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Welcome back to Raising Men. I'm your host, Shawn Dawson. Now, if you've been following the show, you know that our guiding light is simple. It's sometimes heavy truth that our sons aren't just watching us, they're becoming us. Now, we are in the business of raising men of purpose and strength, of raising excellent men. But as we have previously repeatedly discussed,

The most important work that we have to do is the quiet daily environment that we build in our homes, the soil in which our sons will either thrive or fail to thrive. So today we're gonna dive back into the mailbag for another Q &A episode. We've got two questions that get right to the heart of the nature versus nurture debate and the subtle ways in which

we might be closing our son's hearts without even meaning to. We're gonna look at why our boys seem to shut down when we get tough and whether that rowdy energy that we see on the playground is hardwired or a product of the world around them. As always, we're leaning on the collective wisdom of our guests and the research that backs them up. So let's get into it. Our first question today comes from a dad who's noticing a shift

in their son's behavior. He writes, I see my son narrowing his expressions when I get tough with him. Am I unintentionally building an emotional desert in our home? Now, this is a good observation. The phrase narrowing his expressions is exactly what happens when a child, particularly a boy, decides that an environment isn't safe for his full range of feeling.

We've talked a lot about creating that culture of safety and creating an environment where our sons can feel safe to have their full range of feelings. Even though we're not really talking about her today, Dr. Gloria Von Der Horst coined a term that we reference often. It's the emotional desert. It happens when a culture

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or a home unintentionally shames a boy's natural sensitivity. Ryan North shared a similar perspective from the lens of trauma-informed parenting. He notes that authority is not about control. Real authority, genuine, authentic authority is about trust. And so when we get tough in a way that relies on fear or high pressure compliance,

We're actually breaking that trust. And so if a boy feels that his tears or his softer emotions are met with a tough wall, then he's gonna perform what researchers call an emotional narrowing. He limits his expressions to the ones he thinks you can handle. He's being taught that he needs to narrow down his emotional range.

And that usually means that he's gonna stop showing you anything but anger and silence, which are the emotions that are in highest relief for him. a principle that we've heard a lot on the show is that connection must come before correction. Jennifer Fink emphasized that when boys feel like who they are are wrong or broken,

They simply check out. This is such an important concept. We talk a lot about the dichotomy of the left coded messaging that masculinity is bad or evil versus the right coded messaging that evilness or that coarse behavior is a virtue. Well, we're not, if our boys feel like masculinity is evil, they're not going to adopt

that point of view, they're just going to be driven away by it. And that's why we see them getting sent over into these online wastelands where they learn lessons that aren't adaptive, they're actually getting grifted on. So if you see your boy narrow his expressions, it's a signal that you need to move from judgment to curiosity. And that is...

Shaun (04:52.682)
That's an important reflex and you know, mentioned it especially because it's something that I really struggle with instead of pushing harder To get compliance try just getting curious about it. Try asking, you know, I wonder what's going on for you right now That connection opens the drawbridge in you know, our little castle metaphor rather than Forcing him to retreat further, right?

Now, this isn't soft parenting. That's not what it is. It's neurobiology. John Gottman did some research in his book, Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, which shows that emotion coaching, where parents validate the child's feelings before correcting their behavior, leads to way better emotional regulation and social success for the child. Furthermore, Daniel Gottman's work on emotional intelligence

highlights that when we suppress a child's emotions, we actually stunt their ability to manage those emotions later in life. We feel like we're imparting a skill. We feel like we're teaching them to manage their anger, but what we're really teaching them is to suppress it. that, anytime you suppress an emotion like that, it's gonna eke out in ways that are not really productive.

Our second question is one that almost every parent of both boys and girls ends up wondering about. The question is, is there a biological reason my son is so much rowdier than my daughter, or is it just socialization? Now, the short answer is yes. There is a very real biological component.

