potential and save your sanity.

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Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family

With special guest:

• Dr Anne-Marie Slaughter
  …in conversation with Bill Kable
  

When our guest today Dr Anne-Marie Slaughter wrote an article for The Atlantic magazine in 2012 it created what could be described as a firestorm. The article had an estimated 2.7 million views and sparked intense debate. Someone seen as a leading light in feminism was questioning the feminist narrative.

The article was called “Why women still can’t have it all” but clearly there was some unfinished business and this became the title of her new book Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family in which she uncovers the missing piece of the puzzle.

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The Forgotten

With special guest:

• Dr Will Davies
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

This book started when Will Davies’ insatiable curiosity got him wondering about a group of graves in the war cemeteries of northern France. These graves were all on their own, usually next to the boundary fence. When he went to have a look he found that they were erected for Chinese participants in the First World War.

Since China was supposedly neutral in that conflict and did not have a seat at the table when the powers decided on war reparations what was this all about? Will gives us a fascinating account of the real story behind these forgotten men in his new book The Forgotten: The Chinese Labour Corps and the Chinese Anzacs in the Great War.

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Parents Acting Badly

With special guest:

• Dr Jennifer Harman
  … in conversation with Bill Kable
  

Why is it that we never see young animals rejecting a caring parent in the way we see some children acting? The behaviour of the other parent may be the cause and this strange behaviour may be due to Parental Alienation.

Our guest today is Associate Professor Jennifer Harman who tells us that the problem of Parental Alienation is all too common and getting worse around the world yet it is still decried by some as “junk science”.

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An Attachment-Based Model of Parental Alienation

With special guest:

• Dr Craig Childress
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Why is parental alienation such a controversial topic?

Nearly everyone knows someone who has had a child turned against them after separation of the parents. It happens unfortunately all over the world and looks remarkably similar wherever you find it. The construct was defined and given a label, “parental alienation” some thirty years ago by Dr Richard Gardner. More recently there has been a strong push to have it included as a separate diagnosis in the therapists’ “Bible” the DSM-5.

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Protecting Emilie

With special guest:

• Lisa Heim
  … in conversation with Bill Kable and Ken Thompson

A check in the index of topics will reveal that we have explored parental alienation from different angles by talking to academics, psychologists and researchers. Today we cross to Florida in the USA to hear a very real account of what this type of psychological child abuse looks like to those who are personally caught up in it.

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The Alpha Female’s Guide to Men & Marriage

With special guest:

• Suzanne Venker
  …in conversation with Bill Kable
  

Do you know any Alpha Females? We know them when we see them but it may be difficult to work out how to relate to them because of some of their defining characteristics. Equally the alpha females may need some guidance to find out what is missing in their lives even if the culture says they have everything. And our special guest today, Suzanne Venker has answered the call with her new book The Alpha Female’s Guide to Men & Marriage: HOW LOVE WORKS.

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The Men’s Shed Movement: The Company of Men

With special guest: 

• Prof Barry Golding AM
  …in conversation with Bill Kable and Ken Thompson

 When we think of great Australian inventions we might be referring to the Black Box Flight Recorder, electronic pacemakers, cochlear implants or even the stump-jump plough. But today we talk about another Australian invention that has spread internationally and saved thousands of men’s lives. 

Our guest today is Dr Barry Golding who is the honorary patron of the Australian Men’s Shed Association and he provides a fascinating insight into the development and growth of this iconic Australian success story. Barry Golding gives us the benefit of his fifteen years of research in his new book The Men’s Shed Movement: The Company of Men. In talking to us today Barry lets us discover what actually goes on inside the Men’s Sheds we see as we pass through so many country towns. 

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Dad: the Documentary

With special guest:

• Karen Hodgkins Varney
  …in conversation with Bill Kable and Ken Thompson
  

‘Dad’ is a documentary that Karen Hodgkins made for a higher purpose than looking for film industry awards. This film is a powerful and emotional appeal to the law makers and the law enforcers to do something for the Dads who are not travelling as well as frequently portrayed in our society.

In our interview today Karen tells us that she was asked by a Dad in May 2013 to do some research on the injustices in the Family Court and Child Support systems. This Dad was desperate to spend more time with his own children and suspected there was more going on than the general population is aware of.

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Albanese – Telling it Straight

With special guest:

• Karen Middleton
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Everybody loves Albo - even many of his opponents in the national Parliament.

We can identify the three drives he lists as having influenced his development, namely the Catholic Church, South Sydney Rugby League team and the Australian Labor Party. These drives were all inherited from his fiercely loyal and protective mother Maryanne but behind the relationship between Albo and his mother is another fascinating story that has never been revealed until the release of Karen Middleton’s book Albanese - Telling it Straight.

