Dr. Michael Reichert, HOW TO RAISE A BOY
[0:00]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens and you're listening to Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[0:12]This episode is brought to you by Boombox Gifts, Memory Boxes filled with personal messages
[0:16]and photos from friends and family for your next special occasion.
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[0:22]Today I'm interviewing Dr. Michael Reigert, who is the founding director of the Center
[0:27]for the Study of Boys and Girls Lives at the University of Pennsylvania and who has conducted
[0:31]extensive research globally.
[0:33]He has served as the supervising psychologist at an independent boy school and has
[0:37]created and led a program to enhance boys literacy.
[0:40]He writes a column for psychology today called the Power of Connection.
[0:44]His book, How to Raise a Boy, The Power of Connection to Build Good Men, is His Latest.
[0:49]So welcome Dr. Reigert to Momstone Have Time to Read Books.
[0:53]Thanks for coming on.
[0:54]Glad to be here with you Zibi and with your listeners.
[0:58]How to raise a boy, the book is like my manual now.
[1:02]Thank you so much for writing this.
[1:04]I have two sons, one's about to be 12 and one's four and a half, so I will be picking
[1:08]your brain for the next half an hour.
[1:11]Can you tell us, nurse, what inspired you to write how to raise a boy, basically what
[1:15]it's about?
[1:16]Yeah, sure.
[1:17]You know, I've been in the field of boyhood studies for close to 30 years, one way or
[1:21]another, you know, working as a clinician, working as a researcher, working in a boy
[1:26]school for 30 years, and it just seemed to me that it was time to get real about the
[1:32]nature of boyhood.
[1:33]I think a particular tipping point for me was a meme that began to grow about boys are
[1:39]broken.
[1:42]And I know boys, I have boys, I have a grandson, I work with boys, and I know they're
[1:49]not broken.
[1:50]I do believe we're reaching a tipping point or, you know, a point of disruption when
[1:55]I think that boyhood, we're able to really acknowledge what's going on with the boyhood
[1:59]that we construct for boys.
[2:02]And I think that what I wanted to do was to be more rigorous about the science of human
[2:08]development and how it applies to male development in particular, and to make the connection
[2:13]between the outcomes we're not happy with, the broken outcomes, and violations of boys
[2:20]fundamental human natures.
[2:22]That's really the thrust of the book that I wrote.
[2:25]Excellent.
[2:26]You actually start your book with a sort of terrible dramatic story of your younger brother
[2:31]dying in a car accident a long time ago, and I'm so sorry about that.
[2:35]I was not expecting it in the book, and it just broke my heart.
[2:38]And you wrote that you, at the time, had started working as a family court counselor.
[2:44]And you linked these two things.
[2:46]You said you felt like there was a common thread between the boys you were helping and
[2:50]what had been going on with your brother who I guess had been struggling with some things
[2:52]before the accident.
[2:53]And you said it was their maleness.
[2:55]I'm going to quote a confounded sense of self, some degree of numbness, disconnection,
[3:00]mental isolation.
[3:01]So talk to me about all this.
[3:04]There's a lot up in there, isn't it?
[3:05]Yeah, yeah.
[3:06]I should first say that I came from a family of six children born in nine years.
[3:12]Wow.
[3:13]And that brother that I'm talking about in that story was a middle child in some ways
[3:17]the invisible middle child.
[3:20]And you know, his accident was a shock, I think, to all of us in my family.
[3:27]And in the way that we do when we're trying to understand tragedy, I think I just began
[3:34]chewing on it and it happened that I was working with primarily young males in the family
[3:40]court system in Delaware.
[3:43]And I began seeing symptoms a lot like the way that my brother had been struggling prior
[3:51]to his accident.
[3:53]And I think it was the mid-70s and the women's movement had raised male consciousness
[4:01]about gender in some interesting ways, peaked my curiosity.
[4:06]And I think when I reflected on my clients, my brother, the work of the men's movement that
[4:14]I was sort of a part of, I think what I realized was that there was something about the devaluing
[4:22]of life, numbness, use the word disconnection, what I mean by that is not really feeling
[4:29]other people in their hearts, but being somewhat cut off.
[4:34]You know, we historically have referred to that quality as independence.
[4:40]And we really valorized it in male development.
