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This is the home of content for dads to learn new skills and tackle life challenges.
We're building the biggest online university on the planet for dads who want to improve their lives, and the lives the generations that will follow.
On this podcast you'll experience a mixture of life lessons, entertainment and educational content to help you push forward.
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We are blessed in Diversity to have a bunch of coaches who are incredibly knowledgeable in their space through design and through all these different things and and experience. Scott is one of those who has been a dad. His story, if you've not heard it, is incredible. He's got seven seven brilliant boys, now a granddad. He's done all these things, appeared on the podcast before and told his own story, so we won't dwell too much on that.
Speaker 1:But the knowledge and depth of Scott's knowledge and the ability to transition from different topics, different topics to other topics is quite incredible. So very lucky to have you, Scott. Do you want to tell the dads who are going to be listening to this live and listening on the live stream? Sorry, listening on the podcast, who you are and and how you got into doing some of this stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Thank you very much. That is very kind. And, yes, I do find that quite difficult and awkward, but I appreciate it. So, yes, as you've heard, my name is Scott Meyer, and my wife, Sarah, and I do have seven boys.
Speaker 2:My eldest is 21. Youngest is five pretty much every couple of years all the way down. We can laugh and joke about how it happened. My wife is Irish, so it was always gonna be a large family. I like to pretend that it's because she found me irresistible, but it's the Irish part more than anything else.
Speaker 2:And so much of the work that we've done is what my boys have taught me along the years. We don't know how to be parents until we become them. And I think sometimes we get lots of advice of people that's done it, and that's fantastic. Sometimes we get advice of people that haven't, and it's harder to take. But so much of parenting is figuring out your own path as you go through it.
Speaker 2:And what I've tried to do through the programmes and the work that I do is to just try and help steer that path and just give a little bit of advice and guidance when it feels difficult, but also when it doesn't. I'm just trying to put the things in place that we're gonna touch on this evening, little small coping strategies, normalizing the fact that we all find parenting a little bit difficult at times, and just helping people be a little bit more prepared for the challenges that come, particularly in the early days. I think we look at antenatal education and some of the work that we do, and it's preparing to a degree if you're fortunate enough to have this education, and it doesn't prepare you for the changes, the psychological changes, the relationship changes, and just the extra pressures and stresses that come with being a parent. And again, it's things that I've learned along the way. Every session I do, even this one, I will highlight the fact that it's research based, it's evidence based, where a lot of this opinion comes from.
Speaker 2:Anecdotally, I will sometimes talk about my experiences of working with dads and the pathways and programs that I've created and the fortunate situation I find myself in of getting to speak to families every day. And so I get to hear so much of what they say, and that is what I feedback through these programs. Yeah, I'm very pleased to be here.
Speaker 1:Cheers, Scott. And we're genuinely, all jokes aside, I know we've got a good relationship outside of the Dadversity stuff as well, but we're genuinely lucky to have you. The floor is is all yours, my friend, to talk about the transition to fatherhood. Just to reiterate, this is gonna be available on the Dadversity Podcast. We're gonna have some micro clips in the community after Scott is finished along with the full session as well.
Speaker 1:So, Scott, the floor is yours.
Speaker 2:I will apologize. I do have a coffee here. I've got a bit of a sore throat. If if I don't sit this as we go along, I might sound like bit of a frog. And we are strict to time.
Speaker 2:I'm not very good at sticking to time. Sarah, my wife, says that I'm good at making short stories long, not very good doing it the other way around, but I will try very hard and stick to this as much as I can. This brief introduction on what we've already covered in terms of that transition and how difficult it can be, there is significant changes. There is a massive shift in our life. And I think that sometimes when we look at particularly mental health, and I know that's quite deep to go straight into that, but we have this sometimes a bit of a complex understanding and relationship of mental health.
Speaker 2:We all have mental health, good, bad, and indifferent. We just don't normally talk about it while it's good. And we sometimes don't talk about it while it's indifferent. It really becomes a conversation when it's bad and when it's become something that's a little bit challenging. But when we look at this transition particularly into parenthood, it is a massive change in our life.
Speaker 2:It is a huge shift. Emotionally, we are sometimes impacted. Then we start to add lots of different factors. There is change in relationship. There is lack of sleep.
