Honey You're Ruining Our Kid - Is My Kid Being Bullied? Skin Issues & Low Confidence Little Ones - S2E23

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

Kids can be very mean - even tiny little ones! What do you do when you find out your kid is being isolated by her "new best friend". Flying into a fit of rage is one option but Tina has a few other approaches that won't land you in front of a Judge. Today on HYROK a lot of the conversation is around confidence and how to build it in a child. Don't let anyone tell you that self-belief is organic or just in their DNA. It is a learned behaviour and a quality we can help grow in the younglings! Having a fungal infection sure won't help. One Mom gets in touch with a very tricky skin situation. As a very sweaty man, Jarlath knows the pants this kid should be wearing and as a child behaviour expert with 20 years of experience in the business, Tina knows what steps to take to help this kid through this.Over in the extended cut on www.patreon.com/irishmanabroad you can hear Tina's ultimate life hack for parents with kids that won't sleep. Come on over and join us. Come see Jarlath live on tour - his new show is all about growing up and coping with the world. www.jigser.com/gigs is where you can find all his tour dates. Move fast they are all selling out - he's added two more dates at Dublin's 3Olympia!

ah growing up in rural ireland where there's a fine line between confidence and being up your own arse you got like your man thinks like he's god's gift i thought that had died out but not in mead no mead i don't think how do you say mead? Mead is a type of ale. Yeah. How do you say the county we live in? There's a TH at the end of it. I think it's global. Really? Maybe not in America.

I don't know. Confidence was always a conversation point in Kildare for sure. There was no such thing as being confident. It was just cocky. I have really. I was so cocky i have i've lost a lot of confidence in my mic ability because when i listen to last week's episode i feel like all you can hear is how you're reading apologies for that that's my fault there is a thing that i'm

able to do with the sound that i didn't do with it last week that's the first surprise of the show you know the way i said i'd start the show it was surprised well it's a happy surprise don't need to worry about your breathing this week i'll sort it out i'll just do a better job in the production okay were you confident kid no i don't think so i just disagree with this straight away okay well i have brought this up before that i was definitely confident up to the age of five in myself i had a belief in myself that got crushed out of me and i'm always saying we've got to protect our little girls from this happening to them because somewhere along the way they start primary school and they're told to get in yeah sit settle down i refuse to be walked to my nursery all this kind of stuff i made my own bed all these things i don't think i ever i've ever felt a confidence in myself but you were

saying to me all of the stories of you as a kid are you punching guys in the dick yeah and that's called rage takes confidence i definitely had a confidence and you wouldn't just shift a lad because he asked i you would punch him in the dick and go my dad's gonna box you in the face if you did that again yeah i could it's a weird one because when you say it i would love from my kid and any kid to have that confidence to punch people in the dicks no but like i i do recognize that i have to say just pause for a second i'm wearing my sunglasses wearing pair of sunglasses and uh joseph technicolor dream coat cardigan we're gonna have to include a photo of how she's recording the sun dream coat cardigan we're going to have to include

a photo of how she's recording this the sun is shining in the window and I didn't want to complain about it her lack of confidence the number of times she punched boys in the dick

for making romantic advances towards it I say romantic advances these were Midlands boys in the 80s and 90s West of Ireland

specifically when she went west and she was an exotic I was exotic there yeah I definitely was overcompensating since you ask West of Ireland. Specifically when she went west and she was an exotic creature. I was exotic there, yeah. I definitely was overcompensating since you ask about my confidence. But I haven't finished. Oh, right, okay. Because what you said today was, yeah, but you had the confidence to not just do what everyone else was doing.

You didn't go with the flow. And you had the confidence to, if someone messaged you, to be like, don't mess with me. That I will admit, and I still have that. Yeah. But I never thought I'm great. I never thought I'll get up and be great. Well, you see, that's you confusing exactly my point, that for somebody to believe in themselves,

they couldn't get ahead of themselves. You were told to reduce your confidence level to the point where you didn't walk around thinking i'm great but you should walk around thinking you're great do you know how little i walked around thinking i'm great i still remember the few days in my life where in nav and town i walked home thinking i'm great i remember i remember always trying to get that feeling back yeah the odd day where i would walk home with my shoulders back and my head high and feeling powerful. I remember those days clearly because they happened so rarely.

