Holding the Rope and Showing Up

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1:02Elliott:hello and welcome back to to be a boy with me jolly braley and me elliott ray we really would love you to click subscribe i know we keep saying that but it really does help us maybe a little like as well just to show that you're giving us a good thumbs up you know it just makes us feel good thank you very much so jolly you've had quite a morning you've had quite a morning haven't you what have you done this morning ice cream headaches you know where you feel like you've eaten too much ice cream but actually it's from bottling up my emotions because I've been to my eldest son's leavers assembly he's leaving primary school is going to go to secondary school in September and for any parents that are listening to this that are going through the same thing or have been through the same thing I think you'll know what I mean when I say you feel like your nerves are all exposed and you could cry at any given point it just feels really scary it feels like you're saying goodbye to their childhood and you're now moving into a different phase and it happens so fast and you suddenly find yourself at the end of primary school and you inevitably reflect on them being five years four five years old when they first start primary school and their little tiny hands and how nervous they were about going into school and then how they'd fall asleep in your arms and say things like, I love you, mama, more than anything in the entire world.

2:30Elliott:And then you look at this child that is about to hit puberty, who is just a different person to that tiny, tiny little child, but that tiny little child is still in there. And you know that they are terrified of the next stage and we're all walking into the dark and into the unknown together. So it's been quite the morning. I can imagine, you know, and I feel I feel like I look back at when I left year six. And I just think I wasn't aware of what my parents were experiencing, you know, because you're in your you're having your experience. You're going through your own motions and your friends.

3:12And there's a mixture of that excitement. But also you're a little bit overwhelmed and you're going to miss your school, but you're still excited. And it's just this mixture of emotions. but looking back I had no idea that my mum and dad would have been experiencing this from a completely different viewpoint and for parents it's massive your child is growing up they're becoming independent they're going to be in a completely new environment that's going to demand different things of them and they're going through hormonal changes puberty different friendships and it's great because they're growing up and that's what we want but it's emotional at the same time.

3:50Elliott:I asked some people for stories of their experience of going through this phase and one of the lovely messages that I had was from Balance and Soul on Instagram and she said that there's a post somewhere on Instagram so she hasn't come up with this but she's reiterating something she'd read and it says that when they're young we need to be a puppy when we see them full full of enthusiasm, adoration and ready to play. Once they hit senior years, we need to be a cat. More chill, loving and available, but not in their face. Which I just thought was a really perfect metaphor. And it's really hard on the parents this because you do have to force yourself to take that step back.

4:37Elliott:And all I want to do is smother him in kisses and tell him how much I love him. and he doesn't, that's not what he needs right now. He still needs my love, but in a different way. And what animal do you need to be when they hit 18? A hippo? A hippo? A rhino? You just stand there and don't move. Just wait for them to approach. I mean, I dread to think what's going to happen at 18. I am worried about 13, 14. This is the period of time which is panicking me. I'm not quite there yet. But I asked Caroline Jacobs, who is a mum to three boys. She's an adolescent wellbeing coach for teenage boys, young men and their parents.

5:22Elliott:She used to be a secondary school teacher, secondary school teacher for years. And then in 2019, she qualified as a neurodivergent expert on autism, ADHD and a parenting coach. The bit that I'm worried about is when they start withdrawing from family life. and I'm starting to see little glimmers of it already. And this is what Caroline had to say. One of the issues that parents contact me for regularly is asking the question, why is my son withdrawing from family life? He's growing up, but why doesn't he want to spend time with us? And the reason for that is he will have noticed your reaction to the changes that he's going through.

6:02And he will be getting support and help from his peers about what's going on and growing up and realising that the issues of puberty and adolescence, you all go through them, possibly at different times, but he's getting support with that. Parents find themselves isolated, which is why I've said it's really important to keep talking to other parents, but your reactions to him and his behaviour are going to be misinterpreted by him. He may feel he's disappointing you. He may feel that actually he's causing you upset and disappointment. Therefore, a way to avoid that is to retreat. Retreat to his room where he can talk to his friends online, watch the things that he wants to watch and generally get those dopamine hits from his amygdala, which are so, so important in teenagers.

6:56So it's more about parents. We've got to think about how do we react to the changes that our son is going through.

