FYI. Tom <http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,12757951,00.html>
The Australian 5 April 2005 Dads outshine stars as role models By Jennifer Buckingham Brothers Nicholas, 10, and Robert Barker, 8, love spending time with their grandfather - which is just as well. Once a week Bill Cranny makes them afternoon tea, talks to them about their day at school, helps them with their reading and teaches them to paint. Their mother Anita Barker firmly believes her father and her husband are important role models for her boys. "I've got three boys and my father has a big role in their lives. When my youngest son was born, we moved house so that the boys could be closer to their grandparents," Perth-based Mrs Barker said. Mr Cranny enjoys the time just as much as the boys. And he was miffed when his daughter suggested that he no longer had to care for them after school. "The boys are getting to an age now where they don't have to go there (to his house), and he was a bit put out," she said. Research to be revealed this week shows relationships or emotional "attachment" are fundamental to brain development, including the ability to manage and regulate emotion. Richard Fletcher, from the Engaging Fathers program at the University of Newcastle, said fathers were therefore important role models for boys. He will tell an international education conference in Melbourne today that schools need to get away from projecting sportsmen as role models for boys, because boys needed an emotional relationship with a role model for the relationship to be effective. "I know of a school that raised money to get one of the Broncos (rubgy league) players to the school to be a role model for the boys, but when they actually asked the boys about their role models, most said their father," he said. Mr Fletcher rewrote the national gender equity framework for schools. <http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,12757951%5E2702,00.html> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> In low income neighborhoods, 84% do not own computers. At Network for Good, help bridge the Digital Divide! http://us.click.yahoo.com/S.QlOD/3MnJAA/Zx0JAA/pyIolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/boysed/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
