A former hotel director and mum from East Sheen has successfully launched a new pop-up event to help dads bond with their children.

37-year-old Roxanne Sharland, a wife and mother of two from East Sheen, decided to take advantage of her maternity leave by taking a year’s break to look after her second daughter.

During her time off, Mrs Sharland often carried out the regular mother and baby routines such as attending baby classes, taking the baby to the park and to group activities, however - she noticed that fathers who attended classes would often look confused and be excluded from the bonding experience.

Mrs Sharland said: “I was increasingly excited by how many dads I saw out and about, however it always seemed to me that they were always slightly more ‘on the edge’ than the mums and in classes especially - where I never encountered more than two dads, I always felt more could be done to better integrate the men.”

Richmond and Twickenham Times:

The 'Super Dads' hairdressing workshop sold out and also gave fathers the chance to meet other fathers in the area.

On top of this Mrs Sharland also noticed that her husband would often resort to repeating the same activities with their children which prompted her to act in the name of ‘Super Dads.’

She took a leap of faith and reached out to the fathering community of East Sheen with an invitation to her first ‘Super Dads’ event at the Hare & Hounds pub.

Around 20 fathers attended the event with their daughters - who were aged between three and seven years of age, for a hairdressing workshop.

The ‘Super Dads’ attendees spent an hour learning ten basic hairstyles and the girls were treated to goody bags that were filled with hair accessories.

Tribes and Treats also agreed to sponsor a free ‘Tepee Slumber Party,’ for the father who did the best hairstyle.

Richmond and Twickenham Times:

Fathers at the event were said to be friendly yet very competitive.

Mrs Sharland continued: “The event went brilliantly.

“The Dads were highly engaged - some were very competitive, during the session.

“Aside from a few wobbles from the girls when hair bands got stuck etc, it went how I imagined it.

“It was heaps of fun giving each dad and kid their Super Dads personal photo on the way out, and since then I have had some wonderful emails of thanks which really spurs me on for our next class in the range to launch in December.”

Going forward Mrs Sharland has intentions to expand the ‘Super Dads’ bonding experience and will be hosting two more events in December and January.

Her Christmas workshop will take place on December 14, at the Hare & Hounds pub where fathers and their children will be filling and decorating hampers which will then be donated to a local food bank.

For more information or if you would like to book visit: https://www.superdads.co/