[Solved] The Dad's guide to self improvement

Welcome to my guide for us blokes. With our court cases, waits for contact orders, and the rest we often find ourselves with lots of spare time and no children resident. Some go down the pub, some read magazines, but here's a few ideas for how to improve your situation while you wait to see your children. I'm gonna drop some details of my projects on here whenever i'm on, hopefully it might inspire someone else too 🙂

Be Utterly Magnificent ([censored])

Yes, [censored]! What do you want your kids to say about you when they hit their teenage years? How do you want them to describe you? We probably all would love our kids to say that we are their hero, and to take that idea deeper we probably all need to be the best role models we can in terms of working, clean living, and being reliable as who knows what the job situation will be when our kids are adults.

Use your time to become the best you that you can. Think about how much time you have in the next decade, and plan on paper how you are going to use it. Set targets, and think about what you really want. You can either take your current path and be basically the same but older, or you can be utterly magnificent.

Gym it up. Who doesn't want to be fit and have killer arm muscles? Local gym membership through the council is often just five or six quid a week, and once you get into it going five days a week uses seven or eight hours of your spare time. In the first two months you'll drop a stone. By six months you'll be amazed how big your biceps are. When you stop going for a week or two because of illness, remind yourself of your goals and jump back in. Six months of lifting can give you mega biceps. Six months of cardio can see you drop three stone. Think about being on the beach on holiday with your kids in a few years, proud of your defined and manly body, not embarrassed of your wobbly beer gut!

Sell your [censored]. Look around your house. Aim to make it your dream pad- even if it's just a rented place- in the next two years. What would you like to be in it? How could you design each room. When I decided to upgrade my house so the kids would see it as some sort of amazing place, I piled up everything I didn't want any more and stuck it on eBay. That minidisc player I haven't touched for a decade? £40 to some guy in London. That broken vintage action man I have kept since childhood? I took a photo of it to remember it by, and its ended up in the collection of a guy in Birmingham for £34.60. Almost a grand up, I looked at the rooms. Our dining room was hardly ever used, so I picked up a used Ikea sofa locally for £40, found a projector on Amazon for £200, made a fixed screen from a massive bit of wood in B&Q, picked up a cheap set of speakers and amp from the local booter, and in an instant my kids walked into our new cinema room, jaws dropping when they saw their PS3 games on a 120" screen with booming sound! Everything I sold paid for everything I got new in every room. It cost me nothing bar my old rubbish.

Make stuff. No matter what your job is, I bet you'd be happy to make an extra grand a year. Heck, if the CSA are all over you, an extra five grand may be needed. Plan to make at least enough to pay your council tax, and you'll be taking at least one painful bill out of your yearly spending. Now, we are men. We're designed for DIY, and I bet you can handle a hammer, saw or paintbrush well. Browse Etsy for ideas, and make something you can sell locally or online. Make just one thing, but make a bunch of them. I have a local shop that sells refurbished furniture that sells the wooden ghettoblasters that I make. Each time one sells I get £20. These things are knocked up out of a bit of skip wood, and two sheets of thin MDF from B&Q. My lad loves helping me to make and paint them, and I usually sell five a month through the one shop. So do it- picture frames, mad posters, painting old furniture, making birthday cards- start a Dads business.

Cook it up. How the heck do we have a generation of kids who believe that Mcdonalds is a treat? Man it's awful- mushy food, awful textures, slimy- and let's face it the toys are pretty rubbish nowadays. Give your kids a break from the Kerry Katona sponsored meals they get in the week and make something tasty and special. A cheap loaf, milk, an egg, and golden syrup and they can make French toast their favourite desert ever. A £10 blender, £3 of fruit, a carton of orange juice and you've got a smoothie that they will not only help you to make but that they will enjoy far more than a fruit shoot or can of coke. Train your kids right in cooking and they might do it all for you when they are older!

Their weekend. Do you really need to shop or hoover when you have them? They will be bored senseless of shopping with mum in the week, her having no time for them after tea, etc. Get your chores out the way early, and make sure every second of your time together is fun. Kids hate shopping- so buy that loaf of bread the day before you have them. It's easier to get around the supermarket without 'Dad can I have this' down the chocolate aisles too.