But you had confidence. You were making yourself close. Well, I remember. Yeah, I had the confidence or maybe the dumb hubris to construct my own denim jacket from a sleeveless gilet and a pair of jeans i've told this show this on the show before where my mother helped me cut off the legs of a pair of jeans and attach them to a gilet that's a weird because i wanted a denim jacket yeah i asked her could I cut the pockets off and make breast pockets

out of denim for it too? I mean, it's like something Kanye would wear now. And he'd be called a genius. But the sleeves must have been so uncomfortable. They were baggy enough jeans.

It was like your Dolly Parton coat of many colours. Look, I definitely was accused of being a cocky little prick. You were so confident when we first met. It's all over compensation. I feel like I knocked it out of you. Like, Jarlett blew me away. You'd have to say.

I noticed him walking through UCD and I was like, who the hell is this guy with all the self-belief? Yeah, it's all an act no no it wasn't an act I really believed in myself then I met you and you straightened me up I just spat out my water you let me know exactly how confident I should be in myself

here's your left I do worry about that what have you got for us on the show this week Tina well we've got three amazing questions and now I'm doing that old panicky thing we're trying to remember

well one of them's about confidence the first one is about self confidence the second one is about fungal infections oh grace yay yeah right

finally you think you have problems I thought you were going to say earwax why did you hear this question my my algorithm keeps giving me

footage of people cleaning out their ears oh jared those are gross i've told it to stop that now and like it's fully like mining no it's disgusting and i camera on the end of a hook pulling wax out of people's ears people getting in touch all week going you're really afraid of stickers that's ridiculous you did yeah and the last question is about um a little girl in england actually is having really tricky friendship issues and the mom doesn't have a notion what she should be doing to help her daughter through this okay well if you come over to patreon.com forward slash irishman abroad you get an extra chunk this week we're talking about the rise of

anxiety in our kids sleep interruptions and how do you help a kid that isn't like a small kid if their sleep is being interrupted what should you look at first and also my obsession my instagram obsession at the moment we're talking about that you're in instagram you know what it is i make you watch it though yeah we'll talk about that we'll get to that in the patreon juicy goodness over there for the price of a pint each month, you can get access to huge, a back catalogue of episodes from us

that are full. There's a full chunk each week and then there's a full pre-season of the show that's never really been released to the public that you can find over there

as well as hundreds and hundreds of interviews with the greatest Irish people who've ever left. And Marion McKeown. Podcast is my absolute fave. Sometimes I just, I do not know how it got done

or how it's getting done, but it is getting done. Just like parenting. Yeah. How the hell are we getting it done? We are getting it done. Yeah. Let's get to question number one.

My confidence ended when I would go on a basketball court or sports field i was a choke merchant for years like i just couldn't like i might have been believed in myself my ability to draw or whatever and you know thought i was funny as a kid but I would go out in the field and just clam up like I want to hide. Like Mayo team do every year. Oh, shots fired. How did I say that? That Mayo team has been breaking my heart since the day I was born.

But they definitely don't hide. I mean, I was trying to just like be somewhere else while I was out there. And I can remember my heart in my mouth grabbing rebounds and stuff it's the greatest ducks of it yeah it was not fun

and not a fun feeling and I do not know how I overcame that whereas like Tina says she's not a not a confident kid but Tina was out there

baiting into girls on the camogie field like hammering people learning kung fu on a Tuesday night threatening lads i know karate that's who you were yeah i don't know jar who would later go on to be but i die if a teacher

asked me to read in class or if they ask me a question isn't it funny the kind of boundaries of confidence and that's what our first question is about hi Hi, Tina. Not Charlotte. They don't want my opinion on this. I hope you're keeping well. I didn't even notice that. I have a quick question for you if I can be a bit cheeky. It's never cheeky to email this show. Never. This is the opposite of cheeky.