7:05Elliott:What I find really interesting about some of the messages that Caroline left me, I haven't played all of them, is that she really talks about the brain changes that happen for boys during adolescence. And I think it's really important for any parent going through this to learn about those brain changes because you then, rather than being angry or frustrated, you can understand it from a neurochemical perspective what is actually happening to them and I think that inevitably makes you feel a bit more patient and a bit more understanding when they behave in these really irrational ways I know that I behave like a complete lunatic between the ages of 13 to 15 actually between the ages of 13 to 30 probably but they parents unless they really understand what they're going through will expect them to behave differently so I would really encourage parents to read books about what is happening to their brains during this period.

7:58Yeah and those changes are so interesting because I've realised having a nine-year-old and a two-year-old that my children are not going to be exactly like me like they're their own people so they're going to do and say things and act in ways that I wouldn't have and one thing that me and my wife always talk about when our daughters do something we always kind of compare to ourselves we're very aware of it though not in comparison or we were better or worse but we always reflect and say I like what did I do in that situation or how was I and then we very quickly realize that we are not our kids and they are their own people and that's it's a really hard thing to come to terms with but I think the better we can understand that they are their own people they are experiencing the world at a different time they may be a different gender they may be a different sexuality they have different interests they are a different personality sometimes and seeing them go from like young children where for the most part in primary school you know we can direct what they're doing who their friends are you know we can we can kind of be involved a lot more to see them get older and make their own decisions especially when the decisions that we wouldn't choose ourselves I find that quite challenging yeah but I think as soon as I realized that no we have to support them to be their own people and I look at my role as a parent as kind of a steward and a guardian for a period of time like my job is not to be I don't own you my job is to help you to be the best human being you're gonna you can be to give you the support, the safety, the security, the love, the emotional stability, everything to give you a good start in life so then you can go and flourish later on.

9:49Elliott:But they're going to go off the beaten track at points because that's what kids do and you've just got to be there to go, oh no, no, not that one, no, this path, let's just put you back on this one and then off they go again. How do you feel about that change in kind of your role in regards to discipline and direction? Are you thinking about maybe that's going to change as they get older? Yeah, I think you have to take each day as it comes. I think it's hard to plan. But I know that once my eldest hit year six, things changed. There was a real sea change. And I hear that from loads of parents.

10:20Elliott:It seemed like there were different challenges that arose and different behaviors that you started to see. And it was like he was starting to really find his personality. But with that comes new challenges. And so we've had some hairy moments in year six, but I think we handled them okay. We've had to start delivering some quite tough messages that I know are going to upset her. And it's that kind of realization that she's growing up into the world now. So unfortunately, there's going to be hard things and you're going to feel feelings that you don't like. But that is part of growing up. I can't shield you from that.

10:59so I have to do it and accept that it's really bloody hard but I believe it's for your benefit in the long run and so it doesn't feel nice right now but hopefully in 30 years time we'll be sitting down for a meal and you'll say dad remember when I was in year four year five and you did that I really appreciate you standing up and not taking the easy option and it might take 30 years for them to realize it was the right thing to do fingers crossed well good old Caroline thankfully

11:26Elliott:has sent her three expert tips of what parents should do. So let's have a listen to this and see what we're doing. Here are three practical tips that, as parents, you can put in place to help you get through your son, going through puberty in adolescence, and becoming someone you don't know, but yet you are going to have a different relationship with and a more mature relationship with. So, number one, you get no devices in the bedroom overnight. So that's no phones, no tablets, no iPads, no going on your computer after it's bedtime. On a school night, especially, because of the changes that's happening in their brains, they need so much more sleep to be able to process all that's going on and for the brain to be able to sort out and get rid of things that it doesn't need.

12:16And all this happens while they are asleep. So you have to help them by taking away their devices so they are not talking to others, you know until the early hours of the morning pry and model that too the best thing would be if you do that as well and it's not easy but if you all just go right all of us phones out of the bedroom we're getting sleep because it shows that you are prioritizing their sleep and your own sleep too as parents we are always setting an example to our sons wherever we are and whatever we do and say at home don't set yourself up as the perfect person because they need to see your mistakes and they need to see how you cope with your mistakes how you come back from doing something that you wish you hadn't done or wish you haven't said they also as they are growing older need to see how you cope with being upset if you're going through grief don't hide it from them explain to them what's going on and actually explain to them it's okay if you see me cry it's it's all right I'm I'm needing to cry at that moment and I know that the act of crying is gonna make me feel better afterwards it's actually helping me get through this feeling of grief and all you have to say to them is when I'm going through that I'd really love it if you could just come and give me a hug and that's all they need to know they just want to know what to do so my final tip is they lead the belief that you still love them and are happy with them regardless of the mask or the front that they put on they want your love and support but they may act as if they don't and they may say they don't want hugs anymore or want to spend time with you or be close to you but they are rarely going to admit they need you as their stable point you may be their only stable point that they have, well, they sort of thrash about through the maelstrom of hormones and peer pressure and taking risks and having new feelings.

