Woman's Hour - Sexual offences against men; 'How Fat Feels'; Snowplough parents

Episode Date: January 8, 2020

Reynhard Sinaga has been identified this week as ‘Britain’s most prolific rapist’. He was convicted of 159 counts of sex offences including 136 rapes, against 48 male victims and will serve a minimum of 30 years in prison. Police believe there may have been up to 200 victims. According to research 1 in 6 men have been targets of rape or sexual abuse. To discuss the issue of male rape and the support available to victims, Jenni is joined by Alex Feis-Bryce, CEO of SurvivorsUK and Neil Henderson, CEO of Safeline and Chair of Male Survivors Partnership. In our series’ How Fat Feels’ back in 2018 Mellisa talked honestly to our reporter Ena Miller about why she insists on calling herself fat and how her weight shapes her life. ‘Some days I use my fat as armour, some days it’s like a shroud’ she said then. Today Mellisa joins Jenni to listen to that interview again and consider how she feels now about her body. We’ve heard of the helicopter mum. Now here comes the snowplough. That’s the term used to describe an overprotective parent who clears anything in their path in order to ensure their child’s success. But what does this behaviour do to a child? Jenni is joined by Rebecca Glover, Principal of Surbiton High School who has created a TedX Talk ‘Do Snowplough parents remove true grit?’ and Dr Angharad Rudkin, a child psychologist. Presenter: Jenni Murray Producer: Kirsty StarkeyInterviewed Guest: Alex Feis-Bryce Interviewed Guest: Neil Henderson Reporter: Ena Miller Interviewed Guest: Rebecca Glover Interviewed Guest: Dr Angharad Rudkin

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BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, Jenny Murray welcoming you to Wednesday's edition of the Woman's Hour podcast. Good morning. On Monday we heard from a woman called Jules who spoke to us in 2018 about how fat feels and she discussed how she is nearly two years on. Today, Melissa, who also talked to us in 2018, looks back on what she said then and explains how it feels now. The snowplough parent, what's the effect on a child of the mother or father who sweeps all obstacles to success away? Does it remove the child's true grit?

And the serial, episode three of Exile. Now I'm sure you've read in the newspapers or heard in the news about the conviction in Manchester of Reynard Senaga, described by the Crown Prosecution Service as the most prolific rapist in British legal history, of whom the judge said he would never be safe to be released. He was convicted of 159 sex offences, including 136 rapes against 48 young men. We read this morning that dozens of young men have approached the police since Sinaga was imprisoned to report fears that they too had been duped, drugged and sexually assaulted after they'd met him as they left nightclubs and bars in Manchester. Well, how common is it for men to rape other men?

And what support is available for victims? Alex Face-Brice is the Chief Executive of Survivors UK. Neil Henderson is the Chief Executive of Safeline and chairs the Male Survivors Partnership. And he joins us from Coventry. Neil, how common is it for men to be raped by other men? It's estimated that one in six men in the UK have been sexually violated or abused. And that equates to five million men. Research in the area as to who the perpetrator is,

the research that is there, Jenny, suggests that about 80% to 85% of all abuse against males are by males. Some people are surprised that females can sexually abuse males, but it does happen, but it's a much smaller percentage. So the numbers are huge and that's not often really well understood by a lot of people. Alex, what did you make of this particular case? Yeah, I mean, the scale of it obviously was shocking. I think certain aspects are maybe less surprising to people like myself and Neil who work in this sector.

Things like the fact that lots of victims are still out there and probably haven't come forward. In terms of with all rape, but also with men, what is reported to the police and what is in official statistics is just the tip of the iceberg because most of it goes unreported. So obviously the scale of the case is very surprising and, you know, deeply shocking. But many aspects of it are similar to what we see on a daily basis, really. Neil, how likely would you say men are to report a sexual assault or rape?

Well, Alex has just mentioned that, Jenny. I mean, it's estimated that only one in six people who have been abused report their abuse. So the vast, you know, nearly 80 to 90 percent of sexual abuse against males and females, I have to say, goes unreported. So Alex is right. This is no shame on their part. The shame is only on the perpetrator. How do men view what's happened to them? Has work been done to try and say to them, it's not your fault. I think in organisations like mine and Neil's and others, that's kind of an ongoing battle. But I think there needs to be a much bigger, broader conversation about that. And, you know, all the work that has been done with women

has made a big difference. Reporting levels have gone up. You know, the narrative around rape has really helped people come forward and speak. But I don't think it's necessarily translated to men. And I think men still feel that rape is something that happens to women, which means that they may feel, even if there is support available, they may not feel that they can access it. And they may not even feel that, you know, there's anyone else out there who's experienced what they've experienced. Neil, what's your experience of the way men perceive themselves if they have been a victim?

