Honey You're Ruining Our Kid - Kids Fight Club, Peeping Toms And Anxiety/Rudeness? S2E10

Episode Date: November 20, 2023

Can you ban non-believers from your house at Christmas? One Mom just did it! Tina has a way of keeping the magic alive. Question 1 - what do you do if you're raising a Harry Houdini? If you can��t relax in your house because you never know what your little adventurer is up to, you need to hear this one.Question 2- when your child is rude to your friends and family what can you do? When they refuse to engage socially how do you get them to start interacting with people. These parents say they are already modelling their desired behaviour they want from their kids? But are they prepping them? Find out how to successfully navigate social gatherings with your children. Question 3: if you grew up in a house with an aggressive sibling what do you do when you see similar patterns of behaviour emerging in your own child. How do you help them cope? Teaching them how to process and reflect upon their emotions is key. Think sheets are incredibly helpful for encouraging older children to reflect on their behaviour and recognise what caused them to act out in the first place. If you have a parenting question fire it over to us at [e-mail]. No question is too big or too small. Head on over to Patreon to hear the juicy stuff. www.patreon.com/irishmanabroadOver on Patreon with hear from a mum who Tina has spent a lot of time working with. She gives an update on her kids situation which makes Tina feel like she can finally relax the cax about this situation. 

it was the week before the week when christmas stuff goes crazy and all through the house everybody was getting antsy and i don't know how you're coping with it but it's definitely all about to kick off uh this is honey you're reading our kid we Kid. We're going to be talking a little bit about Christmas here. Probably a little bit of a warning if you little people listening. It's going to be some frank adult chat this week. Big time. That's a good, that's good, George. I mean, we were in a cafe the other morning and beside the till, they had a countdown to Christmas and we were like 40 days.

What the, what? It was like someone slapped me in the face. And I was like, you need to take that away from the chill. That's frightening. This is the kind of thing Tina does in restaurants. You need to take that away from me. But it was a total head-spinning moment. In fairness, they've been advertising it since September.

But then there's always this moment, isn't there? Where you're like, oh, no. And I have so many oh, no Christmas moments where I'm like, oh, no, we've missed the delivery window. Oh, no, those things are already sold out. Oh, no, we haven't booked that thing. Now, we booked something really nice for the middle period, didn't we? booked something really nice for the the middle period didn't we uh tuna's furrowing her brow i'm like i worked so hard to get this this is our christmas party oh yeah there's that we're doing a an irishman abroad podcast christmas well are we though because it's only me and you are getting

to go marionette's on your way more yeah well they yeah it'd be way more fun if marrying a song it'd be weird if they flew in for it but I'm obviously on the Your Man tour just as a side note if you're interested in coming to see

my new stand-up show Your Man there's loads of new dates I've extended the tour even further there's dates now going right into

October of next year so get on to jigsr.com forward slash gigs and you'll find we're going to be announcing a huge new date for Dublin in May but down to business here Tina this story that you brought to my attention oh on her.ie on her.ie yeah this tell people what this story is before we get to the question well as i was making mikey's french toast this morning that he decided he didn't want cooked breakfast every day lads i mean what kind of a life is this kid living this morning because i'm not feeling

100 and i come down and i'm like really trying to gear myself up to make the french toast and i use these new brioche muffins i thought it'd be delicious oh my god i used like the best new brioche muffins and they weren't good for you too were they gross because he was like they're gross they tasted amazing he said they tasted so nice he knows the language he used at me he's like i'm not sure they're fully cooked and then i'm like well i don't want to give them food yeah tina has a phobia about things not being cooked yeah they tasted like pancakes they tasted so nice really oh thanks jared so anyway i'm scribing is that what you say when you're going through your phone scrolling scrolling scribing right you're really not feeling well go on and uh i come across this

her.ie article and it's about a mom who has a 25 year old daughter and she's got a seven and a six year old as well but her 25 year old daughter has her own child and she has uninvited her wait wait wait this mom has a 25 year old daughter and a seven and a six year old yeah she obviously had a daughter that's amazing yeah that's amazing for the seven and the six year old you would think their sister is 25 how much fun would you have with a 25-year-old? I'd imagine lots, but she has her own kit. And the article is about how the mom has actually uninvited her 25-year-old from attending Christmas because her 25-year-old is raising her three-year-old

