👦 Bringing up Boys Who Like Themselves with Kasey Edwards 👪

I know the listeners are thrilled because a lot of the feedback we got and it was, you know, your last episode I was just saying to was so popular. And so many mothers were resonating with it. And then the next question, which I'm sure was the reason this second book has come was this is so helpful, but what do I do for my son. So really excited to get into this. So that that's that happened to us on the day the book was published. So I'm so sorry, the day raising girls was published.

So back in 2021, we were at a cafe with a couple of our friends talking about our new book, and one of our friends, she started tearing up, which was a shock as you're expecting her to be happy graduations, and she said, my boy doesn't like himself. And then we turn to our other friends who was also a mother of a boy. And she said, mine doesn't either. And then our third friend, her voice was cracking when she said, I don't

want to say this out loud. But if I'm being really honest, my boy hasn't liked himself for a while. And that was the first insight that Chris and I got into boys because we've been so focused on girls. And there are lots of problems that need to be solved for girls. And we just hadn't thought about boys. As soon as we started promoting raising girls, emails, people would come up to us at festival stops in the street. What about boys? What can I do? It's my

boy. And then a lot of people read our girl book and applied the strategies to their boys. And in some cases, we've heard life changing results. Yeah, but the thing is, as much as we would love it otherwise, as much as we would love to treat girls and boys is exactly the same. The world does not treat them exactly the same. So while there are some similarities in raising girl to like yourself to raising a boy, there are also some big

differences. So yeah, that's why we wrote bringing up voice themselves. Yeah. And I got teary reading that part in the book and it it just took me right back, I resonated. I remember when I was leaving, and I'll never forget it, because it's stuck in my mind. But I was telling my high school students look, I'm leaving teaching, I love you guys, but I'm leaving to you know, at the time this was going back a few years ago, I'm going to do mindset coaching for teenage girls and for their

mothers usually. And I remember the group of lads like the, you know, the lads, the group, the boys there are, you know, quite cheeky boys. And they were 16. And one of them looked at me and he was so serious. And he said to me, miss, you know, we struggle to oh, there was it was this moment. And I thought, Ah, you're so right. And I'm so glad that you know, I hate that boy had the courage to say something

like that. And be that now there's people like you and there's books, and there's resources, and there's so much conversation around how we support boys who, statistically are actually struggling. Really like worse in some cases with suicide. Yeah, for sure. mental health and suicide rates for sure. Yeah. So what was your I know, we're going to go into the seven pillars. But if you were to summarise like the key

difference. Yeah. What is the main difference in how we would go about supporting boys really shocked me is that we already know that we need to put work into raising girls who like themselves, right? Yeah, there are so many programmes around like you left your industry to do that. Right? Yeah. friendship skills, experts say You know, they've got more invitations to go and speak to girls about friendship schools than there

are days in the year. But they can count on one hand, the number of times they've been invited to speak to boys. And that's what we discovered this idea that boys are tough boys can handle it. They don't need the help that girls do. So that was the first thing. The second thing we realised was that there have been generations of women fighting for girls right to grow up to be anything they want. And that is wonderful, right? But there have not been generations fighting for boys to be anything

they want. You really only one way to be a boy. And the penalty for growing up outside that one way can be really really harsh. One way to be a boys actually crushing voice. And that that was the big takeaway and that's what we'll need to face as a society that how We think boys need to be, it's actually not good for them. So we talk about all we need boys to change, because it's not good for women. And it's not good for society. It's really not always

Yeah. Wow. So interesting that you say that I remember it coming up once when I was running some women, some girls programmes at the school. And there was a lot of well being things coming into the school, we were separating the boys and the girls, the girls were going in and doing all of this work. Boys go play sport. Exactly. And I was and I remember a lot of the male teachers saying, This isn't this, isn't it? This is not right. And it was actually

exactly what you're saying. And then, and I've heard you speak about this, it's like this false dichotomy between strong or weak, we want them to be strong so that they're not weak. And that's what you're saying about, you know, we're raising them in a way that there's a false dichotomy there. So would you mind just speaking on the way that we're raising boys, and this whole idea that they need to? Well, the concern that parents have that we want them to be strong so that they're not

weak? And what your your research has found? Yes, sure. So when we started researching, raising boys, because we don't have boys? Focus, yeah. started by asking 15,000 parents what their biggest concerns were about raising boys, and the biggest questions they wanted us to find evidence based answers to. And the responses, the similarities were striking. Way is kind of reassuring to parents, like if you think you're the only person dealing with this, you probably

not okay, yeah. And so we boiled them down to nine big worries, which really formed the backbone of the book. But one of the biggest worries by far was this idea that parents felt they had to choose between raising a tough boy and a weak boy really want to raise their boy to be tough. The mums didn't a lot of the dads did. But they worried that if they didn't toughen their boy up, take deliberate steps to toughen him up, he

would be weak. And in a moment of total honesty, if they had to choose, they would choose tough because no one wants their kid to be the one that slammed up against the locker and lunchtime or kicked in the guts at soccer practice, right? Yeah. But the really answer that was actually the first start the starting point of our research. Yeah, we unpick this problem. And the real good news for parents is that you don't have to choose.

And the assumption that we do have to choose really cuts to the biggest problem we have for boys. Because tough if we raise the boy to be tough, what what does tough mean? Tough means not showing your emotions. Or it means avoiding situations where you might feel emotion. So we get boys opting out of things, not trying hard things, we get boys being accused of being lazy. Oh, my son. So good news is your son does not have the laziness gene, quite possibly.