We've just undertaken the largest research project in the country on male survivors. And we know that it takes, I mean, it takes women on average about 20 years to disclose their abuse purely because of embarrassment, humiliation, fear of not being believed. But for males, it takes even longer because there's a lot of social issues that add additional pressure. We call them the male myths that, you know, it's only gay men that are abused or you must be gay gay if you've been abused, or it'll make me an abuser. So these act as barriers for men coming forward. And as I say, we see a time delay in terms of women, of men coming forward and talking about the abuse.

Now, we're trying to break those things down, as Alex is saying. Programs like this really, really make a difference because talking about it and letting people know where they can get help makes a huge difference but the barriers are huge and where Alex and I and other organisations are working hard to try and break those barriers down. Sexual

abuse and rape is one of the most harmful things that can happen to an individual we had somebody call the helpline last week who was 93 he'd been abused at the age of 6 part of the reason he never came forward was because he never knew where to go. So there's a lot we need to do in terms of education, but also in terms of making sure that people know where they can get help

and they can be listened to. Alex, I know you're a survivor. You were a victim when you were 18. What happened to you? Yeah, I mean, strangely, the circumstances are very similar to this case. I was a student at Manchester University. I think I was on a night out and I went back to sort of a house party and I was drugged and raped. I didn't remember much of it immediately after. It took me, you know, the memory came back to me over the course of a few weeks. And at the time, I don't think there were support services available for men in manchester it was before survivors manchester existed um and for me uh you know because of the way i was kind of socialized uh rape was something that happened to women so there was a huge amount of shame and i blamed

myself to an extent because i was drunk etc um and the idea of talking to the police or talking to anyone i eventually told friends and family, was just something that didn't even occur to me, really. You didn't report it to the police? No, I didn't, no. I know, Neil, that you have a helpline for male survivors, which began in 2015. What real support are you able to give? Well, the government never started funding support for male survivors until 2014.

So there's a lot of catch up. But yeah, we introduced the National Helpline for Male Survivors in 2015. And the first year, you know, what we provide is emotional support for people who want to take that first step to seeking support. What males need, they find it very, very hard. They just need the space and the time to think through what options they've got. And that's really the role that the helpline provides. It gives them that time and the space to think through whether they want to pursue long-term support. Some people only need one call just to validate what you had said at the beginning, that it wasn't their fault others

need more support and that could lead to long-term counseling or whatever but in the first year of the helpline we had 4 000 contacts last year we had 29 000 contacts the helpline has transformed support for men they've now got a place where they can go and they can speak honestly, openly, anonymously and take those first tentative steps to getting the help that they need to cope and recover. It's transformed support for men.

Alex, I must just ask you one more question. We've read this morning that more young men are coming forward. Afraid there may have been victims of Sinaga. What difference will a case like this make to men's willingness to report a crime against them? I think it will make a huge difference.

I mean, the awareness for many people, it will be simply, oh, this does happen to men, I'm not alone, there are other people out there. But also I think it highlights that um you know the organizations in manchester st mary's the sexual assault referral center and survivors manchester and the police um obviously believed the people who came forward they supported the people who came forward so i think it shows that you know you you will get support on that journey and there are organizations out there there probably isn't enough support because we don't have enough

resources as always um but the support is there and you will be believed. Alex, Fais, Bryce and Neil Henderson thank you both very much indeed for being with us this morning and by the way you can find details of helplines and any other support on the Women's Hour website. Now if you were listening on Monday you'll have heard a woman we called Jules discussing how fat feels. She was one of three women who'd contact us to whom we spoke in May 2018. And we've invited them all back to listen to what they said then and explain what, if anything, has changed in the intervening year and a half. Today, it's Melissa. She's 47. She lives in Northampton. And she told Enna Miller how fat felt to her.

I'm a solid, fat woman. How I would describe myself is a series of quite large blobs and boxes. So I don't think there is a single part of me, apart from my wrists, that is small. So from my face, it's just a big circle. I don't have a double chin, I have a kind of a triple chin. My boobs kind of keep my stomach warm. I think I'm a 46F or something like that. But I don't really know because I don't really go and get measured.