Speaker 2:There's extra pressures. There's extra responsibilities. When we look at particularly mental health, when it becomes poor, it is circumstance and it is situational quite a lot of the time and circumstances and situations will not change much more than when we become parents. And it's trying to figure things out. And what we hear quite a lot, particularly from a positive aspect when you get nice cards from people around, but when you've had a baby or during pregnancy, when we have showers now during pregnancy, and we start to look at it through that positive lens is there'll be a nice card that says you're going to get to meet someone you've never met before, and you're going to love them instantly.
Speaker 2:Not always the case, and this is not trying to be overly negative. It's just sometimes it takes a little bit of time, not just for dads or for the parent that hasn't given birth, but even the ones that did. Sometimes it's not instant, that connection or that feeling, and we can often think we've done something wrong. And it's just that everybody is different, and we interact, and we bond, and we develop these relationships at our own speed sometimes. But there's also the element of it's not just our baby that we're meeting for the first time.
Speaker 2:When we haven't had children before, you are meeting yourself as a parent for the first time because you've never been one before. So you don't know how you're going to react in certain situations. You don't know how you're going to feel, but you also haven't met your partner as a parent before either. So you're getting to know them and you will sometimes look at things differently, have different expectations. You will look at things again through a different lens.
Speaker 2:And it's just trying to adjust to this relationship that we're going to have with our child and being a parent. Now you're sharing this responsibility as parents and that puts different expectations and also different pressures on the relationship. And then the self pressure that we put on ourselves as to what we're going to be and not wanting to get it wrong, and wanting to make sure that we're the best that we can be. And a lot of this expectation and pressure becomes too heavy at times, and we can find it difficult. And then we've we've looked at it that we're maybe not enjoying this quite in the way that we thought we would.
Speaker 2:And that is all perfectly natural for lots of people. And this is why these sort of sessions are important and this platform that's being curated, which is really important for dads to come and have these conversations and just start to look at the things that we maybe wouldn't have. As it was mentioned, I have become a grandfather recently. My wife says I'm Daddle, and she is Mamaw, which is Irish, because we're we're 42 years of age. We're pretty cool to be grandparents.
Speaker 2:We didn't wanna go with nanny and granddad, so we had to be slightly different. But my son in particular, he took his daughter out for their first walk when they came home, and he came back and it was, dad, has the world always been this dangerous? And it was just see things very differently. And one of the things that happens in the world right now, we seem to be caught up a little bit on toxic masculinity and the way in which we process things as men is sometimes seen as right or wrong, and it creates a lot of confusion with the dads that I work with, particularly younger dads, but dads of all ages, where do I fit? What is it okay to be?
Speaker 2:But one of the things that is coming through that is overriding in the vast majority of fathers that I've worked with is this protector. That's what we're there to do. We're there to protect and provide to a degree, but definitely protect. So some of that responsibility comes from the need to keep safe. So if this journey into fatherhood has had maybe a difficult pregnancy, slightly difficult birth, or a very difficult birth, or a child that's needed a little bit of extra care, or maybe into a special unit to have a little bit of help, all of that is I need to protect, I need to protect, and I have not been able to do that.
Speaker 2:Some of the poor outcomes that we see in mental health is just from the fact that our body is naturally trying to do something that we've not been prepared for. We don't necessarily have these conversations. And then counteracting that protective part is that when we have our first child as men, our testosterone levels can drop by up to a front. And it's just to accommodate that transition. It makes us more adaptable so we can develop that relationship.
Speaker 2:We're more tolerant, more patient. These are the things that we need to naturally bond and develop that relationship with our child. We don't discuss that. That drop in testosterone is quite harsh at times, and it also means that what we can see is we're more emotionally vulnerable. So, you can be a little bit more upset about things.
Speaker 2:You can take things a little bit more seriously and personally. And like we've already mentioned, that protective part of trying to keep them safe. So, there's lots of things that are naturally happening. So, it's not just can I possibly be finding this difficult because it's the best thing that's ever happened to me? How can I be sad at such a habit, happy time in my life?