[4:43]But I think in a way that has violated the most fundamentally relational nature of human
[4:51]beings, boys included.
[4:53]And I think what I began to consider at that time, you know, a long time ago now, was that
[4:59]there was something wrong with the ideas that had driven the way that the people caring
[5:05]for boys had recognized why and where things were going off track.
[5:11]I think that that's really why I included that story.
[5:14]I wanted to make it.
[5:15]I wanted to ground it in my personal experience connected to the broader issue of what's,
[5:21]you know, ways that that boys are going awry and try to draw in some current research
[5:28]and thinking about boyhood studies in male development.
[5:32]The things have changed so much since that happens.
[5:35]Yeah.
[5:36]And now we sort of need this even more, I would argue, right, the women's movement has
[5:40]this resurgence now and what happens to the boys in the face of that, really.
[5:45]Yeah.
[5:46]I think that that that's the other reason maybe that I wrote this book now is I actually
[5:50]think we're ready, we're actually ready to consider.
[5:53]I, you know, when I started the project at the boy school, I said a Philadelphia, I'll
[5:59]tell you a funny story.
[6:00]We struggled for how to name it.
[6:02]The school wanted to do it because there was some mistrust or misgiving about an all-boy
[6:07]school in the, at that point in time, that would have been the late 80s, mid 80s.
[6:13]And a lot of boy schools were converting to coeducation because of that misgiving.
[6:18]The school decided it wanted to, needed to stay, dedicated to boys, but wanted to do it
[6:23]with a new rigor, asked me to create a national research advisory group and doubled down
[6:29]on understanding male development and boys education.
[6:33]So I did that and we tried to figure out what to name it.
[6:36]And our first thought was to name it after the head of the school at the time was a former
[6:41]dean at Hobart College and had created a men in masculinity symposium there.
[6:46]And we thought, great name, we'll just, you know, we'll just replicate that at the secondary
[6:50]school.
[6:52]We field tested it and we discovered that people in response that name assumed one of two
[6:57]things, either that we were going to take boys out into the woods to beat their chest
[7:02]and celebrate their masculinity, trumpet their masculinity, or we were going to turn them
[7:07]into sissies.
[7:10]Got rid of that name, decided that the next, next one we tried was a men's studies project.
[7:17]And that was kind of a hohum.
[7:19]So we wound up, we wound up naming the project, the program, the on behalf of boys project,
[7:25]trying to seize the moral high ground.
[7:27]And that flew.
[7:28]I like that.
[7:29]Yeah, yeah, that worked.
[7:30]And I think that was the impetus for that work.
[7:33]And I think what I found at the beginning was there was so much mistrust of, you know,
[7:38]any particular attention to boys that it might rob the women's movement and the resources
[7:45]going to girls, the uplift of girls.
[7:49]And I think that that was sort of the current we were swimming against.
[7:52]What I see today, I think, as girls and women are feeling much more secure in the new opportunities,
[8:00]the new gender landscape, I think what I'm saying today is there's a lot of curiosity
[8:05]almost hunger for an equivalent understanding of boys and men.
[8:10]So then it's perfectly timed.
[8:13]That was the point.
[8:14]There you go.
[8:15]Yeah, yeah.
[8:16]You make a lot of suggestions of what people can do to help raise their boys in a healthy,
[8:21]wonderful way.
[8:22]And one of the things is having an ally and how that can help boys resist some of the
[8:26]harmful, you know, unhealthy cultural norms that are going around.
[8:31]So what are some tips?
[8:32]Let's say you want to be an ally of a boy to help him through.
[8:35]What are some tips you talk a lot about the kinds of listening that you can do to help
[8:39]boys out?
[8:40]And it was just in this Boston Journal article you did, tell me about the listening and
[8:44]how you can help be an ally to a boy.
[8:46]Yeah.
[8:47]I'm happy to talk about that.
[8:48]First, let me say that the concept of strengthening boys' resistance by providing them
[8:54]with what we call a relational anchor.
[8:56]I think just a sentence or two about that.
[8:59]You know, we don't need, I'm not recommending in this book Snowplow or helicopter parenting.
[9:05]You know, I think our concept of, you know, boys, I think our efforts and behalf of
[9:10]boys in terms of strengthening boys, independence and individuality.