And I love this lady because she is a repeat emailer. She's gotten in touch a few times. Do you have any books or recommendations to help build my son's confidence? Long story short, there is a particular boy in school who isn't being very nice to my son, twin boy aged six. The potential bullying side of it is being taken care of by the school and his teacher. But I would love to try to build his self-confidence so he doesn't put as much weight into mean words he hears from this other boy. My son has been very hard on himself recently,

telling me that he is fat and stupid and slow at running. He is the type of child that is a worrier, an overthinker, like his ma, and I would love to help him learn some coping skills for handling this. His teacher is going to set him up with a gratitude journal in school to document all the things he's good at and he will work on that during the week and as part of his homework. But he loves reading and stories so if you have any suggestions, good books to help with his self-confidence be really

grateful thanks so much as ever for all your advice anonymous yeah well you know straight away there's something that when you read the questions sometimes i find it really interesting that firstly i obviously never read these questions slow enough because when you read them out to me again i'm like oh it was something i didn't notice and i go back to them on yeah and that is that this is a twin boy so there's so much more to the way he's feeling about himself because there's an unconscious comparison at all times at all times and so even even if this hasn't been imposed by the parents it could be self-imposed between the twins and that he's noticing that his brother is better at certain certain stuff than he is um so like that's really really hard for the mom because you know that's manifesting now in him being feeling a

little bit insecure and not having as much confidence he might look up to his twin brother in a way or might feel lesser than i'm guessing i don't know well it's a totally different dynamic isn't it when there's an identical person next to you excelling at things that you maybe aren't excelling at yeah and it's not always the case but sometimes there tends to be the stronger more dominant twin and then the quieter very lacking and confident twin can happen not all the time but i mean we lived in st albans there was basically the classes were basically twins like there were so many twins in saint albans it was twin city and we just seemed to be met with the strong twin and the weaker twin all the time and trying to build

up the other child to believe in themselves just as much as the other kid so this kid in school is criticizing him and he's not taking it well no and he's not going i'll show you he's climbing up and going small yeah and agreeing i am overweight stupid and slow and that's why i think there's more to it in that well why is he already feeling that little bit less i feel like maybe he's the quieter twin and he's comparing himself to his brother the whole time what about this gratitude journal? I love that. What a great teacher to do that.

And I also mentioned to this mother that I feel like a journal in the house of their own would be great. And I know I'm always banging on about that head plan journal for kids. And it is very expensive. It's just I've always believed in journaling. And it is very expensive. It's just I've always believed in journaling. And then when I discovered Head Plan, it's so great because children find the empty page so hard. But with Head Plan, there's all these leading questions, all these leading reflective questions.

But I said to this mom, you can just make your own journal because you might not want him journaling forever. And you could just do a month of leading questions yourself make it for him and have him do that confidence a funny one though right because it's like uh you can't put your finger on it you can't hold it it's just um a certain sense of self and it's baffling i mean it is one of the things that i can tell you right now that every teacher will talk about to other teachers the kids who are confident in their class and where do they get this confidence from because more often than not the really confident kid in your class is the one who is you think the parents are too tough on them and you're always bamboozled by the confidence because you're like it's amazing how confident he is because the parents never stop at him and that's the over compensation you think that's what i think it is and it is well like in sports the

the theories that i've read on it is putting your child in difficult situations is the answer you're building resilience so that they find the confidence the two are so tight i think parents of our generation are struggling with that because we're not allowing our kids opportunities to build resilience yeah yeah so i mean when i say it is like you know if you're trying to build confidence in a team you deliberately put them up against it you kind of position the pieces on the board at practice whereas like there's no way they can do that in that time and then they do and at the end of it they go we actually did it and we proved the coach wrong yeah because i remember having those feelings i remember having like being in my camogie match or basketball match or about to do an irish dancing thing and going i'm gonna show

you and i want that for my kid i want him to have a feeling of you don't you don't have me figured out just yet yeah but um i said to this mom you know really a thing that i know that works straight away is peppering your cut your child compliments when they're not doing stuff oh right like um noticing over complimenting no no it's kind of like saying things like, oh, I noticed that you dealt really well with going into school today. It made me so happy to see you going to school so confidently. Yeah, I spotted you. Yeah, I know I heard from your teacher that you're being a really good friend at school. Well done.

