Debunking the Myths about Boys and Emotions (Part 2)

Source: www.pexels.com

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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Debunking the Myths about Boys and Emotions (Part 1)

Source: Practice Wise

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.)

It is a tragedy that in our society we label men as unable to feel or connect to the same degree that women can. And that maturity in men means emotional stoicism, autonomy, and self-sufficiency—a lonely existence, for sure, particularly as research time and again shows we all need human connection to thrive.

Yet scientists are discovering that what society says about men’s (and boys’) social and emotional abilities is simply not true, and that cultivating their natural capacity for emotional attunement and relationships is critical to their overall well-being. But we can’t wait till they’re men to do so—we need to start when they’re young.

How boys develop emotionally and socially

Studies of infants have shown that neurologically, there isn’t much difference between boys’ and girls’ capacity for empathy. Yet, according to neuroscientists, because girls are allowed to express their emotions, their ability to identify and understand both their own and others’ emotions cultivates their empathetic skills beyond those of boys.

Continuing into young boyhood, Stanford professor Judy Chu argues in her recent book When Boys Become Boys that it is culture rather than nature that incapacitates boys’ social and emotional skills. Chu observed during her two-year study of six 4 and 5-year old boys—the age at which boys generally disconnect emotionally and relationally—that the boys were very astute at reading their and others’ emotions. They also knew how to cultivate meaningful relationships, which they strongly desired. 

It wasn’t until midway through Kindergarten that Chu noticed the boys becoming inattentive and inarticulate in their relationships. But rather than blaming some innate inability to relate to others, Chu saw that the boys were beginning to align their behavior with more traditional masculine norms, such as posturing, in order to impress others and maintain peer relationships.

Chu also observed that as the boys got older, they began to demonstrate emotional stoicism and self-sufficiency as a way to oppose the association between femininity and the need or desire for emotional closeness. However, this behavior seemed to happen only in public as parents reported that the boys were very affectionate at home.

While Chu’s findings can’t be generalized to all boys given the small sample size of six, her two years of observations and interviews did reveal an important aspect of social-emotional development: boys, like all of us, develop their social and emotional capacities both in relationship and individually and that each boy’s experience is predicated on many factors, such as family, peer and teacher interactions, media exposure, and individual makeup. Thus, even though we all have these capacities, there is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to social-emotional development.

Source: www.pexels.com

The importance of boys’ friendships

As boys move into teenage years, their emotional and relational capabilities appear once again in their same-sex friendships. In her book Deep Secrets on adolescent boys’ friendships, New York University professor Niobe Way describes how early and middle teen boys experience emotionally intimate friendships with each other in which they share secrets and feelings.

During her 20 years of interviews with hundreds of ethnically, racially, and economically diverse American teen boys, Way heard over and over from them that without these friendships, they would go “wacko.” In other words, the boys understood the connection between their close friendships and their own mental health.

Yet, as boys entered late adolescence, Way found that they began to experience less trust and a fear of betrayal in their male peers. They also began to internalize society’s masculine norms by equating close friendships with being gay, a girl, or immature. As a result, the boys were less willing to have a close male friend even though they all told her they wanted one. Way also noted the boys’ levels of loneliness and depression began to increase during this time.

In her analysis, Way points out that social disconnectedness is prevalent throughout American society. She cites research that found the percentage of adults who have no close friends increased from 36 percent in 1985 to 53 percent in 2004 and argues that it is our culture that distorts both boys’ and girls’ natural capacity for empathy and emotionally intimate friendships. “This is not a boy crisis,” writes Way, “but a human crisis of connection”—and one that negatively impacts our families, our schools, our communities, and our political and economic institutions.

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.

Judy Y. Chu, Ed.D. is a Lecturer in Human Biology and Affiliate of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research at Stanford University, where she teaches a course on Boys’ Psychosocial Development. Chu received her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology at Harvard Graduate School of Education, where she studied boys’ relationships and development in early childhood and adolescence with Carol Gilligan. Her research highlights boys’ relational strengths and how their gender socialization can impact their connections to themselves and to others. She is the author of When Boys Become Boys: Development, Relationships, and Masculinity (NYU Press, 2014) and co-editor of Adolescent Boys: Exploring Diverse Cultures of Boyhood (NYU Press, 2004). She developed curricula for The Representation Project’s film, The Mask You Live In.

