Podcast

Lucy Dahill talks to Founder of Parents At Work, Emma Walsh about the reality of being a working parent in today's world. Emma provides some great and useful tips on how to balance work and family when returning to work after parental leave. What rules and boundaries do you want to set to support your return? What conversations do you need to be having? What are good questions to ask yourself to check in with yourself through this time?

Lucy Dahill talks to executive career coach Kiri Stejko about how to best prepare your family for your return to work after parental leave. Kiri shares why it's important to do some planning before your return, what some of the challenges can be if you don't and some useful things to think through around who will do what. Kiri gives us a reality check on what's possible.

Lucy Dahill talks to Executive Career Coach Kiri Stejko and Founder of Parents At Work about what to consider when it comes to how long you take parental leave for. Kiri and Emma share the variations of how different people approach their parental leave differently and why that may be supportive for them. What conversations could you have as a family and what implications do you need to consider?

It is vital to look after yourself if you want to be able to nurture your relationships, but what does that look like on a practical basis? How do you fit 'you' into an already busy day?

In this episode, youth advocate, teen expert, and mother of three teenagers, Lucy Dahill, discusses the importance of self-care for parents - including the consequences on the family due to lack of self-care, and the ways that parents can incorporate self-care WITHOUT having to add anything into their already busy schedules.

Lucy explores the interesting concept of time vs. space, and how allowing ourselves time to do even the most simple tasks during the day can then give us the space that we are in need of for our self-care. She teaches us how to prevent stressing about how we will fit in time for ourselves within our busy schedule, but instead plan how will we fit our busy schedule around taking time for ourselves. There are simple ways that allow you to be more present in the activities you are already taking on in your day in order to fulfil the need for self-care. Some of these suggestions are as simple as drinking more water, but it is the attitude towards these suggestions that make all the difference.

With the findings from the National Working Families Survey showing that working parents' most challenging issue is finding time to look after their own physical and mental health (two-thirds of working parents reporting feeling too emotionally and physically drained after work to contribute to the family), this podcast is more important than ever.

We build our teens up for 13 years to prepare for the HSC or their final exams and then cannot understand why we see such high rates of anxiety. How do we help our teens keep exams in perspective from the start?

In this episode youth advocate, teen expert, and mother of three teenagers - Lucy Dahill from Why Be You - discusses the pressure teens feel from impending exams and how parents can help them cope with their desire to succeed and fear of failure.

Lucy explores the sources of exam stress including teachers, parents, peer-pressure, self-expectations, and societal-expectations. Furthermore, she encourages you to look at the coping mechanisms teens are using (such as alcohol and comfort food) and get a feel for whether they are beneficial for your teen (or not) even if you believe they personally help you to reduce stress. Lucy reminds us that your teen’s perspective of exams won’t change overnight and that it will take patience and role-modelling to make any notable shifts in teen behaviour.

In the 1970 U.S. census, only 6 men in the whole of America identified as a stay-at-home dad, but by 2014 this number had risen to 2 million people.

In this latest episode, The Father Hood team interview Rory Brown about his experience with being a stay-at-home dad in today's climate. They ask about the benefits of being a stay-at-home dad, if he has experienced any negative stigma surrounding his role, what his personal experience has been like, and what he has learned or gained from being a stay-at-home dad.

Rory talks about the opportunity to spend in depth time with your children as they grow right before your eyes. He also discusses the feeling of joint success when watching his wife strive for and meet her career goals, something that would have been harder to achieve without Rory being the stay-at-home parent. Through his role, Rory has also come to appreciate and understand the difficulties involved in managing a household, something that his wife had predominantly been in charge of early in their marriage. He feels it has been a massive learning experience for both partners gaining experience in their respective family roles and also in how today's society reacts to the idea of a dad being the primary carer.

Rory hopes that fathers continue to take on the role of the stay-at-home parent, that people will begin to understand the difficulties associated with the role, and that it starts to be viewed as a very accessible role for both mothers and fathers.

Relationships between parents and teens change considerably in the teen years. The good news is, this is a positive - “it’s supposed to change”. So why does it not feel or sound so great at the time?

What does a healthy relationship with your teens look like? Why is it important to support your teen with understanding how they relate to tension? How do you rebuild trust between you and your teen if the relationship hasn’t been what you’d like it to be?

In the Teen Clinic Podcast youth advocate, teen expert and mother of three teenagers – Lucy Dahill – discusses the changing relationships teens experience with their friends and family, more notably their parents, as they become more independent.

Lucy explores the correlation between the relationships parents have with the people around them and how that modelling of behaviour influences the way teens develop their own relationships during this crucial time. On top of this, she looks at how the digital world changes the dynamics of teen’s relationships and teen’s use of certain coping mechanisms, encouraging parents to target the source of these problems rather than the actual coping strategy. Lucy encourages you to support your teens to create new relationships and to set the standards of what is appropriate and respectful.

In this episode of The Father Hood Podcast we're joined by Emma Walsh, CEO of Parents At Work, to talk all things parental leave for fathers. What are you entitled to from the Government? What benefits can your employer offer you?

We know that asking for paid parental leave at your workplace can be difficult. 50% of employers offer paid parental leave schemes, and Emma Walsh stresses the idea for fathers that "if you don't ask, you won't get".

We talk about the current trends in Aussie fathers taking parental leave, what's happening globally and why taking parental leave doesn't hinder - but rather - benefits your career.

In this episode of The Father Hood Podcast, the team interviews Tom Docking, the founder of Dads Group. They discuss the unexpected ways that being a new dad can affect you, especially your mental health, and how social connection is so important as a form of support for dads.

Tom opens up about why he started the Dads Group, stating that the opportunity to talk and listen to other dads is a very restorative experience and provides the chance to heal from the challenges involved in the transition to becoming a parent. He has found that dads retain information and pick up on parenting advice more efficiently when it is in the context of a dads group and that his aim is to make all the wonderful parenting content available to dads through this medium so that it is not just sitting there "collecting dust".

Tom hopes that through these dad groups that he can help encourage the perspective that fatherhood is more than just a responsibility, its an opportunity, and he believes that’s the direction that fatherhood is moving into the future.

Learn more about Dads Group:

www.dadsgroup.org

www.facebook.com/dadsgroupincorporated

www.instagram.com/dadsgroupinc

www.twitter.com/dadsgroupinc

As working parents we are busier now more than ever. It’s no wonder the morning rush can be hard for you and especially your toddlers, even though you do the same thing every day there are times where your toddler does not want to co-operate.

Join Karitane toddler expert Sharlene Vlahos as she takes us through the art of slowing down, understanding your toddler and how the magic of co-operation- it is possible!