Debunking the Myths about Boys and Emotions (Part 2)

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By Guest Blogger Vicki Zakrzewski, Ph.D., Education Director of the Greater Good Science Center. (This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley.)

Changing Our Beliefs About Boys

Changing our society’s beliefs about boys’ social and emotional capacities won’t happen over night, but both educators and parents can do a lot to help them cultivate the capacities they already possess. Here are a couple of ideas:

1. Help boys both respect their need for connection and develop their emotional and relational abilities. One boy described his same-sex friendship to Way as “this thing that is deep, so deep, it’s within you, you can’t explain it…. it just happens, it’s human nature.” Both Way and Chu found that the boys were well aware of their capacity to relate to others, but that they had learned to separate their outer behavior from their deepest feelings, thoughts, and desires in order to conform to masculine norms.

As adult role models, we need to start by examining our own beliefs about emotions and relationships and whether these beliefs align with our actions. For example, do we suppress strong emotions such as compassion or sadness because we’re afraid we’ll appear weak? Or do we understand that emotions are just part of the human experience and that learning to work with them in a healthy way actually makes us stronger? Do we allow ourselves to be vulnerable by sharing our innermost ideas and emotions with our friends and encourage them to do so with us? Or do we engage with people only at the surface out of fear of being hurt or betrayed?

By reflecting on our own emotional and relational beliefs and challenges, we will be better equipped to guide boys as they navigate the social and emotional nuances of growing up in a society that expects them to behave in ways that go against their natural capacities.

In addition, teachers who cultivate students’ social-emotional skills in the classroom and parents who reinforce these skills at home send a message to boys that emotions are not unnatural or something to suppress. Rather, our emotions serve as information—helping us to navigate and nurture positive relationships.

Finally, we need to communicate to boys that having emotionally intimate same-sex friendships is part of male maturity, thus encouraging them to maintain their strong friendships with other boys as they get older. We should also share with them how much our friendships mean to us and how important friends are to our health and well-being—possibly more than our spouses and extended family. 

Source: Ever Forward Club

2. As educators, cultivate strong relationships with the boys in your classroom. Experiencing positive relationships with their teachers throughout adolescence will help boys stay connected to their emotional and relational sides. In their recently published book I Can Learn From You, Michael Reichert and Richard Hawley found from their research with 1,100 teachers and 1,400 adolescent boys that boys’ relationships with their teachers matter. The authors discovered that boys want good relationships with their teachers and that they will work hard for the ones they feel care for them.

However, it is the responsibility of the teacher to both approach the boys by expressing interest in their lives outside the classroom and to maintain the relationship. The teachers in the study who were the most successful in creating positive relationships with boys were constantly reassessing their methods for connecting with the boys and making adjustments accordingly. They also understood that these relationships take time—sometimes years—to cultivate and that giving up on the boys is not an option.

Most importantly, teachers have to be genuine in their relationships with boys. If a boy thinks that the teacher is only reaching out to improve the boy’s academic success, then the boy will pull away. “Relationships flower into engagement and productivity,” write the authors, “only when teachers authentically experience their students as valuable, likable, interesting beings: as ends, not means.”

MORE ABOUT...

Vicki Zakrzewski, Ph.D., is the education director of the Greater Good Science Center. In her role as education director, Vicki writes a blog that provides science-based ideas for promoting the social and emotional well-being of students, teachers, and administrators, as well as methods for creating positive school cultures. Her work has also appeared in ASCD’s Educational Leadership, Edutopia, and Huffington Post. She is a former teacher and school administrator.

The Greater Good Science Center, at U.C. Berkeley, studies the psychology, sociology, and neuroscience of well-being and teaches skills that foster a thriving, resilient, and compassionate society.

Michael Reichert is an applied and research psychologist who has long been an advocate for children and families. From counseling youth involved in the juvenile justice system and leading treatment teams in a psychiatric hospital to managing an independent clinical practice, Dr. Reichert has tested his understanding of children with real, even life-threatening, challenges. 

He has also immersed himself in research and consultation experiences that have afforded a deeper understanding of the conditions that allow a child to flourish in natural contexts: families, schools and communities. He has created and run programs in both inner-city communities and in some of the most affluent suburban communities in the world. Working across such varied conditions, he has come to a profound appreciation for the hard science of human development.

Richard Hawley is a lifelong teacher and writer. The retired headmaster of Cleveland's University School and founding president of the International Boys' School Coalition (IBSC), he has published more than twenty books, including several novels, collections of poetry, and non-fiction works, principally about children, schools, and learning. His first novel, THE HEADMASTER'S PAPERS, won a number of literary prizes. John Irving dedicated a chapter to the novel in Michael Ondaatje's anthology LOST CLASSICS. Hawley's most recent collection of poems is TWENTY-ONE VISITS WITH A DARKLY SUN TANNED ANGEL. Recent non-fiction books include BOYS WILL BE MEN, BEYOND THE ICARUS FACTOR, and (with Michael Reichert) REACHING BOYS/TEACHING BOYS. Hawley's essays, articles and poems have appeared in dozens of magazines and journals including The Atlantic, American Film, America, Orion, Commonweal, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, and The New England Journal of Medicine. 

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