So I tend to go and buy a bra and just kind of hold it up and think, I think those puppies are going to get in there. So just hope for the best and go for it. I have several stomachs which are mottled. So I have stretch marks, very large thighs, very large legs. And then I have a prominent bottom as well. So being a black woman, I'm already kind of quite shapely in that arena. I'm incredibly heavy.

So I think I'm, you know, very much in excess of 20-odd stone. I wear probably a dress size of 24 to 26 what does it physically feel like to be fat it's the maneuvering of yourself it's to being in bed turning over physically shift a huge mound of person, of body, of weight. You have got weight upon you. It's physically exhausting. So you have to pull your own leg up and over. You have to think of scenarios, schemes of rocking to pull yourself out of a chair or if you encounter some stairs you have to then think how am I going to pull one leg up beside another leg but sitting beside people in a room I tend to move my chair slightly to one side so that my physical blubber doesn't touch them. You're hyper aware of your body. You're hyper aware of the space that you take up. Why is it that you own the word fat? I'm not an hourglass figure. I am a fat woman. There is

no getting away from it. And why lie to myself? But I think society and your own sort of perception of yourself is that it is disgusting to be fat. It is shameful. It is slothful. It is lazy. It is incompetent. It is stupid. And by being so visible, by being so big and taking up so much room, in a strange way, you're also quite invisible to people because they kind of clock you and their eyes slid off you because they don't want to acknowledge your presence because you disgust them. I find it really difficult when you can so comfortably say that it's disgusting because it is and when you say those words they're really powerful words and does that upset you it's debilitating that's the only way I can describe it and I wonder if some of the activities

that I undertake I'm trying to justify my place in the world so I do lots of charitable works. I try to be a good manager, a good friend, a good daughter. I'm constantly justifying, I feel to myself, my worth. Right, I've got this bit of paper. This is the letter that you wrote to us. Okay, what I said was, I'm the stereotypical fat woman, funny, independent, lots of friends, and black, so it seems to be more tolerated. On the other hand, I am full of loathing and hurt that my fat won't shift, nor will people's attitudes. I am bullied, slighted and ridiculed by everyone, and yet feted as body positive. Some days I use my fat as armour and other days it's like a shroud.

That makes me feel quite sad when I read that because I think it reflects all the contradictions that I have. When you arrive in a space, the first thing that people are going to look at you is your size and they're going to look at you is your size and they're going to think oh my god how could you be that fat so what would you say to me if I said to you oh my god Melissa how have you managed to get to this weight a lack of control a lack of control a lack of confidence a lack of love of myself i can't have any kind of value for myself fundamentally if i allowed myself to get to this point

a friend of mine said to me i don't stint on myself. So give me an example. So um you see I have lots of champagne. You do? It's actually the first thing I noticed when I walked into your flat. I'll take you to my storeroom. Yeah okay so your storeroom is the kitchen. No this is the other storeroom. Oh this other storeroom okay., okay, so your storeroom is the kitchen? No, this is the other storeroom. Oh, this other storeroom, okay. I wasn't going to show you this, but you know, I feel comfortable enough with you now. This is supposed to be my office, but as you can see, there are lots and lots of supplies there, so there's lots of more food, more alcohol, and I suppose I'm a hoarder. Can I go in? Is that okay?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why weren't you going to show me this store? Because it's shameful. Let me just move this out of the way. You've got a lot of porridge, but then there's crisp. Lots of condiments, oat bars, things like that. And you've also got a fridge. What's in that?

Freezer. That's a freezer. So what's in the freezer? Meat, more vegetables, fruits. So, yeah, so I have a double fridge freezer in there and then I have an additional back freezer as well. Because if I see things that are at a reduced price, I have to buy it. It's kind of quite sad that you're comforted by food when you should be comforted by other elements in the world. So to have such an odd relationship with food, I find quite lonely because I guess I do all my eating by myself. Do you think any of this stems from your childhood?

What's your relationship between your mother and food and you and food? How do you feel all that works? She's always been very good at feeding us, I have to say, so we weren't deprived, but I think there was a period when I was in my teens where she and I had quite a combative relationship around my eating and what I was eating. And I was very, very small at that point. And I think it's almost become a self-perpetuating prophecy.