He just has not learned how to deal with the discomfort of failure, right? Because race to be tough. Tough is, you know, never back away from a fight. Yeah. And so we think that that's power. But how much power do you have, if you're forced into a fight, the other kids got the power right? To do something you don't want to do and that's gonna hurt you is I must always be in control, and I must be

dominant. Well, what happens in a situation when you're not, that means you can't like yourself, you can only like yourself when you're controlling, right? So that makes you insecure. Because that's outside your control. So what we realised that what we see as tough is actually making our boys brittle. And so weakness is not the opposite of tough. It is the consequence of tough when we toughen up our boys, we are making them weak.

And what we need to do instead is to raise boys who are strong, and we talk about strength of character, and so much strength look like, strength looks like I am strong enough to handle my own emotions. I don't need to avoid them. I don't need to run them. I don't need to offload them on to someone else. Yeah, anger or violence or addiction, you know, as they get older. I am strong enough to admit when I make a mistake and own up to it.

That's the problem with men and toughness, you know, men have been raised that Real men don't make mistakes. Yeah. heard from so many women that their husband and their father and their brothers have never apologised once right. So that means their boys have never set had a role model admits that they make a mistake. But the thing is, you cannot go through life as a human being and never make a

mistake. And if you're not prepared, if you don't have the strength of character to admit your mistakes, you can't have A meaningful, intimate relationship with someone. So denying our boys the opportunity of true connection. Yeah, not help them build the strength of character to admit when they make a mistake. Wow, this is it. I wonder how many women are reading this book and going to actually my husband could probably, you know, a couples therapy or not it's men's fault because

they were raised. Yeah, if you look at the stats of boys, which are scary and terrifying, if we want to change that, we have to do something differently. And this is the place to start. So one of the pillars I know I'm jumping around, is strength of character. And at the foundation of strength of character is what we call emotional bravery. That is teaching your boy to be brave enough to name his feelings, acknowledge it, and we then deal with it and take responsibility

to own his own emotions. And the researching this is amazing, because emotional bravery is not as hard as it sounds, right? Because that sounds like an impossible task. But what we found research in it was so simple that Chris, my husband, you know, who was also raised? And he didn't even understand it at first. Yeah, we'll get out of the book. And I had to put it back in and said, No, no, Chris,

that's the point. What it is, is that research shows that just by accurately naming your emotions, yeah, what you're feeling accurately, you can shortcut the link between distress and anger. And so we've heard from a lot of moms who are really worried about their boys anger, you can get into accurately say what he's feeling. You can turn off that anger. Wow, one technique can change your boy's life. Yes, the key is he has to do it

accurately. And the problem is many men, women too, but particularly men, can only name three emotions, happy, sad, angry. Boy says he's angry, when he's actually embarrassed or lonely, then that it doesn't work. Yeah. So actually what I'll give you, I'll give you a link. So your listeners can download an emotions wheel. And we recommend print it out, put it on your

fridge. And what it is, is you find you start with the happy, sad, angry to help you find out what is actually feeling so he can learn to name it, articulate it, and then he will feel so much better. And so we do that all the time, right? When we catch up with our girlfriends when we've had a bad day or a fight with or whatever, what are we doing? We're accurately naming our emotions to a trusted person. We walk away feeling better. So so true.

So true. And it's not something it's so interesting, I find, you know, from the lens of an educator, it was like we're giving them these great vocabularies for lots of different things. They know literature, techniques, they know all of these things. But when you ask them how they're feeling, I don't know. Sometimes, I don't know is the answer. And I find you know, I think it's Lael Stone, who said, You cannot give what you do not

have. And I think even a lot of adults will say, I don't know, I don't know what I'm feeling and overwhelmed might be a common thing, or I don't know, frustrated. And I think if we can build out those our language that's just so important that I will link that thank you so much. That makes me so excited for so many reasons. And I know that's pillar two. Yes. So we've jumped ahead. But pillar one, the power perspective, that was the same pillar for raising girls. So is there any

differentiation for boys? And how does that manifest in boys like themselves? Okay, there is a difference of similarities, of course, but there's, there are differences. So, a power perspective is the idea that we can't control all the things that are going to happen in our lives. And for our boys. We can't even anticipate them, right? The world is changing so fast. We don't know

what they're going to face. But everybody has the power to choose how they perceive what happens and how they react to what happens. We can teach our boys to think in a way that works for them rather than against them. And what we found with boys and men, it's part of the masculinity that is unhelpful is the idea that real

men are negative. So to be optimistic, Oleanna it's a trait Yeah, go through life that everything's a bit crap and undermine everything and they run it down and yeah, that's a male trait and their humour is self deprecating they'll run and the way they interact with each other is by you know, ribbing each other. aren't running each other down? Now? It's fine to have some jest. I'm not saying that you shouldn't. Yeah, but the thing is that what your boy says is what his brain believes.