14:22You do need to be their security if you can be. And even though it looks like they may not value that and they couldn't care less and they don't need you, just keep believing they do need you because they really do appreciate when they come out of it, when they return, it's them that they'll say, thank you for never giving up on me. thank you for being there even though I was being a right pain in the arse so those are my three top tips on how to parent through the teenage years well damn Caroline I wasn't expecting to be emotional today do you know what she said there becoming someone that you don't know and my daughter's in year four my eldest but I feel like she's like quite mature you've met her right she's very tall very mature very confident and so I feel like I'm already in this stage now where she's becoming a like a new person and so much of parenting in the early years is the primary school nursery stuff and then all of a sudden you're in this world and it's like wow wait a minute no one spoke to me about this how do I how do I do with this bit yeah yeah these new

15:25Elliott:challenges just suddenly smack you in the face and you don't know what to do with them and it's really overwhelming I want to give another tip because this is something I've learned from doing the podcast and I have used it ever since and I've found it's paid off quite well I ask my kids for advice now on like not like big serious I'm not like oh could you do my work budget for me and tell me where I should be spending my money you know obviously I ask them like just basic advice on stuff that's happening in my life and I do it because I want them to reciprocate I want them to asked me my advice and stuff and I feel that unless I'm demonstrating that that they're not going to do it back to me and actually it seems to be working so I give that a go yeah I'm big on talking to them about what I'm doing like how I'm feeling I also think at this period as well like bringing in other people like other adults I think is really important I've tried recently to have more conversations with the younger people in my life like really making time for it I'm I'm seeing that people are seeing me as an uncle now I'm 42 years old I feel like I'm much younger but they're seeing me as and I am I'm literally I am an uncle right and so I'm becoming like the elder and I was out the other day and there was a kind of family friend young guy he was 15 years old and we had a conversation about dating and about how he feels about girls and kind of come into that world and afterwards his mum and dad said to me oh thank you so much for speaking to him because he doesn't listen to us but coming from you someone who like dresses a bit like him you know he's got an earring like him so similar fashion dancing into the same kind of music or whatever the parents are just like thank you for taking that time out so I think it's also about like bringing in other people and using that network now and who are the trusted adults around us that we can also use in this time of transition to help like our kids navigate yeah I think that's crucial they're not going to probably not going to come to you for the big you as a parent for the big advice they're going to go to somebody else aren't they either a peer or another adult that's in their lives that they feel they can have frank honest conversations with and I can imagine you doing that actually earlier I can imagine you being the adult that some kids would go to to have those conversations I was listening to Anna Machen who's an evolutionary biologist on a podcast and she was saying how this notion that boys need to have father fathers in their lives and she talked a bit about that and said if you ask boys from single parent households who have a single mum what men are in their lives they will list loads And yet the single mum may not be able to list a lot because they seek them out and they find these role models and they find the people who they can trust and talk to them.

18:24Elliott:They just do it naturally, which I found very comforting because, you know, I have lots of single mum friends and they worry about this. But yeah, I think it's just good to know that they will ask for advice and support. You just want to know they're getting good advice and support and they're not just getting it from the internet. yeah exactly and I spoke to my my friend who's a bit older than me and I was like look I'm getting into my uncle era right I'm becoming an uncle now and so he's giving me advice on how to give advice so I've got my own mentor for like how do I talk to these young people I think the other thing that does I'm bracing myself for is my eldest distancing himself from me inevitably they hit 13 and they are biologically programmed to take a big step back from you because otherwise they become man babies right yeah you don't want that you don't want that we don't want that so then we have to go through this we both have to go through this and we're living at a house and they're 40 years old they're still living there you're doing that ironing and they're cooking you're like you should have you should have distanced yourself from me when you were 13 i need a life too now exactly yeah so they uh we don't want the man baby so we both have to go through this very painful process and i know that we're on the horizon of it and again i've got caroline here to just share with us some pros as she puts it bit of pros but i encourage all of the parents that i work with to read and think about and i often talk about it with them it's called the letter your teenager I Can't Write You by Gretchen Smelzer and written in 2015.

