As a child psychologist, it is clear to me that the quickest route to a more empathic civilization is to stop beating, belittling and in other ways psychologically scarring boys when they are young. Boys from traumatized backgrounds with brutal fathers can grow up to be tyrants and murderers--think about Adolf Hitler and Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia--while boys who have been raised with emotional support almost certainly will not.
We need to raise loved and loving boys who have the capacity to grow into empathic leaders and partners. Across cultures, if we want to change the world quickly, our best option is to raise emotionally literate boys who value understanding.
Well-meaning parents and teachers often tell me they're trying to raise "sensitive" or "non-violent" men who can acknowledge their "feminine" side and who will grow up to "respect women." Yet, those efforts to raise sensitive boys can be counterproductive. When I asked a second-grade teacher why she banned play-fighting at recess and so-called "violent writing" in the classroom she said, "Because I don't want one of my boys to grow up president and invade Iraq some day." I can appreciate the sentiment, but her view is biased and unscientific. Childhood play does not lead to adult violence. I know that the boys in her class sense that she sees them and their writing as potentially dangerous. That's not good for them. We must understand the way boys learn. They are, on average, more physically restless than girls, more impulsive and competitive, more interested in writing stories of conflict and death, more likely to work hard when surrounded by groups of boys.
Punitive approaches to raising boys do not work. Fathers hitting boys at home only produces obedient boys who come into school ready to use physical aggression against their peers. An American Psychological Association report has shown that enforcing Zero Tolerance policies at schools hasn't changed boys' behavior; it only alienates them. Constantly punishing boys by taking away their recess time or banning their games doesn't work either. Forcing boys to always cooperate, to never compete in the classroom, just makes them feel as if school isn't made for them. If boys feel chronically misunderstood, if they feel their play is constantly interfered with, they simply go their own way, dropping out of school or psychologically separating themselves from the values of the adult world. They look outside of school for meaning, for affirmation of themselves as strong boys and healthy men. For many boys, that means idolizing the local gang leader, the cool but antisocial athlete, the abusive father.
My experience as the psychologist for an all-boys school and a consultant to both all-boys and coed schools has taught me some important lessons about what boys need. Boys are always hungry for responsible male role models and for women who really "get" boys. Boys are always looking for routes to a respectable manhood that both their male and female teachers admire.
In infancy, boys cry more and are more vulnerable to disruptions in their attachments to their mothers than girls. Many of them express their distress through anger and avoidance. We need to understand that little boy anger is often fear and anxiety.
In elementary school, we need to understand that boys are extraordinarily susceptible to shame. The arc of boy development is different--and slower--than the arc of girl development. We need not constantly compare boys unfavorably to girls or make girl behavior the gold standard in schools.
Throughout childhood, we need men to model caretaking behaviors for boys and we need to give boys the chance to care for younger children. Tom Lickona, the author of Educating for Character, has said that all children need to want the good, know the good and practice the good. I believe that giving boys the chance to care for younger children--practicing the good--may be the single most important step in helping them develop empathy. If we view teenage boys as dangerous or as potential molesters, if we only give them competitive outlets, we will never give them the chance to develop their empathic potential.
Finally, in adolescence we must meet the moral and spiritual yearnings of boys. If there is one lesson in the violent, terrorist activities of young men in the world, it is that young men always search for meaning, even in terrible ways. If we traumatize boys, we will produce violent young men. If we do not provide young men with meaningful rituals that take them from boyhood to manhood, they will invent their own cruel initiations. If we just try to control them and do not speak to their souls, they will pay us back with violence. Boys need to experience empathy when they are young, they need to learn to recognize empathic behavior, and they need to practice it.
The anthropologist, Margaret Mead, once expressed admiration for societies that raised their sons to be "good fathers." I agree with her. If we continually keep in mind the goal of raising good fathers, the best instincts of boys would be handed down from generation to generation.
Jeremy Rifkin: 'Empathic Civilization': Is It Time To Replace The American Dream?
Alison Gopnik: 'Empathic Civilization': Amazing Empathic Babies
David Elkind: 'Empathic Civilization': How Little Minds Are Wired For Compassion
In Middle Schools, Empathy Becomes a Weapon Against Bullying ...
I know that we still live in a machistic society which from a matriarchat has become a patriarchat, and whenever a woman comes along we either find her defects or behaviors that are unbecoming
I do beleve that as my mother always was and is saying to me all children need love and understanding and when they are given love and understanding and warmth for the spirit they become interesting adults, most of the time
we as adults become nicer and more opened to others when we are witnessed love and understanding
we all as human beings need to have love, understanding and acknowledged for our qualities, few or many that we have
as a mother I understand that a child, a teen or an adult needs love and understanding as much as we want it for us
I, now, understand that at any age we are children for our parents and that our children will be children for us regardless of their age and our respective ages
complex issue mostly as the human nature is and we will not be perfect and nor our children, but we just hope they will turn out alright in life and that we can be there to help them out whenever they fall
6. Be generous with praise. If you have to land hard on a boy, go out of your way to find something praiseworthy soon. It can come from someone else if you can't find something.
7. Be very specific with criticism. Focus on the act not on the person. Be clear on why it's a problem. Clearly chart a path of redemption.
8. Boys are like puppies. Discipline them for something they did last week, and you get resentment. Punishment, whether a scolding, a raised finger, or cutting wood should happen on the same day as the 'crime'
9. Boys often find it easier to talk about uncomfortable subjects walking beside you, when they clam up if across a desk from you.
10. Give them heroes, not anti-heroes in their reading. Choose works that exemplify the three virtues of the warrior: Protection of the Innocent. Courage in Battle. Loyalty to the King. As they get older talks around the campfire can expand on these themes translating them to modern society.
2. Boys are far more physical. This can be vented in sports. We used an extreme outdoor program, both as a physical outlet, and to give boys something to brag about. (thousand kilometer canoe trips, 12 day winter expeditions by dog sled)
3. We gave the boys chores. About 10 hours a week. They did much of the work that kept the school clean, the dishes washed, the lights working. While they complained about it, it also gave them a feeling of contributing to the common good.
4. In both the chores and the outdoor program there were clearly defined goals and standards. Lots of moral areas that are murky in real life are black and white there. E.g. On a trip if you steal cheese from the food box, it means that other people go without. If you are slack on a portage, other people have to haul your load. Two weeks into a trip we see lots of kids (and sometimes staff) who realize that they don't really measure up, and they begin to change.
While you have said that as a culture we are raising boys the wrong way, you are shy on the details as to how to raise them the right way.
I'm not a psychologist. But I've worked in a boys school for close to 20 years. A few rules of thumb:
However, it is more likely that ....
If Adam had not been so weak that he ate the apple, men would be a stronger breed today.
"f we traumatize boys, we will produce violent young men. If we do not provide young men with meaningful rituals that take them from boyhood to manhood, they will invent their own cruel initiations. If we just try to control them and do not speak to their souls, they will pay us back with violence."
When I think of the parts of the world constantly enveloped in violence and mayhem, I can't help but wonder what trauma was suffered by the aggressors. What rituals and customs were they denied? What kind of oppression, real or perceived, do these young men face? I think about school shootings, random acts of violence at home and abroad...it's clearer now. It's not something we can wave off as just a function of racial, ethnic or religious strife. It really boils down to how we raise our men, our children. What are we teaching them through our actions?
I'm getting this book!