And we need to by the time boys get to tweens, we hear this a lot from parents that is so negative is negative about everything. And that is because he has been a boy long enough to know that that's what real boys do. But the good news is, is he is also old enough to know at that point, that thinking like

that makes his life harder. It's our job as parents to point out, you have a choice, and go to sports day, and talk about everything about it, you're going to hate, and you're going to have a really bad day, right? Yeah, what a sports day. And you can focus on the things that you're going to like, you're going to like the Peda lollies I'm going to pack in your bag, you're gonna live with your mates. Yeah, doing that today. Choose to have a good day, that is your power. And you can

choose it. The other part of power perspective, which relates to boys, also to girls, but does feed into our fear about boys and peer pressure, is the idea that each person has the power to judge themselves, they get to decide who they are, and if they are, okay. And these are the seeds that we can plant from very, very young age, and hopefully they bloom and they're going to be have very firm roots by the time they really need it. And so that strategy is the same

for girls. The first one is, you know, the giraffe, which is if someone calls you a giraffe, does that make you a giraffe? And you can do that to a two year old? Katie said I'm a baby because I bought my doll to school. Yeah, whatever. Yeah. Did you were a giraffe. Would that make you a giraffe? Yeah, I love that so much. Love

it. That's so good. I think that there will be so many parents listening to this with such practical tips who are going, this is actually something that we can use so quickly and say such positive changes. That's right, because it doesn't take any more time. And that's what we need to do. And the good news is you don't have to have massive interventions, you don't have to have programmes we get in first as parents Yeah, the

most. So it is out every day, little parenting tweaks, yes, can lay the foundation to change your boy's life. And so just one more on the power perspective that every parent can do straightaway. And it is also the same for girls is flipping praise. So your child will ask for praise between the age of two and 10, about 6000 times. That's how many times they're going to come to you and say, Do you like my karate kick? Do you like my drawing? Do you like my cat? 6000 times you get to say,

it's your work. It's your karate kick. I'm really interested in knowing what you think you tell me what you think. Because when we give our opinion, we are telling our boy well, actually what I think matters more, I'm judging you. And we need to teach our boys 6000 times when we judge them, they are the ones who get to decide if they are okay. And so parents sometimes say to us when I say that my boy gets really angry at me. He gets really annoyed because he's

actually wanting the praise. And of course we all want praise, right? So two things I'd say to that is first of all, when they count, you are seeking praise, they are also seeking connection. So make sure you give connection, which means Put down the knife wings, chopping carrots. Yeah, agree and actually look at them and let them know that you are interested. But the second thing is, our job is not to create perfect childhoods where our children never get upset at us.

Our job is to raise functioning adults who don't need us. And part of that is teaching them that they get to decide who they are. And if they are good enough. Even if they don't like that lesson, they will they will thank you. Hold on. Yeah, so good. I love that. And actually, I have a question about the power perspective, a lot of because a lot of the questions that came in from parents was a very an echo of what you said about they're quite negative, and they're a

little bit angry. And a lot of it is schools boring. I don't want to go to school. I'm like, they're very disengaged, and they've got this anger and a disempowered perspective when it comes to school. Do you have any advice for the parents who are really struggling to get their kids to see school in a different way? Yeah. So similar to the example that I just gave about sports day. You have to go to school. Yeah, that's the law. You don't

get a choice about that. But you do get a choice about what kind of day you're going to have. And so the other thing Is that we write about in the boys book about power perspective, is Kuwait is law. And this is amazing. It's Kuwait is the is the father of autosuggestion, the godfather of it. And so Kuwait is law is that when the imagination, so that's that little voice in our head is in conflict with what we want to happen. Our imagination wins

out. And so if your boy is going schools going to be terrible, I'm going to have an awful day, I'm going to do my math test, and I'm going to fail it and I'm going to suck bla bla bla. That's his imagination. What he wants to happen is have a good day, right? Yeah, that's what he's saying to himself, that is most likely what's going to happen. So what we talk about in the book is hacking Conway's Law. So train your boy to focus on and visualise what he wants

to happen. Let his imagination work for him, rather than against him. And so talk to him again, tell me, what would a really good day look like? What could could you do to make a really good day, and you can go through the steps and you can visualise doing well on his maths test. And the thing about that when you visualise positively what you want to happen, you work harder. So if you think you're going to fail your maths test was not listening in class, because what's the point? He's going to

fail anyway? Right? Yes. So visualises that he's going to do? Well, he's going to try. And when it gets to the test, he's not going to psych himself out. So we will do better. Hacking, cutaways law. The other thing about boys in school, we're jumping ahead to another pillow to balance but because you asked that question, yeah, is another myth about boys that is really harming them, is the idea that boys need to be dragged through their education, push them,

challenge them more. Often, boys start school, behind girls, socially and emotionally, their fine motor skills right? Within, of course, it's very normal for parents to be worried about that, right. But that's just where they start. It's not where they stay, right. And so I've spoken to parents, they put so much pressure on the boy because he's not reading from the top reader box, or even the middle

reader box, right. And when boys get too much pressure, they opt out, girls tend to become perfectionists, and they get it and they get all the things that go along with perfectionism. Boys become what looks like laziness. And so what we need to do without boys is to just back off, and let them unfurl and learn at their own pace and support them and a technique to do that. And we do this in our house, focus on the process of

learning, not that outcome. In our house, we don't ask our girls about their test results. We don't even ask about it. We only talk about the process of learning. Did you try something hard? Something on your tests that you didn't understand? And did you go and ask the teacher later? That's fantastic. Well done. Yes, or no, because kids can control that. It doesn't matter where they are on that bell curve. Every kid can control the process of learning.

