Podcast Episode #41 – Raising Emotionally Healthy Boys (part 2)
The Consciously Parenting Podcast
Release Date: 04/19/2020
Podcast Episode #47 – Raising Boys Q&A: Deescalation Techniques
The Consciously Parenting Podcast
Rebecca and Nathan look at how intentionally connecting with our children throughout their childhood can help us when we get to the teen years, by giving them and us the tools needed to move through intense emotions as they come up, before they escalate into something hard to handle. They also discuss ways to compassionately work with our teens in those situations where emotions have gotten very intense and the situation has escalated or morphed into something it wasn’t about originally.
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Podcast Episode #46 – Raising Boys Q&A: Maintaining Connection Through the Teen Years
The Consciously Parenting Podcast
If we have laid the groundwork by modeling healthy relating, by empowering our children to be able to identify their own feelings and needs, and by maintaining a connection with our children, we do not have to buy into the ideas of teenagers breaking away and becoming disconnected from us.
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Podcast Episode #45 – Raising Boys Q&A: Encouraging connection with others
The Consciously Parenting Podcast
As parents, we all have a similar concern when it comes to raising our kids (both boys and girls). What’s going to happen when they start to go out and have their own relationships? Have I done enough to prepare them to connect with others and have healthy relationships?
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Podcast Episode #44 – Raising Boys Q&A: Talking Bodies and Sex
The Consciously Parenting Podcast
I’m wondering how much I should “push” to have conversations about sex & sexual matters. Everything including erections are common topics, but they really shut me down when I try to take it to another level. Should I just talk to the air but out loud, should I zip it, should I just hand over a book, or wait until they are more open to talk about more? I just don’t want them to get used to holding back. I’m thinking that later it would seem awkward for them to initiate the conversation.
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Podcast Episode #43 – Raising Boys Q&A: Healthy Masculinity
The Consciously Parenting Podcast
Q&A: Healthy Masculinity
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Podcast Episode #42 – Raising Boys Q&A: Wiping, Connection, & Respect
The Consciously Parenting Podcast
Question: Why can’t my kid just wipe?
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Podcast Episode #41 – Raising Emotionally Healthy Boys (part 2)
The Consciously Parenting Podcast
In this episode, we talk about how to support our children when they are angry or upset. Similar to when children are little, we can use the skill of being patient and waiting, being with them to name their emotions but not trying to make anything specific happen faster. We need to focus on getting ourselves back to a state of regulation so we can support them.
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Podcast Episode #40 – Raising Emotionally Healthy Boys (part 1)
The Consciously Parenting Podcast
How can we best support our boys when they are young and as they grow into men? There are many cultural messages for boys around feelings, so how do we navigate that territory? How do we stay respectful of our boys’ biology and neurobiology? We want to make sure we are creating the space for their emotions and really respecting that they’re different than we are as women and moms.
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Podcast Episode #39 – Moms’ thoughts about raising boys
The Consciously Parenting Podcast
Whether you’re expecting a boy or already have one in your family, we want to do our best to raise them to be emotionally healthy members of our families and then their own families one day. But how do we do raise emotionally healthy boys?
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Podcast Episode #38 – You can put “Sad” in your pocket
The Consciously Parenting Podcast
I told her that if she was feeling sad and either she couldn't find someone in that moment to give her a hug, *or* if she just didn't want to have to do it right then, because she was out or having fun or something, then she could put her Sad in her pocket for later. I went on to say that she couldn't put Sad in the trash can. There's no getting rid of it and not taking care of it. But she could put it in her pocket and then later she could pull it out when it was a better time and get her hugs then.
info_outlineRaising Boys
We’re back again this week with Nathan McTague to continue our discussion on raising emotionally-healthy boys. If you didn’t hear the beginning of our conversation, you can find it here: Episode #40.
In this episode, we talk about how to support our children when they are angry or upset. Similar to when children are little, we can use the skill of being patient and waiting, being with them to name their emotions but not trying to make anything specific happen faster. We may feel uncomfortable with them feeling uncomfortable, so we want to fix what we perceive as the problem and make the discomfort stop. Our own vagal system is preparing to protect itself and we’re feeling what they’re feeling in that moment. So we need to focus on getting ourselves back to a state of regulation so we can support them.
We can use our own nervous system to help them to regulate.
When you wait, taking your own deep breath, you make space for them to express how they’re feeling. We can really try to identify in our own empathetic network what that experience is like for them. Let’s say it’s anger. You have a sense of what that’s like for him, understanding that the anger has a place and it’s normal. He’s a young man having feelings and he’s having trouble controlling himself. You can understand where he’s coming from. Through the course of making space and listening, you may get more information about what’s going on for him. Just be with him in the moment, not trying to fix it, just listening and validating.
Our impulse may be to fix the problem and that will make the feelings stop. Try to do the opposite and push into the feelings, and that will give our kids a chance to safely, and with connection, allow those feelings out. It isn’t really about the issue, but rather emotions that are stuck and need to be released.
Physical release of emotion
If your child has a natural proclivity to go physical, you might encourage going a little bit physical. You just want to make sure that you aren’t teaching them that physical release is the only way to move the emotion. If it is feeling to them like there needs to be a physical action, some people punch a pillow. Nathan shared that he goes out and shovels something- snow if it’s heavy enough, dirt is good, but compost is the best. He goes out with a crow bar and stabs it. He doesn’t have to go physical as much as he used to, but sometimes feels a level of emotion that really needs to move, that he can’t release through crying.
Crying is still good
That said, crying is ok and it needs to continue to be ok even as kids get older. Crying is an intentional biological mechanism to help us unload stress. Cortisol is literally off-loaded into our tears. When we stop that, we’re plugging up the valve that allows that to move out of the body. Despite pressure from the outside world, we have to work really hard to continue to make crying a clear option for our boys. They need a safe space. There may be other spaces where it isn’t ok to cry, but make sure they know it’s ok to cry with you.
Our kids see that crying and feelings aren’t always accepted by others. We can use the opportunities that come up in the real world to strengthen the culture we’re building in our own homes. Instead of hoping it works out for the best, encourage parents to dig in there. When you see that someone isn’t feeling safe to cry or express feelings, mention that it’s “such a bummer that they come from a place in their lives where that’s not safe for them. What a tragedy that they don’t have a safe space to cry in their world. It is ok. There are places in the world where they have incorrect information about that.”
We’re in a time of cultural change and we can fill our kids in on the details, so they don’t see us or our version of reality as a satellite of weirdness. We’re on the leading edge of a huge cultural shift and by the time our kids are having kids, it will be a very different emotional terrain. It can be really helpful to name the differences in what we see in the outside world vs. how we handle things in our own homes.
Feelings are good!