in an honest house, she says, where they tell no lies. So they don't believe in... No daddy, no the 25 year old is refusing to make her kid not tell the other children that so the older mother has had no choice but to say well then you can't be in my house at christmas and i don't know who's right and who's wrong first of all i feel bad for the kid who's not experiencing the magic well the uninviting right to start with yeah i don't know if anyone has ever uninvited somebody or been uninvited there's so much in that phrase that like that's it i'm uninviting you that is quite childish in and of itself yeah like i would expect us to receive a couple of emails each year from people saying my kid wants to uninvite such and such because of an incident that happened on the playground but for a grown woman to be like i'm uninviting my daughter yeah

yeah that's crazy you can't uninvite people after inviting them. You can if they're saying they're going to tell about Christmas. They're going to ruin Christmas for the kids. They're going to ruin Christmas. But yeah, it's a hard one. There's no going back to that. But here's the other thing. We obviously lived in England for 10 years.

We mentioned this a fair bit. And the different cultural communities, religious beliefs over there, like so vast compared to the kind of monochrome version of religion that you find in the country here. That over there, there was so many people that just weren't observing Christmas or observing any of it. And their kids then came in and wanted to not just piss on the parade but take a large steaming dump on it yes actively ruin it for other kids and actually what i found watching that because we actually went to a predominantly muslim school that the children who believed then really doubled down on their beliefs it was hard for them not to believe but you have a great hack for this for people that are maybe around that period where

there are questions being asked tina your advice on this to help maintain the magic yeah tell tell people what it is well it's just oh my god if your kid comes to you right now and says yeah people are saying certain things about christmas if you keep believing in the magic, the magic will still happen. Yeah. That magic is about belief. Yeah. That, like, if you believe in magic, there is magic. Do you believe in magic?

Yeah. That's what you're asking your kid to do. And if you want to believe in the magic of Christmas, then the magic of Christmas will continue to happen. It was actually Fiona Kelly who owns the amazing Montessoriorian Temple Oak Horizons that I used to teach in. She came up with that. She was the one who used to say that to all the children. And it was lovely. It's like something you'd expect to see in a Coca-Cola commercial.

Because really at its essence, it is why we all still celebrate Christmas. I know, baby Jesus and all that too. And all that too. all that too like the birth of like the savior you're basically saying that when i'm sick i'm just turning to joanne mcnally it's because you do certain like dismiss out of hand and of course the little matter of the birth of christ but you know but mainly santa yeah i thought it was beautiful when i heard that and i thought that's actually great because you're not telling them you're not saying that they're doing anything wrong you're just saying people are going to say stuff and it

only matters what you think and if you believe in it then it will continue to happen for you and i was raised in a house like that like i still have santa i'm 42 this year santa still comes every year to me and that's fabulous Raised in a house like that. Like I still have Santa. I'm 42 this year. Santa still comes every year to me. And that's fabulous. How many times did you try and run away from home as a kid? Never. Never?

I think I did it. I think I packed twice. Really? really oh my god there's nothing here i know my brother did the second time my parents helped me pack my bag oh that's that no they didn't we've got your bags at the door mave my sister definitely headed down the driveway. I remember looking out the window, watching her take off. I pushed her to the edge. I have no idea. But she had the bag and was heading off. Oh, my God.

Because I know that the cutest story about my brother, because none of the rest of us were around. So he must have been like two or three. And he'd been left in belly cry with my nanny and granddad. And my cousin Mary had come to take care of of him and he was having none of it and he had two a tiny little he had a little tiny little briefcase for whatever reason and mary oh still laughs about it because he threw a spoon in he was throwing all his toy or whatever and he marched down the road now that is a long road like we're talking it's a few miles long that road like he's only two he's he's basically only unsupported walking

and for under a year and mary kind of let him off as far as i know as my parents returned so at some point along that long road my parents came down in their car to see their tiny little baby marching down the road with the suitcase it's the cutest thing ever but they must be like what the fuck yeah what drove him to it as well at that age what was taking place i know that some of your kids trying to get out of the house is curiosity, ambition, adventure, the sense of busting out of jail. But my brother definitely climbed out of his cot, climbed out the window, got into a car, put it into neutral. What? And the car started rolling.