Teach them. One of my best memories is of the times me and my Dad did DIY type stuff in the garage. Try and tell them one thing a week, or read one book together- anything that they will see as you spending time with them because you love them. This will build and build and they'll remember all the things you taught them fondly. It will also make them be better parents one day too.

Patience and Respect at All Times (PRAT)

When your ex gets a new boyfriend, think: 'PRAT'. When she is saying you can't se the kids or accusing you of being a poor father, look at her and think: 'PRAT'. We are pretty unlikely to get any positive comments from these people and their families, but stop and ask yourself if you really care. Does a footballer on a hundred grand a week worry when someone says he is a bad player on Match of the Day? I doubt it. They care only about what their family thinks, what their friends think, and especially what their children think.

Patience: when they are ranting at you, stay quiet. There's no point in saying anything, as they think whatever you say is wrong. Listen quietly and say: 'fair enough, I understand what you are saying'. Nothing they say has any bearing on the legal side of things or what you think, so let them rant. If you happen to record your conversations or child handovers the collection of recordings will show how patient and unflappable you are.

Respect: 'I totally appreciate what you are saying', 'I will think deeply about what you have said', and 'Well I just think you are a tremendous mother and i'm always telling the children how lucky they are to have you'. Three things that show how respectful you are. Courts like to hear that you don't hate the mother of your children regardless of what you have done, so show respect. Please note that for some reason saying any of the above may enrage the woman further. Women, eh! You'd think they just want an argument sometimes.

At All Times: 'I hate you, the kids hate you'; whatever she says, remain calm at all times. Sending a snotty email, texting 'yeah right', or phoning and shouting won't get you anywhere. Remaining calm and not giving a [censored] what she says will improve you. What do kids like- a parent what shouts and screams at them when they drop a fish finger on the floor at teatime, or a parent who is unflappable and will laugh along with them when they accidentally paint the dog's [censored] green? Lets put it this way; if you have your kids a couple of times a week, you want to be the one they look forward to seeing. Being the respite from their 'main home' will pay dividends in the future when they can make their own decisions.

Pretty, Interesting, Nice, Talented (PINT)

Don't think that you are going to meet your future wife in the pub or on a dating website. You don't want the same sort of woman again, so you'll have to hold out for someone who gets to know you and realises she's in love with you because of how brilliant you are- a woman who sees that you are a true [censored].

Now a good PINT is hard to find, but it's worth looking all over for years to find it. I'm an average looking guy with three kids, which I thought would man that i'd struggle but you know what, the PINTs i've dated have all seen my kids as a sign that I can commit, and my average looks as not being an issue at all. Indeed some of them have dated handsome fellows who have been utterly unreliable- after all, there are far more gorgeous women than men out there so a handsome man is always going to be able to pull. Women don't want this. They want to proudly be able to say that their man is a [censored] and makes things out of wood. That he's not the best looking fella but has biceps of iron, and a real sense of style from the design of his house. Women want to be able to look at their man and marvel at how patient, understanding, and loveable he is. I've ended up trading my miserable, alcoholic, dole claiming, chain smoking ex in for a lady Doctor who is slim, stylish, fun, has her own money, car and house, and who loves every aspect of my personality.

Break ups may be hard, especially when the system so often can seem to work against us Dads. Use your time and experience to make yourself a better person, and never settle for second best (or whoever just shows a bit of an interest) in your future relationships. This has been a bit of fun but there's some good advice here. Feel free to add your own advice gems, and encourage your mates forwards when they are in hard times too. When your ex is behaving at her worst towards you and the kids, remember this: the best revenge is a life well lived. A moaning, aggressive, abusive person is moving backwards in life. You must be the person dedicated to making life amazing for your kids, and if you don't brag or boast to your ex about what you are achieving, one day she will wake up and realise that you have built an amazing life for your family, whilst all she has is thousands of posts on Facebook and bailiffs at the door on a regular basis.

Rock on fellas. Make this your life, on your terms.