He’s learning by watching, not by listening.

This one's for the dads and father-figures out there; your son is learning how to be a man by watching you. Not by your lectures, but by the ordinary, unguarded moments.

How you handle frustration in traffic. How you speak to his mum. Whether you can say "I got that wrong, I'm sorry."

That's the curriculum, and you are the teacher whether you realise it or not.

I know how that might land, because I'm a dad too and when I realised this I had to make some changes. It was when some of my not-so-finest moments got mirrored back to me by my boy. My first reaction was shock, then shame as I worked out where it had come from.

In my experience, knowing this can feel like enormous pressure, so here's the relief...

...he doesn't need a perfect father. He needs a present and honest one.

A dad who shows up, who's willing to be human in front of him, who lets him see a grown man feel things and recover from mistakes that's worth more than any flawless performance.

You also don't have to do it through big talks, which most boys dodge anyway. It's the small, shared, shoulder-to-shoulder stuff that does the building.

The most powerful thing you can give your son isn't advice. It's a front-row seat to a good man being ordinary.

In his book, Raising Boys in the 21st Century, Steve Biddulph outlines the steps where fathers and mentors matter most and highlights that when boys are teens is a critical time for their presence.

And Maggie Dent spoke at the University of Wollongong recently and said, “Men’s self-worth comes from what they judge themselves to do well. If they want to be a dad, they want to do it well and they don’t want to muck it up. The first thing I want dads to know is: there’s no perfect parent.”

In all the work I have done with boys and their dads, the number one thing that boys want more of from their dads is time. I think this is something we can all give more of including myself.