How Do We Help Boys Grow Into the Men We Want Them To Be?

by James Cardo, Assistant Head of School

It's a hard thing to watch a fourteen year-old boy cry.

I've been teaching middle school for a journeyman's eleven years, and, let me tell you, there is no lack of emotional turmoil for kids that age.

Tears well up because homework was forgotten or a lunch was lost. A shoulder hits too hard in the hallway. A teacher's reproving stare cuts too deep. Friends lie about each other.

Let's not even talk about body image. Or the Internet.

Middle school kids cast around stinging personal insults so casually; it makes me feel like they're playing badminton with lawn darts.

Can they also be playful, kind, compassionate, and brave? Skilled, subtle, generous? All of these things and more, but that's a story for another time. We're looking at how young men react to pain.

Watching a young teenage boy cry is wrenching. He'll be so terribly distraught, with a visible struggle playing out across his face. Embarrassment and emasculation war with emotion and sensitivity. In some way, this boy has been wronged, hurt, humiliated, or stunned. Something has touched him in a way that he needs to express. He's in pain.

In the eyes of his young male peers, his choices of reactions are limited.

Anger roots one path. Punching. Throwing. Storming off. Defiance and struggle are acceptable to the pack.

Diffidence marks the other choice. Stony stares or rolling eyes. Sullen shrugs. The ubiquitous “I don't know.” These also draw approbation from the peer group. Never let them see you sweat.

If the playground is all that boy has been taught, he doesn't know another way to react. At least not one that won't lead to further embarrassment or distress.

It takes a man a long time to be able to define himself without comparison to other men. To be able to say, “I stand for this. I act this way. I do not stand for that. I do not act that way.” Until that time of realization, the “masculinity” of the playground holds sway.

If the playground were all we were talking about, maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal either. Those minor emotional dramas pale in comparison to potential emotional traumas that teens (or all of us) deal with. Acrimonious divorce. Grievous illness. Unexpected death. We've all ridden such troughs and peaks in our varied lives.

At least in my experience, anger and diffidence are not the most healthy reactions to such hardships. How does a boy hemmed in by demands to be strong, to be tough, to fight back tears learn another way?

Men look to other men. We learn from women, too, but the first model of behavior has to be that of those like us. Boys watch the boys around them. Adolescents, especially, watch the men around them. How do those men react to stress? What earns their approval? How do they treat women? What do they say? What don't they say?

When do men cry?

We cry when we're hurt. Physically. Emotionally. We cry when we're overwhelmed. When there's no good choice of action. When the pressures are too great.

We can cry when we're happy or overjoyed, too, but most men shy away from that, holding to the expectations put upon them by other men.

Boys observe that they should not be hurt. Suppress physical pain. Fight back tears. “Shake it off.” Ignore emotional pain. Don't let it touch you. Hide your reaction. “Toughen up.”

Boys want to be strong, so to develop their emotional intelligence, we have to talk to ways that let them hold onto that strength. If we show the strength to disclose our emotions, boys can resonate with that. Invite boys to solve problems, to be part of a solution. It gives them initiative and purpose.

Don't ask a thirteen year-old boy how he “feels” about something. He doesn't want to tell you. Ask about actions and reactions, about causes and effects, about choices and alternatives. Making decisions is a form of real power.

Physical activity is crucial to boys, and often that energy is stifled. Recognize that boys being rough is part of growing up. They need to test themselves, usually against each other, but also against gravity, challenges, rules, and expectations. We have to teach them to be safe and to prevent harm, but we have to let them find their boundaries too.

Asking boys to stifle those physical instincts is no different than the playground's strictures on their emotions.

It's easy to look at a “tough” boy and assume that he isn't feeling anything. That's very unlikely. Much more likely he's denying emotions hiding them, or reviling them. That boy needs permission to explore those feelings, and that permission only comes from other men.

Other men's actions, really.

Telling boys that they can express themselves doesn't work. It's just words. Boys need to see action, to hear other men share their own experiences, to hear the truth. It won't be an immediate solution, but it will put another piece in place.

Eventually, a boy collects enough pieces to create his own identity, not one forced upon him. To return to Wordsworth's “The child is the father of the man,” a boy is a foundation. His education in every aspect of his life informs, or “fathers,” the man that he will be. We're not trying to create perfect boys; we want to foster the growth of capable men. Let boys gather all of the necessary pieces of manhood, and they'll build themselves into the men they were meant to be.

James Cardo teaches English at The Harbor School, but he's neither a counselor, psychiatrist, nor parent. He does, however, spend every working day surrounded by dozens of adolescents.