And if that's what you value, and that's what you encourage, then you take the pressure off, you empower them because they can always succeed at it, then the results will take care of themselves. That's amazing. This is just like music to my ears. I love it. And number. I know we've jumped around pillar three, which I actually find of all of the ones in the in the book. I think a lot of parents might be like, well shivers, body

confidence. Okay, so can you talk to me about a boy who likes himself as body confidence and what you found there? Yes. So body confidence, and poor body image used to be something that only girl parents had to worry about. That was one of the parents where they felt they're off the book on this one. That is not the case anymore. Okay. Now, the research bears this out. Eating disorders in boys are on the rise, body dysmorphia. And just general dissatisfaction with their body

is a major issue for boys. And we know that eating disorders, they absolutely destroy lives. Okay, one in 10 people who get an eating disorders who get anorexia is going to die from it. 50% of people who have a binge eating disorder on male body image, and eating disorders are something that we all have to worry about. But what is happening with boys is it's flying under the radar. For a couple of reasons. One, we think it's a girl problem, too. We

think boys can handle it. So much so that we joke about boys bodies. We joke about men's bodies, you know, the adult version is the dad bod. Hahaha, right? We comment more on boys bodies and joke about it. Whereas most women now know that you don't tease a girl for the size of it size, right? Or is it? Boy, it's still okay to tease him. He looks Carrot Top freckle face. Yes, so true. The medical profession has not

caught up. So if a boy goes to the doctor with the early signs of an eating disorder, or body dysmorphia adopted, may not diagnose it may not look there, right. Whereas girls were more aware of it. So we look at it. So that means that little problems are not diagnosed until their big problems. And just as parents were just not as aware, and a really good example of

that is toys. So we as a society have debated whether or not we give a girl a doll with an unrealistic body shape, whether the answer is yes or no, we both thought about it. And you know, if you do, maybe you have a conversation about you know, isn't it funny how she couldn't stand up in real life, you know. But with boys will give boys Batman, and he Man and Captain America, we won't even get there, those body types are just as unrealistic and just as

unattainable. And so all the work that girl moms do about building body confidence in girls, we need to do that for boys. And we need to lay that foundation early. So they've got a strong enough Foundation, when they're teenagers, and they are absolutely bombarded with the unhealthy messages on social media, or the six packs, or the reality TV shows with these bodies that you know, you have to be born a genetic freak to have one.

It's very interesting that you're mentioning this because I am saying and I noticed actually in it, it's almost like it's a difficult one because it manifests for some boys in behaviours and activities that would look healthy. So I haven't saying all these boys going to the gym after school, and they're working on their six pack and their biceps. And it's like, at what point as a parent, do you, you know, does a healthy thing become something worth

paying attention to? And I'd love to know if you had any research on that. So we do that is another reason I'm really glad you brought it up. Because we as a society, we we value the healthy lifestyle, we value exercise, exercise addiction is still an addiction, right? Yeah. Even though it's the socially acceptable one. And was often the warning signs, we don't see, you know, like, maybe they're just suddenly eating

healthy. Grey, right, yeah. But you know, if that's if he becomes very fixated on what he's eating, if he is concentrating on and focusing on his exercise at the expense of other things, then that's when we become concerned, it's about balance. If it fits within a balanced life, then great, you know, encourage exercise, for the fun of exercise. That's the message we want to give to

girls. It's the same message we give to boys, we do it because it's fun to move your body, not because you have to try and fix the body. That's wrong. Yeah, that is so good. I love it so much. And I think you've sort of you've you've covered balance, and that it's great. These all really are interconnected. So balance, and I'm sure this like what you just said with the gym. It's all about balance. Yes. What was in the research about boys, boys and balance.

Okay, so one thing I really want to talk about is screens and voice. Yeah. And because Chris and I have a controversial view, but we also have a view that is based on evidence, we are much time rolling through the actual studies and what they actually say, rather than the headlines that make every parent freak out

and feel guilty, okay. And the reason I'm talking about screens in balance, is that a lot of parents are so scared about their boy being on screens, that they overscheduled their boy, they shedule him into extracurricular activities. They shedule him into tutoring. They just keep him away from the screen because they think that's better. But what is happening is, he's overscheduled he's tired, and he doesn't have time to play. Okay, so play is so

important. And in an ideal world, all our kids would be outside playing right. Climbing trees. Yeah, that's the world we live in anymore. And while we should encourage outdoor play as much as we can, in reality, play real play is a lot of it has moved online. Yeah, we were kids and we went outside to play. We didn't want to go outside because we love nature. We wanted to go outside because that's where the kids were The

kids aren't there anymore. If you just kick your boy out on the string, say go and play. He's there by himself, right? Only Yeah, the boys are online. And so the good news about the research is that real play, and this is child led, where they make their own decisions, where they're creative, where they have to negotiate with friends, learn all those really important social skills. That happening online is just as effective as it happening outside in a park.

Okay, so you don't have to feel bad about your boy playing online. In fact, it's good for him. Yeah. Wow. We're going to I'm jumping ahead to another pillar about friendships. But online games is where boys make and deepen their friendships. Yeah, have you are not letting your boy play games because you're worried about what it's going to do to his brain, which is not based on evidence, the

evidence is not in. Evidence is in that if you withdraw him from his next social network, and he's got no friends, and he goes to school the next day, and everyone's talking about the game that he's never even heard of the research is in about social isolation and the damage that that does to his mental health, and his academic performance. Wow, absolutely. And loneliness is a killer for boys. So that's very interesting. So we'll get to loneliness. I wanted to I do want to talk

about that. But screens, that's where the boys are. And if that's where your boys friends, aren't, your boy needs to be there. And so yes, you do need to worry about safety. You do need to worry about the kinds of games he is playing. But they are parenting issues. They are not screen issues, right. I love the distinction there. And actually something that brings up in my mind when I think boys screens play great porn. That's always a concern as

well. And I wonder if that came out in your research when you're looking at Boys and the way they're using screens? Yep. And I wonder if parents have had any concerns there too, for sure. And so we talk specifically about porn. And the issue, the reality is, the porn avalanche isn't coming. It is here, it doesn't matter how old your boy is, he is at risk of seeing. And that that is bad for

