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Thanks all. I've been trying to get my son to do Karate in fact, for exactly those reasons. He did do football and cricket, and cubs and swimming at different times- but after about a year gave them all up - the reason...the teachers were 'horrid' to him, so he said. I'm wondering if a Karate teacher, with the emphasis on discipline might put him off. I am looking into Judo though, as he can do that with his best friend.

As for my daughter. I agree, that hormones do have something to do with it, plus genetics - my mother is very emotional and insecure and my daughter reminds me of her (to my horror). I accept that both my children are very emotional kids, and I accept that there is an upside to being emotional: they are in touch with themselves, not repressing anything and at least I know what is going on. I just wish I could pass on some coping strategies to help them to manage their emotions - I try, but hey, I'm their mum and sometimes things are better received from someone else.

On the upside. When I wrote the initial post, it was the morning after my daughter had been upset and I was worrying about how she was getting on at school that day. I felt a bit helpless to be honest. However, the night before, when she was upset, I had actually done something different: I held back from trying to 'make it better' - which is what I want to do, I stopped myself trying to give advice, and I listened, empathised and said I understood. I asked her if she had told any of her friends how she felt and left it at that.

When she came home, the next day, she felt much better. She said she'd talked to her friends and many of them said they had felt the same way. So there was a positive outcome. I think that the difficulty of being a mum is that you don't want to see your kids unhappy. But you can't protect them from all hardships - they need to confront difficulties to be able to deal with what life throws at them. I will try just listening again next time - but it's very hard!