Niobe Way is Professor of Applied Psychology in the Department of Applied Psychology at New York University. She is also the co-Director of the Center for Research on Culture, Development, and Education at NYU and the past President for the Society for Research on Adolescence. Way's research focuses on the intersections of culture, context, and human development, with a particular focus on the social and emotional development of adolescents. Below are covers of some of Niobe’s many books. 

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Why Are Boys Facing More Mental Health Issues?

Source: The Daniel Calazans Foundation 

There is growing concern regarding boys and mental health issues. Below is a guest blog by the Daniel Calazans Foundation entitled “Why Are Boys Facing More Mental Health Issues?”

“Men and women are traditionally socialized to act, think, and emote differently based on gender...Dominant conceptions of masculinity depict and encourage boys and men to be assertive, competitive, and independent, which fits with work in the public sphere.” - Reviewing the Assumptions About Men’s Mental Health: An Exploration of the Gender Binary

“From an early age, boys are encouraged to bury their feelings and present a tough exterior. Experts say these social dynamics have long-term implications for their mental health. While there is no one cause, psychologists and educators point to increasing pressures to succeed in school and a growing reliance on technology that can leave kids feeling isolated and vulnerable.

According to experts, boys can struggle more than girls because they have fewer tools to cope with emotions and stressors and are less likely to get the help they need. Without the means to effectively process emotions, boys are more prone to lash out in unhealthy ways or alienate themselves. 

Many boys—though certainly not all—have trouble talking about emotions and feelings because social norms have encouraged them to conform to masculine ideals that emphasize values like stoicism, toughness, and competitiveness. Generosity and compassion, in contrast, are seen as feminine characteristics and therefore present a threat to their socially constructed identities.

“Social norms and societal pressures deprive boys of the self-awareness and emotional vocabulary to recognize and process their feelings. In turn, they’re less likely to seek help when they struggle.” - The Daniel Calazans Foundation  

These pressures, which begin when they are very young, deprive boys of the self-awareness and emotional vocabulary to recognize and process their feelings; they are, in turn, unlikely to seek help from an adult or peers when they struggle.

Despite the uptick in depression among teens generally, a recent study found that only one-third of boys ages 12–17 sought help for depression in 2021, compared with 45 percent of girls. Sometimes, even when boys have the emotional language and recognize the flaws in societal norms, they still conceal their emotions to fit in.

Source: Harvard Gazette

Experts say that when boys can’t express emotions in a healthy way, they may become depressed or act out with anger and violence. Data shows that boys are nearly twice as likely to get into physical fights as girls, for example. Often, rather than an exploration of the cause of the behavior, these outbursts result in punishment by schools and parents being biased and unfair, particularly for students of color and students with disabilities. Because boys tend to lack emotional vocabulary—or they don’t feel free to express their feelings—their behavior becomes their communication. So, when a boy acts out or is disrespectful, we have to target their behaviors and not assault their character.

While boys can be reluctant to talk to therapists without nudging, one way to grow their emotional muscles is through affinity support groups at school, which research shows can be an effective tool for mitigating the impacts of distress and trauma. There, boys can start discussing common interests and superficial issues, then progress to talking about the pressures of growing up as a boy.”

An afterschool program that focuses on the needs of boys and masculinity, is the Ever Forward Club in Oakland, California. Their website offers numerous resources on this topic.

To view our paper “Thinking About Masculinity and the Needs and Wants of Boys,” click here. To view our webinar “Serving the Needs of Boys in Afterschool,” click here.

MORE ABOUT...

The Daniel Calazans Foundation (DCF) is committed to raising awareness of the scientific evidence that substance abuse and mental health conditions are often tied together and that certain underlying medical conditions can mimic the symptoms of psychiatric illnesses. They are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit on a mission to build awareness of the interconnection between mental health, substance use disorders, and possible physical conditions associated with emotional dysregulation and substance abuse issues, primarily as it affects our young people.

Ever Forward Club is a support program where at-risk young men could gather over lunch in a mentor-led safe environment, process emotions, and sustain each other through their struggles. Their mission is to address the underlying causes of dropout rates, youth violence, and the growing achievement gap through mentoring and social emotional development.

  

Emerging Issues Impacting Afterschool

By Sam Piha

There are many emerging issues that impact afterschool programs as well as a wealth of articles that focus on them. How do we keep up on reading about issues that you are interested in? Below are some articles and resources arranged by topic. We invite you to click on those that are most relevant to your program. 

YOUTH WHO EXPERIENCE HOUSING INSTABILITY: Housing instability is linked to chronic absenteeism, lower graduation rates, and higher suspension rates among students. Affected students were also disproportionately Latinx, Black, and English language learners.