What age? Oh, Dina's in a cot. And he started shouting help out the window as the car is rolling. And one of the guys that was working on the farm at the time had to run after the Jeep, get in and put on the brake. Oh, my God. Now, our first question of the day says tina and jareth i need your help i'm a 27 year old single mother to a new three-year-old a newly three-year-old so somebody's just a human being who's just turned three and has had enough which we all know is a

real terrible thing yeah my toddler has a window in the room and they keep climbing into the window. So it must be one of those kind of bay windows. Oh, I see. I've put a blanket over the window. I've thumbtacked the window curtains so that they will manage to get. But they still will manage to get into the window. They have an absolute meltdown when I take them out of the window space. Any advice on how to stop this their fine motor is improving and i'm worried they'll learn how to open the window soon

which is what i'm talking about so this is about getting onto the window sill in some ways i'd imagine they just like looking out the window yeah you know they want to just see what's going on outside but like it's the whole peter pan thing isn't it you know they want to just see what's going on outside but like it's the whole peter pan thing isn't it you know actually we got to see peter pan during the week yeah we'll talk about that later that's amazing but that was amazing but yeah how has that got anything to do with this that's how peter pan gets into the house here's here's the issue This mum Yeah

The kid Is doing something really dangerous Yeah that is dangerous And she can't get it through to him You're going to crack your head open If you keep doing that Well the child The positives here are

The child is three Which means he can be spoken to He can be reasoned with Yeah Well within reason He can be reasoned with yeah well within reason he can be reasoned with within reason but she can tell him my job is to keep you safe and when you go into the window that's not safe so i know you love to look out the window so when you want to do that come find me and we'll do it together right but you can't do it on your own it's not safe she also needs to

get herself down to a diy shop or something and put a lock on that window because that's just that's just an accident ready to happen well here's the other thing and this is the part of the email that we don't we haven't referenced is the single mother part of this yeah she probably we've no idea how tricky it is to get everything done oh yeah i think single moms are unbelievable every time you're away especially when you're when mike is gonna say i used to be like oh my god how are they doing it how are these women doing it like so maybe you need to gear the advice we need to just examine the advice one more time. That saying to him, well, come and get me. There's going to be loads of time when she's like, now is not a good time.

Yeah, but if you know your child's climbing into a window and they're asking, you're going to make time. You're not going to let them go. But as you know, and I've always said that this was one of my strengths as a father of a toddler was I didn't get tired by repetition. No, you were brilliant. But if Mikey enjoyed taking off our socks and putting back on our socks, I would do that until he got bored. On and off, on and off, on and off.

And that was what made for fun. That's when egg timers and timers come into play. Right, so we have egg timer in the window. Okay, let's go in the window and we put the timer on when the timer's finished. That means window time is finished and off you go. It's all about how you say it and lead it does that really it works if you are very clear which you're in like you need to say it like this uh so they go i want to look in the window and you go okay let's get the timer when the timer stops

our window time is finished and that's it yeah and you don't and when it stops you follow through and nope the timer stopped it's over now and that in conjunction with window time is something that we can only do together yes that in conjunction with that it's not safe when we're not together no so we'll do window time uh with the timer but you can also imagine she's 27 years old. She's a single mom. If her neighbors are seeing her kid in the window, they're probably giving out to her about it. Like it's probably another layer to this.

They're probably judging her when really we all know how fast toddlers can be. And when they know they're not supposed to do something, they get a real bulls-eye of doing it too. You were really opposed to leaving mikey alone or your kid alone at any time when they're that small it's not very safe i know it depends on your house and everything but you really can't leave your kids on their own that much and also i don't know if she has this available to her but if he has a monitor in his room you can always move it around to make sure like if you do need some time so that you can keep an eye.

But I just think being very clear, he's three. He knows. You can also get a stair gate for his room so he can't get into his room without you. Is thumbtacking the thing? I do. Don't do that. Big mistake. It's the same reason we never had a stair gate or anything.

I think the minute you make it seem like it's off yeah it becomes more desirable it's more desirable yeah yeah you were the same way with sweets as well which is something that's come up loads that i definitely wasn't allowed many sweets it was sunday after mass into the shop have one bar and that was it for the week and i became utterly obsessed with sweets at that point i remember filling my pockets at parties and stuff and i had seen those hoover kids yeah and you were like you can have whenever you want uh but know that this is the dangers of these sweets yeah if you make it unavailable they become become obsessed. And for some bizarre reason, he went through all of his younger years not interested in sweets. Like, why would I be interested in those?

