Is middle school misunderstood — or magic? For most of us — and many of our kids — middle school is a pretty miserable time. But that’s largely because most educators and parents misunderstand middle schoolers & these critical years. “This is a very pervasive story, that middle school is terrible. But it doesn’t have to be. We make it terrible by working directly against the developmental needs of middle schoolers and designing these buildings and classes in way that make their lives really ...
Feb 09, 2024•45 min
Most schools today aren’t boy-friendly. That’s one (big!) reason why boys lag behind girls academically. And why so many boys hate going to school. Tyler, a 16-year-old Texas boy, started struggling in middle school. Recess was no more. Classes were 90 minutes long. So, “he found it really hard to sit still in class,” says Julie Jargon, the Wall Street Journal Family & Tech columnist who interviewed Tyler for her series on boys and education . Now a high school student, Tyler suggests that “...
Feb 01, 2024•52 min
Modern male puberty starts earlier than you think. It may start as early as age 9 in boys – which means that the mood swings you’re seeing in your 10-year-old son could well be puberty-related. After all, as Cara Natterson & Vanessa Kroll Bennett write in their book This is So Awkward: Modern Puberty Explained, “The very first sign of puberty in most kids is a slamming door.” Most parents of boys aren’t prepared for male puberty. (And may be in denial when the first signs start appearing.) T...
Jan 25, 2024•41 min
There’s a connection between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) & muscle dysmorphia , which is a strong desire to bulk up your body. According to new research by Kyle Ganson, an assistant professor in Canada & a licensed clinical social worker who’s worked with teenagers & young adults, boys who experience abuse, neglect, incarceration or divorce of a parent, poverty, or parental mental illness or substance use, are more likely to develop muscle dysmorphia. That’s important because...
Jan 18, 2024•46 min
How can boys experience school success? Parents and educators frequently ask, “How do we help boys thrive in school?” A question we rarely ask is, What can boys do to set themselves up for school success? What can we do to help boys successfully navigate school? “It’s really essential that we, as parents & educators of boys, are preparing them to navigate the struggles within school,” says Dr. Todd (Jason) Feltman, author of Transforming into a Powerful Third, Fourth, or 5th Grade Navigator ...
Jan 11, 2024•41 min
Color blindness affects a lot of boys. In fact, 1 in 12 males are color blind . They perceive color differently than most humans. Some see shades of tan instead of vivid reds and greens. Some see life in black, white, and grey. Many don’t realize that they see things differently than their peers, teachers, and parents. And many parents and teachers don’t realize that their boys are colorblind – which can lead to unnecessary learning complications and affect boys’ learning. Signs of Color Blindne...
Jan 04, 2024•45 min
Which ON BOYS episodes were the Best of 2023? Photo by Photo by Engin Akyurt via Pexels Your favorites include: 5. Simplicity Parenting with Kim John Payne Simplicity parenting prioritizes a balanced schedule, predictable rhythm, and decluttered, information-filtered family environment… The antidote to constant overwhelm is simple, Payne says. It’s simplicity. He advises parents to “dial back”… 4. Parental Accommodation & ADHD (featuring ADHD Dude Ryan Wexelblatt) “Parental accommodation is ...
Dec 28, 2023•38 min
Our January 5 conversation with Mary Van Geffen , Parenting “Spicy” Boys , is ON BOYS’ Most Popular Episode of 2023 . (And Jen’s sons’ least favorite! Gen Z defines “spicy” quite differently than we’re using it here.) Sure, this episode, released early in the year, had the benefit of time. But Mary’s message also resonates with frustrated and overwhelmed parents of boys. As she told us, “Spicy” boys are those who express themselves in big and loud ways, feel things intensely, and have energy to ...
Dec 21, 2023•43 min
YouTube isn’t all entertainment and education. Misogyny, racism, and porn lurk there too. It can be really difficult to keep up with what our boys are watching online, though. Creators come & go, interests change, one click can lead to, well, anywhere. Boys love YouTube YouTube is ubiquitous these days. Gaming and challenge videos (think Mr. Beast ) are certainly popular with boys, but many also engage in educational content on the site. “It’s Google and YouTube,” says Cindy Marie Jenkins, f...
Dec 14, 2023•48 min
America’s marriage coach, Dr. Jacquie Del Rosario, says nature and nurture affect our relationships. Moms are concerned with a lot of things at once; Dads tend to focus on one thing at a time. Many moms derive a sense of security from planning ahead for all possible contingencies. Dads tend to react to life as it happens. Females generally process information more quickly than males as well because women have more language centers in the brain than men do. These differences can lead to conflict ...