Speaker 2:It's actually cutting ourselves a little bit of slack and realizing this transition is quite big. So, what we look at in terms of the roller coaster of emotions that most of us will go on, there is an anxiety. Now, when we look at people that are anxious and then having a diagnosis of anxiety, and again, it's not something that we're particularly all fame, have big conversations on, but we are increasingly worried, particularly during the pregnancy as a dad who might not be having interaction with services. So, things are not always necessarily explained to us in a way that we maybe understand. We might not be able to go to all appointments, and even if we do, maybe those communication channels are not open in the way that they could be.
Speaker 2:So what we tend to see is fear of the unknown. As men, again, we quite like to know what's coming, what's around the corner. Again, it's that protective aspect. You can't protect from what you don't know or understand and what you can't see coming. So it creates that little bit more fear, and research indicates that up to one in four or twenty five percent of fathers will develop some sort of depression or anxiety in this period during pregnancy, or in what we call the postnatal period just after.
Speaker 2:But a real emphasis on the anxiety, which is the worrying part because we're sometimes not getting that interaction, or it's often in a language that we don't understand. And that's not to say that we're not intelligent or articulate, it's just that we know from research, particularly work that I've done myself, so this is anecdotal, is that between sixty five and seventy five and seventy percent of the men that I've worked with will hear the phrase perinatal, which is what we get used for, which is from conception to baby's first birthday, but has been extended to baby's second birthday in lots of areas and lots of services. That period is the perinatal period, but between sixty five and seventy percent of the men I wouldn't say, I didn't know what the perinatal period was. We're So, hearing terms and language quite as simple as that, different categories of birth, or different types of birth, and inductions, gestational diabetes, growth monitoring scans. And it's not to say that some people don't know what this is, but quite often when you add it all together, there does become a little bit of a fear of I don't quite know what is happening, and it makes me worry a little bit more.
Speaker 2:I don't wanna talk to my partner because I don't want to worry her during the pregnancy, so we bottle it up. And that creates a little bit of pressure for the providing and the protecting that I mentioned, meeting expectations. If we didn't have a particularly good relationship with our own father, we want to have that with our children. If they weren't emotionally available, we want to be emotionally available. If they didn't maybe have time because they were working, or generationally, things were just different is I want to be this type of parent.
Speaker 2:So we're putting a lot of expectations on ourselves, sometimes before it's even happened. And the one thing I always like to work on, and when working with any parent, but like I've said, particularly I work with fathers, is that the only perfect parents are the ones that haven't done it yet. And everybody's got this grand idea of how it's going to be. I did it. I'm sure anybody here who's listening has already got children will do it.
Speaker 2:And anybody that you ask me realistically, things do change from what we think we're going to do to what we actually do. From the my kids are never gonna have a tablet. Yeah. We'll see. My kids would never have sweets or chocolate before bedtime.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Again, we'll see. Everybody is a little bit different than we see this new gentle parenting, it's called, or is traditional parenting the best way? We're having these conversations very early into it before we sometimes met that child, and we start to develop that relationship. And as you develop that relationship, you will learn what they need, and you will develop ways in which to interact with them even when it comes to discipline as they start to get a little bit older.
Speaker 2:So much of that will come from the relationship that I feel that you build with your child. So you're not supposed to know all of it before it happens, but we sometimes feel that we do, and that is a societal issue, unfortunately. And then the reality check, like I've just mentioned, it's okay to feel overwhelmed by this. You know, it's okay to find it on a little bit much to process and and those fears that we've mentioned, and it's not trying to make it negative. It's just making it reality.
Speaker 2:And reality is it's difficult. Life can be difficult at times. Everybody can become overwhelmed in situations in their life. I normally say this when I'm working with people that have maybe had a more difficult journey of everybody has a break point. I genuinely believe that.
Speaker 2:Not everybody reaches it, and that's fantastic, but some people do. And where your break point is and how you get to it is, again, it's personalized. So the reality check is it's okay if we are finding this a little bit difficult, but there is immense joy and love and fulfillment. My father is wonderful. I've done it seven times.
Speaker 2:It can't be all that bad, or I wouldn't have kept going back for more. It is the greatest thing I've ever done. When I look at the things that I've accomplished in my life, they do go in a particular order. First is a husband, because if I wasn't a husband and I hadn't had this relationship and built the family foundations that we have, the rest of it wouldn't be what it is. I'm a father.