That's really nice to hear that. You know, just things like this that they think oh yeah you're planting seeds yeah so rather than you know who's the best boy in the world i mean that's the overarching compliment that i think hits nothing that it's not making contact with any yeah internal dialogue for them also it's just my mom's my biggest yeah and if they don't believe it you're just you just you're just talking shite yeah you're just talking shite. Yeah, you're just talking shite to them. Whereas if you're like, I noticed or I heard or somebody told me...

Yeah, a little birdie told me. Oh, cool. Some people are talking about that. Yeah. And you can get feedback from the teacher on that to have the in. Yes, and get her doing it in the classroom too. Why not get the principal involved? Sunglasses are back on, Tina.

Maybe get him a pair of sunglasses. Walk in wearing a pair of shades and a Technicolor dream coat. The sunglasses are on because I don't want to complain about the sun. I've missed the sun so much but it's streaming in the window here and Jarlett's positioned himself in a place where-

You're never happy with the studio. Either a rat or too much sun. So this lady got in touch asking for book recommendations and I found it really hard to think of books for six-year-old boys it's a very tricky age that you can reach kids at because can a book do that a book can definitely do that it's way easier though for it to happen pre-4 or post-8 because you've got all these books available to you.

Are you going to say the book I recommended? I wonder. Go on, go for it. The one about the table tennis lad. Kid Awesome, that's what I told her. That's the one. That's so funny. I told her that book is the only one I could think of, but it's a brilliant book. What's it called? Kid Awesome? Yeah, Kid Awesome.

Oh God, what's his name? Sneed or something. Oh, look it up. Go on. I told her he's not going to be able to read it by himself. You're going to have to read it with him. But it's absolutely a fantastic book. And then I did something very controversial, Darnit. What?

I recommended some animations. Some videos on the YouTube? I have videos on the YouTube. I recommended Moana and Wreck-It Ralph. They're brilliant for that age. They're amazing. Yeah. Wreck-It Ralph really gets me every time.

He's already crying. Yeah, I was like, watch some of these videos. They're brilliant. Even, dare I say it, Frozen. Oh, Lord. And she's likely not to ever watch that because she's got boys, where it's actually a great film about resilience. You're right.

Matthew Saeed is the guy who wrote You Are Awesome. Find Your Confidence. It's not Cold Kid Awesome. You recommended a book. No, I definitely gave the right name because I looked it up. Find Your Confidence and Dare to Be Brilliant at Almost Anything. Great, great book. I had a book when I was about six called My Book About Me. Find your confidence and dare to be brilliant at almost anything. Great, great book.

I had a book when I was about six called My Book About Me. I wonder do they still make it? That came up as a recommendation. Really? Yeah. Because it was made by Dr. Seuss. And it lets you fill in all the things you're proud of in yourself. Well, that is good that that touched you in that way, Charlie, because six is a difficult age to get a child to listen in

and take heed of a message in a book. It is still going. My book about me by Dr. Seuss. And you get to put your picture on the cover. And I guess it does work because it's a celebration of you, this book. Well, you really weren't getting much compliment. I have to write a book about myself no it just it really helped me and then when i was about 12 i thought i was hilarious i went through the book taking the piss out of all my answers oh no about yourself

oh my god so what did you roasted yourself yeah and the last thing i did say to this mom which i i think is a really good idea and something i'm trying to practice for myself and with our family is before they go to bed ask for three things that they did that day that made them feel good about themselves that's really good in there so they close their eyes feeling good about themselves you know not to keep bringing this back to my stand-up show but in my show i tell people that uh to prepare mikey for coming back to ireland we used to slag him off before bed people think that's a joke but we really didn't do this we didn't slag him but we just had to get him used to the piss being taken out of him. But here's the thing with this kid who's saying these mean things to him that maybe

you need to have a bit more messing in the house because sometimes messing is good. This guy's crossed the line. Yeah. I'm not saying that his messing is okay but I'm saying it's hard to build a resilience in your kid for piss take stuff but this is going to be part of life living it's hard to build a resilience in your kid for piss take stuff. But this is going to be part of life, living where you live, specifically in Ireland.