We had a bit of a row actually on Mother's Day because she said that the food that I bought was too much. It's one of those things that we're just going to always row about. Do you blame her? No, I can't blame her. The only person I can hold responsible for my position is myself. You did say to me at one point that your weight gives you some strength. Yes, you can't hurt me any more than I hurt myself.

There is nothing that you could say to me it bounces off me I'm impervious to it and I suppose I do that thing as well that lots of fat people do that I am self-deprecating so when I stand up and do presentations I always say you know my job is so stressful when I started I'm about a week ago I was a size 12 and look at me now that's quite monumental to stand there and have to at a meeting excuse who you are yes well it's the elephant in the room because I am the elephant in the room so I think it is that case of let's kind of put this on the table I'm fat okay we've acknowledged it can we now just accept me as a person? It's exhausting constantly having to feel to justify my being.

I feel judged by you. So I suppose your feeling of being judged by me is, I suppose in my world because I am a size 10 12 I'm trying to understand how it goes from this to that yes and so I feel terrible I feel really bad no you shouldn't because but I think that's what it is because there is that fear in you. And so because of that fear, people project their fears and their inadequacies upon me because I am potentially a reflection of something that you could potentially become. I mean, I doubt it very much so because then you will tell yourself, ah, but I've got control. Oh, but I am a sensible, intelligent person.

There is no way that I'd ever get to that size. But let me tell you, I was you. It's really interesting that you say that, in the sense that, you know, we've just sat down here and we've had a cup of tea. And it's really bad because I had that judgment and I'm here with you. So I even compared, mentally, compared the sizes of our cups.

And then when you had a biscuit and I had a biscuit, I thought, will she have another biscuit? It is. It's a judgment. People are constantly making a judgment. What's that like when you hear me say that? Well, it's honest of you because I didn't. I suppose that confirms to me that people do look and they do make a judgment you did say something to me that really sticks out and you just said to me I take responsibility for this this is not rocket science I could lose weight but you can't be bothered absolutely Absolutely. The fundamental thing is less calories in, more exercise out.

You will lose the weight, but that means effort. That means having to motivate yourself and to persevere. And there are times that I feel that I can do that. And there's other times that I can't and it's true I can't be bothered and I do sometimes think why can't you just accept me as who I am. What do you say to bigger women listening to this probably screaming at the radio going I'm fat and I'm happy why can't she love herself why can't she love herself? Why can't she embrace herself? You know, what's wrong with her?

Because it's not who I'm meant to be. I'm bored with this now. I have been fat for 20-something odd years and embracing it's telling me that I've given up and I don't want to give up. I want to be the best of myself. I want to fulfill my potential and I think I need to give myself that chance. If I try and I fail that's okay least I tried. But to not even to attempt to do something different will make this a wasted opportunity. I have a fabulous opportunity now to do something different. So that's what I'm doing this. But I think to be a science 14 or 16 would be enough

for me I just want to not be normal because I think normal is boring but I just want to be the best of myself why shouldn't I? Melissa welcome back to Woman's Hour. What's it been like to listen to yourself talking in May 2018? I find it's been interesting listening to myself a lot sadder than I am. I think I'm very much more a positive person since there. But I do also recognise that some of the things that I said still hold very true for me. So it's been an interesting experience is the best way that I can say it. Why did you get in touch with us in the first place? I think because I was incredibly annoyed when I first heard the pitch, as it were,

and I thought, oh, it's going to be the usual thing of either fat advocates all saying, you know, how jolly happy they are, or, you know, sort of very depressed people saying how incredibly unhappy they were and I thought that there needed to be a sort of a medium that there will be people like myself who have issues in terms of their weight are doing wanting to do something about it but also sort of saying to the wider community, to society as well, this is who I am and there needs to be a level of acceptance. There's quite a lot of humour in what you said then.

I'm the elephant in the room. Yes. I'm digging my grave with a spoon. How did you manage to retain a sense of humour about it? I think if you spoke to my friends, they would tell you that I'm just generally quite an amusing person anyway. And I'm not sort of the type of person who's going to just sit down and say, whoa, it's me. So it was important to me to ensure that people could see

that there was amusement and fun in it, but also it wasn't just about sort of putting oneself down. So I don't do that. I'm the elephant in the room anymore when I go out and do my presentations because I don't think it's necessary. I think I sort of did that thing because I wanted people to immediately like me and it was a way of affirming myself. But since that time, I don't feel the need to justify myself so much. You talked about hoarding and a shameful storeroom.