20:11Dear parent, this is the letter I wish I could write. The fight we are in right now, I need it. I need this fight. I can't tell you this because I don't have the language for it and it wouldn't make sense anyway but I need this fight badly. I need to hate you right now and I need you to survive it. I need you to survive my hating you and you hating me. I need this fight even though I hate it too. It doesn't matter what this fight is, even about. Curfew, homework, laundry, my messing room, staying out, staying in, leaving, not leaving. It doesn't matter. I need to fight you on it and I need you to fight me back.

20:47I desperately need you to hold on to the other end of the rope, to hang on tightly while I thrash on the other end, while I find the handholds and footholds in this new world I feel like I am in. I used to know who I was, who you were, who we were, but right now I don't. Right now I am looking for my edges and I can sometimes only find them when I'm pulling on you. When I push everything I used to know to which edge, then I feel like I exist and for a minute I can breathe. I know you long for the sweeter kid that I was. I know this because I long for that kid too and some of that longing is what is so painful for me right now.

21:23There's half of the prose and half of the letter and if you'd like to go online, just literally type in the letter your teenager can't write you and you'll be able to read the rest of it. The final sentence of it, though, is this. And it says, Please hang on to the other end of the rope and know that you are doing the most important job that anyone could possibly be doing for me right now. Love your teenager. And that's the truth. You've got to keep holding onto the rope. That's a parent's job. Don't give up on them. Show them that no matter how hard they may fight, they went back against it. You love them and you will be there for them.

22:01And that's what they need. amazing emotional oh you know i think about that and i think my mom and dad they were worried about me when i was a teenager because i was smoking a lot of weed i was drinking i was just a bit wild right like i was i was a good kid at heart like i had a job you know went to uni but i was definitely a bit irresponsible and a bit wild and they are very responsible people so it was completely left for them and there were times when they were very worried about what I was going to become coming from Grenada St Vincent seeing their son as a good young boy going through very difficult teenage years but when I look back how they stuck with me like they stayed they did the hard shit there's one time I had a job part-time job in Iceland and um not the country not the country no no can you imagine i'd go there every weekend every sunday is to work at iceland and thursday and my parents were quite liberal but they they expected hard work so on the saturday night we had family over had cousins and friends and i must have been 17 just turned 17 and so i said to my parents like can we go out to this club you know and and they were like yeah you can go but you've got work in the morning i was like great so we went out had a great time came back three or four in the morning drunk got into bed my shift is at at 10 i woke up at nine i called my boss and i said to my boss i don't feel very well i think i've got a chest infection i'm gonna go back to sleep sorry went back to bed 15 minutes later my dad comes in the room ben and mine has three of us sleeping tip to toe head to toe in our bed right he comes in and he's like elliot you got work and i explained myself i'm not feeling too well i'm gonna take the day off he i remember this he denies it but he got the mattress the duvet chuck the duvet off and then got the mattress chuck the mattress off and we went flying off the bed and he was like you're going in so i had to call my boss and i was like i feel better now taking some paracetamol i'm coming in he thought i was crazy went to work did my shift and came home to this day i say thank you because you stuck with it when I was a little shit doing stupid stuff just being irresponsible you stuck with it I could imagine you couldn't be bothered right a Sunday morning you had a party last night you didn't want to do that you could have just said yeah just sleep in have the day