And he hit 12. And suddenly, he is obsessed with sweets. He's still sensible enough. It's so funny, though. It is so funny. Because people are like, he doesn't like sweets. Now he does. He hits 12. It's so funny though. Yeah. It is so funny because people are like, he doesn't like sweets. Now he does.

It's 12. Yeah. He's like, I have got to get to the sweet shop as quick as possible. It is, it's a confounding job. This job that we're all doing, it's like, despite your best efforts. Yeah. Things can happen. I mean, I know so much, and yet I still fucked up royally with the gaming.

I made it a Friday, Saturday thing, and that child counts down his week. To his gaming. And it kills me. Now, I wouldn't blame you entirely. I would blame the gaming companies on that, too. It is an impossible task. We are losing our kids to these games.

Email us about your gaming situation. We probably need to devote a full episode to this, right? We are strict because we know the dangers of it. But we're in the Wild West in terms of this. I think governments are really behind on regulation in terms of games, in terms of overstimulation and what's happening here. Honey, you are ruining our kid at gmail.com.

Get in touch. Have you got a way that's working for you? I do use the Nintendo timer on my phone. I'm able to disable and have it given my countdown at this amount of time. Yeah, but I feel like he's able to disable it too. You feel like that, but that's not the case the great escape on his nintendo switch but like this is yeah this is the cover of the paper today

that uh you know they want to make it so they are encouraging people not to give phones as christmas gifts to kids and where the line is drawn around bullshit again though i hate her campaign she's campaigning for no phones in primary schools there are no phones in primary schools do something to help us please make it stricter in secondary schools i feel like there are no phones in primary school kids aren't allowed on their phones the way they're allowed on them in secondary school. Like, they're strict about it in primary school. You know that for a fact about every primary school in the country.

I don't know for a fact about every primary school, but I know that any primary school I do know of doesn't allow their kids to bring phones. So what the hell is she talking about? Yeah, but it's also just somebody doing something that gets people going, she's right, she's talking a lot of sense. And it's like, well, that isn't actually the specific problem. Yeah, we know what the specific problem is. We'd love to hear how you're dealing with it. And I hope this answer is some help to this matter.

Tina and Jar, I have one for you that I think you're going to struggle with. That's always a challenge. Somebody says that at the top of the email. My heart goes tight. Yeah, like Tina, you've no idea how much anxiety Tina has around getting the answers to you guys. There's a bunch of emails that do not make the air. I should say this, that loads of people email the show, honeyyou'reruiningourkid at gmail.com and go, please don't put this on the show. And that's totally fine. But also there are ones that say that and then they talk it through and tina provides an

answer and then they're like yeah it's cool if you want to use this on the show but we love hearing from you yeah and when an email starts with i think you're going to struggle with this goes and i go i diggity dog here we go-year-old is unbelievably rude when we're out in public. I'm not talking eating. I'm not talking table manners. I'm talking when we meet strangers, when we meet my friends, my child embarrasses me through refusing to make eye contact, refusing to talk, refusing to make eye contact refusing to talk refusing to shake hands this is a very

tough one tina because i think we all see this all the time so the courage first of all to get in touch with this one congrats because you can be guaranteed there's people listening to this now going this is my kid yeah this is my kid um and it does relate to things that we've referenced earlier in the show around them just being by themselves and i guess living through a pandemic i'm tired of letting kids off the hook on that basis but it has but it has had an impact accept that what can i do to encourage my child to be more mannerly it's not like he's seeing us do it my husband and i pride ourselves on being polite and mannerly and modeling this behavior for our kids but my 11 year old is having none of it

i'd love to hear what you think okay well i mean if they're modeling it that's really hard because i was like the first thing i was going to say was are you modeling this behavior but they say they are you know like I'm a Montessorian and like you know I always feel very lucky that I discovered Montessori and I got to go and learn all about it and she made so many incredible discoveries that we're all using now in every aspect of education like basically anything you think that's cool that's happening in your school maria montessori is responsible for that and a hundred years ago she observed it does it piss you off that people think that montessori is just crash oh look you know that's just the way it's marketed in ireland but you know i'm fine around

