Ant Middleton admits he let son, 13, grab electric fence ‘to teach him a lesson’ – and LAUGHED in his face when he cried
TV hardman Ant Middleton has revealed that he let his unsuspecting son grab hold of an electric fence in order to teach him about life the hard way.
The former SAS: Who Dares Wins presenter is known for his brutal training methods, remorselessly pushing contestants to their limits and reducing many to tears.
Now the former soldier, 44, has revealed that he brings the same military mindset to fatherhood.
But while his parenting methods are tough, Ant insists it’s important that children learn from their mistakes.
His son Gabriel was 13 when got the painful shock, as he held on to a fence during a family day out in a National Park.
“I could see an electric fence up front,” Ant recalls. “My son was running ahead and jumping over fences, even though I’d told him not to.
“He came up to what he thought was a wired fence. I could have said: ‘stop!’ but I thought: ‘do you know what? I’m going to let him learn.’
“And he grabbed hold of this fence and got an almighty whack from it.”
While Gabriel was understandably distraught, Ant admits he actually found the incident amusing.
“Obviously we just started laughing and he was extremely upset – I think it was quite a powerful one to be fair,” he smiles.
“But trust me, he didn’t do it again. You’ve got to let children figure things out for themselves and I thought I’d let him learn the hard way.”
Ant shares four children with his wife Emilie – daughters Shyla, 17 and Priseis, nine, and sons Gabriel, 15 and Bligh, eight.
He also has son Oakley, 22, from a previous relationship.
And Ant is just as keen to teach resilience to his daughters as his sons.
Priseis was only three when he forced her into a freezing cold outdoor swimming pool.
“I believe we’re becoming a nation of lazy parents,” he says firmly. “It’s hard to grab hold of your child, knowing that they’re not going to enjoy the initial process of realising that life can be uncomfortable. But once you get through that, it’s fine.
“It was like that with my daughter. I was there and everything was safe, but there’s no growth in comfort. After coming through that you realise what you’re capable of. Now my daughter is a water baby – she loves it.”
On another occasion Ant let his daughter climb a tall ladder to reach him up an oak tree in their garden. “I was cutting the branches. I was quite high and I turned around and my daughter was at the bottom of the ladder,” he says.
“I shuffled along the branch and said: ‘come on then.’ She started up the ladder, but half way she froze and said: ‘what if I fall?’ I said: ‘what if you don’t fall?’
You’ve got to let children figure things out for themselves and I thought I’d let him learn the hard way
“I was thinking to myself that if she did fall, she’d probably sprain her ankle or worst case scenario she’d break her arm. But she got up.
“Introducing children to small discomforts and small failures from a young age is absolutely vital for growth.”
MILITARY MINDSET
Best known as the Chief Instructor on Channel 4’s SAS: Who Dares Wins from 2015-2021 and the Celebrity version of the same show, Ant is now hoping he can spread his message through his latest book, Military Mindset, which teaches readers how to conquer battles in their daily lives, by building an unbreakable mindset.
“I want people to realise how powerful the mind is when you make it work to your advantage,” he explains.
“When you’ve got a resilient mindset there’s not much that will faze you.
The mindset nowadays is: ‘I can’t find a solution to that, let me hop to the next easy route.’
“We don’t push ourselves to the limits we used to.”
CAREER SWITCH?
Ant spent years fighting for his country during his military career in the Marines and the Paras.
And while he’s no longer on the frontline, he reveals that he’s now ready to take on his toughest battle yet…and become an MP.
“I’ve served my country before in the military and I might just do it again in the political realm,” he says.
“I’d like to be around at the next general election to really see what’s going on. I wouldn’t rule out being an MP at all,” he says.
“There are a few positions that I would be interested in – in the defence realm, because I know a lot about unity and identity.”
Just over a year ago Ant upped sticks, leaving Britain with his family to live in Dubai, but he hinted that he could be tempted back if Westminster came calling.
“I’m getting pulled back to the UK and that pull back isn’t entertainment, it isn’t TV, it’s more on the political side,” he explains.
“Knowing what I know and the experience that I’ve got and the contacts and people that I know, I think I could be of benefit.
“I like to keep things factual and simple. Modern day politics is cluttered with distractions, smoke and mirrors and irrelevant virtue signalling nonsense that doesn’t even matter.
“All of this woke stuff is just a way of distracting and dividing the people. And when you divide the people there’s no unity, there’s confusion and chaos.
“The UK is in that stage where there’s no real leadership and it’s so divisive. There’s definitely a need for some restructuring and recalibrating.”
Ant is close to Reform Party leader Nigel Farage and even gave a speech at the Reform Party conference recently, but won’t yet confirm which party he would join.
“I’m good friends with Nigel Farage, we share the same passion when it comes to safety, security and unity, so there’s a common ground there. I did a speech at the Reform Conference and I got a really positive response from people on that.
Introducing children to small discomforts and small failures from a young age is absolutely vital for growth
“But if I’d done the same speech for Labour or the Conservatives it would have been exactly the same,” he insists.
Ant – who was dropped from SAS: Who Dares Wins by Channel 4, following a since-deleted tweet about the Black Lives Matter movement – is now the Chief Instructor on the Australian version of the show.
He says his Dubai home is a central location between Britain and Australia, but cites other reasons for the move there too.
“The children are safer in Dubai with what’s going on in the UK at the moment with knife and gun crime and muggings,” he insists. “It’s cleaner, the education is good, there’s loads of opportunity here, so it was a no brainer.”
Bookshops today are of course full of tomes promising self-help and personal growth, but Ant insists that Military Mindset is different. “My book will give you a kick up the backside,” he says firmly.
“It clears away all the BS; it’s about being brutally honest with yourself. If you want results you need to be disciplined and get motivated.
Do that and you can achieve your full potential.”
Military Mindset by Ant Middleton (Hodder & Stoughton) is out now.