York Guides

Faced with explaining the complexities of modern-day living to a six-and-a-half-year- old, the Yorkshire father-of-three found there was little advice or help available to dads.

But instead of making excuses to his ever-curious offspring, Mr Foxley rose to the challenge and has now produced a guidebook aimed at helping other fathers through the minefield of parenting.
His venture began when his son Nicholas began asking very difficult questions like "where does God live?" and "why is the sky blue?"

"At that age there's no point talking about refraction of the light so I used to say that every day the sky is painted blue and the clouds are where they missed a bit and when it rains it washes the paint off and that's why the sea is blue. After three months he came back asking how I knew that. I told him I went to Daddy's College and had the text book."

Educating Daddy is the "text book" Mr Foxley believes a "Daddy's college" would hand out to its students. It caters for dads of children of all ages because as they grow the questions and answers change.
Mr Foxley divides children into three groups, the youngest or "leg limpets", the seven to 12s or "tweenies" and the teenagers or "gangly lions" so-called because "their limbs and opinions go in all different directions".

"The hardest question from a leg limpet is 'why can't you play with me?', from a tweenie it's probably 'where do I come from?' and from a teenager "can my boyfriend stay and stay in my room?"

The 48-year-old has had plenty of practice answering difficult questions from his own children, Nicholas, eight, Jessica, 13, and Freddie 15. But the challenge of being a dad is about far more than that and so is the book.
In the plethora of parenting books and magazines, Mr Foxley found little advice aimed specifically at fathers which is why he felt Educating Daddy was so important.

"I gathered a whole load of my wife's girlfriends together and asked them to list the top five things they wanted from their husband as a father. If you ask the father themselves they will be subjective but a mother and child will be objective.

"Interestingly, they didn't say they wanted them to change nappies or feed the baby, they came up with a whole list of things which complemented what they do."
The book includes a host of tips on how fathers can do their half of the parenting deal better but for Mr Foxley the key issue is time.

"Anyone can say that but actually it is very difficult to do. You have to programme specific time in your life and actually think about how you spend time with each of your children."
Writing is just the latest chapter in Mr Foxley's varied life which has seen him spend 23 years in the Army taking in time in Germany, Northern Ireland, Australia and Bosnia.

The Army is an unusual background for a writer on parenting, given its reputation for putting a great strain on family life although he insists that is not a strictly accurate picture.
"I was very lucky because I spent a lot of time based in the UK and travelling out so I had a very stable base for the family. The Army is actually very good at looking after its own. The problem comes when soldiers are doing operational tours almost back to back. "

On leaving the armed forces he became IT director for the Domino's Pizza chain before deciding to run his own pizza franchises in the York area, where he now lives with his wife Emma and the children
Mr Foxley is making a donation of 50p for every book sold to the Make-A-Wish Foundation UK which aims to make wishes come true for children.