• At Least 2,600 Students in San Mateo County Schools Have Experienced ‘Housing Instability,’ Stanford Study Finds
• Housing Instability and Educational Outcomes of San Mateo County Youth
• Serving The Needs Of Housing Insecure And Foster Care Youth: An Interview With An Afterschool Innovator (LIAS Blog)

DECLINING SCHOOL ENROLLMENT: “Kids miss school every day and always have—often for good reasons. But school leaders around the country say they’re struggling with a wave of chronic absenteeism that’s worsened over the course of the pandemic.” 

There are lots of factors, ranging from COVID-specific illness and family disruption to students who have just fallen out of the habit of regular attendance. And while current statistics are scarce, educators say the empty seats don’t make it any easier to get schools back to normal.” – Mark Bomster, Ed Week

• Where Are All the Kids? 4 Things to Know About the Current Absenteeism Crisis
• We Must Focus on Equity as California Tackles Declining Enrollment

YOUTH AND GRIEF: There is a growing awareness of the importance of emotional regulation, social emotional learning, trauma informed practice and healing centered engagement. However, it is important that we understand more about the needs of youth who are grieving or experiencing loss due to the COVID-19 pandemic (deaths and illness, as well as the loss of “normal”), the opioid crisis, the rising gun violence and the racial violence that is plaguing the country.

Source: Ed Week

• Pandemic Prompts Grief Support in Schools | Quick Guide
• Hidden Pain: Children Who Lost a Parent or Caregiver to COVID-19 and What the Nation Can Do to Help Them
• LIAS Blogs on Grief
• Responding to Grief and Loss in Afterschool Programs (Speaker’s Forum Recording, 96-min)

THE NEEDS OF BOYS: There's an emerging trend in afterschool to focus on the needs of boys, especially boys of color and those from low-income communities.

• Are We Facing a Mental Health Crisis for Boys?
• America’s Boys are in Serious Trouble. Schools Can Help
• LIAS Blogs on The Needs of Boys

COVID AND THE MENTAL HEALTH OF CHILDREN AND TEENS: In our work with young people, it is important that we think about the many ways they may have been impacted by COVID-19. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), "Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) can affect adolescents directly and indirectly. Beyond getting sick, many adolescents’ social, emotional and mental well-being has been impacted by the pandemic. Trauma faced at this developmental stage may have long-term consequences across their lifespan."

From the very first waves of school closures and lockdowns in 2020, the pandemic significantly damaged children’s mental health in ways teachers are still coping with and researchers are still struggling to understand.” – Sarah D. Sparks, Ed Week

Source: Ed Week

• Teen Mental Health During COVID: What New Federal Data Reveal
• New Research Shows How Bad the Pandemic Has Been for Student Mental Health
• LIAS Blogs on Young People’s Mental Health
• COVID-19 and Young People's Mental Health: How Afterschool Can Help (Speaker’s Forum Recording, 101-min)

AFTERSCHOOL WORKER SHORTAGE: Recruiting, hiring, and retaining afterschool workers have been longstanding issues. Then the COVID-19 pandemic hit—and these issues were greatly exacerbated. They had resulted in programs closing, drastically reducing capacity, and adding stress to afterschool workers. Many of these challenges are not unique to the afterschool field- they are being experienced by those in education and a wide range of fields. We know that the issue of staff shortages is not new to veteran afterschool program leaders. However, we felt it is important to summarize what we know in the time of COVID-19.

The most pressing problem facing afterschool is the nationwide shortage of workers.” – Michael Funk, Director of CDE Expanded Learning Division

• After-School Programs Are Low on Staff, Leaving Students Unsupervised and Underserved
• California Childcare Workers Struggle to Survive
• LIAS Blogs on The Afterschool Worker Shortage
• Responding to the Afterschool Worker Shortage (Speaker’s Forum Recording, 113-min)

YOUTH INVOLVEMENT IN CIVIC ENGAGEMENT: According to the Afterschool Alliance, “The afterschool field is an essential partner in ensuring that all children have the ability to participate in immersive, relevant, and hands-on civic engagement opportunities.” Not only are civic engagement strategies participatory strategies, they contribute to the positive development of youth and the health of our democracy. 

• Learning to Lead: The Impact of Youth Organizing on the Educational and Civic Trajectories of Low-Income Youth
• Youth Civic Engagement and Activism in Expanded Learning Programs
• LIAS Blogs on Youth Civic Engagement
• Youth Civic Engagement and Activism in Afterschool (Speaker’s Forum Recording, 115-min)