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!


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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 an...