the world it's understood as a teaching method and when you reference it here you're referring to the element of it that's about grace and courtesy so that's exactly it so maria montessori realized that you know children have the potential to do everything of course the universe is there for them but you have to show them and tell them you can't just expect a child to know these things so there's a whole you can do montessori from the age of things so there's a whole you can do Montessori from the age of like zero there's a zero to three but really it's three to eighteen and every single year there is a module of grace and courtesy within there because if you don't teach them manners how the hell are they going to know it and this is like there's parts of the Montessori day that

you're there's a line in the classroom and you will get all the children to be on the line and you will practice saying excuse me and letting people go by you or sitting down and getting up off your chair or just waiting your turn. And actually a lot of Montessori, the approach is about waiting your turn because there's only one piece of equipment for every child. It's such a big part of life, isn't it? Yeah, and it's beautiful. And it's all about respect for the environment, respect for other and i love it i love it i love it but

it if this mom is modeling it that's great but what she might not be doing is preparing the child every time they go somewhere and like we do get a lot of compliments on mike Mikey and his politeness but what people don't know is that every time we pull up to an event in the car we go through exactly what is expected of him and we role play if somebody comes up to you what do you do you shake their hand you say nice to meet you you ask them a little bit you ask them about themselves and you you know you get engaged engage we also make sure he knows that we're going for this amount of time we'll do this this this and then we're out because if your child has anxiety they do need to know where the end is and yeah forget anxiety if they're just like is this the whole day yeah exactly and this child obviously is not enjoying these social interactions

so they do need to know exactly the rundown of it. So that is the advice I would give this person. I would be saying, well done for modeling it, but you might be forgetting to prepare them. Exactly what is expected of them because they don't know. They just don't know what you want. So tell them and just, you know, explain it. Right. We always forget to do that so i don't even

think about it because i'm obviously you're just following your lead on so much of this stuff but you know we're encountering tweens and teens who are just over it yeah just over it like i have a friend whose kid is i'm not sure what age he's turning but the kid is actively like i don't want yeah anyone near me on my birthday i and this kid was saying like i'm not going to reveal these people's names but they were going we think he's going to be difficult at christmas kind of telling me yeah we're probably not going to be able to meet up because our kid yeah is not into being around people and what do you do there well there's a confusion at the moment because there's so much respect for the consent for the child yeah in interactions social interactions and of course you should not expect your child to have to hug or kiss people but that's you can't allow your

child completely to be off the hook there is a grace and courtesy to how we interact as human beings and there is an etiquette and you need to allow your child opportunities to practice that you cannot let them off the hook with just being rude you have to push them through it grand you're you don't want your child hugging someone of course that they need to consent to but every day what's the word deities is that a word niceties niceties deities are like gods oh really everyday niceties come on you need to be able to do that yeah right but like that said it's it's a struggle for these people like i can see it all over them well they're mortified by their kid but they're they were like their kid is like weaponizing some of the kind of mental health speak that's going around you know yeah and they're like oh i can't really push back when he's saying i have social anxiety oh yeah well i've

noticed that with all kids all children are very clever and they know the keywords that trigger that triggered and worried the band. Yeah. But like I was saying to them that when doing what I do as a comic, no one assumes I have social anxiety. Nobody thinks. Yeah. Maybe Jara's anxious, but I only came to terms with this in recent years that how tense I was getting about meeting people after the show meeting people

before the show and people you know being at the show people i know being at the show i think you get really good at burying it in that job and i was saying to them that it's worth normalizing the social anxiety that everybody feels well i do think it's an everybody feeling yes but this is but this is also just like nobody wants to walk into a pub alone and nobody really wants to meet brand new people and have to introduce themselves. There's very few people that are enjoying that experience. But we know that it's a skill that we've got to have just as driving. Yeah, and I'm a very social person.

But since the pandemic, I know that I have social anxiety. I get really tense and panicked before we do anything. But then I know to push through it because I actually enjoy being around people. What's on the other side, yeah. I love it. It gives me energy to be around people. So then I am happy and I'm like, yay, I got through. But it still doesn't change.

I still have that knot in my tummy. I still have the, like, I get very flushed. I'm like, totally bad again. Well, here's one thing I wanted to say, that maybe these people suggest to the kid, that, like, essentially when they're like, I don't want to meet these people, you know. I don't have to say hello

you're just thinking about you yeah that's a hard one to put across yeah without being hurtful to your kid like get out of your own head but it is something we need to arm our kids with because we really have to be careful of allowing them to be in their own head too much. Because that's more dangerous. Like, don't listen to everything your brain is saying. Because you're not your thoughts. You're not your thoughts. Yeah. But also, you know, just to finish this off, like, I think you've given really good advice here around the modeling and the prepping.