him. Right? What, again, the parenting issues, we need to put the controls on our boys computers to limit the risk of him seeing it, but it is going to see it he's going to be at a friend's house, there's going to be something that gets through your parental controls, right? So how we have to deal with porn is open the conversation about these topics immediately. Don't wait to have the talk. Okay? You start essentially preparing the ground for the porn conversations as soon as your

boy is born. And the way you do that to start with is you use correct terminology for body parts. The research also shows that that is a protect protective for kids. Some paedophiles target kids who don't know the correct name for body parts, right? Because they assume and often rightly, so that their parents haven't had those conversations. So they don't have the same level of

body awareness. Okay. And also, a boy can't have a conversation with you about how he bought his body, other people's bodies, if he's ashamed. And he's going to be ashamed if he feels like he can't even use the correct name for his body. Like it's so bad. I can't even call it a penis. It's down there or whatever, right? Yeah, who's your boys born us correct. terminology. That's also good for us. Because it's hard. As a parent, it's really hard to talk to your boy

about sex and porn, right? But when you say it's also hard to use correct body parts, right names. But when you do it, when he's a baby, he doesn't know you're nervous. Festival. So you get years of practice, and you get better at it. Yeah. And you start incorporating conversations just into everyday life. And an example of that is at bath time, your boys running around naked. And you say to him, it's fine to run around naked in the house, no problem

at all. But we don't run around naked at other people's houses. And also we don't we're not naked on the screen. So when you're on FaceTime, you always have to have clothes on. That's the rule. And if you see anyone else online with no clothes on, just come and tell me you won't be in trouble. I just need to know. Ego, this your first opening to talk about porn. We also recommend having puberty

books on your bookshelf. Next to Maisie the mouse and any other books that your kids because they it's just information for kids, right? And so if your boys For and he's flicking through and he sees a picture of a vagina, tell him about it. There's no reason to keep our kids ignorant of this information. So people used to fear that if kids knew about sex, they would do it earlier, and they would be more promiscuous and unsafe. The research is very clear, the

opposite is true. If you are having open conversations with your kid about sex, if he knows how it worked, he knows how to be safe. He's going to have it later. And he's going to be safer. Only good things come with empower our empowering our boys with information, and have the puberty book about girls bodies as well as boys bodies. It is not helpful to keep your boys ignorant of how the bodies of half the population work. Yeah, don't need to hide your period products. Let him know

about periods. Yeah, ignorance that creates the problem. And if you have open dialogue, when your boy is young, you can have open dialogue when he's a teenager. And I'm seeing this now my daughter's fifth 14. And some of the questions that she's coming home with. I'm so glad you're asking me this because what Chantelle told you in the bathroom? is not right. Yeah. That's incredible. And that's kudos to like to you for putting in the work Young.

That's right. And it's the work is the relationship. Yeah, yeah. And I actually as he was speaking about that, you know, the boys running around having a bath and their Willie's are out or their penises are out, I should say. It's, I'm seeing parallels where it could be quite easy to and I've heard this from parents, you know, they're always playing with themselves. And it's like, Oh, stop playing with yourself. And

it's like, shame. You could very quickly shame boys, which is what a lot of girls have, you know, experienced and that's perpetuating this taboo. I don't know who to speak to, I guess I'll learn on porn. Yeah, that's right. And so I interviewed a maternal health nurse, and sex ed teacher, he goes into schools. And she told me, she's talks to teenage boys. And she said, they are genuinely shocked when she tells them that girls don't like it. When you

say Suck my cock bitch. The boys don't know that girls don't like it. Because when they see that on porn, chicks love that. Yeah. Wow. And it's like, wow, no one has had that conversation with those boys. And I had a situation with my daughter just the other day, one of her friends, a boy who's also one of her friends asked the girl to send her send him a nude of her. Yeah. And so my daughter was very proud intervened in that situation. And she said to the boy, you know, that's sexist. It's

illegal. What are you doing? And the boy said, and I actually believe in because he's a nice kid. He said, I didn't know. I just thought that's what boys did. Wow. Yeah. So common. I had to deal with that quite a lot. And the and the fallout of that when things are leaked, and when girls have been embarrassed and when it's been passed around,

and that's at a young age. And then if these, like what that must do to marriages later, when we've got a generation of boys going what you didn't like that? Yes. And stories about really young teenagers, boys asking for blow jobs, and girls giving it the girls, because they think that's what girls do. And boys asked for it, even though they don't want to because it's kind of gross at 14 I think a lot of them right. They're not into it, but asking for blow jobs, because that's what boys do.

Yeah, only way you can protect your son from that is by talking to him openly about porn, about sex, about relationships, about mutual respect. Yeah. And I guess that again, with that conversation, there comes more of that emotional maturity and the and the articulation of how they're feeling and all of those things that helped with the other pillars. That's right. So just jumping ahead on CES, I had this conversation just the other day

with my daughter. It was when do you When is it okay to have sex? And the answer is the same for boys and girls. That is the wrong question. It's not the one that matters. It's the why. Why do you want to have sex? And if and if you can work through with your boy. What is the criteria for his why, you know, when he feels ready, when she feels ready? When it's it's safe, when they're both at an emotional point where they want to then okay, but arbitrary age, which I

rebel against anyway, yeah. He approaches it Yes. Or you know, when I can look cool in front of my mates. Such a great conversation. I love it so much. And the next pillar is all about mastery and independence, which is a really great chapter in the book I love so much so can We talk a little bit about mastery and how we actually help boys to get mastery. Okay, so the idea is that real self esteem does come from just telling your kid over and over again that they're awesome,