Dec 07, 2023•51 min
Neurodiverse kids need comprehensive sex education too. “It’s a fundamental human right to have this information – & so important to their health & safety,” says Amy Lang, creator of Birds + Bees + Kids , a fantastic resource for parents, childcare providers and educators. Myths About Neurodiversity & Sexuality Many people (including well-meaning parents) believe one (or more) myths about neurodiversity & sexuality, Amy says. Common myths include: Neurodiverse people are either a...
Nov 30, 2023•41 min
Health education varies greatly from place to place. Some boys receive great, age-appropriate, inclusive health education at school. Others do not. “It’s pretty inconsistent,” says Christopher Pepper , a health educator who currently teaches in the San Francisco Unified School District & is working on a book called TALK TO YOUR BOYS: 27 Crucial Conversations Parents Need to Have with Boys Today – and How to Start Having Them . “What’s covered is pretty different and how the subject is approa...
Nov 23, 2023•38 min
How do you make space for a teenage boy to make his own mistakes? Photo by olia danilevich via Pexels Especially when said teenager is frustrating, annoying, and contributing to family chaos? Sandra said: Teenager years are frustrating — wanting to tell him what do, yet I know he needs to make his own mistakes. Throw in toddler boy hitting/screaming at his brother…. She is definitely not the only parent wondering how to deal with a teen boys & balance the needs of siblings! That’s we tackled...
Nov 16, 2023•38 min
Have you heard of autonomy-supportive parenting? Essentially, it’s the opposite of helicopter parenting. It’s a parenting style that allows, supports, and encourages kids to make decisions and take action. And unlike helicopter parenting, which demands near-constant parental activity, autonomy-supportive parenting also supports parental rest (and can reduce burnout). “Intensive parenting is not good for our kids. They need the freedom to explore and experiment, and this is where stepping back an...
Nov 10, 2023•46 min
If you or someone you know is having suicidal thoughts, you can call the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline for help in the United States. Call 988 or 800-273-TALK (8255). The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline is open 24 hours a day, every day. Services are also available en espanol. AnneMoss Rogers’ son Charles was “the life of the party.” He loved dogs, people, & games. And he died of suicide at age 20. Statistically, Charles’ story is all too common. Suicide is the second leading cause of deat...
Nov 02, 2023•46 min
Supporting LGBTQ+ kids helps them become healthy adults. Jo Langford is a father, therapist, and author of The Pride Guide: A Guide to Social and Sexual health for LGBTQ Youth and Spare Me “The Talk!” (for both boy-identified and girl-identified youth). He helps kids and parents navigate sexuality, gender, media, and technology. Supporting LGBTQ+ Kids Rule of thumb: Never out someone. The decision to disclose (or not disclose) one’s sexual orientation is an individual one. You should not out any...
Oct 26, 2023•45 min
Gender equity begins at home. Policies matter, of course, but not as much as parenting. Think about that for a moment. Parents need to think & talk about gender stereotypes and expectations because those stereotypes and expectations affect our parenting, says Shelly Vaziri Flais , a pediatrician, mom of four, and author of Nurturing Boys to Be Better Men: Gender Equality Starts at Home. Gender also affects our boys’ experiences in the world, so if we don’t consciously consider gender in our ...
Oct 19, 2023•39 min
Boys are twice as likely as girls to be friendless in middle school. And by adulthood, 1 in 5 men say they don’t have any close friends. Friendship matters for guys too – but clearly, boys face some unique challenges. “Boys & men have special challenges because of the image of how they’re ‘supposed to be,'” says Dr. Eileen Kennedy-Moore , a psychologist and author who may be better known as Dr. Friendtastic . Some boys, for instance, love rough & tumble play. But 40% of boys don’t like i...
Oct 12, 2023•53 min
Jen Lumanlan , author of Parenting Beyond Power: How to Use Connection & Collaboration to Transform Your Family , believes there’s a direct link between parenting and social justice. “The way that we raise our children — the daily interactions that we have with them that seem like they’re about discipline — actually support our children in learning about how power works in families and in our culture,” she says. “That shapes how they go out into the world and treat other people. If we want t...
Oct 05, 2023•48 min
Our boys are growing up in public. Between social media, online monitoring, and geo-tracking, our kids’ lives are public in a way ours never were when we were young. Helping kids manage this digital landscape can be a challenge for parents and adults who often worry and frequently ignore the upsides of digital life. “24/7 access to one another is a huge source of stress.” Feeling like you have to be accessible at all times is stressful for our kids. (And us!) But kids also enjoy positive online ...