Speaker 2:These are the two things that that I'm most proud of, the things that I reflect on most. It is incredible. There is amazing expectations that I put on myself of what I'm going to be and how I'm going to do it, and I'm sure most people are the same. And then the job, the career, the accolades, the friendships, the things that we get to do, the how much money we make, the cars we drive, house you have, all these things are really important. But to me, being a husband and being a father are the two things that that are most important because it means an awful lot to me, and I'm sure most people will feel the same.
Speaker 2:So it is incredibly fulfilling. It is wonderful. The love that you feel for your childhood and your children for the first time is absolutely magical. And having those kisses, those cuddles, the first time you hear dad, all of these wonderful things, then when you have a grandchild, you get to go through it through a different lens. It is phenomenal.
Speaker 2:So we're not trying to put a negative spin on it. It's just that quite often, at times, we find it overwhelming and they find it a little bit difficult, and it's just trying to say that is perfectly normal, unnatural feeling to have. So managing anxiety and recognizing it, the fact that it is normal, a word that we sometimes don't like to use is normal, and I think we've got a little bit we've gone one way in terms of society and what normal is, and people can become slightly offended by the word. But we need to know what normal is sometimes for us. What is our normal?
Speaker 2:What is me at my best functioning when I'm at full capacity? That is my normal. That is my baseline. We need to know where that is so that we can see where we're sometimes not at it. We might be overachieving it, we might be doing really well, might be on a roll, everything's falling into place, the nappy changes become on point, baby's going to sleep, whether it's formula feeding, breastfeeding, whatever it is, everything is just, oh my God, we're killing it at the moment.
Speaker 2:And that's great. And then there'll be times where, no, we're not, we're getting it all wrong, we're just barely surviving, we're dialing it in. You know, I'm not even anywhere near 50%, let alone a 100%, we're just about breaking even. We need both sometimes, but to know where your normal level is really important, and just trying to maintain that as best as you can. So putting things in place with practical tools.
Speaker 2:So my background long before this was I'm ex army, former infantry soldier. So mindfulness wasn't really something that I ever would have thought I would have been speaking about. Meditation, yoga, or whatever anybody uses are all really powerful tools. But mindfulness and breathing techniques, it wasn't till I actually started to look at my background and look at some of the ways in which we cope with very difficult situations, and mindfulness was very much a part of it. It was mental strength that gets you through lots of situations in your life, and I was able to look at the military side of it, getting through the physical side, and going away and doing training and then going to infantry school.
Speaker 2:So much of it was the body was beat, but it was the mind that keeps you going. And you can do it and your brain believes what you tell it and you can reprogram it in certain situations. And breathing exercises was not on rainfall ranges, and again, in the gym or on long distance runs or endurance exercises, breathing became a really big part of it. When I thought I didn't do mindfulness, I wouldn't sit and do breathing exercises, I did. I just had to reframe it, and that became something I was slightly more comfortable with.
Speaker 2:Journaling is another thing that we use quite a lot. Again, Bridget Jones keeping a diary was my sort of naive attitude when I first started looking at this sort of stuff. But writing things down and reflecting is really important. When we have those negative thoughts or those concerns, if we write them down, this is something that I've been doing for years, and it might not work for everybody, but it might work for some of you, is that as you have those thoughts, you write it down. And then when you feel a little bit better or a little bit more prepared to deal with it in a few days' time, you go back and challenge it.
Speaker 2:And then I'm not the worst dad in the world. I'm not failing at this. I'm not weak for feeling this way. I'm not a burden on anybody because you when you feel a little bit better, you can challenge it. And that's why writing it down is quite good because one, you get it out of your head as it becomes apparent that you're starting to think along that negative way.
Speaker 2:And then as you feel better, you can challenge it. Having open communication with a partner, some people will have the view that we shouldn't talk about these things. That's not my point of view. I think it's really important to have those open lines of communication. Again, it's a personal thing.
Speaker 2:It's about your relationship, but what I do know and the work that I've done with families and speaking to the wives of the men that I've worked with is I knew something was wrong. I knew he wasn't happy. I knew he was struggling. I knew he was finding it difficult. He thought he was being stoic and doing the right thing by not telling me about it, but it was actually very difficult for me.
