In my experience, it's all wonderful with girls until about 16. Around that time, boys kind of calm down and start focusing their testosterone. Girls get a little challenging, especially for fathers.
In discussing the process with the actors, I made it clear to them that they could improvise but that the sum total of their improvisation needed to impart certain plot points, and schematic material.
My Dublin wasn't the Dublin of sing-songs, traditional music, sense of history and place and community.