Working Class Boy

With special guest:

• Jimmy Barnes

Normally we expect to listen to Jimmy Barnes’s creative output as the lead singer and one of the main songwriters for iconic Australian rock band Cold Chisel. But Jimmy has now produced Working Class Boy which has become an Australian bestselling book.

This is not the story of that well-known band or his more recent exploration of the soul music catalogue. In today’s program we hear about Jimmy’s family upbringing and the influence that had on him in his adopted country.

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Help Change the Debate

With special guest:

• Bettina Arndt

When Bettina Arndt talked about sex on Australian national television and radio it was relatively easy to get the truth out in an area that tends to be covered up.

But our guest today must sometimes feel like a voice crying in the wilderness when she turns her attention to the domestic violence industry. It is hard to get the real story out when institutions such as the ABC and the daily newspapers generally contribute to the beat-up regarding domestic violence in our community.

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Fathers Reaching Out

With special guest:

• Mark Williams

Our guest in today’s program is Mark Williams who has been awarded “Inspirational Father of the Year” at the Pride of Britain awards. This is impressive enough but it also shows how far he has come since the birth of his son Ethan in 2004.

Both Mark and his wife Michelle suffered crippling anxiety after the birth and Mark hit rock bottom when he began to experience suicidal thoughts. And yet the reason for the torrent of negative emotions and spiralling depression had less to do with their son than the mental health issues that were confronting them. In hindsight Mark recognises that he had experienced a condition long recognised in mothers, that of post-natal depression.

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The Greatness of Dads

With special guest:

• Kirsten Matthew

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.

After that experience and lots of other insights, wisdoms and truths from her father Kirsten realised that the universal threads of fatherhood can be found the world over. So she set about the task of recording some quotes, song lyrics, artwork and images of dads throughout history and around the world. The result of these efforts is a beautifully presented book The Greatness of Dads.

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Youth Express

With special guest:

• James Winter

Making a living in the Australian theatre has never been an easy task. Our guest today is James Winter an actor and director who has raised the level of difficulty significantly.

James draws on his over 20 years’ experience in the arts industry to create performance with non-performers, particularly the marginalised and at risk youthful members of our community. In doing this work through the Belvoir St Theatre’s Outreach Program, Youth Express, James engages with young people who may be homeless and find themselves excluded from mainstream education.

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Father’s Day is Special

With special guest:

• Warwick Marsh

Today we welcome Warwick Marsh as we approach Father’s Day in 2016. Warwick started the Dads4 Kids Fatherhood Foundation not long after Dads on the Air first hit the airwaves and has been one of our most frequent guests over the years.

Warwick brings enormous enthusiasm to everything he does and he does a lot. To get the message out about what it can mean to be a father Warwick has through the Dads4 Kids Foundation produced Community Service Announcements which have been taken up by network television stations. We urge everyone to see these vignettes, if not on your local TV station then on Dads4Kids YouTube channel. In the 2016 edition it tears at your heartstrings to hear a range of children from many different backgrounds provide a script with the simple word “Dad” or sometimes “Daddy”.

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Fathers and Daughters – What are the issues?

With special guest:

• Prof Linda Nielsen

Our guest, Professor 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 latest 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 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.

In Linda Gottlieb Kase’s book she describes 56 alienated children and 32 alienated parents from her experience in practice. In these studies there are more mothers being the alienators with fathers being the target but this is put down to the syndrome being opportunistic rather than any particular propensity of either sex. In the USA as in Australia the mothers get a greater share of time with the children awarded by the Courts and accordingly their opportunity to alienate the children is also greater. Interestingly Linda Gottlieb Kase says that if fathers were awarded more time with their children it is likely that they would be more likely to be the alienators.

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

With special guests:

• Richard Aston & Ruth Kerr

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 the last thirteen years Richard and Ruth through the Big Buddy program have been providing 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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Are Fathers Important for Adolescents?

With special guest:

• Dr William (Bill) Fabricius

Most studies in the area of children and families concentrate on the influence of mothers. Fathers are understudied in this area. For this reason we welcome the results of a soon to be published paper on the role of fathers and we have the opportunity today to speak with one of its lead authors, Associate Professor Dr William Fabricius who joins us from New York. The title of the paper is Effects of the Inter-Parental Relationship on Adolescents’ Emotional Security and Adjustment: The Important Role of Fathers.

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Transformation: Turning tragedy into triumph

With special guest:

• Dr Tim Sharp

Our guest in this program is Dr Tim Sharp, also known as Dr Happy.

Tim has produced a new book Transformation: Turning tragedy into triumph and he joins us today to spread a little happiness. The book has eleven people making a contribution with a story about themselves or someone close to them. Some of the contributors’ stories are well-known while others tell of living a quiet life before they reached a turning point in their life story. Looking outside themselves brought surprising benefits not only to others but to the contributors as well.