The prepping. The prepping is like. If they're already modeling, prepping has to. Yeah, we prep Mikey every single time. single every single time and you know what it's very calming yeah it is very calming every time i was in the classroom i prepped my kids i never had an issue bringing them out because i'd already told them exactly what and one of the things i tell mikey when we're about to go somewhere is um if there's something you're uncomfortable with you come back to me and that is actually brilliant because your kids should always know they can do that you don't have

that's what i mean about these calls on your own consent and stuff is that of course your kids should feel like they can come to you but there's they can't just opt out of social interaction that's not going to work for them yeah god it's, it's going to be a battleground, isn't it, for years to come? Because you've got the blind leading the blind. Yeah. That everyone is kind of building their own castle at the moment and putting a moat around it. And I thought of this the other day when I was out, this thing of surround yourself with people who are in your corner. If you can't find those people, do you just stay in your corner and also are you just describing people who aren't your

family just not my brothers and sisters who are actively out for my demise i'm not saying that's my brother we saw that yesterday. It's very funny. We had this incredible J.A. match. And afterwards, all the older siblings were not happy. Oh, gutted that they'd won. That they'd won. They were like, oh, I'm going to have to listen to this now forever.

Good, yeah. But, oh, we've all done it. Yeah, we have. Yeah, absolutely. Best of luck to these parents. We've got one more question before we head over to the juicy stuff on Patreon. So we've talked about turn-taking, being part of having siblings.

And we've all struggled with that. It's my turn. Dad's turn. You've had your turn. Mom, this turn is going on too long. I mean, jealousy is so part of having brothers and sisters. Like, I personally was never jealous of my brothers and sisters, but I know they were jealous of me.

I mean, that is tough, though, when one sibling is better looking than the others. That's really hard. Like, I can't imagine what that was like for them to have somebody this handsome okay let's get to because that's what this question relates to tina and jar i love your show but i need your help so my eight-year-old is showing signs of aggression it doesn't happen often it reminds me of my younger brother but he'd tantrum violently daily and it's a trigger for me last night my son

wanted to draw he tried to trace a pic of a cartoon that was on his tablet but obviously the screen would move i tried to download apps to keep the screen still but because i was taking too long he said never mind and asked me to draw it freehand tina's nightmare oh my god mommy can you draw it no i can barely sign my own name i can't draw but i tried to help and it got upset but he got upset because it didn't look like the picture so he crumpled it up and i started again same thing two more times this two-year-old brother was standing over us watching and leaning on his brother my son slapped him twice and shoved him my two-year-old absolutely loves his big brother but was so broken-hearted i spoke to my son sent him to his room where he screamed and started to hit the wall yelling that he hates his brother when he settled i talked to him more calmly about

about it but he projected saying his brother is making his day worse and he hates him my baby did nothing so i just figured he was tired and had him go to bed 15 minutes early it happens twice a month at least but he gets so angry that he shakes. I'm thinking, does he need some therapy? But maybe it can be solved differently. My hubby now has two evenings off a week. So I'm thinking I spend time with my eldest alone while my hubby watches the baby. We will be bummed because we don't see each other often,

but I'm going to talk with him about the situation because my eldest and i don't spend much one-on-one time together with him as i'd like he is school to 3 30 comes home and has a snack and it takes us 20 minutes to get him ready for practice with his football gear practices 4 30 to.30 to 6.30. Comes on. How are people doing this stuff? Shower 6.30 to 7.15. Go do some homework 7.15, 7.30. Jesus, he's doing well on getting out in 15 minutes homework. Play, unwind, bed, eight.

I know. How? Why are we doing this? Why did any of us have kids? Thinking about extending his bedtime to 8.30. That's not a bad idea right away. So I get a full hour for just us, and we can draw, read, play a board game, Lego or whatever. If my hubby doesn't work Saturday morning,

maybe take my eldest to breakfast, just him. What do you guys think? I'd love to get your take. Well, I think this mom is very in tune with her kid but the thing i feel like she's missing here is that uh yes she's aware of temper tantrums and stuff because she grew up with a brother who would explode but what i actually think her little guy is doing he has an anger issue, but he's controlling it a lot. And then it bubbles over into absolute, complete frustration. And the reason he's shaking and getting so angry is because he is actually managing to keep these feelings at bay.

