Boys at School
The Passive Wound: When a Father Is in the Room but Not in the Room
The Passive Wound is the most common of the five father-wound patterns I see in clinical practice, and it is also the easiest to miss. The reason is that it is defined by something that does not happen rather than by something that does. The father is in the house. He comes home from work.…
Read MoreThe Critical Wound: When Nothing Your Son Does Is Ever Enough
There’s a particular kind of father who is very much there. He shows up. He’s at the games, the parent-teacher conferences, the band concerts. He pays for the tutor. He helps with homework. From the outside, he looks like the model engaged dad. But the boy living with him knows something else. The boy…
Read MoreWhen Healing Looks Like Getting Worse
Why the First Weeks Are the Hardest—and Why That’s Actually Good I tell every parent the same thing before their son begins the Quest Project: “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.” They nod. They think they understand. Then Week 3 hits and they call me in a panic. “He was doing okay…
Read MoreWhat Teachers See That Parents Miss
The Classroom Window Into Your Son’s Wound The email always starts the same way. “We’re concerned about your son’s behavior.” And the parent’s reaction is almost always the same: defensiveness, confusion, or dread. Because the boy they see at home—even the difficult version—doesn’t seem like the boy the teacher is describing. Or worse: the boy…
Read MoreWhy Your Son’s Anger Isn’t the Problem
The Emotion Everyone Treats and Nobody Understands He punched a hole in his bedroom wall last Tuesday. He’s been suspended twice this semester. He screams at his mother, slams doors, and when you try to talk to him, he looks at you with eyes so full of rage that you barely recognize your son. Everyone…
Read MoreThe Father He Watches
Why Your Son Is Studying Every Man in the Room There’s a boy in every classroom, every dugout, every youth group who is doing something the adults around him don’t realize. He’s watching. Not the way kids watch TV or watch a game. He’s watching the way a student watches a master. He’s studying. Every…
Read MoreParents: Meet the “New Nanny”
Are you busy raising your kids? If so, you have responsibilities that include entertaining, educating, and guiding! Likely you’ve provided your kids a phone (all the other kids have one) and allowed this phone, who I refer to as “the nanny,” to replace many of the roles a parent is responsible for. The phone has…
Read MoreHelping Boys Navigate Adolescence
When the counseling department at Wydown Middle School reached out and invited me to participate in their “Speaker Series;” focused on boys navigating adolescence, you know my answer was yes!
Read MoreParents Beware-New Nanny!
We’re all busy raising our kids; responsibilities include entertaining, educating, and guiding. Likely they have a phone and you’ve allowed the phone (who I refer to as the new nanny) to replace many of the roles a parent is responsible for. It’s a new reliable, relatively inexpensive nanny. Am I right?
Read MoreBack to School-Behavior Problems?
School is back to in-person classroom learning! Your kids are going to go through some adjustments. Your son likely had more freedom to be active over the past year; the transition back to class will likely be challenging.
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