Today, I went to a conference in Melbourne on 'Including Fathers'. Parts of it were very interesting, and parts were, well...let's just say thought-provoking. Over the past 10 years or so there has been an emerging trend in society. The traditional nuclear family rarely exists, and there has been a social shift away from the notion that the father is the 'head' of the household. Dads are now able to take paternal leave either when a child is born, if a child is sick, or most importantly, if they have a child with a disability that they need to care for. More Dads are choosing to stay at home while their wives work, and this is challenging everything we know about child development and family functioning. So what do we know about Dads and how they influence a child's development? Well, to be honest, we know a lot more now than we did before. There are a multitude of studies that have all confirmed that the way a father interacts with their child has a huge i