Speaker 2:And at times, it can tear relationships apart because it's there on the other side thinking, why can't he talk to me? Why is he having such a difficult time when the person that he's supposed to navigate life with, he's not talking to me about it? He feels that he can't. What have I done wrong to make him think he can't speak to me? And they start to internalize it, which is why we know statistically that if we look at the more extreme end of mental health in this period and in the new parent period, that if one person has depression in that perinatal period, then there's fifty percent likely that the other person in that relationship become depressed at the same time, because it takes a toll.
Speaker 2:So, whether we communicate about it, but even if we don't, sometimes it negatively has an impact on the people that we love and around us, and we think we're bottling it up and keeping it in, we're protecting them, and we're not actually doing them a disservice by not allowing them the possibility to support us. And that leads to seeking peer support, dad's groups, online communities, not just because I run them, not just because we're sat here in one, they are fundamentally important. Peer support is massively underrated. Speaking to our peers that understand what we're going through to get that advice, to get that opinions, to be able to lean on the people that have been through it is really important. Whether it's just coming from a distance and listening to the likes of these videos and other ones that are gonna go up, the information is gonna start to come in through.
Speaker 2:The network is really important from other dads. It's been people that have been through it that are trying to support. So you don't have to speak to anybody in the beginning. It's just getting enough information, creating a bit of a toolkit or an arsenal, whatever you want to describe it as, and having these things that you can lean back on that's tried and tested by other people that have gone through similar. If your challenges are slightly different, so you might be having multiple children, you could have children that have got disabilities or illnesses, chronic, severe, even life limiting or life altering illnesses.
Speaker 2:There is specialist groups and people that have been through similar and that you can lean on. So tapping into those sort of networks is really important. And then being kind to yourself. It sounds a little bit patronizing, and I don't mean it to, but just give yourself a break sometimes. And the one thing that I always try and say in these situations is give yourself the same sort of slack and leeway that you would give a friend that was going through similar to what you are, and try and give the advice to yourself that you would give, again, to a friend in that situation.
Speaker 2:We are our worst critics as human beings. We know that. And we can be very negative in the way that we inner our inner voice is not very kind at times, so it's just trying to be aware of that. And like I've said, as you may be getting things wrong, we all get it wrong. As long as you get it right more than you get it wrong, most days in parenting, I think you're winning.
Speaker 2:And some days, you'll probably get most of it wrong, and some days you'll get all of it, but it's that sweet spot in the middle of you'll get bits of it wrong. Being able to acknowledge that and address it and work as a team is the bit of advice I always try and give. So, that pressure. So sources of pressure are societal. We know it's there, unfortunately, as the man or whatever you are in in this world, people have got a view on what you should be and how you should do it and how you should cope.
Speaker 2:The family, we know that wider network and a family can sometimes have a little bit of a negative impact and then self imposed again. We are our worst critics. We put an awful lot of pressure on ourselves. So, some of the ways that we can deal with that is realistic expectations. Really, baby steps, pun intended, is that we look at how can we navigate this.
Speaker 2:We break it down. We're not necessarily going from zero to six months, or six months to 12, or 12 to 18, or going from one year to two years and trying to break it down days, weeks, hours, however you can process it. Be very realistic on how you're coping, whether it is keeping that journal, that diary, or whether it is the meditation, or whether it's a fitness plan that goes along with everything that you're doing right now, whether it's I need to go for a walk, music is incredibly important to me. I know that lots of people will share that. Music therapy is really powerful.
Speaker 2:I have mood lists. I don't have playlists, and if I'm going through certain different things, need different music. It's gonna pick me up, bring me back down, calm me down. Podcasts are really good listening to whatever it is that can just help with those little moments of overwhelm, and then adding a little bit of humor is normally quite good. So listening to comedian with me being Scottish, Billy Connolly is my sort of go to, but whether it's Ricky Gervais, Peter K, whatever it is, just something that you think is a little bit funny because humor is really important.
Speaker 2:Trying to find the light and trying to find humor in these situations is really good. And again, within that relationship, that's quite important to try and do that. So, sharing that load. For example, we do work with breastfeeding for breastfeeding support groups, that if mom is breastfeeding and you're, okay, what can I do? You can feed mom, get her drinks, make sure she's comfortable, make sure she's got the TV room just being there for someone to talk to and give snacks, being awake at night time in bed to do the change in nappies, win the baby, have a nice cuddle.