right? It, they don't believe you anyway. And often, it can make them feel more insecure, because they think I'm really good. But I actually really suck. And you you build the imposter syndrome, right? Yeah, child will only believe that he's good. When he has done things that he knows to be good. It is through his actions, and his independence that makes him feel worthy, capable person. And so real self esteem comes from the idea of being able to do

life. And so you don't need a trophy, a cabinet full of trophies, or a pluses on report cards, or, you know, being selected in the top rowing team or the a or, or any football team or whatever, comes from just feeling like you've got the skills to do life. And so a lot of the anxiety that we see in kids is just that they're fearful that they can't cope with something that hasn't happened yet, right? That's what

anxiety is. If you've raised your boy to be able to do stuff, then he's not going to be so fearful about not being able to cope, and stuff like speaking for himself. Alright, so create opportunities for your boy to speak for himself, when you go to the doctor, get him to give his name, when you're in a cafe, get into order for him himself. And I got some feedback from a mom, just the other day, her son was really shy, and she could not get him to speak for

himself. And this is worrying, because the research shows that kids speak for them and who speak for themselves, you know, when they're young, they do better at school, academically and socially, right. So she was worried that she couldn't get a boy to speak for himself. And I said, Well, it's really motivating to do it in a cafe. Because if he doesn't ask, he doesn't get. She did that. And after a few times, he just got

so excited about it. And now he goes into cafes, and orders, even when they're not ordering anything. Oh, so but then this is the key. And she said, and he is so proud, ah, that is self esteem, right? And we can't that pride, we can't give that to a child, there is no way we can't by it, we can't give it with words, it comes from within. And so our job as parents is to create the opportunities for our boys to do things for themselves. So they can

experience mastery. And so they can learn to believe in themselves. And it sounds really obvious, but it's often very difficult for parents to do this, because there is so much pressure, particularly on moms to create the perfect childhood.

So we don't know boys to struggle, because we feel like we're not being good enough moms rush in and things or we, you know, if our boy misses out on the invitation to the birthday party, we want to ring up the other mum, or we'll pick up his dirty laundry, and rather than

make him do it himself. So there's all these things that we do for our boys, particularly boys more than girls, the research shows, particularly with domestic tasks, which means we are denying them the opportunity to, first of all learn new skills. But what we are also denying them the opportunity to do is struggle. And we know that the road to success, the road to self esteem is paved with struggle and failure. And the most optimistic people are not the ones who've

had an easy ride in life. They are the ones who have struggled, because they know through their own experience, that they have the internal resources to cope with struggle, triumph and succeed. That's incredible. And I suppose that's where it takes a lot of, again, work on the parents part because it's gonna make a lot of the time I think it would be the easy option. Just I'll do it. Don't worry, I'll do it. It's fine. And we go in and save

them. And I used to say this to begin beginning of year seven beginning of high school, I'm thinking alright, here comes my little teenagers. They've had their pencils labelled for them their schoolbooks labelled for them. Sometimes they're still getting parents walk up with their bags on the back and helping them to their locker and I'm thinking there's no struggle here. Yes. Most kids are most likely that anxious kids. Yes,

absolutely. Because they're worried because they can't do it themselves because they've never been allowed to. So when you look at the kids who are anxious about going to high school, they're not anxious about the subjects, although they're anxious because they don't know how to speak to each different teacher because they've never

spoken for themselves. They're anxious because they don't know how to get their stuff out of their locker and get to their classroom because they've Never been responsible for their own belongings, or they've never been required to navigate space themselves. Because we everywhere. Yes. And I can see how this becomes a differentiating factor with all boys, boys. You know, we assume a lot of the time, boys are just useless with this stuff boys aren't organised, you

know. And there's these perpetuating, like prophecies about boys. And it's, it doesn't make evidence No. To support the claim that boys are born with the useless brain. It's yeah, brains are shaped by their environment, they are shaped by what we do, and do not do for our children. And when you expect your boy to take responsibility for his own belongings, he will like any parent whose child has got an iPhone? How many times has he lost it? Not many. Ah, so true.

Always don't lose iPhones. And if you if your brain can, make sure you remember your phone, you can remember your homework. Exactly. It's just a way to do it. Yeah, that's incredible. And it's holding a higher standard for them because you believe in them and, and that helps them to believe in themselves. That's right. So every time we step in and do something for our boys, we are saying you're not capable, you're robbing them of self

esteem. Now look, there are times when we do need to step in, of course, and it's all you know, age appropriate and baby steps. But then general principle is only do for your boy what he cannot do for himself. If he can't do it for himself, support him to do it. I love it. These are so good. And then the final No, not the final one, six, we've jumped around a little bit. A boy who likes himself has strong relationships.

