Kate Gosselin and her two oldest children, 13-year-old twins Cara and Mady, made an appearance on the Today show to promote the Where Are They Now feature in People Magazine , on Thursday.

“Cara & Mady are SO honored to be on @TODAYshow tomorrow morning, talking all stuff ‘teenager’ (while I’m thinking stop growing up SO fast!),” Kate tweeted. Too bad the girls didn’t get to talk ‘teenager’, actually they didn’t talk about anything.

When Today’s Savannah Guthrie asked the girls questions about growing up in the spotlight, they both simply went quite. “Um. . . ” Mady said. “Mady, your words,” Gosselin said, scolding her daughter. “It’s your chance. Spit it out.” When Kate failed at getting Mady to open up, Guthrie tried to spark a conversation with Cara, who also remained quiet. “So this is their chance to talk. This is the most wordless I’ve heard them all morning,” Kate told Guthrie. “Um, I don’t want to speak for them. Mady, go ahead, sort of the things that you said in the magazine, that years later they’re good, they’re fine.”

After a lot of coaxing, Mady finally chimed in and said, “A lot of people think that filming our show has damaged us. But it’s only really helped.”

“There is no injury to begin with,” Gosselin insisted when Guthrie asked if having the girls talk to People and appear on Today was adding to their injury. “And any TV things we do, obviously, I can’t get them to do at this age, at 13, anything they don’t want to do. I can’t force them. … It’s a family decision so I think that it’s really frustrating when there is so much out there that is not true. I’m getting to the point that I’m extremely frustrated, and I don’t spend time worrying about it because I’m busy raising my kids, and we know the truth, and that’s why they’re here, even though they’re tongue-tied this morning, to say ‘Hey we’re OK. We’re doing well.’ Would that be accurate to say, girls?”

Apparently, it was the live television that gave them stage fright, because the girls had no problem when talking to People. “People expect us to be damaged,” Cara said, before her sister chimed in saying that others “think we’re supposed to be so messed up, like, ‘Ooh, the poor Gosselin kids, they’re going to be scarred for life, waaaaah.’ Here’s the big news: We’re not messed up.” “It’s so false,” Cara said. “We’re fine. We’re better than ever, actually.”

Later that day, Kate took to Twitter to defend her daughter’s silence on camera. “Thanks to @TODAYshow for having Cara, Mady and me on the show today! 1st live interview can render even the gabbiest girls speechless :),” she tweeted.

Thanks to @TODAYshow for having Cara, Mady and me on the show today! 1st live interview can render even the gabbiest girls speechless 🙂

— Kate Gosselin (@Kateplusmy8) January 16, 2014

Image via YouTube