All these other occasions. And then he will just explode. This sounds very like my own situation with you just burying the absolute frustration with you and then i will explode in the car when i'm alone but this is serious i mean i'm not messing i think this is amazing what you're saying because it makes so much sense yeah And also it's only twice a month. It's only twice a month. And this little guy is showing a very high level of social intelligence like that.

He's managing his emotions, but it's not healthy for him. He's swallowing it so often. Yeah, he's trying. He's aware. He's unconsciously probably aware that he gets very annoyed a lot. But he is trying his best not to explode and then he does now look this mommy's amazing she's already making plans to carve out time with him and stuff which is always what i say will help yeah she's kind of preempted

you there yeah is it doable and she's and that all of that last part of the email is her working yeah working out how can? Which is just incredible. But what I feel the most important thing that needs to be done here is work on emotions, work on feelings, start talking about feelings. Colour Monster? Anyone? He's a bit too old for the Colour Monster. He's eight. He's eight, right.

Colour Monster is for, like, this is a book that Tina recommends all the time. I'd say one to six-year-olds can read that. We have to do our book episode. Yeah? Oh, crap. That's what we're supposed to do this week. That's year olds we have to do our book episode yeah oh crap that's what we're supposed to do this week sorry about that do that next week well you know

be good for Christmas Christmas stocking shit oh my gosh let's do it let's do it next week and we've had loads of recommendations oh have we

okay right next week at least the listeners know we are as all over the place as broad as you guys yeah right

so if she's having difficulty carving out the time yeah but either way she needs to start with him being more at home with his emotions and being able to handle them better yeah but the most important thing i'll say in this one is when he does flip out and the volcano erupts do not punish him the way she's doing like sending him to his room what she actually needs to remember now is that this child is coping coping coping coping coping eruption so in those moments she needs to say to him you've gotten really frustrated it's all become too much much i'm so sorry that this became so frustrating for you that could diffuse everything immediately he's going to feel heard and seen tell me how you're feeling tell me what happened to make

you feel this angry now if he mentions the little brother ignore that because you don't want to feed that dialogue at all do not entertain that that's tricky do not entertain that and if anything at other parts of the day just mention to him how much your brother loves you how much he looks up to you he thinks you're amazing feed that dialogue but ignore all this baloney about i hate my brother don't give that anything and if that doesn't work and he doesn't calm down then it's time to send him up to his room. But with something to do, that's when the think sheets or a reflection sheet comes into play, where you will get out an A4 piece of paper and you will write what happened to make you feel so angry? What are you feeling right now what do you think you could do next time to stop the eruption

or whatever questions you feel suit your situation give him time to do that and then read it out together at the end thank him for sharing his feelings with you i mean it's really important we get this kid to a healthier space and how he's coping because it could become way worse way worse i mean he's eight now teenage years could be really hard if she doesn't get on top of this well next week as i said book show we're gonna do i know i can't believe that all week we've been prepping it yeah it just shows how tired it is been it's been a wild time uh but honey you're ruining our kid will be back next week with the book show so So if you have a book recommendation, it's going to be in the diary. It'll happen next week.

The Honey, You're Rooting Our Kid book show. Book recommendations for every age group and every situation. Tina has obviously got a shelf of books here behind us that would be the envy of any teacher or even a parent. So we're going to root through the ones that have helped and impacted kids and families the best over the years but there's more there's always more over on patreon.com forward slash irishmanabroad come and join us if you haven't had enough or if you'd like to support the show that's how we make it is through the support of our patrons over there

patreon.com forward slash irishmanabroad for the xl episode every single week more chat more crack including this i never understand why it's like happy birthday to the kid and there isn't something for the mom like i think birthdays should come in tandem with you giving a gift to your mom and going, you brought me into the world. Okay, but Darlene, you do realize you're making my life very difficult because people think, like Darlene is really kind to me. You are though. And yesterday, even yesterday, you were at this G8 and we go to a party. A mom comes up to me and she says we'll see you then

see you next week Tina thanks so much thanks Daryl I love you