I don't know if they're in Ireland, but if they are, honestly, we started to panic when we realised we're moving home with Mikey. Mikey's friends are all just so polite. Yeah, and supportive. They were so, like the idea of taking the piss out of each other

just didn't happen. And like, you know, when they get their results, they'd be like, well done you, Mikey. Trapping him on the back. You're doing great. I'm so proud of you. All that work's paying off. And now he's back with. Lay down and go home.

Yeah. Just wrong to you. Oh, you big lick. Yeah, you big lick. Anyway, I hope that helps. Get in touch. If you've got a book that has helped your kid with their confidence

that is the shout out or if you have a life hack or method through which you can get a kid to start believing in themselves because it is

it is not one hard and fast rule on this no I'm still not there are you? yeah I mean every single one of them is different yeah

that's why you should never listen to anybody telling you this is how it's done and that's that. And like I said to this mum, if none of this works, just get back to me, we'll try something else. I mean, I knew I was in a very strange school with regards to confidence

when I can remember having a conversation in history class with a lad going, you love yourself. And Tina goes, oh. Like, this was so normal. You're in love with yourself. And I remember saying to him, I don't hate myself.

And him going, like, no, no, you love yourself. And I was like, well, do you not like yourself? Because that's kind of worrying i said i mean you're moving through life with you that you don't like you oh my god that's awful because he wants to made him feel like such a dick but like we were 14 and he's like you know like i don't i'm not in love with myself but you are i was like god almighty what's led you to believe this i was like i i don't consciously walk around smooching myself in mirrors no but you did have swagger because i was i remember at 14 at 14 i had you know this honker that i talk

about my nose that i have to go to the gym to do gym work to balance out my face like uh there's a reason why i have a big uh quiff i i have to do cheek workouts to make my nose seem less prominent but on the end of that nose was a gigantic spot that would not go away that's horrific you put down i had it as a teenager years if you you. You obviously didn't know about germaline. It's funny, I got my first girlfriend within a month of it disappearing. Oh, that's awful. I turned 15, it fecked off

and let the romance begin. But did your mother not chase you around trying to get rid of it? My mum wouldn't let us have anything on our face. Don't tell me about people squeezing. She'd be after you. What was mad was that i had been hospitalized with psoriasis at the age of 14 and i should have said while we're here yeah could you could you anyway question number two dear teenage arthur i adore your show my husband found it and i am

hooked since his recommendation i need your help my son is six years old and he sweats a lot so he ends up getting a fungal infection in his bottom

I haven't read this email I just my first thought is after talking about my skin issues sweaty bum cheeks i feel so yeah bad for this kid it must be so uncomfortable because when i had psoriasis at that level it's so uncomfortable it changes your personality absolutely the poor poor kid nightmare

we ask him to change his underwear three to four times a day, especially after coming from sports or school. He's only six. Six years old, yeah. Please suggest what kind of underwear should we buy him? He currently wears Calvin Klein cotton briefs for kids. How can we help him manage this? And have you seen this before? Do we need to get him seen by a doctor i would say definitely oh i definitely think you need to go to a doctor

because there are incredible dermatologists fungal cranes out there yeah but also you're just to like she's she's on it right away like yeah the kid is obviously very active he's in sport he sweats a lot i'm a big sweater in sport as well yeah and you the the you're in the golden age material yeah but there is more going on there in that you know he obviously still needs help with his toileting because for it to become becoming a fungal thing he's not cleaning himself properly there i see i would imagine these are the things she's going to need to start doing first of all he needs some powder in his pants okay he needs to be putting powder so you have seen similar i have not seen fungal infections there but i have seen um situations that have

grown out of not wiping yourself properly and then also putting their hands down hot hands going down i mean the danger here is that fungal infection can spread somewhere else yeah or around the family yeah i mean and i mean it's great that they're able to change his pants and that he's able to independently do that but there are ways to help him that won't be so um what's the word what made him feel as bad about himself because when he's consistently changing his pants that's going to be tough should they look at the diet as well because certainly psoriasis for for example is connected to the intestinal wall yeah having a leaky gut and toxins coming from there resulting in that.