24:30Elliott:off yeah he did the hard stuff he didn't want to do yeah much easier he did the hard stuff and now I'm like thank you for doing the hard stuff because we're here now and we're all good This summer, no excuses. Double down when everyone else disconnects. At Equinox, that's high-performance living. Science-backed training, real results. Start today at equinox.com. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Listening to this podcast instead of doom-scrolling? Smart move. Another smart move? Getting help from one of State Farm's 19 ,000 local agents when you choose to bundle home and auto. bundling just another way to save with the personal price plan prices are based on rating plans that vary by state coverage options are selected by the customer availability amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state it instills a work ethic in you that you clearly still have today my dad i broke his record player messing about like i was listening to kinky boots boots kinky boots and i was dancing around the living room and i broke the needle on his record player and he made me save up to buy a new needle that was about 50 pounds so I and I was maybe 12 so I had to do paper rounds paper rounds at the age of 12 to earn back 50 quid and each paper round was 80 pence 80 pence around yeah this is how old I am Elliot you got paid 80 pence a paper round and I so it took me almost a year to save up this 50 quid to buy him a new needle and he frog marched me to the shop with the 50 pounds I'd save and I handed the 50 pounds over and he got his new needle and he went thank you very much put it in his record player and I was like love it but I've just worked for a full year and I've got nothing to show for it but I tell you what that taught me a lesson I never broke another record player and it taught me that you work for your money you don't get anything yes Joni's dad and And do you know what we would do now?

26:38We'd make the kids save and they would say, oh, okay, you've done the work. You go and buy some sweets. Do you know what I mean? Whereas he actually saw it through and he was like, thank you very much. This is for me. That's hard. At the time, he probably couldn't be bothered because you've got to have the argument, right? And then see you upset. And it's just long. You don't want to have that stress. But those are the life lessons that teach us. They teach us. And I think these years are really tough.

27:05Elliott:We have got this whole new world, though, to contend with that we don't understand because of the internet and social media. I just want to play you a message that somebody sent me about a conversation they overheard in the car. I picked my two sons who were 12 and 14 up from school the other night. Both of them got in the car and my youngest said, Mum, you'll never guess what's happened today. A guy in year eight has been suspended because he sent a picture of his willy to loads of year sevens and said which of you wants to suck it i couldn't believe yeah so you know that's heading that's careering towards us and i guess you know they were just exposed to this sort of stuff much earlier than we were that is it and so i was talking to some friends that have got older kids than me and like what like how did you help your kids transition to secondary school and the main thing they said was just keep the lines of communication open because my initial response to that is it's just so shocking and then to kind of like go into some rant about how bad is but then thinking is that what our children need from us probably not then they probably want to discuss it and they probably want a conversation about how they feel about it but you know what as well i think we need to take some bloody responsibility here as adults because we have given kids these tools that they don't know what to do with them we've expect we have you know our generation created the internet and created social media and created mobile phones and then we're suddenly giving kids exposing kids to this adult world at a young age and they don't know how to act and they're behaving oddly and then we punish them for it when actually it's not their fault and actually I have just given our 11 year old a mobile phone ready for secondary school and I it's weighing on my mind enormously whether that was the right decision or not but as we keep saying we are left with these very difficult decisions between giving kids these this tool that we know is dangerous for them or socially ostracizing them from their peer groups and it's not a choice any of us want to feel forced to make yeah it's kind of an unfortunately a no-win situation isn't it like there's so many cons to either choice but I guess unfortunately that's the world we live in right and we've got to kind of navigate that the best we can and you know you you know your kid and I think I feel also one of our previous guests said if we're doing something 80 % right like if we are diligent if we're having these conversations if we're learning if we're trying then it's probably gonna be okay like it'll be slippery and rockier along the way but I do believe in parenting like 80 % is good enough and so I guess I just try to reassure people yes we should be worried yes we should be concerned yes there are big changes coming up for so many kids and ourselves but if we're thinking about it and trying to do the right things and you're listening to this podcast you're probably gonna be all right you're probably gonna be all right yeah yeah that's the message for everybody absolutely you're right it's gonna be okay it's gonna be a ride but it's gonna be all right yeah everyone so i asked some of my friends who have older kids what like what are their practical tips for their kids that started secondary school and they told me a few really interesting things so the first thing they said was do the journey if the kid's going on public transport like do the journey with them a couple of times during the holidays let them lead let them buy their own ticket like pick what train or bus to get on maybe go for a cheeky nando's on the way home to make it fun but help them to do the journey which i thought was just a great practical idea they also said something which was really interesting which was get them used to timetables and lockers.