Speaker 2:One of the things that we talk about quite a lot in the sessions is skin to skin, so it's getting baby on your chest, and so it's skin to skin contact because that increases the oxytocin, which is a loved hormone which starts that bonding relationship. So, you're parenting together so that not one person is awake at night while the other one sleeps. Again, it is personal preference, but it's quite nice to go through it. As a team, you get cuddle, you get a little bit of contact, get to build that relationship, and it's just all these little things that we put in place that can make the bigger picture a lot easier to achieve. Prioritize tasks, what's urgent.
Speaker 2:People say when babies when babies are asleep, sleep doesn't work like that, and sometimes it puts a little bit of pressure, and you probably all remember when you've gotta go somewhere the next day, or even as a kid sometimes, the more you try to tell yourself to go to sleep, the less likely it's going to happen. You just end up overthinking things and getting overwhelmed, and going to bed becomes a pain. So it's you might not be able to sleep when babies sleep, but rest. And if you play games, get on the Xbox, get on the PlayStation, you know, read a book, do something that is relaxing. Watch some telly together, or put a bit of music on, or whatever it is, but it's just that relaxation or whatever it is that helps you unwind is what you're trying to do.
Speaker 2:If you can sleep, great. But it's more about the fact of just taking time to switch off. What we tend to do, that's when it's time to do the housework and tidy on, cook and clean, and I don't understand sometimes people think that's what they have to do, particularly if you're having friends and family and guests coming around and you're wanting things to carry on as if it looks the same way and it's just as tidy as it was, Things are gonna be a bit up in the air. It's gonna be a little bit messy. You're gonna be a little bit disorganized sometimes when you have new babies, that's okay.
Speaker 2:It's just prioritizing things of what do I have to do now to spend that energy that could be helping me unwind and decompress. And then the same thing, using stress release techniques, exercise, hobbies, whatever it is that you use, make sure you use them in this situation. So anxiety, pressure, and joy, we've already mentioned, and recognizing those feelings can coexist all at the same time. You can feel that pressure. You can feel anxious, and you can be happy.
Speaker 2:It doesn't have to be one or the other when it's just finding that balance, which is the key to maintaining good mental health. Daily life, the practical tools that we can look at, time management, prioritizing family, work, and self care, that balance is really difficult. And as I'm saying it, and I put it on this slide, I know how difficult it is to achieve quite a lot of the time. So it's just being aware that all your focus sometimes is gonna have to go into family, and that means work's gonna maybe take a little bit of a negative impact, and that's not nice. And then your self care is sometimes gonna go out the window because you've got to prioritize the work that you've missed out on by having time with the family.
Speaker 2:So, sometimes we do get caught, and we're spinning, and we're spinning like a top, and it's just being aware that when we can catch it, just try and find that little bit of a balance and make sure that we just five, ten minutes, if you're into fitness or exercise, you know, five, ten minutes, bang out some sit ups and press ups and some dips. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. We don't have to go to the gym. We can bring the gym with us and go for a walk. If you live certain places where you've got like those gyms in the park, it's all done by resistance.
Speaker 2:Anything that you use that helps you maintain a little bit of self care is really important, and try and tie it in. If you like to go fishing, my son takes his five month old daughter fishing, because he likes to go fishing, he wants to spend time with her. So, try and incorporate family life into some of the hobbies and that that you have as well, because then you get to do both at the same time. Consistency for both you and your child. So, routine's important.
Speaker 2:So, if you like to do story time or bath time, try and fit it in as best as you can, because routine's important for them a lot of the time, but it also gives you time to break up your day a little bit, have a little bit of structure. Communicating with your partner regularly is something I think is really important, and again, support networks, reaching out to dad's organisation, support groups, WhatsApp groups, closed Facebook groups, walk and talks, meetups. These are all things that I've incorporated into my programme for childhood solutions is just trying to make sure we have as much touch points with dads as possible just to be around other people, ask questions, and get advice. Some of the takeaway tools is, again, managing that anxiety through mindfulness, but within mindfulness, there's lots of different parts of that. We've mentioned most of them, I don't need to go through it too much, but I keep emphasizing the fact that the brain believes what you tell it, And the more that you tell it that maybe you're not doing very good at this or the more that you're struggling, you do start to fall into that pattern of believing it.
