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August 31, 2025 13 mins

Look: kids parties are a lot. But there's also a lot to be learned from them. Like the different ways that young boys interact, that you're not your kids, or that they're a great place to practice trying to stay calm.

Need some help in situations you find difficult? Check out So What, Now What?

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FINAL TICKETS FOR STORY CLUB, SEPTEMBER 7th, ON SALE NOW. 

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Gooday, Welcome to the show. This is Better Than Yesterday.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Useful tools and useful conversations to help make your day
to day better than yesterday, every week since twenty thirteen.

Speaker 1 (00:11):
My name' Josha Ginsberg. Thanks being a part of the show.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
If you check into the show notes, you'll see that
you can find tickets to story Club, which is happening
this Sunday the seventh, featuring Nigel Marsh, Kevin Hahn, John Glover,
Sashi Pereira, Gretelee Jackson and myself.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
The theme is.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Pants on Fire, Live Storytelling, Live on stage in Sydney.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
That's also in the show notes.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
That's where you can find the link to the brand
new book which you can buy, and a link to
the book reviews.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Thank you so much for leading reviews of the book. Zoe.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
He wrote a beautiful book review on Amazon. This book
is a masterpiece. It had me sobbing a few pages
in and smiling by the end. I devoured it in
one sitting. She also wrote, this book is sure to
inspire anyone who's feeling like they're in a bit of
a rut. I will definitely pick it up and read
it again and again. Thank you so much for writing that, Zoe,

(01:02):
that makes my day, like, absolutely makes my day, because
that is the exact feeling that I wanted you to
get when reading the book. So thank you Heaps for
taking the time to do that. Court left a review
on Goodreads. Thank you for doing that. Court wrote, this
is a fantastic introduction of mindfulness, probably the most effective
psychotherapy developed to date. Court's talking about acceptance commitment therapy there.

(01:27):
Thank you Osha for putting simply into words, and to
Cam for adding vision what so many of us need
to practice. I'd recommend this book as a conversation starter
and a bridge to professional services. Court also wrote the
audiobook is just as good, if not better. Can't wait
for the animated short film, which is surely on the cards. Well,

(01:48):
I don't know if I'm going to do an animated
short film just yet, but the live show is most
definitely on the cards.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
I'm developing that very reason.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
I have to put a trailer out before the end
of this week when we announce the two dates, but
the film will possibly follow.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Look, you never know, but in the.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Spirit of the books, so what now what, I'm just
going to come right out and say this, I have
a hard time at kids parties, mostly because I'm reliving
my own.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
Childhood horror of kids' parties.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Birthday parties in particular, I find it incredibly difficult to
be there with all of the noise and all of
the stimulation and all of the screaming. Yet at the
same time, I also really enjoy watching these fine young
human beings. Some of them I've known since they were
literally babies. I've watched them grow up, and I love

(02:44):
watching them become their own people, figuring out the interactions
between each other. I'm fascinated with where their social circles
move and change, the chain of command, where the alliances are.
All that stuff's really really interesting to me. It's really fun.
They're hilarious human beings that having only growing up knowing
what it's like to be a boy. Though I'm not

(03:06):
gonna lie, I find it difficult sometimes watching on as
an adult. In my broad experience, boys usually come in
two kinds, bam bam and other people. The bam bam
boys generally communicate and connect mostly through pushing and shoving

(03:28):
and punching and chasing and wrestling and screaming, sometimes all
at once. It's pretty easy to tell who is who,
because a Bam Bam can bam bam with another Bam bam,
and there's no sign of distress at all. To me,

(03:50):
watching it will look like a world Star hip hop
video from the sidelines, and I get filled with tension,
and I'm wondering should I run over there or should
I break up?

Speaker 1 (04:00):
What's going on?

Speaker 2 (04:00):
What's about to happen? Is it all going to go down?
But on closer inspection, there's no distress there. That's just
how those guys connect. They'll be rolling around on the
ground with headlocks intertwined, kicking and flailing around, and then
just get up and carry on like nothing ever happened.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
They're totally cool with it.