Sep 28, 2023•33 min
How do you calm the chaos in your household? Big emotions, power struggles, and challenging behaviors can create (& feed!) chaos, affecting the entire family. And it’s next to impossible for anyone to operate at their best in a constant state of chaos. “I felt like an absolute failure for the first seven years” of parenting, says Dayna Abraham, author of Calm the Chaos: A Fail-Proof Roadmap for Parenting Even the Most Challenging Kids. “The calls from school were coming daily. My son was kic...
Sep 21, 2023•46 min
Dr. Lisa Damour is our go-to expert regarding the emotional lives of teens. She is a psychologist & author of The Emotional Lives of Teenagers: Raising Connected, Capable, and Compassionate Adolescent s , and although her previous two books were a deep dive into the world of girls, she gets boys . Consider this sentence: If a boy “doesn’t feel that he has permission to let people know he’s hurting, it’s a good bet that he will discharge his unwanted emotions by acting out.” That one sentence...
Sep 14, 2023•45 min
Crisis and catastrophe no longer seem so rare. There were 51 school shootings that resulted in injury or death in 2022. Wildfires are destroying communities and affecting air quality. Hurricanes, heat, infectious disease (malaria is back in the U.S & COVID-19 infections are rising), increasing rates of depression and suicide …it’s a lot. And that’s on top of the now-typical anxiety many parents and kids feel about school and sports performance. “We, as parents and caregivers of kids, are con...
Sep 07, 2023•42 min
What do college students think about masculinity? About fatherhood? About the trauma & violence faced by men in society? Kevin Roy, a family science professor at the University of Maryland (& father of 3 sons), encourages his students to discuss these topics (& more) in his popular class, “ Man Up. ” “Young women come in saying, ‘what is going on with guys?'” Kevin says. “The young men who take the course are really interested in exploring different ways of thinking about, ‘what is i...
Aug 31, 2023•48 min
You don’t want to raise an asshole. None of us do! Melinda Wenner Moyer, a science journalist, author, and mom of two, says that science can show us the way. In 2021, she published How to Raise Kids Who Aren’t Assholes: Science-Based Strategies for Better Parenting – from Tots to Teens. Melinda is up front about the fact that raising a non-asshole is a long term project. Kids, she notes, are supposed t o be assholes sometimes. “We feel like — and I think that sometimes society tells us — that ‘g...
Aug 17, 2023•52 min
What do boys need to know about birth, babies, and breastfeeding? A lot more than we’re currently teaching them. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC), 83.2% infants born in 2019 (the last year for which data is available) started out receiving some breast milk, and 78.6% were receiving any breast milk at 1 month. At 6 months, 55.8% of infants received any breast milk and 24.9% received breast milk exclusively. Breastfeeding rates tend to decline over time due ...
Aug 17, 2023•43 min
Raising Empowered Athletes , by former D1 athlete Kirsten Jones , is the book parents need to navigate today’s youth sports culture. Kids do not need to begin formal sports instruction in preschool, and they don’t need to specialize in a single sport in order to succeed or excel, Kirsten says. In fact, she recommends that kids “try everything” — all kinds of active, physical pursuits, including dance and solo sports – up until age 14 or so. Before that, sports participation should focus on the 3...
Aug 10, 2023•51 min
Middle school students are “superheroes in the making,” says Phyllis Fagell, a school counselor, mom, and author of Middle School Superpowers: Raising Resilient Tweens in Turbulent Times . If that sounds crazy to you, consider this: middle schoolers and superheroes “both get catapulted out of a world they know and sent on a jarring (& occasionally scarring) journey. At the start…they’re strangers to themselves and can feel as if their own bodies have betrayed them,” Phyllis says. Middle Scho...
Aug 03, 2023•38 min
Body image concerns and eating disorders affect boys too. As many as 75% of adolescent boys are dissatisfied with their bodies. 3% are now using steroids in an attempt to alter their bodies, 7% use supplements, and a 2019 study found that 1 in 5 guys aged 18-24 had an eating disorder due to a desire to enhance muscles. Boys, like girls, need help developing a healthy body image and healthy habits. Eating Disorders May Be Missed in Boys To date, the “vast majority of body image and eating disorde...
Jul 27, 2023•32 min
Yes, you can be an unflustered mom. Identifying your anxiety style is the first step, says Amber Trueblood, a mom of four boys (currently ages 10, 12, 14, & 15) and author of The Unflustered Mom: How Understanding the Five Anxiety Styles Transforms the Way We Parent, Partner, Live, and Love . “Anxiety is not one-size-fits-all. It doesn’t look the same for everybody,” Amber says. “What you’re trigged by is going to be different for what triggers someone else emotionally.” Five Anxiety Styles ...
Jul 20, 2023•50 min
