Now having experienced his second Father's Day in a COVID-19 lockdown, Border dad Ian McLeod says he's learnt how to put on a brave face.
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That's in order to shelter his two children - Luca, 5, and and Finn, 7 - from the stresses of lockdown life.
"The way to make kids feel safe and secure when everything else is up in the air for them is to be funny," he said.
"The power of humour for kids is that's the thing that indicates to them that everything is all right.
"If dad's capable of tickling them ... when it's time to go to bed, then that's all right.
"That's how you get them through it."
But Mr McLeod himself has had a stressful 18 months since the pandemic.
"I'm a musician and so my profession and my industry has just stopped," he said.
I'm literally living on nothing
- Ian McLeod
"For the last two years I've had practically no income and in the first round of lockdown the government was reasonably generous with the COVID supplement, but this time around I'm literally living on nothing.
"So that's a whole other stress that the kids aren't aware of.
"I'm a single dad and I don't have anything else to fall back onto and so I'm really a bit desperate."
Mr McLeod said tight finances put extra strain on his co-parenting arrangement.
"The kids' mum is having a hard time as well," he said.
"It's getting to the point where I just wish everyone would go and get vaccinated because like a lot of people I'm a small business, sole trader and I just can't survive like this."
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However, Mr McLeod said he had appreciated having more family time during lockdown.
"I love having the kids at home," he said.
"But it's a double-edged sword, it is terribly difficult and very little problems become very big problems, so you're constant putting spot fires out.
It's a good opportunity to teach your kids how to get on with each other because they're forced to.
"So I'm trying to look at it like that."
Despite the challenges, Mr McLeod said he and his children had had a good morning on Father's Day.
"We've had a lovely morning," he said.
"We went and had a trash [takeaway] breakfast ... and then everyone lay on the couch 'cause they felt sick.
"It's been a good day."
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