[9:15]I don't think that we're trying to take that down.
[9:18]I actually think, you know, we got that part right.
[9:21]We're trying to learn our unique and independent creatures and they have a right to their
[9:26]own mind and their own direction for their life.
[9:30]What I am arguing, though, is that there are, there's a force that our sons have to
[9:35]contend with these cultural norms, whether we call them man-box norms or, you know, toxic
[9:43]masculine norms, whatever it might be, those norms are going to continue in our culture
[9:49]at least for a generation.
[9:51]I don't see that changing.
[9:53]In fact, in some ways, it's intensifying right now.
[9:56]Your son, my grandson's are having to contend with that.
[10:00]My wife and I discovered right off the bat that we were not going to be able to circle our wagons and protect our sons from the influence of those norms.
[10:09]What we can do, what you can do with your son, what your listeners can do with their sons is we can strengthen their ability to think for themselves.
[10:17]And the way to do that is to strengthen their hearts and their connection to themselves.
[10:22]And the way to do that is to provide the resource of attention, listening what I say is every boy should be known and loved by at least one person.
[10:35]Hopefully more, hopefully they find that in their schools with a teacher or a coach.
[10:39]But you know, known and loved by at least one person and the most fundamental way to know someone is to listen to them.
[10:47]It's amazing. I lead this emotional literacy group at this boy school for 17 and 18 year old boys.
[10:54]And what they uniformly say is it's rare that someone actually pays attention to them.
[11:01]Independent of what they do.
[11:03]A lot of people are paying attention to how they perform academically, athletically, socially.
[11:08]But to actually pay attention to them independent of any particular outcome we're seeking from them.
[11:14]But to look in on their hearts, their minds know them and come at them essentially with no agenda other than to know them.
[11:24]That's a rare gift.
[11:26]So, you know, the first quality in listening involves attention.
[11:32]You're listening to me right now and what you're giving me is the blessing really of an open mind.
[11:40]You're absorbing what I'm saying, whatever thoughts you have, whatever reactions you have, you're doing a great job of keeping them to yourself.
[11:48]We don't do that often with our children and particularly with our sons.
[11:52]I think we come at our sons with worries, desires, hopes, urgent needs.
[12:00]We find something they're doing or saying troubling to us or irritating to us.
[12:06]And within a very short time of being with a boy often, we find ourselves intervening.
[12:12]Switching in a certain sense the spotlight from them to us, what's on our minds.
[12:17]And what boys do is that they withdraw from that.
[12:20]They begin keeping things to themselves.
[12:23]They don't really want to have to deal with their parents' reactions if they can avoid it.
[12:28]And so what they do is they learn to turn to their video games with their friends or their music or whatnot.
[12:36]You know, their TV shows.
[12:38]And, you know, unfortunately what happens then is they're deprived of that oxygen that personalities, the character needs to grow and become strong.
[12:48]We are the providers of that particular form, that nurture that oxygen.
[12:53]And it comes in the form of attention and listening.
[12:56]So basically I should interview my son next.
[12:59]I'll put him right here.
[13:00]Well, you know, your son, you know, is receiving messages.
[13:05]And this is probably worth saying to a mother.
[13:08]You know, he's receiving messages that he shouldn't be particularly close to his mom.
[13:13]And mothers are receiving messages that they shouldn't endeavor to keep their 12-year-old sons close to them.
[13:20]The mama's boy myth, I think, really, really weighs in on mother-son relationships and heavy ways.
[13:28]And so, you know, your son might not sit in this chair at the outset.
[13:32]And if he does sit in this chair, he might be so constrained that he might not find a way to open up.
[13:39]What I recommend is go and just sit next to him wherever he is and hang out with him and pay attention to him.
[13:46]And as you do that, you know, it's really like a plant to light.
[13:51]What you offer is irresistible.
[13:54]And I think if you stay with offering that, you know, one time, two times, you know, dozen times,
[14:02]he will lean into it on his own terms for his own reasons.
[14:07]He may not satisfy you that he's responding in a way that you recognize.
[14:13]But I've been amazed and in my work with boys at how they take things in and only cautiously reveal the depth to which they're registering your attention.