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Reflective Parenting

With special guest:

• Dr Alistair Cooper

“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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Male Health in Australia - Men’s Health Week 2016

With special guest:

• Dr Gary Misan

The health of Australians in terms of life expectancy is good by world standards.

However when we examine life expectancy it is often forgotten in these times of women demanding greater empowerment that males in Australia die more frequently than females in all age groups. Male life expectancy is 4.6 years less than females and the gap has increased not declined since 1900. In remote and very remote areas average male life expectancy is 4 years lower than in more populated areas. For Aboriginal males the average life expectancy is only 59 years a full 6 years less than for Aboriginal females. Furthermore male health extends beyond the purely biological aspects and encompasses a range of issues affecting the health and wellbeing of men and boys.

Against this background the Government introduced Australia’s first Men’s Health Policy in 2010, some 30 years after the Women’s Health Policy appeared. We ask our guest today Dr Gary Misan what changes have we seen since the 2010 introduction of the Policy and to what extent has it been picked up at the state and regional level.

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Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family

With special guest:

• Dr Anne-Marie Slaughter

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.

Anne-Marie is clearly a gifted communicator as demonstrated in several high-powered careers, most notably her time as Director of Policy

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Planning in the US State Department working alongside Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State.

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Year of the Dad

With special guest:

• Nick Thorpe

A special program to celebrate National Families Week

Our guest today is Nick Thorpe who is used to taking on big challenges. One such challenge was to voyage to Easter Island on a raft of reeds. Now he is working on making Scotland the best place in the world for children to grow up and as part of that campaign he is promoting 2016 as the Year of the Dad. This is part of the campaign organised by the Fathers Network Scotland with support from the Scottish Government.

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Parents Acting Badly

With special guest:

• Dr Jennifer Harman

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”.

Jennifer tells us that the scientific analysis of Parental Alienation is still at a beginning stage. The research is still focussing on the description of Parental Alienation because we have not yet reached the predictive stage. This is the normal scientific approach to research and can be compared with where we are up to with the topic du jour, domestic violence. However no-one denies the existence of domestic violence in the way they once did.

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Private Bill: In Love and War

With special guest:

• Barrie Cassidy

It makes for a rare occasion when Barrie Cassidy goes to the other side of the microphone. Barrie is one of Australia’s most respected and experienced political journalists and we welcome him to Dads on the Air.

But we are not going to discuss politics in this program. We are going to find out more about Barrie’s father Bill who is the main subject in Barrie’s book Private Bill: In Love and War.

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Being Dads

With special guest:

• David Willans

There are changes happening in Western societies that are hard to ignore. Our Dads are getting more involved in one-on-one relationships with their children and if that means reducing the time put into the provider role then that is the price for the modern family.

Our guest today David Willans speaks to us from London and he tells us what led to a decision he made in 2014 regarding a change in his family arrangements. David cannot now even remember what the issue was with his son but he clearly remembers yelling at his then 5 year old. We all know the feeling when you are under pressure and a child seems oblivious. It can be a bit like a kettle reaching boiling point.

On this day two years ago David saw that his young son was being attacked by an angry man that he didn’t recognise as himself. Rather than being the great Dad he had always aspired to be he had become a cross Dad and his 5 year old child did not know how to respond.

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The Fathering Project

With special guest:

• John Bond

Our guest today is the son of a very famous father, Alan Bond who is forever linked with Australia winning the America’s Cup in 1983. John Bond was there for this hugely significant event in the USA, one which lifted the whole country. Where to after that?

John Bond returned to Australia and got his motivation when he heard an address by Professor Bruce Robinson which inspired him to support the most powerful force for reducing the chances of our kids falling victim to drugs, suicide and crime. Having an effective father or even a father figure leads to reduced incidence of crime, alcohol and drug abuse; it enhances mental health and self-esteem, leads to improved school engagement and performance, social competence and improved health behaviours generally. Professor Robinson, who has previously been a guest on Dads on the Air provided the research which is compelling.

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SHTUM

With special guest:

• Jem Lester

In this program we cross to London to discuss with author Jem Lester his new novel SHTUM. For anyone who has missed the British television shows and is not sure what “shtum” means Jem tells us that it means “silent or uncommunicative”. That is what a loving father may face when he has a child with profound autism.

The book SHTUM won the 2013 PFD/City University Prize for Fiction but in writing the book Jem tells us he draws on his own experiences having raised a boy now nearly 16 who is profoundly autistic.

This is one of those books you do not want to put down. One of the characters refers to the power of words and yet the most eloquent communication between a father and a son is a non-verbal moment where the connection is “hilarious, fleeting and precious.”

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