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Still a Pygmy

With special guest:

• Isaac Bacirongo
  …in conversation with Bill Kable

When you are born and raised in Australia you know little about life as a refugee despite it being a frequent topic for conversation and opinion. Most of us have never spoken to a refugee.

Our guest today is Isaac Bacirongo who arrived in Sydney in 2003 with his wife and ten children as refugees after surviving the effects of Rwanda’s civil war in his own country, Congo.

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Keith Urban

With special guest:

• Jeff Apter
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Our own Keith Urban is an enormous success in the biggest music market of all, the United States. Who knew? For some reason Keith Urban has never been really big or even acknowledged in Australia and today we get a few clues as to why that is so.

There is a lot more to Keith than the amiable coach we see in The Voice on Australian TV and our guest today can let us in on some surprises. In his new book Keith Urban our special guest Jeff Apter takes us from Keith’s birth in New Zealand to childhood days on the outskirts of Brisbane to being “discovered” while playing at the Bayview Hotel in Sydney and reaching the stage where he is asked to sing at the opening of the Tokyo Olympic Games. On top of that Keith has been married to Nicole Kidman since 2007 to add a bit of Hollywood glamour to his life.

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The Opera House

With special guest:

• Peter FitzSimons
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

As well as being a 20^th century marvel in its soaring design it remains a source of marvel that the Opera House was even conceived in the parochial, conservative backwater that was 1950s New South Wales.

One thing that was typical then and remains so is the Australian love for a gamble so it was a brainwave of the NSW government to think of financing the construction by way of a lottery. All of a sudden there were more than enough funds to do the work of construction.

But the bigger gamble was to construct a building like no other that would be on display at the heart of the city with techniques that had not been invented based on the imaginings and sparse drawings of a Danish architect who had never taken a building design through to completion.

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Anzac and Aviator

With special guest:

• Michael Molkentin
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

If we are looking for a genuine Australian hero then we need go no further than South Australian Sir Ross Macpherson Smith born in 1892. After he volunteered to enlist for the First World War Ross Smith had a very full but tragically short life.

His first experience of war was to wade ashore at Gallipoli, not in the first wave on 25 April 1915 and not on a horse as he might have expected having joined the 1^st Light Horse Brigade as an excellent horseman. His early experience in the War was mostly as an infantry man although he did have one engagement mounted on a horse.

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Fathers and Daughters – What are the issues?

With special guest:

• Dr Linda Nielsen
  …in conversation with Bill Kable
  

Our guest, Dr Linda Nielsen speaks to us today from North Carolina in the United States about a topic that nearly everyone has a stake in but on which there is very little guidance. How important is the relationship between a daughter and her father? This topic has been explored by Dr Nielsen in her book Father-Daughter Relationships: Contemporary Research & Issues.

Many studies have been directed at the importance of a mother’s relationships with her children. But a father may need some reassurance about the value of his relationship with his daughter particularly if he feels more comfortable with his son. The first thing we get to check with Dr Nielsen is what is it that fathers do for their daughters? Are they really needed?

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The Parental Alienation Syndrome

With special guest:

• Linda Gottlieb Kase
  … in conversation with Bill Kable
  

In today’s program we go to New York to find out the latest on the way Parental Alienation is treated by the Courts and by therapists internationally. While Parental Alienation Syndrome (or PAS) still appears to be a controversial topic in Australia there is no difficulty in recognising this evil for what it is in the USA.

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Splitting

With special guest:

• Bill Eddy
  … in conversation with Bill Kable and Ken Thompson

The word Splitting brings to mind a number of possibilities but in Bill Eddy’s book it is not the obvious meaning of breaking up with a partner. Here we are looking at “splitting” meaning a defence mechanism universally seen in people with Borderline and Narcissistic Personality Disorders. It means unconsciously seeing people as all good or all bad and is especially prevalent when there is stress such as in a break-up with someone the person afflicted sees as critical to emotional survival.

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So You Think You Know What’s Good for You?

With special guest:

• Dr Norman Swan
  … in conversation with Bill Kable

Our health is such an important topic for all of us, maybe the most important.

But as our guest in today’s program Dr Norman Swan points out this sometimes leads to unnecessary worry about doing the right thing for ourselves. In fact the topic of what we should be worrying about is the one that comes up most often from his audiences. In his new book So You Think You Know What’s Good for You? Australia’s most trusted medical practitioner tells us what really is good for you and as a bonus what is bad for you.

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