Helping Boys Find Purpose

I’ve just finished reading The Purpose of Boys by Michael Gurian. I was drawn to the title because I’m often asked by parents to help their teenage boys with just this challenge – boys with heaps of potential but underachieving. Michael makes some really useful suggestions.

Because of differences in boys and girls brains boy will more often want to do something than talk about it so boys will more often learn from trial and error than learning verbally from others experiences. We can help our boys find the right projects and mentors that will capture their attention, motivate and inspire them.

A boy’s hippocampus (memory center in the brain) is less active than girls so they will recall less of emotional and relational experiences. Boys will need some guidance from parents, mentors and role models in order to make connections between their senses, important memories and feelings. Sports teams, school, churches, youth groups and rites of passage opportunities all have potential for safely learning about emotions, character and values.

Our boys need us to foster the idea that they can change or save their world in some way. Most of their games and stories from small boys have this quality. They are observing heroes to see how they face challenges and fears, find courage and a way through. They are looking for themselves in these stories – how am I like this? We can look for and encourage their natural talents. We can teach self-management skills eg conflict resolution and coping with anger. We can debrief with them (different from handing out advice) about their fears and challenges, helping them find solutions and options. We can tell our own stories of facing challenges and getting through. We and other mentors can model and encourage the capacity to love and be open with others.

Adolescent boys need to learn discipline and self-discipline from older males. Boys’ energy needs to be directed and channeled, not left undirected. Their stress response is tied to their adrenaline levels and to the fight or flight response. When boys experience social rejection they are less likely than girls to respond with frontal lobe/good decisions like seeking help from friends or family but are more likely to react out of the brain stem and limbic areas of the brain with impulsivity and violence. Adolescent boys need those of us around them to step up and take the challenge to stay connected, provide boundaries and to mentor them along a positive and purposeful path.

Respect is hugely important for adolescent boys. They will turn away from school if they feel disrespected. They will engage in high-risk activities just to gain respect and status, or they may isolate themselves and become obsessive about computer gaming. They will respond to strong male influence that shows them how to seek real status, power and purpose.

Encourage boys to get work and to contribute to their community – to build skills and confidence, learn to handle criticism and failure without being crushed by it, to start to understand what they don’t and do want to do in their work life, to learn to manage money.

Monitor their screen time. For healthy brain development they need to be active and outdoors, have family and social time, read and simply have down time to daydream and think. Research shows that boys who learn computer skills at twelve catch up within a couple of months with boys who learned from age three. Screen time can give a false sense of purpose from the quick hits of success that register in the reward center of the brain. It feels to boys as though they are accomplishing something and fulfills their sense of motivation and purpose. Our boys need real world skills more than they need good hand-eye co-ordination!

We need to be careful about the amount of liberty we allow our boys. If boys are allowed to do what they like they may not be prepared for life. True freedom is the ability to give and take for our own and others good, to achieve our purpose in life. Without this our boys may enter into work and relationships without maturity and at some point may withdraw, abandoning people who thought they could rely on them or people who they deeply love.

See my recommended reading list:

• The Politically Incorrect Guide to Teenagers, Nigel Latta
• Boundaries with Teens, John Townsend (Christian content)
• Raising Teens Today, Lambie and Simmonds

And Toolbox Parenting Courses www.theparentingplace.com