How about now? What have you got now? Yes, the shameful storeroom is probably still there, but it's incredibly well organised. And actually, I've used it more as a kind of my excuse now. It's a zombie apocalypse Brexit storeroom. So, you know, it's those kind of things. It is who I am. I think whether I was a size 10 or whatever I would always be a hoarder but it's organized now so there are proper shelves and

there's an inventory so I feel much more in control of the shameful cowards. How much do you still see cooking and feeding people as the way we all show love? It's fundamental to me. I'm not going to apologise for it. It is the way that I tell you that I love you, in that I want you to be fed. I want you to be contented. I want you to be comforted. But I'm not necessarily anymore plying people with huge amounts of food. And the sort of foods that I will give them now will be slightly different.

So you know, my attitude to food has changed, I think, significantly. So looking at me now, you probably wouldn't know that I lost quite a bit of weight. I've put some of it back on. But after the programme started, a woman got in contact with me who's a hypnotherapist, which has been absolutely brilliant. And I'm currently working with a life coach as well. So it's all about changing your attitude,

not just to food, but to yourself. But you mentioned the effort and motivation it would take to lose weight. How much effort and motivation have you managed? I've managed much more than I have. So I think listening back to the recording and hearing myself saying about you know it was too much about effort and motivation I think my mindset has changed a lot

since the program I think one of the things that I decided to do was embrace all the opportunities that were made available to me so I went and a friend of mine, it was her 50th birthday, and we all flew to Las Vegas. Now, you know, I wouldn't have gone before because I would have been too frightened. But I thought, no, I've just got to go and do this. And since then, I have gone on lots of journeys, I've done a lot of travelling. And as a consequence, I've realised that it's important to slim down in terms of that physical element, just as we were talking about earlier, so that it's physically better for me to be able to, you know, get on and off planes and sit in a particular environment. So the effort to me now is much more worth it. And you've had a promotion at work I have yes which has been

brilliant so you know and with that promotion there is um much more exposure for me in that particular environment and I feel much more confident about myself I mean it's a long journey I'm not going I hate the word journey but But it isn't that I'm saying everything's going to be perfect. But I'm much more confident in myself. And I think having learnt that, that has now helped me decide to do something about my weight. So having said normal is boring, I want to be the best of myself. Yes. How do you see yourself now?

Currently, I'm very happy. I'm very happy with myself in terms of my mindset. Physically, obviously, I'd like to be a lot smaller. Only in that it would just be better and easier for me to navigate myself to kind of, you know, we were talking about sort of shifting, getting out of bed. I have osteoarthritis and fibromyalgia, so that causes me a great deal of difficulty. So being disabled, having an additional weight doesn't help. So that needs to be off. But in terms of myself as a person, I am much, much happier. Melissa, thank you so much for coming back and meeting us again and the very best of luck with

it. Thank you very much for being with us. Now, we've all heard of the helicopter parent, the one who constantly hovers over the children to make sure they're doing the right thing at all times? Well, there's a new name for a slightly different kind of attentive mother or father. The snowplough makes it his or her business to make sure all obstacles are cleared from the path of their child to make sure nothing blocks their route to a successful future. Well, what impact does that kind of constant attention have on the child? Dr. Angharad Rudkin is a child psychologist. Rebecca Glover is the principal of Surbiton High School, whose TEDx talk is called,

Do Snowplough Parents Remove True Grit? Rebecca, as a teacher, what examples of the snowplough parent have you come across? Yes, good morning. There are a number of examples that I've experienced over my 30 years. More recently, I suppose, the introduction of a homework app in schools allows pupils, but more importantly here, parents to be able to see homeworks as they are set by the teacher in any school day. And we more recently had a Year 9 parent came to see me to say that the app was actually distracting her from her working day

because she was finding herself starting her daughter's homeworks as they appeared and were set during the day. And she was researching historical data and creating graphs. And she'd even built a volcano cake for her daughter's geography project before her daughter had even come home from school. So we're finding that many parents are doing their children's homeworks for them. But hasn't that always happened? And that's just a parent trying to be helpful?

