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Holly Willoughby and Ant Middleton clash on This Morning after star’s controversial comments about boys crying
22 May 2019, 07:55
SAS Who Dares Win star Ant Middleton revealed on This Morning he teaches his son not to cry at school.
Ant Middleton joined Holly Willoughby and Phillip Schofield on This Morning this week, where the former soldier defended his controversial comments about boys crying.
The TV personality, who stars on SAS Who Dares Wins, clashed with host Holly as he revealed he teaches his son, 10, to not cry at school.
Speaking on the show, he explained: “I teach him to control his emotions, and people will take advantage of your weaknesses, especially kids, they can be so cruel.
“I just teach them to control them, I don’t teach them not to cry, because we all cry, I cry! I teach them to hold that emotion to get the job done.”
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Ant went on to add: “My son came home and said ‘I was crying, everyone called me a crybaby’, and I’m like ‘son, hold your emotions and then come home and cry to me, tell me about it, and I’ll help you out and tell you what to do’. And I think that is important, that we control our emotions.
"If we went around crying every day and being pampered... It's that resilience that is being docked out of us, it's important we have that bit of resilience.”
Holly, who is a mother to three children, instead suggested a different parenting route.
She said: “Or, the other way to look at it is tell the other children not to call him a crybaby. That would almost be a better way.”
While Ant replied, “of course”, he went on to say: “You know what kids are like in the playground.
“There’s no right way of parenting, as long as you feel in your heart of hearts that I am doing the best for my son, and my daughter, then I install what’s worked for me.”
The debate comes after Ant appeared on Giovanna Fletcher’s podcast Happy Mum, Happy Baby.
During his chat, Ant said: “I try and make sure he controls his emotions, I do say to him 'Son, you're a little man now, have a stiff upper lip'.
"I avoid eye contact because the moment he sees me eyes he will start crying, but if it was my daughter I would probably run over to see if she is okay."