Speaker 2:Just every now and again, just remind yourself of how good you are and give that same positive reinforcement you would give to a friend. Handling pressure and time management, it's very difficult when you're going out with a newborn or children in general, I'll be honest. It becomes a military operation trying to pack that car, becomes like trying to go on holiday for a month, and you wanna go on a Tesco or a partner to see your gran. So we know it becomes a little bit of pressure, and having to prepare for these events and days out can sometimes make it become a chore. So, just try and factor in that time in advance and just try and remove some of the pressure.
Speaker 2:If you're like me, I am very much, I can't stand being late. Things have gotta be done to a schedule. We have seven kids and a grandkid. It's very rare. Anything ever goes to schedules, find myself getting overwhelmed all the time.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I've got to try and practice what I preach and put some of these things in place. I know it's not easy, and it can't be an exact science, and it can't be all of the time. It's just trying to do it as much as you can and start small, and implement some or one of these things, each day as you're going forward and just build it up step by step. It's a bit like if you hadn't been going to the gym before, and you would have to go to the gym and build it up slowly. Maybe you'd get a PT, maybe you wouldn't, but if you went in there, you went all gone home, you'd be very sore the next day, and that's what we're trying to prevent here is it's not a case of doing it all and having all of the answers.
Speaker 2:It's just slow steps in the right direction and really important. So final thoughts. Fatherhood is a journey. A field of highs and lows. I've been doing it twenty one years.
Speaker 2:I'm still figuring out. Please don't think I'm sitting here thinking I've got all the answers because I don't. And I still make mistakes. I still get it wrong. As my children have got older, one thing I've learned is that I will make those mistakes.
Speaker 2:They know I made those mistakes. What I do as almost a nonnegotiable is I will acknowledge those mistakes, And I will apologize, and we will sit down, and we'll discuss it. That it's not a case of I'm the one that's always right just because I'm the eldest, and I'm the parent. That's not how I parent, and I'm not gonna tell you how you should parent. You will find your own journey, your own path.
Speaker 2:My point is we're still all learning. You won't have all the answers at any stage, just more often than not, you'll probably know a little bit more tomorrow than you did today, and that progress, and that's what we're looking for. And it's the same with ourselves. We're on a journey with ourselves. We're the only relationship that we always have in our life is with ourselves, and that we're always trying to grow and develop that relationship.
Speaker 2:As we go, we find ourselves in new different situations, and sometimes quite difficult situations, and how we navigate them is important. Giving that pat on the back and acknowledging the success when we have them and this adjustment, particularly into parenthood, that can be a little bit difficult. You know, acknowledging that we're doing it and that every day you're going through different challenges from having a newborn to a toddler to a child that's then going to school, then having a teenager and anybody that's not there yet, then I wish you luck because that's very interesting. And then you go through different situations, and then you've got adult children, and they all bring different responsibilities. They all bring different problems at times, but they all bring lots of positives.
Speaker 2:And each time you're doing things for the first time because each child is different. And one thing that I know, Nathan, I have discussed quite a lot, and definitely on a few occasions anyway, is that you will always have different versions of you. Whether you have more than one child, they will always get different versions of you at different stages of your life. So you're learning about you as you're navigating this, and you're going on that journey together, and it's wonderful. And what we're trying to do is just acknowledge that if you are finding it difficult, that's okay.
Speaker 2:It's okay to ask for help. We all need it sometimes. We find it difficult to ask. We're probably better at giving it, but it's okay to seek advice and guidance from communities like this community that you're in or any other organizations that you can find in your community or nationally, and then stay connected again to the dad's groups, to support networks, be able to seek advice, ask advice, and then it becomes quite nice to be the person giving the advice if you stay in these sort of groups long enough. So if there's any questions, there'll be all the ways in which you can get in contact with me, or you can come through Nathan, I'll come through the programme.