30:49Because obviously in primary school, you're just told where to go. Whereas secondary school, you have a locker, you have a timetable, you have to be more independent. So some of my friends sat their kids down and were like, this is how you work a locker. This is a key. This is a timetable. This is how you read it, et cetera. They spoke about sleep, sleep schedule. So one thing that I'm actually quite bad with is letting our kids in the summer holidays just go to bed whenever they want, which is okay for the most part. but then towards the end of the summer holidays when the school starts their advice was get them into the sleep schedule like a week before so of course they're not going to want to go to bed at 8 p.m under summer holidays when it's hot outside and they don't need to but getting them used to that a week before they go back is really good they're getting the rhythm they're getting their sleep schedule fantastic advice another thing go to smiggle blow some money at smiggle go and buy a new school bag, jacket, stationery, water bottle, like that excitement of the new stuff.

31:51Like we all love new stuff. You know what I mean? That new pencil case. The kids still have pencil cases these days? Pretty sure they do. I'm sure they do. They still buy it with pen and pencils, don't they? Yeah, yeah.

32:00Elliott:We've got lists for the secondary school. It's got like compass on it and protractor and all those things that you thought didn't exist anymore, but they still do. And the last thing they said was that first week back, make sure you have time. so basically don't do a work trip to Singapore in their first school yeah so make sure you're available in the evenings like you have some space in your work calendar for their first couple of weeks so you know you're just around you're around to support so yeah hopefully that's some practical advice for anyone who's starting a new school or even just going back to school after the summer holidays I think that's great advice anyway like going back to work as well after the summer holidays if you're lucky enough to get a holiday I know when I go on holiday I come back and I'm do that peter k thing where i've forgotten to write and you can't figure anything out you know what's my password again who am i yeah literally well thank you that was great advice i think we've had some great advice from caroline and for anybody else who's going through this and is about to send their kid off to secondary school good luck to good luck you good luck you're gonna smash it You're going to be good.

33:09You're going to be fine. Before we get to that, we have a summer holiday to negotiate. All I'm seeing on social media is parents just worried and shitting themselves about the summer holidays.

33:19Elliott:Yeah. We've got six weeks to entertain our kids. How are we going to get through this period? How are you feeling about it, Jolie? How are you feeling about the six weeks coming up? Actually, better than I do usually because we've managed to plan the whole summer holidays out. So we'd booked lots of different things in. I tell you what, it rinses the bank balance, doesn't it? When you get to summer. The costs are extraordinary. And there was some research out yesterday which found that on average, the summer holiday childcare costs per child£1 ,072, which, I mean, is like a lot of people's income.

34:00Yeah, it's ridiculous. The system is seriously broken. Deloitte sent me some research. So shout out to Laura Parsons at Deloitte. She sent me some research that they've done recently about the summer holidays. And it showed that 5 % of UK working parents surveyed feel significant guilt about spending insufficient time with their primary school age children during the school summer holidays. That's sad, right? That's sad. A third of people feel guilty about it because lack of flexibility, work demands. It's just tough. It's just tough. We don't get as much holiday that we should to cover the annual leave that our children get and the school holidays that they get.

34:38So it's really, really bloody difficult. So we hear you. We feel you on that. 39 % of working parents of primary school age children use all of their annual leave to cope. 23 % of parents lack enough leave to cover the entire break. And 39 % of parents surveyed said that a lack of flexibility at their partner's workplace had led to arguments with their partner around children and childcare responsibilities in the summer. So summer holidays, how am I feeling about it? I'm feeling okay. And it's not necessarily, my stresses aren't necessarily because of like work. I'm lucky enough to work for myself so I can take time off.

35:14My stress is how I'm going to entertain two kids who just bicker all the time. They just bicker, right? Like the oldest picks up the youngest when she's randomly eating dinner and we'll just pick her up from eating her dinner and take her into the other room for no reason. The youngest will come and eat my oldest's dinner when she's eating. It's just like, it's just chaos. There's always screaming and crying in the house. And six weeks of that is going to drive me crazy.

