Tips for Moms
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 Absent Wound: When a Father Is Gone
The Absent Wound is the most visible of the five father-wound patterns. The father isn’t there. Through death, divorce, abandonment, incarceration, deployment, or distance, the boy grows up without the male presence he was developmentally wired to need. But what makes this wound complicated isn’t the absence itself. It’s what the boy decides about himself…
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 Your Son Needs From His Mother
And What He Needs You to Stop Doing This is going to be uncomfortable. I’m going to ask you to do something that goes against every instinct you have as a mother: step back. Not out of his life. Not out of his heart. But out of the space between your son and his pain.…
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 MoreWhat Mothers Get Right That Nobody Gives Them Credit For
You’re Not Failing. You’re Fighting. I need to say something that the parenting world doesn’t say often enough: mothers of struggling boys are doing more right than they think. I’ve been doing this work for thirty years. I’ve sat with over two thousand boys and their families. And in almost every case, the person who…
Read MoreWhen Your Son Won’t Talk to You
What to Do Monday Morning When He Shuts Down She was sitting in my office, hands wrapped around a coffee cup she hadn’t touched, and she said the thing I’ve heard a thousand mothers say: “He used to tell me everything. Now I can’t get a single word out of him.” Her son was thirteen.…
Read MoreThe Five Father Wounds—Which One Is Your Son Carrying?
Something is wrong with your son, and you can’t name it. He’s angry all the time-or he’s disappeared into his room and won’t come out. His grades have collapsed. He’s in trouble at school. Maybe he’s said something that scared you. You’ve tried everything-talking, consequences, therapy, backing off, pushing harder. Nothing sticks.
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…
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