[14:25]But ultimately, the proof will be in the pudding is what I say.
[14:28]Stay with and keep an eye on what you're seeing.
[14:32]And I'm confident and certain, actually, that you will find that your son is using your attention, your listening, in ways that he needs to.
[14:42]That's great. Thank you. Nice to know you're here.
[14:45]So that was so much really great stuff.
[14:48]You said in the book, to repair boyhood, we must first acknowledge its problems and reach a common understanding of its causes.
[14:56]So what do you think the major problems of boyhood are aside from what you've already touched on?
[15:02]Well, you know, the outcomes are not great.
[15:05]The developmental outcomes are not great.
[15:07]You know, if we look at, for example, and this is really, you know, I guess referencing my brother and so many other males, the premature mortality rates are 75% in the age category 15 to 30 or 75% male.
[15:25]And it's preventable. It's lifestyle choices. You know, it's taking risks. It's doing unprotected sex.
[15:31]It's drinking too much, driving crazy. You know, whatnot. Not doing routine things to take care of our health.
[15:38]Not tending to or caring for our bodies, but being pushed really by that kind of hyper masculine peer norms to do crazy things.
[15:49]So, you know, I think that the outcomes are not great.
[15:52]That's one problem.
[15:54]And when I thought going all the way back to that period, you know, on the late late 80s, when I thought about what underlies that what I concluded was that in the same way that our environment is hardwired with limits.
[16:11]There's a lot of elasticity in the environment, but only up to a point.
[16:16]And at a certain point, pollution begins to mount and we see signs of an ecosystem that's failing.
[16:24]I think in the same way, human development is very, very resilient. Up to a point.
[16:30]If we violate basic human needs, though, there's going to be poor outcomes.
[16:36]I think in the case of male development that violation takes place at the level of connection,
[16:43]to many boys are not known and loved.
[16:46]For too many boys, there's no one paying attention to them.
[16:49]No one really anchoring them in a relationship to some sense of moral accountability.
[16:55]Too many boys are adrift and out there sort of free to do what they want without any sense of connection or, you know, owing to somebody else, a sense of being a good man.
[17:11]And no internal, I think, compass guiding them to take care of themselves, value themselves.
[17:18]So that's where I see the fundamental problem of boyhood.
[17:21]We have not prioritized connection and boys development.
[17:25]Just the opposite, I think we prized independence in this ill-conceived way.
[17:30]So that goes back to the whole connection piece.
[17:32]I think so. Yeah, the most basic.
[17:34]You know, we human beings and, you know, the field of interpersonal neuroscience didn't exist 30 years ago, particularly.
[17:42]This is this is a body of research that's really confirmed that human minds are wired to connect.
[17:49]Mm-hmm.
[17:50]You know, our species prioritizes connection.
[17:53]We become people in the context of our relationships with somebody else, with other people.
[17:59]I look, you know, the most basic understanding, for example, of self-concept development is that I am who I think others see me as.
[18:08]So we need to reflect to our sons who we see them as, that they are treasured by us.
[18:14]They are known by us. If they're interesting, that they're delightful, independent of what they do for us.
[18:20]Lemon. Okay. So what else? I'm trying to raise the perfect boy.
[18:25]You have a lot of other things, like advocating for your son, offer relationships with this, you know, to show it, promote a strong sense of self, encourage emotional expression, exercise authority, and promote autonomy.
[18:39]Like, what are the most important things to take away on how to raise a well-adjusted, happy boy?
[18:45]Well, you know, it's probably important.
[18:47]Assuming those are the goals, which I think are my goals.
[18:50]Well, I'm sure there are goals for many of your listeners too.
[18:53]I think that it's important to talk about the value of setting limits with boys.
[18:59]I think there's a lot of confusion about that, both for parents, but also for teachers and coaches in my experience.
[19:06]What we know, for example, in schools, is that boys predominate in disciplinary realm.
[19:13]Whether it's, you know, demerits at schools or punishments or suspensions or expulsions, it's male.
[19:20]So, you know, we know that, let's see if I can say this simply.
[19:23]How a child regulates themselves is in some internalization of their parents or the authority figures in their lives.
[19:36]People that they respect and trust become a part of themselves, a conscience we call it.
