Wise life advice from a 5-year-old is going viral on Twitter

"Dolly on a dinosaur."
By Cecily Mauran  on 
Image of sunset with tweet screenshotted over
The advice you needed to hear today Credit: Mashable composite: Image: Manuel Breva Colmeiro / Getty Images; Twitter / @EPrecipice

Gwenyth T. was driving her 5-year-old son, Clark, to school when she got one heck of a motivational speech.

Clark is now in school for the first time due to the pandemic, and it's been a bit of a rough transition. "He’s a sweet, sensitive kid. An only child who is just very verbal, very chatty. Just him and me talking all the time. Very smart. Emotionally aware," she wrote to Mashable in a direct message on Twitter. Wanting to help him feel that being nervous is OK, Gwenyth shared she was feeling nervous about an upcoming parent-teacher meeting. That's when he began dispensing life advice that's wise beyond his years.

Gwenyth typed up Clark's words as soon as she dropped him off and shared them in a Twitter thread that has tens of thousands of likes and counting. Here are some of the highlights:

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If you're wondering who Dolly is, Clark is apparently a major Dolly Parton fan. Gwenyth says that lately he's been into "Here You Come Again," but "he also is quite partial to 'Jolene' and 'Tennessee Mountain Home'." In addition to enjoying the soulful genius of Dolly Parton's songwriting, hiking and reading have been helping Clark ease the transition of going to school, his mom says. "We’ve been working with him a lot on coping mechanisms and he’s doing really well now."

You can read the whole thread on Twitter. And, oh yeah, there's already a "Dolly on a Dinosaur" T-shirt.

Topics Twitter

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Cecily Mauran

Cecily is a tech reporter at Mashable who covers AI, Apple, and emerging tech trends. Before getting her master's degree at Columbia Journalism School, she spent several years working with startups and social impact businesses for Unreasonable Group and B Lab. Before that, she co-founded a startup consulting business for emerging entrepreneurial hubs in South America, Europe, and Asia. You can find her on Twitter at @cecily_mauran.


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