Speaker 2:But if it is something that you're watching this in six months' time, so if it's well into next year, or you're sitting here in a couple of years' time, and it's, oh, I'd like to ask this, then I don't disappear into a puffer smoke. I'm always available and I'll always be built into this program. You can't get rid of me if you've got any questions, so please come back to me at any time, and if you want to follow me on any of the social media platforms or my email address is at the bottom, then please contact me with anything you'd like to know. But thank you very much for being here. I wish you all the best on your journey into fatherhood, and I'll see some of you, I hope, later on.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, thank you very much, Nathan.
Speaker 1:Scott, sensational. Thank you so much for that. You are some brilliant in there. And some parts where you it's funny. Our boys are five and three now, and I look back at some of those recommendations and and tips, and I think, man, I wish I'd had them when I was when they were younger, when they were babies because there there's a time, isn't there, when life changes so fast when you've not got any kids versus the first one arriving, and it hits you like a train, doesn't it?
Speaker 1:And you don't have any of the coping mechanisms. You're knackered. You suddenly yeah. It gets real hard real fast, isn't it? So there's some real brilliant tips in there.
Speaker 1:Interestingly, the biggest thing I struggled with was the all the focus on the family part because I we've spoken about this on the podcast before. I've come from a very kind of dysfunctional family. It's not that close. We're not that tight. Suddenly you have to create that dynamic, and that becomes really hard when you're not used to it.
Speaker 1:That's quite uncomfortable at times. So that was one thing that I struggled with and seeing kind of your fitness and and work get hit because it doesn't it? And I put way too much pressure on myself in the early couple of years saying, actually, rather than stepping back and saying this is natural, I put way too much pressure on myself to try and get back to the levels I was at pre kids, which was just never gonna happen, was it?
Speaker 2:No. Again, that's something that I'm I'm glad you brought that up because it's it's normally something that I add in these sessions is that one of the phrases I hear all the time, it's not like it was before. It's never been like it was before. If this is your first child, it's never gonna be like it was. In my opinion, long term it's better.
Speaker 2:Even in the short term, it's better in so many ways, but it is different and we don't like change and we hold ourselves to those same standards of the things that we did and it might be I have more time for my friends, I was more social, I was a better friend before I had a child because we don't have the same commitments, but we all, sorry, we don't have the same time, but our commitments, our priorities have shifted when we become parents and we do see things in a very different way and we're trying to hold ourselves accountable to our previous standards and you can't do that. And that does become so much of what we've just highlighted is one of the main factors sometimes. It's just that we're trying to be who we were, not who we are, and, you know, that that becomes a real dilemma, and you're right, the fitness, the lack of sleep, all these things become real big factors on just being very unfair on ourselves and I think that's one of the main things I've learned is that, and I say this to people that I work with and I can say it to you now because I'm classed as friends, but it's I wish that some people could see the version of them that we see because they would be very different in terms of how they treat themselves if they could see that.
Speaker 2:And that'd be one of the things I wish I could do to new parents is if you could see what we see that you're coping in this situation with, you wouldn't feel the way you do about yourself. And I think that makes such a difference.
Speaker 1:That's a beautiful thing to say about, Scott. What a way to end it. I am gonna give a quick shout out to your next live stream, which is on the October 25. It's a Friday at 7PM. I'll thank you for that later, Scott.
Speaker 1:We are talking about Embracing Fatherhood with autism, a strength based approach, which is going to be really interesting because we've got a bunch of dads who have approached me about this already and are eager to find out how this is gonna affect their lives because it feels like a big shift, but your view on this is quite different around looking at the positives, which you always often do. Very looking forward to that one. Again, one final time, The Dadversity Podcast. This episode will be live within the next hour or so, And all of the micro clips will be in the Dadversity community. You can DM Scott in the community.
Speaker 1:If you're an organization looking at this stuff and you want to upskill your people, or if you are a dad who just needs additional support, DM Scott. He's very responsive. He's a really good guy. He's one of the good guys in this industry, and he is always available to help. Maybe not always.
Speaker 1:Don't do it at 3AM in the morning. But Scott, you know, I've said that you'd probably be awake to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah. These days.
Speaker 1:Be awake. Skye, it's been a pleasure, my friend. Thank you so much. We are blessed to have you here, and we'll see you again soon, alright?
Speaker 2:Thank you very much. Thank you. Take care of yourselves.