Now we often hear that boys will be boys, but there is actual science behind the surface of that cliche. And it's not healthy to pretend it doesn't exist. There is socialization and there is nature. There is both nature and nurture, and that's a good thing. Jennifer Fink, who we talked about in the last question,

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who's the author of Building Boys, she pointed out that boys aren't broken or behind, but they are developing on a different timeline. She explains that many things adults misinterpret as misbehavior, like rowdiness or physical play or impulse control moments, or just that frenetic energy.

where they're running around all over the place. These are normal development stages for boys. And they're important for them to figure out how to navigate effectively in the world. There is a biological development gap between boys and girls. Steve Bidoff, one of our biggest friends at the pod, has noted, and Jennifer agrees, that testosterone in the womb actually slows certain parts of male brain development.

often putting boys six to 12 months behind girls in areas like speech and fine motor skills by the time they hit school. Six to 12 months behind. Because they may lack the verbal tools to express themselves, that energy often comes out physically. This is why Steve Binoff pioneered a movement to delay the entry

of boys into primary school because boys and girls just are not on the same playing field. And if they're expected to be, they're going to fall short. Ryan North also touched on this in his episode where he talks about the need for a secure base. And for boys, that exploration that they do outside of that base is often physical.

looks like rowdiness to an adult is often a boy's way of testing his boundaries and learning his physical capabilities and learning about his own strength. And so when, if we shame those instincts, they're just gonna disconnect and they're gonna seek other ways of trying to express that energy. We need to give them, I mean, it is appropriate to have boundaries.

Shaun (09:44.761)
we need to think about the tension between having those boundaries and, or what the boundaries are and giving him a way of doing these expressions. And so, you know, one of the things I try to do, and I don't know if it's right, but one of the things I try to do is to just default to yes. If he asks me a question,

Instead of defaulting to no, was which by the way is my reflex I Consciously try to default to yes, and if I can't say yes for a thing then There's gonna be a good reason and I express that reason. we can't do that buddy. And here's why or you know Our policy is we don't watch YouTube and in in our family for kids It has caused specific issues in us. And so if he wants to

This happened this morning. He wanted to watch a specific YouTube video about Minecraft. He learns a lot from Minecraft videos and he's incredible at Minecraft and I want him to be able to explore that. he said, can I watch this playlist of Minecraft videos? And I had to say no because our policy is that we don't. But then we came up with a way. We negotiated a way for us, for him to be able to get the value of that.

what we ended up negotiating on is, okay, I'll tell you what, if you wanna watch a video, find it, come to me, and I will okay each session and each video as it comes in. And that is gonna help us, that will hopefully short circuit some of the difficulties that we've had in the past where he's essentially getting addicted to YouTube, which is something that I don't wanna see happen. There's research that backs this up. You can look at Luann.

Risen Dean's The Female Brain and its counterpart, The Male Brain. And those books detail how hormonal surges shape brain architecture and behavior from a very young age. Additionally, there's research from the Harvard Center on the Developing Child that shows that the physical act of play is essential for developing the prefrontal cortex.

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This is the area that I call the Sherlock Holmes brain. That area is so unbelievably important in helping with the very impulse control that we think rowdy boys lack. Think about that. Their wrestling and body slams and running around and being rowdy is how they develop the part of their brain that allows them to control their impulses to do exactly those things.

So what is the takeaway for today? Whether you're worried about your son kind of closing off or becoming emotionally unavailable or you're exhausted by the rowdy energy in your living room, remember that your son is a person to be discovered. He's not a project you're trying to finish. There isn't perfection here, it's a process. So if you see him,

as we say, narrowing his expressions. It is an invitation to get curious, to widen your own. It's a call to look at the boy in front of you in a present way. And I know you've me talk about how much I struggle with that. The boy who is there in front of you, the boy who is there right now, not the one that you fear that he might become. One of my personal tendencies is

I've worked as a consultant. One of the things that consultants do or analysts do is we plot lines on a graph and then we extend that graph all the way over into the future and then we act as if that future already exists sometimes. And this is so bad to do. It so keeps you from being able to be present with your son. And so just deal with the boy who is in front of you right now.

You don't have to worry about what that behavior is gonna lead to when he's 26. You can deal with that later. When that rowdy energy feels like too much, remember that his body and his brain are learning. He's not being bad, he's just being a boy. And it's your job to give him the tools to help vector that behavior into unacceptable format. Your job especially is

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to cultivate that energy, not to crush it, to give that energy a purpose and a safe place to be expressed. Now as we always say, fatherhood, parenthood, dealing with boys is not about having the answers. It is about being willing to show up, to try to be present, and just try and let your son witness.

you searching for the answers. Your kids don't need a perfect parent. They need a present one. Again, I'm hitting on that mantra because I struggle with it so mightily. My name is Shawn Dawson and this is Raising Men. Thank you and remember that you are a great parent.