Ep 131: Emotionally Resilient Boys

Dr. Michael Gurian, author of Saving Our Sons, The Stone Boys, and 20+ books, joins us for a riveting discussion on the hidden ways in which our institutions and communication hurts boys. Not all is lost: there are plenty of ways we can help boys grow into emotionally resilient and thriving men!

Full show notes

In today’s culture, it may seem like the conversation around emotional wellbeing has moved on from solely focusing on women and girls. Yet, we rarely address the emotional wellbeing of boys and men in our cultural institutions like school, work, the family structure, or in our government’s policies. Whether it’s responding to a failed math exam, dealing with a breakup, managing an avalanche of responsibilities while entering adulthood, or dealing with trauma, we need to develop a system that helps boys process their emotions. Luckily, that’s exactly what I talk about in this week’s Talking to Teens podcast episode with psychologist and family counselor, Dr. Michael Gurian.

Dr. Gurian has authored well over 20 books on adolescents, young adult males and females, and all kinds of topics relating to growing up and becoming an adult in the world we’re living in today. For more than 20 years Dr. Gurian has been helping young adults deal with trauma. In 1996, he founded the Gurian Institute, a program committed to helping boys and girls by providing counseling, professional development, and parent-teacher involvement for young students’ growth in education, making him the perfect person to talk to about helping young boys process their emotions and trauma.

In the episode, our conversation centers around the tactics that parents can use to help teen boys process their emotions and trauma through two of Dr. Gurian’s books about this subject: Saving Our Sons: A New Path for Raising Healthy and Resilient Boys and The Stone Boys. The first is a myth-busting book for the whole family that can help parents and teens understand the latest research in male emotional intelligence, male motivation development, and the effects of neurotoxicity on the brain. The second is a novel that illustrates much of the information covered in the former.

Dr. Gurian’s informed approach in both of these books can help parents use them as a conduit for opening their teen to tough conversations about their emotional and mental wellbeing. In the podcast, Dr. Gurian lets us in on his approach and sheds some light on some common questions that parents might have about helping their boys process emotions.

So, what are the consequences of ignoring boys’ emotional wellbeing? Well, according to Dr. Gurian, the misconception that boys don’t need to worry about mental health and emotion because many of them take up positions of power in the workplace--occupying roles such as business owners, CEOs, or even the President of the United States--has led to a mental health epidemic. This crisis can be seen in some surprising statistics about gender differences in mental health:

• For every hundred girls to repeat kindergarten, 194 boys repeat kindergarten.
• For every 100 girls suspended from public elementary and secondary schools, 215 boys are suspended.
• For every hundred girls expelled from school, 297 boys are expelled.
• For every 100 girls aged 15-19-years-old who pass away, there are 242 boys who don’t live past the same age range.

It’s no coincidence that these statistics reflect a clear gendered problem when it comes to mental health and performance in our society’s institutions. Dr. Gurian says that we’re creating a system of nurturing in schools, family structures, government policy, and the workplace that doesn't account for how the male brain processes emotion. If we don’t respond to this crisis, boys will grow up without the skills to effectively process their emotions and cope with trauma as they develop through school, the workforce, and their relationships. Luckily, Dr. Gurian walks me through some actionable steps that parents can take to help their boys work through these problems.

While you’ll have to listen to the entire podcast to hear about Dr. Gurian’s extensive approach to communicating with boys, here are three primary actions parents can take:

• Teach boys how to listen first and process their emotions before attempting to problem-solve
• Manage your expectations as a parent around how boys express their emotions
• Keep an eye out for common signs of trauma and learn how to approach your teen about them

Following through on these steps can help you communicate with your teen boy(s) about their feelings and help them work through trauma. During the podcast, Michael walked me through these steps and how parents can better understand boys’ emotions and mentality.

Meet Boys At Problem-Solving

According to Dr. Gurian, one of the main differences between the male and female brain structure that is responsible for why it may be more difficult for boys to process their emotions is what we call the “sensory register.” The sensory register is processer in the brain that filters all our sensory experiences—like sound, sight, touch, taste, and smell—into emotional responses. It’s basically responsible for how we process the world through our emotions, and apparently, the sensory register impacts how females and males respond differently:

For females, there are seven to nine centers in the brain that are engaged when filtering senses. This means that when the world is giving them emotional cues through the sensory register, they’re engaging more parts of their brain that help them calculate and reflect for an informed response.

For males, however, there are only two centers in the brain that contribute to this process. This means that less of their brains are engaged when boys convert what happens in the world through their emotive responses. This can make it more difficult for boys to process their emotions and make a calculated response.

More importantly, the parts of the brain that are engaged when males process their emotions aren’t as connected to verbal centers as in females. This means two things for how boys respond to emotional trauma: 1. Their first instinct won’t be to communicate or vocalize their wellbeing, and 2. Their first instinct will move more directly toward problem solving. At first, this might seem like a positive response. Trying to problem solve is proactive so it must be a good thing, right?

Upon closer inspection, trying to problem solve without carefully acknowledging and reflecting on our emotional status can lead to confusing or even destructive results. If boys try to deal with difficulties by muting their emotional response, they won’t know how to adequately differentiate what’s going on in the world outside themselves from what’s going on inside. For example, if your child fails a homework assignment or underperforms at a sporting event, they might blame themselves or look for a quick response to quiet feelings of disappointment or sadness. This can result in hasty decision-making that doesn’t produce the best result and they won’t be able to adequately address two distinctly different problems.

To curb this behavior, Dr. Gurian suggests talking with boys about noticing these tendencies and making them aware of this phenomenon. That way, when their sensory register isn’t able to help them process their emotions, they can give themselves reminders and formally alter their approach to problem-solving. You can say t...