[19:42]For many boys, if those connections have been weakened or broken, and there's no conscience really guiding them,
[19:50]or their conscience has become weaker or obscured by peer pressure or whatnot, it's likely that boys are...
[20:00]going to act out.
[20:01]And it happens at a real micro level.
[20:04]It happens at a real major level.
[20:06]So consequently, the discipline, setting limits with boys
[20:10]is a really important parenting skill.
[20:13]But it's critical to understand that when we're setting
[20:16]a limit with a boy, unless there really is a dire circumstance,
[20:22]we're playing a long game, not a short game.
[20:26]What we're trying to build is their capacity
[20:28]to self-regulate.
[20:30]So what that means is we don't simply step in, dominate the boy,
[20:34]use our power to make them afraid or shame them into compliance.
[20:40]We can always do that.
[20:41]And it happens all the time in boys' lives.
[20:43]That kind of disc-tisk-tisk finger wagging or that threat
[20:49]or that punishment.
[20:51]I'm going to take your gameboy away,
[20:52]or I'm going to send you to your room.
[20:55]That's all possible to do, but in my experience,
[20:59]not particularly skill-building.
[21:02]It's important for your son, though,
[21:04]to know that there's limits and that he's accountable.
[21:07]And so I described the listen-limit-listen model
[21:13]for exercising authority.
[21:15]And basically, what it is a long game version of limits
[21:18]setting, and basically, the idea is the first step
[21:22]is to make sure you're clear-headed.
[21:25]That you're not coming into the situation irritated or urgent.
[21:29]So your son just says something mean to your daughter.
[21:33]You're upset.
[21:35]You come into that situation.
[21:36]You're likely to convey your upset to your son
[21:39]in a way that's going to make him embarrassed
[21:42]or ashamed or angry.
[21:45]You didn't understand, Mom.
[21:47]What she did to me, that kind of defensiveness.
[21:50]He's not learning.
[21:51]Where are you watching what we're on here,
[21:53]or that we can?
[21:53]Yeah, he's not listening to you.
[21:55]He's simply shielding himself from what he perceives
[21:58]to be your disconnection and your criticism of him.
[22:02]He's not really feeling you, bolstering his sense of self.
[22:07]He's feeling you, exiling him to the realm of bad boys.
[22:12]And so the first step that listen-step is to check yourself,
[22:17]come at that problem with a clear mind when you can.
[22:21]And then making sure that what's happening
[22:25]actually is your son being off base,
[22:28]as opposed to something in the situation
[22:30]that really warranted that response.
[22:32]But if he's truly mistreating his sister,
[22:36]that's not who he is.
[22:37]That's certainly not your family value.
[22:39]It makes sense to step in.
[22:41]And the way to step in is warmly, calmly, firmly.
[22:45]And to say, Jack, I'm not going to let you hurt Nelly.
[22:51]That's not who you are, that's not what we do.
[22:53]What's going on?
[22:54]And to step in, move into his space, let him feel you.
[22:59]He's being driven by some emotion
[23:02]that he probably doesn't recognize.
[23:05]It's energy that's driving him off course,
[23:08]and he requires intervention.
[23:10]But the intervention he requires is someone checking
[23:13]the acting out and inviting him to express
[23:18]that emotion directly, not in a way that's harmful
[23:22]or undermining of his own personal character and values.
[23:26]So the third step is listen, and that's really the payoff.
[23:30]The point of setting a limit is that third step
[23:33]where your son melts down or explodes or tells you,
[23:39]in some way or other, verbally or with behavior,
[23:43]what's really driving him?
[23:44]And that's what you want him to be able to do
[23:46]is to process that painful emotion.
[23:49]You become his counselor, his container,
[23:52]his holding environment, we psychologists say.
[23:55]You become the person who is receiving the energy
[24:00]that's been driving him off course.
[24:01]He has needed to get that office chest.
[24:04]He hasn't been able to do it by sitting down
[24:07]and talking the way adults do.
[24:09]He's acting it out, and he's trusting you to recognize
[24:12]that he's not a bad boy.
[24:14]He's the same boy who was an hour ago or last night.
[24:17]He's your dear son, and he's off course
[24:20]because something is happening
[24:22]that he needs to get off his chest.
[24:24]Okay.