I think parents have always supported their children in their homework. But I think we have moved to a culture where parents are so afraid of their children failing or not getting the top marks that they are intervening to a much larger extent than they have done in the past to the extent that they are completing their children's homeworks and if not completing they're checking their homeworks and you can see as a teacher when a parent has actually added a comma or an exclamation mark or put speech marks into a piece of English so certainly it's happening to a greater extent than it ever has done in the past. And what impact does it have on the child when a parent behaves like this they must think oh

that's great mum's done all the research. Yes, they can think that's great. But actually what they're not building up is resilience. So resilience, we know for a fact, can only be built up through experience. You can't teach it. You can't read about it. And if you don't go through tricky times as a child, you never find out that, A, things are never as bad as you think they might be, B, that you can cope with them, but also C, that you can take responsibility not only for your own mistakes, so I will learn from my mistakes, but also genuinely celebrating your own success. If your

mum's made the volcano cake and that gets, you know, a great gold star at school, you can sit there with a smile on your face as an eight-year-old child, but you might think, actually, that wasn't my success. And that's not me. And I don't think I could have done that myself. So actually, yes, it's helpful in the short term for a child to think, brilliant, parents will do that. But in the longer term, there are some really, really significant difficulties that may emerge if your parent has snow plowed the way through. Rebecca I know you've been rather impressed by an aspect of Japanese education why? Yes so in Japan it would appear that they put their children into what is known as the learning pit almost 50% of the time and research of math shows that actually if you make something very difficult for a child and put them into the learning pit so that they can

experience failure through learning. Actually, they build up that resilience to be able to tackle problems when they are very difficult. So in Japan, they will set them maths questions or English questions where they have to work individually or as a group to solve problems that are very, very difficult to solve. So they get used to finding things hard and they get used to building up that immunity, if you like, to failure. And interestingly, it's seen only 1% of the time in English classrooms and in American classrooms.

And I think that's because we are culturally trained to jump in and support our children and show them the way so we don't allow them the same opportunities to struggle. Does that feel a little bit brutal to you, Angharad, that you stick them in a room and give them things that are too difficult for them to do? Well, I think even by asking that question, it shows, doesn't it, how far away we've moved from allowing our children to experience the full richness of life,

that we are so not wanting them to feel distress or disappointment that we that we just protect them from all of those things and I you know I think of parenting as almost like growing a plant that you've all you can do is provide optimal conditions you know for a plant you'll need water sunlight good soil as a parent you provide the optimal context of warmth love security a lovely strong pair of arms to hug them when they're having a difficult time. But beyond that, they've got to live their own life. You cannot grow the plant. You cannot create your child's life. You've got to let them unfold naturally. But you know, Rebecca, as exams and testing, testing, testing has become so much a

feature of the education system, it's hardly surprising that some parents think they have to snowplough, they have to provide a tutor to help with exams. What basically is wrong with that? I think you're absolutely right. I think our education system with its reliance on getting good grades has certainly fuelled the opportunity for parents to become snowplough parents. I don't think there's a great deal wrong with parents supporting their children because that's absolutely what a good parent should do, is support their children to learn and to grow. But we're finding in schools that the first thing that a child will fail at

is their driving test because we're not allowing them sufficient opportunities to fail. And therefore they're not building that resilience so that when they do fail later in life um they're failing it's a disastrous fail as opposed to having those small failures as they move through from childhood to to becoming an adult and how what sort of experiences if children come to you with said oh my mum and dad expect too much. Absolutely, absolutely. So I'll get parents, for example, especially around GCSE and A-level time, they'll get in touch with me in extreme circumstances, wanting an ADHD diagnosis so they can get medication for their child

because they've heard it helps them to concentrate more and this is what everybody else is doing. But more often than not, it will just be a very big gap between what parents want for their child and what a child wants so a child might want to learn to play the guitar and the parents saying you need to play violin because that's what's going to get you into university so all along it's about helping parents to understand what is it that their child wants as opposed to what do they want as parents but also parenting involves having your child distressed at times we cannot protect them from feeling distressed.