Okay, so this one is really interesting, because we heard from a lot of parents who have a boy and a girl. And they would say things like, Oh, my girls friendships are drama, drama, drama, girls calm relationships are so complicated. But boys, oh, it's easier there just take everything in their stride. And if worse comes to worse, they sorted out on the football field. That is what we believe to be true. And it is completely false. Always. So friendship is

actually a set of skills. And we know that the kids who have the best friends the best friendships are the kids who have the best friendship skills, and skills, friendships because like any skill, you learn them, like sure some people get a head start because they're naturally good at a particular. But they everyone needs help developing their fret skills and friendship skills is one of them. And we see that boys really suffer because of the myth that they

don't need help. Okay. And people will say that my son never talks about it. And that's not because he isn't struggling. It's because by the age of eight, he has worked out he's been a boy long enough to know that boys don't talk about this. Okay. But what we see it we start in the teen years and boys friendships start to decline. Yeah. And then they get to adulthood. And some men have no close connection to anyone. You

know. So what we have we have a friendship recession in men, and lonely boys grew up to be lonely men and women that loneliness is as deadly as cancer. If your twin does not have close connections and friendships, he is likely to have worse mental health worse physical health, he's going to do worse at school, he is going to struggle in his romantic relationships, because friendship is where you learn those skills for romantic relationships. And he's going to

struggle professionally. So we need to invest the time in teaching our boys friendship skills. So what do I mean by friendship skills? Firstly, how to choose friends who are good for him. Right? Parents, and rightly so are worried about the influence of boys peers. So he needs to learn to choose well, friendship is a choice, and he has to choose well, and what does that mean? He needs to learn and this is a really important one for voice to

maintain friendships. Women are much better at maintaining friendships than boys. And often it's not modelled. You know, Dad doesn't have any friends. Grandpa doesn't have any friends. Whereas a lot of boys have a lot of girls, they see their mom do friendship. true, very true, and not seeing their

dad do friendship. So that means in many ways you actually have to work harder to teach boys friendship skills, because if it's not being modelled, they need to learn how to deal with conflict in productive ways. Ways that don't mean punch him. Yeah, that came up a lot to really didn't want to encourage violence in their boy, but they did not know what else to do. And just on that the really good news again, is that yeah, you're right to suspect that Violence is not the right approach. It is

not okay. The research shows that if a boy is being bullied and he punches back, that is likely to escalate and he's going to get punched and it's going to keep going. Okay? That whole idea of one punch and it's over is a myth. Okay? The other reason why you should not encourage your boy to punch is you don't want to teach your boy a skill to resolve conflict that later in life could end him in jail. Right? Do you want your boy to resolve conflict by punching someone when he's 18?

Do you want your boy to resolve conflict with his partner when he's 30? by punching you wanting to resolve conflict with his own child by using violence? No. So if you don't want men to poach, we should not be encouraging boys to punch. And there are strategies that boys can use it a far more effective. It's the same strategy for girls. It's called a quick comeback. And there are several friendship experts that talk about this. One of them is Dana kerferd. From you are strong. And it is a

short, sharp statement. When somebody does something to you, you say you're quick comeback, like, that's not cool. That's not okay. Seriously, that's the best you've got or something like that. You say the statement and you walk away. And the research shows that kids who have a quick comeback and they deliver it with authority. So you need to practice you need to roleplay at home, you said we'll already get bullied less often

and less severely. Wow. And we we saw this play out with a family we were helping this boy every day when he lined up for to go into class he got elbowed in the guts you know, they had to stand in alphabetical order. Always stood behind the guy, the boy who was going to elbow him, and three times a day he had to be in that line. Oh, the mom taught him the quick comeback. Yeah. And so the first time he did it, the perpetrator was surprised and said, then that was the beginning of the day

morning tea. He did it again. The boy used his quick comeback and it stopped by lunchtime it was over. Why not elbowed him in the guts again. And the boy who elbows is now being super nice to the other boy, wow. It's so powerful. And we've heard the stories over and over again. Now, of course, in cases of severe bullying, then yeah, there are you need different strategies. But very often, if you teach your boy to stand up for himself, he will be able to

do it. And the other thing to do is create the expectation that you expect your boy to stand up for himself. So when he comes home and says, you know someone did this or said that? Let the first thing be? Did you stand up for yourself? Yeah. And if he says no, then workshops and strategies of what he can do next time, but if he says yes, it's like good on you. Oh, that's

really encouraging. I like that because I think a lot of the times it's like, okay, well, we don't want violence, we'll just tell them, Don't worry about it. Like don't set just don't retaliate, say nothing, don't you know, Don't stoop to their level. And that's actually not empowering, either. No, it's not empowering. And it also doesn't know. Okay, so if you tell your boss, I'll just ignore it. Do nothing. Yeah, Danny's got the other kid to like, try harder next time.

Yeah, yeah. And also encourages your boy to take on the victim mentality. And you marry that with the negativity of you know, masculinity. Yeah, not a picture of a boy who likes himself. No, that's a recipe for disaster in every way. I love that a quick comeback I think that the boys would enjoy I think I can imagine a workshop with boys thinking of quick comebacks and it would be quite hilarious to watch what they come up with.

That's an important part of that isn't can't get you into trouble if a teacher so somehow to you, you don't go low you go home. Yep. But so it's a statement that's non inflammatory that lets the other person saw what you did. I'm not okay with it. Yes. And teaches them how to find the right words to do that without having to resort to more name calling essentially. That's right. Yeah. Beautiful. I love these. And a boy who likes himself is himself. I get goosebumps as I say that.

Yeah, this is my favourite pillar. Yeah, it's just so beautiful and and how do we help boys to know who they are and be who they are? Yeah, so authenticity. It's, it's an issue for boys and girls, but it really is a very big issue for boys. Because as we started off by saying, you know, there's only one way to be a boy. And that's really hard if you're outside that what we call the man box. So the research has

been done. It's named the man box and it has set of values and behaviours that men believe real men have to do. Be in control, be dominant, don't back away from it. Fight, use aggression, if required never show emotion

never asked for help. And the research shows that men who genuinely believe in the man box values who subscribe to them, they have higher rates of suicide, higher rates of anxiety and depression, they're more likely to be in a car accident, they have more relationship breakdowns, they do worse at school and in the workplace. So absolutely every outcome you can measure is worse for men who believe in the man box values.