[24:25]I'm in a practice that.
[24:28]It's hard work because often we have reactions to our sons.
[24:33]You know, boys, the way that boys act out
[24:36]is provocative often.
[24:38]You know, we think it's mean or it's evil
[24:41]or it's despicable, shameful.
[24:45]And that's what I see a lot when I,
[24:47]you know, I've been working in the field for a long time
[24:49]and I am often the position with teachers or coaches
[24:52]or parents where what boys have been doing is really awful.
[24:57]And I try to indicate to them that as the adults,
[25:01]it's actually not, it interferes with their ability
[25:04]to function as a helpful person in relation to that child.
[25:09]If their reactions are dominating their minds,
[25:12]he feels you.
[25:13]He feels at a really fundamental level
[25:16]in his reptilian brain.
[25:18]He feels your painful emotion
[25:20]and he doesn't know how to access you as a resource
[25:23]in that moment.
[25:24]I love that.
[25:26]Excellent.
[25:27]All right.
[25:28]Gonna focus on being a repository of energy,
[25:31]some sort of...
[25:32]And then you can go and talk to your husband,
[25:34]but you know, what's upsetting to you.
[25:36]Oh, perfect.
[25:37]All right.
[25:38]Well, I'll be announcing our feelings
[25:39]around your own time.
[25:41]Chef back in with us in a few weeks.
[25:43]It's just before we go, I know the Me Too movement
[25:45]is like such a big thing right now.
[25:47]How do you raise sons to sort of be aware of that
[25:52]and to navigate that complexity of the world we live in?
[25:56]Yeah, you know, I'm actually not worried about that.
[25:59]I know lots of parents of boys are.
[26:01]I had one father of athletic boys, high school age boys,
[26:05]say that he had a talk.
[26:06]He sat down and had a talk with his sons and said,
[26:08]you've got to target on your back, you know,
[26:11]simply by virtue of being big athletic boys.
[26:14]I don't actually think that we have to presume
[26:18]to tell our sons how to navigate a changed gender landscape.
[26:23]I think they see it better than we do.
[26:26]And I think when we do that,
[26:28]we're projecting our upset feelings
[26:31]about this new world onto our sons' perceptions of things.
[26:36]I actually think our best way to guide our sons,
[26:40]this is certainly true for me with my sons,
[26:42]is to make sure that they have somebody who knows
[26:45]and loves them, somebody that they're accountable to
[26:48]and to trust that their natural sense of empathy
[26:53]and justice and respect will be the foundation
[26:56]of how they build relationships with women.
[26:59]And that certainly I think has proven true in my experience.
[27:04]I meet with 40 or 50 boys every other week at this school.
[27:08]And we talk about topics like, you know,
[27:10]difficult topics, topics like relationships with parents
[27:14]and relationships with each other and bullying,
[27:16]relationships with girls, sex, pornography.
[27:21]And I'm very reassured by what I'm hearing
[27:26]from those boys about the inherent goodness
[27:30]and inherent commitment to real connection and relationship,
[27:35]unless something's driving them off course.
[27:38]And there's lots of forces that would drive boys off course,
[27:41]but they're not inherent to who the boys are.
[27:44]There's ideas out there, you know,
[27:45]there's stereotypes of boys as feral predators, you know,
[27:50]sex-driven, hormone-dominated creatures.
[27:52]And that's just nonsense, not true, as you know with your son.
[27:57]So any last parting advice to parents and boys
[28:01]that they cannot forget.
[28:04]Well, you know what I say is if you want your son
[28:07]to hold onto himself, you have to hold onto him yourself.
[28:12]That's a good one.
[28:13]You should put that on some book notes.
[28:15]I'm serious, hand that up.
[28:17]All right, well thank you so much for all of your insights
[28:20]and help and all of your time.
[28:22]Thank you for coming on this week.
[28:23]Thank you, Zippy.
[28:24]This episode has been brought to you by Boombox Gifts,
[28:26]memory boxes filled with personal messages and photos
[28:29]from friends and family for your next special occasion.
[28:31]BoomboxGifts.com.
[28:33]Thanks to Ryan and Steve at Texture Sound
[28:35]for the audio editing and mixing.
[28:37]Thanks for listening to Momstone Have Time to Read Books.