Speaker 2 (04:24):
I'm thrilled they're cool with it, and I'm certainly not
saying there's anything wrong with it, But I just can't
really understand it still because I am definitely not, nor
have I ever been in the Bam bam category.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
As I've spoken about on the show before.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Getting punched in the arm as a way to connect
with me certainly not what I'm interested in as a kid.
Anything like what I've just described was only ever an
assault that I needed to defend myself from It was
never fun, It was never enjoyable, never playful. Nor can
I even still understand how it can be. But I
see other people able to do it.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
I know what can happen. I just truly don't really
understand it.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
So as an adult, when I'm at a kids party
with my son and I see the bambam situation just erupting,
I'm not gonna lie. It's really difficult for me because
I remember wanting so much to connect and to play
with other guys, wanting to be around them and be
in on the game. But it's like there's some sort
of unwritten rule of how hard those pushes and shoves

(05:23):
and that wrestling is supposed to go, and I never
knew what that was. So not as a way to
push back or defend myself, more as a way to
just try to join in.

Speaker 1 (05:32):
I would, I.

Speaker 2 (05:33):
Would try to be a part of the bambam, and
all that would end up happening is I would hit
or kick or punch too hard, and then suddenly, very rapidly.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
It's no longer that, and then I was by myself again.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
I find it really confronting me at kids' parties, only
because I'm filtering what I'm seeing through my own experience.
Bear in mind, I never act on it, and I
only ever step in if someone's in a great deal
of distress, even then only if it's my son. And
further still, I only have a handle him and together
figure out if he needs to make a bit of
space for a little while, or you know, go and

(06:05):
talk to someone and say sorry or something like that.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
That's the extent of it.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
But now that I'm going to these parties for a
little bit, I'm finding it easier and easy to discover
who are the kids who oscillate on the BAM band
frequency and who are the ones that don't. I was
at a part of the other day. There's twelve kids there,
and we're in the small party room at a venue,
you know, the kind of one that put all the
kids in one side so they can eat some cake

(06:30):
and stuff, so without the entire venue getting covered in cake.
I sing a tomato sauce, and when the deep fried
chicken like substances hit the table, these obviously quite hungry
and very very excited kids started to scream. So ten
of them screamed, all at the same time as loud
as they possibly could two of them put fingers in

(06:52):
their ears. Those two kids put their fingers in their ears.
They're not the Bam Bam kids. Again, let me be
perfectly clear, there's nothing wrong with the bambamb kids. That's
just how they roll. Literally, that's just how they roll.
They're completely fine with it. But I, however, I never
understood it and I do not get it. I was
never able to engage with it. And because I'm watching

(07:14):
from the sidelines and I'm kind of concerned for the
safety and well being on my son who is on
his own journey of figuring it all out, it's really
hard for me to stand by and what should all happen.
Like I said, I don't really intervene very much talking
about what it's like to be with it, because it's
one thing that Audrey is really instilled on me is
that his childhood is not my childhood. But that is

(07:35):
easier said than done. She was really stringent upon that
around Georgia when she was first started kind of going
out as a teenager. I guess how old she was
was around the years when I first started accessing alcohol
and getting up to all kinds of nefarious shit, and
Audrey just kept repeating, she's not you, She's not you.
And it was really difficult at first, but I came

(07:56):
to understand that Audrey was absolutely right and George did
not and has not made the same mistakes that I made.
The thoughts are all there in my head about this
is what's going on, this is what's going to going
to do when there's older guys at the party of
the parents, aren't there all this.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Stuff's going to happen there that it never did. Well.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
I'm sure then the coming years she will reveal to me,
or maybe her friends will disclose to me that she
certainly did happen, which is probably going to terrify me
at the core after the fact. But considering I've never
been to a police station or had to stitch anything
back up of the course of her teenage years, whatever
went on was certainly nothing at all like what I
was afraid of. I think it's because whatever the girl
version of Bam Bam and other type is g as

(08:41):
far above all of it and has figured it all out.
She's really impressive how she can just effortlessly understand exactly
what's going on in a situation and the roles that
everyone plays just in the blink of an eye.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
It's just much like her mum like that.