Now, in our society, there will be times when your boy will have to perform the man box values, because unfortunately, that's just the world we live in. But if he performs them, but does not believe them to be true, he is protected from all of those negative outcomes. All of the negative outcomes apply to boys who built and men who subscribe to them. Men who feel like they have to dominate girls and women in order to feel okay about

themselves, for example. The world doesn't work out very well, for those men in the long run, you know, that's again, tough versus strong. Yeah. So what we need to do for our boys is make sure that our home is a place where they are able to be

their authentic selves. And so Brene Brown did some the sociologists from America did some amazing research into what is the difference between people who actually believe in themselves and go through life with a sense of confidence and worthiness and belonging, and

the people who don't. And she looked at socio economics, she looked at age, she looked at gender, she looked at all these measures, and found out that there is only one thing that separates that group of people, and the people who go through life with a sense of worthiness, believe they are worthy. That is it. It is a belief. Wow. We as parents can instil that belief, yeah, that is a low bar. Yeah, to have lots of money. You don't

have to have a PhD right? Now, how do you instil worthiness in your boy, by treating him as if he's always worthy, it's non negotiable. It's like his hair colour, or his eye colour or his date of birth, it is just who he is. And so that means that we can absolutely have high expectations for our children. And we can pull them up when they do the wrong thing. We can teach them how to be better people. But it means that at the core, you are already enough.

And so when they go out into the world that is going to be harsh and judged them, they will know that as soon as they work, walk through your door, they can drop the man box, drop the mask, and you'll see them and nurture them, and love them for who they are, and support them to grow into the best version of the person that they choose to be not the one that you choose for them. Wow, this is it's so as you're talking, I'm thinking I remember talking when we were talking

about the girls book. And it's like, whether you have daughters or not, this book is for a lot for a lot of mothers or not mothers yet, or females in general, to learn to like themselves, even if they don't have a daughter in the world, because it's a lot of re parenting, to then be able to gift that. And it's the same

here. I think a lot of men are going to have to really have to go on a journey and parents alike, to make sure they're not projecting their own insecurities onto their kids their own expectations onto the kids. And the boy who likes himself is himself requires that unconditional love from parents without expectation, which is a lot of work for the parents to be done. It is and so and often with particularly with dads who try to chisel away and create their

son in a certain way. Yeah, it is done with good intentions. Yeah. In the book, we interview Sarah Kearns, who is Mrs. Dad Mum, you know, the social media sensation and so interesting speaking to her, because she's married to Brad Kearns and their oldest son Knox does not fit into the man box at all. But they were very, they parented very gender neutrally. It's not it was a little boy and he likes you know, rainbows and unicorns, and motocross racing, you know,

what he likes, right? And but when he was got time to go to school, Brad, the dad said, look, he can have whatever he wants at home, but he's not taking it to school. And the reason he said that was because he knows that the world's tougher boys who aren't men box. But they as a family debated that and realise that yeah, It's hard for a boy to be outside the man box and not be accepted outside the home. But it is so much worse for him not to be

accepted inside the home. And what message would you be giving to Paul sweet little knock saying you have to pretend to be someone else when you go to school? Yeah. So rather than trying to change their boy to fit into the world, they've turned their attention to giving him strategies to cope with the world. The quick comeback, roleplaying what someone might say to you if you have a rainbow pencil case. And also just giving him so much love and validation within his home.

Because also another thing about peer pressure, your boy is going to be a lot less likely to do dumb stuff to to win the approval of other people if he has approval at home. Wow, that's so true. And so powerful. This is incredible. Have you heard any stories where you've heard from I know, you've heard from lots of women mothers out there listening with the last book about how they've improved their selves through your work. And you know, they had intentions of improving their daughters, you

know, for their daughters. Have you had some really incredible, like testimonials and feedback from fathers and men who have, you know, gone on their own development journey as well? Yeah, I got one just the other day. Yeah. Who? He said he. What was it? He had more confidence? Yeah. To do, because the dads, you know, they have their own experiences, which were brutal. And they say Miss, you know, girl moms as well. It's like, we want something different from

our kids, for our child. But we don't know how to give that. Yeah. And so you just had more confidence in supporting his boy to be his authentic self. Oh, it's so beautiful. I just I love your work. I love it so much. And my question for you is what's next for you and your husband, you've, you've done the books. That was a very quick turnaround. And you're just changing lives and your incredible couple. And I'm very grateful. And I just want to know what's next for you guys?

No, at the moment. It could be just for the year without a deadline. No more books. Yeah. So I think we're going to have a quiet year maybe. And still continue to talk about this. So we have a we call it brave parents Academy, which is a digital course for girl parents. Yes. Running that again, at the end of the year. What so? Yes, September, we'll be running that. And maybe we'll do something similar for boys. But we haven't done that yet. You guys need a holiday maybe?

Well, thank you so much for being here. Thank you for the work you do. And please extend that to your husband as well. I know you guys are just a powerhouse. And there's going to be so many parents who I just know are going to love this. Where can they find you if they want to connect for their boys yet? So come to boys who like themselves.com. When is this going to live in the next month? Okay, so July or August? All right. So if it goes live in July, we are running free master

classes for its parents. Right. Oh, get it out. We'll do that. Yeah, for sure. And you can register from our web from our website voice who like themselves.com Oh, incredible. Amazing. So guys, go check that out. Read the book. The book is absolutely incredible. You demolish it very fast. Casey, thank you so much for being here. My pleasure, Bri thanks. Thank you