I'm saying if he's having difficulty wiping, I wonder is there enough fibre in the diet. True. I definitely think you can't take our advice on this. You need to go to a doctor. Yeah, a dermatologist

is going to set you straight on this. Because the other thing is if you think we've seen it before, Tina's seen it before, a dermatologist definitely has. Oh, oh absolutely and also it could just come down to the powder in the pants and then also a nightly bath again you know where this area is being cleaned with a bit of tea tree in the water or something but the the the thing i would say here is this is not a condition that needs to be lived with this is is something you can get on.

Yeah, you're going to fix this. In terms of what underwear to wear as a sweaty runner running London Marathon, 21st of April. Tina's delighted with this. I moved to Runderwear. Now, I know they don't make them for kids. They do. Do they? I think so, because I remember when I was looking up ones for you.

Okay. There's kids. So there's a Runderwear brand, literally R-U-N-D-E-R-W-E-A-R-E. They're very expensive. E-A-R-E. I put an extra E on the end there. That's for the extra comfort they provide, guys. Ow!

I mean, these yolks are amazing if you're this way and you're prone to chafing so even if you're a runner just tuning in here this is these are the best and they look very very like something a premier league footballer would wear when you slapped them on so he'll feel cool in these as well they're super expensive they are expensive but you know what also i would talk to the ot at the school because i'd imagine this kid needs some kind of sensory setup for his bottom god he needs something one of those special cushions to sit on the carpet and on his chair i mean sitting cycling running all these things are going to be a nightmare for him he won't be allowed a literal

pain in the hole oh they will they would be this is something that can be fixed okay go to a doctor please go to the school tell the what you call those people in charge senko senko tell them i need help he's got a situation he's very uncomfortable the idea that he's in pain I'm delighted to think he must be in pain that they will work through this yeah

because similarly with my own skin issues at the 13, 14 you think it's never going to end and it is so all encompassing I just don't understand

why no one was putting spot cream on you like why weren't you doing it oh I was trying everything really nothing was like why weren't you doing it oh i was trying everything really nothing was working this is the other thing is like this mom sounds like she's on it and it can feel with skin yeah it's never gonna happen and then you crack it yeah oh god would you stop making references to that was an unintentional but you can imagine why it's so hard to get rid of i mean it's in the

worst area to have a problem because it's so hard for that place not to be warm and sweaty but i think this can be fixed i'm not going to keep banging on about confidence but i do remember the girls having more confidence than the boys and the boys confidence was much more uh girls having more confidence than the boys and the boys confidence was much more uh how do you say phony really yeah i mean i always felt like the girls knew about the birds and the bees before the lads so they were kind of lording that over us no way yeah that's hilarious this final question though it's a tough read because this is about you know girls excluding another girl which is the most common thing you'll see in the classroom of girls how young are we talking oh the minute they start nursery no yeah it's not every girl that does it boys do it too but

you see it a lot jeepers okay here we go we go. Honey, you're ruining our kid. He is my go to podcast. This emailer says. I love it so much. Now, I really need your advice, please. My daughter is in year three. I told me yesterday that her best friend has been playing more and more with another of their friends. But they have begun making games. They say, I'm only for two people.

And so my daughter can't join in. Also, if my daughter sits with her best friend at lunchtime, like she has for the last three years, the other friend becomes angry and it causes arguments. Holy moly. Well, that's really tough. There's so many layers to this i can't i don't know what to say to her because when she told me i just said that sounded like a tricky situation great response by the way big time and i understand it was upsetting for again hearing

and acknowledging her feelings has t Tina seen this in the classroom? What do you do? And what would you advise? First of all, that's incredible reaction to her telling you, because that's all she needs. All she needs is a little bit of comfort, a little bit of this sucks, doesn't it? Second of all, you're going to need to go to the teacher, not the parents. Do not. You're right.

No, hold on. You can't go down and grab the teacher, not the parents. Do not. Hold on. You can't go down and grab the other mom by the lapels and say, You're going to be a mean child and I will end you. You might have to do that. Or you go to the actual child himself, push them in the chest and go, I know what you're doing. Yeah, see, I'm terrible because it was my kid and I was in a position where I could get the child on their own. You would not.