Speaker 2 (08:54):
It's pretty astonishing how she can do it, and that
really gives her the confidence to be nearly any social
situation that I've observed her in with a calm and
controlled demeanor that is remarkable and I'm really impressed by it. Again,
I want to be really clear, I do not have that.
And Wolfgang's only six, so he's still figuring it out.

(09:15):
But he's also really self aware and he's able to
put his feelings into words in a way that shows me.
I think he's on the way to becoming what Georgia
is now.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
Which is really bloody beautiful.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
In some ways, Wolfgang's the one that God's me through
how to hand on some of these really big energy
situations because there's such a feeling inside my body that
I just I just sit there and have to be
with this feeling. And it's a lot. So I can't
stand kids' parties.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
So what now?

Speaker 2 (09:46):
What? Well, if there's one thing I've really learned from
Audrey is let wolf is steer the ship.

Speaker 1 (09:52):
Let the kids steer the ship.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Sometimes we'll be at a party and you know, or
at least maybe an hour into it, there's been a
lot of chaos already, and he'll just come to me.
I'm just going to sit down here for a little while,
be by myself for a second. I'm going to go
back over there in a minute. I'm like, you're five.
He'll disengage for a bit, He'll have a breast with me,
I have a bit of a cuddle, and he'll get

(10:15):
he'll get back out there. It's incredible when he's at
this stage of his life, he can understand when he's
at capacity and heeds just a little bit of a moment.
Going to a kid's party with Wolf, even their most
well run, well planned, expertly executed, perfectly timed kids party,
it's hard for me, but I appreciate the challenge because

(10:35):
even though I find it physically difficult to be in
that amount of stimulation for the amount of time, I
appreciate it as an exercise in pro strict down regulation.
I will happily stand there and chat with other parents,
and while I'm present and I'm engaged in conversation and
I'm doing all that, I'll be doing the most extraordinary
down regulation. Breaths and muscle relaxation exercises. Nobody needs to

(10:57):
know that I'm clenching my butt cheeks and holding my
breath and then releasing all of that slowly in between
talking about the Rooster's game the other night and the
plans for the upper playground renovations that are happening over
the summertime and what's going on the P and C
and all that shit. Because one thing's for sure at
every kid's party, well two things for sure. Every child
gets a party bag, and at some point every kid there's.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
Going to cry.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
It doesn't matter who your kid is, it's going to happen.
And I just want to be sure that when Wolf
comes over when it needs to have a moment cuddle,
you know, get a pat on the barm and head
back into the Malee, I can be there for him
and show them that I'm a space that's calm and
safe and together. And that's a pretty good thing to
focus on. When there's one hundred and thirty decibels of

(11:42):
combined six year old screaming just melting my hearing aids.

Speaker 1 (11:46):
It's not their fault. They're excited.

Speaker 2 (11:48):
There's six and the food's just hit the table. I
still get excited when I see chips, don't you Now?
I know I'm not alone in this. But as much
as I love going to these parties with Wolf, it's
not that it's not a.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
Not enjoyable experience.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
It's just a lot of effort for me to stay
as calm and relaxed as I need to be.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
So what now what?

Speaker 2 (12:11):
Well, It's an effort that I'm absolutely willing to make,
and in fact, I enjoy making that effort because it's
good to work on it. Every time I get to
go to one of these parties, I get to work
on my capacity for dealing with calamity, keep up my
capacity for staying calm in a crisis, which might come
in handy later, because I get to do it while
watching the Spider Man who has an Irish accent, play

(12:32):
tunnel ball with kids in a bouncy castle. It's better
than doing it in the middle of a car crash
or something like that, because I could really use it then,
not the Irish Spider Man, but that down calm space.

Speaker 1 (12:46):
I hope that made sense. I'd love to know your thoughts.

Speaker 2 (12:51):
Hit me up with a substack or drop me a DM,
send me an email, send us an email at gmail
dot com makes you buying the book, leave a review
if you can.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
I'll see a story club
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