35:42Elliott:Yeah. If you've got family close by, it makes life a hell of a lot easier. But you've got, you know, unless you've got a really, really flexible employer, people tend to have really difficult work conversations as well. And this can really affect their future income and their career potential because you can't just leave little Johnny with a packet of B-flavored hula hoops at home and hope that he'll be fine. He needs looking after and you need to go to work because you've got commitments to both of those things simultaneously. And many employers just are not understanding of this. they don't seem to want to be flexible they don't seem to want to help parents out and inevitably that's going to cause you all sorts of issues career-wise but also arguments with family members arguments with your partner if you have one falling out with your kid because they're screaming in the background while you're trying to do your emails or do your work and it just adds to this unbelievable weight that parents carry with them everywhere they go yeah and i want to give a shout out to the parents who are experiencing this for the first time because it's really nice when the kids are at nursery and the nurseries are open during the summer holidays so it's all good let's put little jolly in summer club and summer nursery it's great then that first year before they start school and you realize shit there's no nursery and we've got six weeks of how do we plan this really bloody difficult so again i asked some friends like what helps what do you find helps and they gave me a few really good tips so first of all was a bit like you, Jolie, plan.

37:13Get that Excel spreadsheet out, use your MS skills and plan meticulously. Clubs, obviously, if you can afford it, using your clubs, it costs money, but they are good and available if they're in your area. Lean on your network, right? Grandparents on speed dial. My parents are half an hour away and we've got them booked in on multiple occasions and the same with my wife's mum as well so that's really important being honest with your employer so this is where parenting out loud comes in really especially for the dads who maybe don't talk about their childcare responsibilities it's really important that you do because you may need more flexibility there'll be things that you need to juggle your kids may be present when you're doing your meetings during the summer holidays so parenting out loud talking about your family talking and having honest conversations with your your line manager your colleagues just about the juggle and what you need and the help you need to get through the summer that's really important and lastly one thing I think is quite quite good to understand is that kids can be bored and it's okay for kids to be bored and so not putting like too much pressure on ourselves to have to like entertain them every day like some days we can't go to the zoo some days we can't go to the aquarium some days you have to sit down with a screen for a little while watch a bit of tv eat some snacks and just be bored and that's fine that is fine so yeah hopefully with those top tips

38:44Elliott:summer won't be as stressful for you and people should know as well that they do have rights you know they do they do have a legal right to dependents leave and if you can't get child care you can take leave if you have to if there's nobody else to look after your children it is some paid but you do have a right to have time off to look after a dependent and yes I obviously agree with parenting out loud I know some women would be very nervous about doing that because they think they will experience discrimination or disadvantage because they're talking about their children at work but again remember you have rights as a parent in the workplace and if you do experience of disadvantage or discrimination because you have caring responsibilities, then make sure you contact one of the many free legal advice lines that are available to discuss this and talk to ACAS about it.

39:40Elliott:It's very important that you know your rights. So we just want to just spend a little bit of time reflecting on good old Steve Biddulph because he is the goat and we've had so many lovely comments about that episode Steve was incredible it was like listening to your granddad I think just his voice alone just Steve just talking kind of gives you a sense of comfort and warmth and listening back I had to pause it a couple of times because it was just getting me emotional on the train I was like I'm going to do a talk here I need to show up and talk in front of hundreds of people and I can't cry on the train on the way to doing this but there was one thing that he said he was speaking about when he does workshops with men about their relationship with their fathers and he said there's normally 10 % of the guys that don't speak until the end and when they do they're the ones that had the good relationship and he said that one guy said to him wherever I'm going through ups and downs I can always talk to my dad and he doesn't always agree with me but I know he's on my side and Steve I was on the central line and I was like I've got to pause that because it just got me so emotional and the feedback we've had has been incredible big up lucia she said impossible to not feel emotional what a guy loved this and loved him sophie said what a lovely man it was brilliant and rena said she loved this finished reading raising boys recently and he's as lovely as i imagined so the feedback has been incredible if you haven't listened to that after this episode go back listen to steve he is the goat his book has sold four million copies around the world raising boys incredible guy incredible man and he's just so gentle and kind i'm all here for the gentle and kind men and you could see it instantly just in his manner and the way he spoke and how gracious he was and how kind he was to us so thank you steve for being glorious so have a great summer we hope you enjoy your summer We're taking a little bit of a break.

41:47Elliott:Yeah, a little holiday for us. We're still going to be feeding you with episodes. So you're still going to get weekly Elliot and Jolie content with special guests. But yeah, we're going to be taking a little bit of a break over. And then we'll see you back for our solo episodes in September. New opportunities, new ventures, new school years, loads to talk about. But we just want to say thank you so much for the support. We appreciate it so much. I'm out and about and people approach me all the time and just talk about how the conversations are helping them to parent, helping their relationships, bringing them closer to their children.