No, what has to be done here is you need to go to a teacher and you need to explain the situation and how your child's been feeling. Because there's a few things here. First of all, the kid who the child used to be best friends with might be really stressed out by the situation too. Yes. She might have got herself a very dominant friend here and she doesn't quite know how to handle it all and is finding it so stressful it's easier to just do what the dominant friend is telling her to do and second of all i don't know if i just said second of all but third of all whatever whatever number i'm on b yeah um you need to get the

teacher to explain to the little girl who's trying to own friendships that that is not how friendships work. And that on no planet are you ever allowed to tell somebody it's a two-person game unless you're married and that person doesn't want to have a treason. Can you stop bringing our personal life into the podcast i'm not comfortable having a threesome i think i get sick if you said let's have a threesome i'd be like don't pretend that you know what i do i'd be like go for your life i'll go i'll sit over here

i'll have a rest i'll have a book fantastic another thing off my plate busy enough as it is oh my god um this email though is going to resonate with so many people because like you say this is not just girls doing this no it's not just girls but the teacher won't be surprised and the teacher will know how to deal with it because she knows the kids and she's seen it a million times before i mean it's sad that it's been allowed to occur because normally you try and set up an environment where the rules about friendships and isolation are clear and that kids know not to do it and

other kids know how to say things like i'm not comfortable with you leaving that kid out we do a lot of that now you know this is my space i'm allowed to be who i want to be i'm allowed to sit with who i want to sit with and so it is sad that this has happened but definitely your teacher will know how to stamp it out right well like i think that some of the advice this person is looking for is how to talk to their daughter. What's your advice there? Well, you know, the really hard part of this is that your daughter is going through it. But the positive part is that resilience we talked about earlier in that she's going to be better at coping with this when it happens again. And being that she is a girl, it's going to happen again. Friendships, girl friendships are tough for

your whole life. You are navigating storms of emotions and you gotta get good at coping and not overreacting or being too sensitive about friendships because it's just a constant thing in your life and i love that the mother is allowing her daughter like what a great environment she set up there where her daughter actually told her in the first place yeah that's amazing that that is beautiful and well done you getting to that i mean i you know i i have all the tools i still can't get my kid to tell me anything about school so that's amazing i've been recommending the last few weeks obviously has application for every age level it's uh how to talk to your teens so that they will listen and how to listen

so that they will talk. And in that book this week, they were just talking about exactly what this mom did, which was to acknowledge the feelings first. Not go to fixing. Just listen and say,

OK, I hear you. And one of the things they suggested was putting together a list where she gets to problem solve. Okay. Together they get to problem solve. And this usually works well if it's something like around the house where they're not doing their part, they're not doing their bit. Like, well, what do you suggest we do?

Putting down that list of suggestions and allowing all the suggestions, you know, kick her in the bum. Okay, well, let's put that on the list. And that gets a laugh. Yeah, exactly. And then you work through the list and they feel like much more empowered and more grown up in doing this.

Yeah, that links into that sense of resilience and being able to cope with it better next time. But in terms of going to a teacher, don't let your daughter know you're doing that. Yeah. Keep that between the grown-ups. That's big grown-up stuff. Yeah, unless it becomes an issue

that you have to tell your daughter, otherwise just keep that with the grown-up. She doesn't need to know because that might stress her out even more, you know, knowing that. But please get back to us. Let us know how this works out because it's a really horrible one. I hate these kind of ones. more you know knowing that but um please get back to us i just know how this works out because

it's a really horrible one i hate these kind of ones we've got an awful lot more over on patreon.com forward slash irishmanabraw but that is it for our free episode this week come and see me live in sligo on st patrick's weekend if you're around the 16th and 17th the show on the 16th is completely sold out next week I'll be in London at Shepherd's Bush Empire we'd love you to come out

to that so excited to go to that and thanks to everybody who came out to see the show in Cardiff last night Sunday night

in Cardiff was obviously brilliant and in Radlett on Friday that was mad and Wexford was an absolutely crazy one but guys thank you so much

for listening pop over to Patreon now and start getting a little more hope to see some people in Mayo too I'm so excited to get to go to Westport go to Westport there's only a couple of tickets left there