Making Good Men - Daniel Principe Champions Boys and Challenges Culture

Daniel Principe is today’s guest, and this is a conversation I’ve been wanting to have for the entire year, so I’m very pleased to be bringing him onto the show and into your earbuds. I can’t overstate just how important and serious the work that Dan does visiting schools day in day out to engage mostly boys on topics of masculinity, responsibility, pornography, identity and countering the onslaught of toxic and unhealthy messages an unfilled and unregulated information system that kids today are exposed to. Dan has spoken in front of 76,000 school kids - 53,000 of which are boys, over 8000 educators and in more than 300 schools all over the country. His work led him to being nominated as a NSW Australian of the Year this year, and he is regularly appearing on TV, radio, podcasts and written media, with appearances on Channel 9 and ABC in just the last fortnight.

As someone who’s experienced much of what Dan chats with kids around - bullying, peer pressure, risk aggressive behaviours and the power of other people’s opinions - I have wanted to chat to Dan properly all year, so to have him on the show and to bring his message to this audience is a genuine pleasure and part of my own efforts to contribute to conversations about healthy behaviours and healthy relationships.

Dan and I chat about his experiences in schools, the experiences of parents usually on the Back foot due to our and other government’s reticence to do anything about the harms of social media, gambling and porn on every device everywhere, the poisonous influence of social media as a super-charged purveyor of false realities and harmful modelling, our own experiences as kids and adults making sense of our own identities, pain as the only instigator of meaningful and long lasting change and the role of role models. The necessity to support boys in how they develop, grow and evolve is a matter of immense societal importance. Unwell men are more violent, more aggressive, more harmful, more at risk and more likely to become perpetrators of all forms of crime and abuse. Resisting and countering this convenient - requiring time, effort, perseverance, compassion, curiosity and humility, and as a man who’s lived through these ages and has firsthand experience of how treacherous a period adolescence can be without appropriate guardrails and help, I’ve seen and experienced how it can all go wrong not only for the individual but those around them. As a parent to a boy, I need this help myself.

Dan is easy to find online and I highly recommend going and watching the episode of Compass on ABC titled Hijacking Adolescence for more of him and to hear the stories and experiences of students, parents and teachers. To learn more about his work head to his website and follow him on instagram.

Dan’s work is vital. I’m richer for his presence in my life, and I hope you take something from this no matter if you’re a parent, a colleague, a partner or a friend.

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