With special guest: Mark Williams … in conversation with Bill Kable 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. Podcast (mp3)

With special guest: Tania de Jong AM … in conversation with Bill Kable Something unusual for listeners today. Our guest is Tania de Jong who tells us about a new production called Driftwood The Musical. Tania happens to be the creator and producer of Driftwood The Musical as well as being one of the stars on stage. For her choice of song we have the special pleasure of bringing you a song Tania wrote and performed herself. The story of Driftwood concerns Tania’s grandparents who survived Nazi atrocities in Vienna and eventually became artistic treasures in their adopted country Australia. Podcast (mp3)

With special guest: Dr Tim Hawkes …in conversation with Bill Kable and Ken Thompson What the world needs now is leadership and that is our topic today. Our guest in this program was one of Australia’s leading educators whose book Ten Leadership Lessons You Must Teach Your Teenager takes a different approach to the topic of leadership. This book is not addressed to the business people trying to get higher on the greasy pole of corporate success. Dr Hawkes writes for mums and dads to share some wisdom with their teenage children. Based on his great experience from many years teaching and leading thousands of students Dr Hawkes provides parents with realistic expectations and their children with challenges that the contemporary teen can reasonably be expected to achieve. Podcast (mp3)

With special guest: Para Paheer … in conversation with Bill Kable and Ken Thompson Para Paheer was five years old when civil war between Tamils and the Sinhalese government started in Sri Lanka and continued for the next twenty six years. At the time Para did not know that the causes went back to 1830 when the Tamil people were imported to Sri Lanka to work on the plantations in conditions that were not far off slavery. Para had spent his childhood in poverty by Australian standards but when the war began conditions got even harder. Survival required courage, ingenuity and in Para’s case the kindness of strangers. The inspiring part of Para’s story, as told in The Power of Good People: Surviving the Sri Lankan Civil War, is that he describes accurately and fully some of the horrors he witnessed and experienced personally yet he can focus his attention on the good things that people he has met along the way have done for him and his family. Podcast (mp3)

With special guest: Prof Roy F. Baumeister …in conversation with Bill Kable and Ken Thompson Something we have always wanted to know but never been game to ask. This book’s title Is There Anything Good About Men? How Cultures Flourish by Exploiting Men leads on to a whole range of surprises. We often accept without questioning that women are better networkers than men and that women are better at multi-tasking but is this supported in the research? At a practical level will women succeed in the current push for much more representation on the Boards of major companies? Professor Roy Baumeister has examined human behaviour as our culture developed. This culture brings humans enormous advantages not available to other primates. You just have to think of us being able to shop at supermarkets, sleep in a warm bed every night and being able to find out on our computers everything ever learned in human history. Podcast (mp3)

With special guest: Dr Dawson Cooke … in conversation with Bill Kable and Ken Thompson We will all readily make the assumption that the bond between mothers and their babies is important for the health of the family but what about the dad-baby bond? Our guest today is Dr Dawson Cooke who is able to discuss that relationship based on the findings in his study published in Infant Mental Health. Dr Cooke has been working with parents and particularly fathers for the last 20 years both in his practice and as a researcher at Curtin University in WA. In his study which involved 451 families he has made some findings that have caught the attention of the media. Podcast (mp3)

With special guest: Tara June Winch … in conversation with Bill Kable The Yield is a big book that in Paul Kelly’s words “sings up language, history, home, blood – all the important stuff” with its focus being on an area of some 500 acres in western New South Wales. This is a novel by Indigenous author Tara June Winch that she has been working on for the last fourteen years. It tells of the experiences of the fictional Goondiwindi family based on the real history of Aboriginal people in Australia. The novel is set in Massacre Plains and one of the places is called Poisoned Waterhole Creek. These are real place names. The town in the story is somewhat ironically called Prosperous. Podcast (mp3)

With special guest: Janet Allison … in conversation with Bill Kable After listening to this show many men will be wishing that they could have had Janet Allison as their teacher in years gone by. Janet speaks to us from Portland Oregon in the USA where she has founded the organisation Boys Alive! to benefit teachers and children in the education process. Janet’s warm style is engaging and inspiring. Podcast (mp3)

With special guest: Maggie Dent … in conversation with Bill Kable It is ten years since we last spoke to Maggie Dent and in that time the pressure on our boys has only got worse. Now more than ever we need a consistent voice, a sensible voice backed by extensive research, in fact a boy champion. Fortunately this is recognised in the huge reaction given to Maggie’s new book Mothering Our Boys: A guide for mums of sons and in public forums that Maggie delivers around the nation. It is a privilege for us to be able to share Maggie’s thoughts in this special program. Podcast (mp3)

With special guest: Dr Preeya Alexander … in conversation with Bill Kable Eat, Sleep, Play, Love sounds pretty good to all of us. But sometimes our very young children do not stick to the recipe and can distress both themselves and those caring for them. Today we go on a journey with our celebrity guest Dr Preeya Alexander who distils for us in her new book what we should be doing to have an easier life. We are happy to say that Preeya’s book does not start out with rigid rules on parenting accompanied by a prescription for lots of guilt if we do not follow precisely. Podcast (mp3)