And by doing that very thing, they end up being adults who have no ability to tolerate disappointment, sadness, worry. So how should an involved parent behave, Rebecca? So what we're advocating is trampoline parenting. So allowing your child... There are all kinds of new terms, aren't there, for these things? So trampoline parents, what do they do? Jump up and down? So allowing your child opportunities to fail,

but being there to jump high but to fail, but supporting them as they fall back down to the ground in much the same way as you jump on a trampoline. So providing opportunities to experience many different things, but being there to support them if they do fail. And that goes for parents and schools as well. So providing opportunities in schools and at home for parents and children to have those small failures

so that they build up that resistance and that ability when they move out into adult life to have that grit and resilience to face adult life. And how do you make the trampolining? I mean, absolutely. Maybe be a snow shovel, rather than a snow plough. You know, you can take away a little bit as we all want to, to sort of ease the way for our children. But don't take away all of the bumps in the road because they need those bumps in the road to learn how to live. I was talking to Dr Angharad Rudkin and Rebecca Glover. We had a number of responses from you on our discussion about sexual offences against men. Someone who didn't want to be named said thank you for your programme on male rape today. It gave me some hope in the midst of great darkness as I wrestle with the subject.

I was raped by a woman 20 years ago. It took me many years to begin to talk about it and even longer to write about it. The police need to be more alert to the fact that women are just as capable of being predatory and a rapist. Someone else who didn't want to be more alert to the fact that women are just as capable of being predatory and a rapist. Someone else who didn't want to be named said, when my husband and I were living in London in the 70s, we often used to hitchhike. As a woman, I always did this as a pair, either with a female friend or with a male friend or my husband. Generally, men were happy to hitch a ride alone. One evening, my husband missed the last train home, having spent the evening with a friend. Hitching a lift, he was then picked up by a lorry driver who took him to his flat for coffee

and then raped him at knife point. Though he told me at the time and was very emotionally distressed by the experience, there was no support. To my knowledge, my husband never told anyone about this. He died five years ago. I imagine he was not the only one. We never hitchhiked at night after that and we never told our children. And then on Melissa and our conversation about how fat feels, Alison Carter said on Twitter, what an incredibly honest and accurate and articulate account of fatness

and perceptions of it, both interviewed and interviewer. An important document for our times with no pretense. Dr. Wanda Viporska also said on Twitter, this brave woman speaks to so many of us who struggle with body image and weight. My heart salutes you. You are beautiful.

And Saffron said in an email, Melissa was wonderfully honest and in places heartbreaking to hear. I was fat for most of my life. I thought it was strange that I could identify in some ways with articles written by anorexics or bulimics, but thought that my problem was just being greedy, stupid and lazy. And there is no solution for greedy, stupid and lazy. I can't tell you how many dietitians and nutritionists I left clutching my diet sheet with a sense of crushing disappointment, because deep down I knew I wouldn't stick to it and what I actually wanted was for them to give me the willingness to do it which of course they couldn't.

This isn't the same for everyone who's overweight but for me I couldn't stop eating because I have a problem with food. All my reactions to life are to eat happy or sad. I'm a food addict. And on snow ploughing parents, Kate Jarvis said in an email, my son's primary school uses the growth mindset, but it does have to be used properly to communicate that it's okay to fail. More than okay, it's useful and normal. Also, Lego is a great creative thing for failure is learning. There is no judgment. You build something that doesn't work or look how you want, you take apart and try again. You feel in your body that process and just are free to do it.

If judgment comes up from the child, parents can talk or listen. But Lego itself teaches you to learn through mistakes, or rather attempts. And Colin Hopkins said in an email, I've long maintained that one of the best things that happened to my son, now 27, was that he failed grade 3 piano. We all knew that he'd worked hard, done his best, and missed only by a whisker. And so we were able to reassure him that he would certainly stand a really good chance of success with another try, which he did. I feel this has prepared him well for failure and he remains a stoical but optimistic young man.

Now do join me tomorrow when we'll be talking about Alice Guy Blaché. She was a pioneering French filmmaker. In 1896, she wrote, produced and directed one of the first narrative films ever made. But her contribution to the birth of cinema has largely been erased or forgotten. Tomorrow, we'll find out why. Join me then. Bye bye. Henry Akeley disappeared from his home on the edge of Rendlesham Forest somewhere around the end of June 2019. They come every night now. The police don't believe me. Please, I just need you to get in touch. What we uncovered is a mystery that has sent us deep

into England's past, to an area steeped in witchcraft, the occult, secret government operations. Now we have multiple sites of five lights with a similar shape. And something that might indeed be altogether otherworldly. This is The Whisperer in Darkness. Available now on BBC Sounds. I'm Sarah Trelevan and for over a year I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody

out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know. It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this?

From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story. Settle in. Available now.