March 27, 2025 • 18 mins
Today's episode is taken from the Happy Families Bringing Up Boys Summit.
Dr Arne Rubinstein is the author of The Making of Men, and discusses with Justin the idea of a boys “rite of passage”.
Get the Bringing Up Boys Summit for $99 (50% off) until March 31st, 2025.
The Miss-Connection Summit is also available for $99 until March 31st, 2025.
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Email us your questions and comments at podcasts@happyfamilies.com.au
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
The Hi everyone, it's Justin Ruland from Bridge Media here.
And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, where's the
other Justin? And he is coming. Because normally on a Friday,
Justin and Kylie do their I'll Do Better Tomorrow episode
where they look back at the week that was. But
this week Justin's media schedule has been absolutely enormous. He's
been slammed with media requests as a result of his
(00:27):
viral post about the Netflix hit Adolescens on his Facebook page.
So as a result, what we're going to do today
is we'll be replaying a discussion that Justin had with
doctor Arna Rubinstein about Bringing Up Boys. It's actually an
excerpt from a longer conversation about boys, part of the
Bringing Up Boys Summit at Happy Families dot com dot au. Well, look,
(00:48):
we hope you enjoy the conversation and if it sparks
something for you, the entire Bringing Up Boy's Summit is
available now fifty percent off. That's ninety nine dollars until
March thirty one at Happy Families dot com dot com.
That's fifty percent off. Bringing Up Boys plus the Misconnection
Summit will also be on sale for ninety nine dollars.
That's at Happy Families dot com dot au will put
(01:10):
the links in the show notes. Now here's doctor Justin
Coulson with doctor Arna Rubinstein.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I'm really super excited to be able to spend some
time talking today with doctor Arna Rubinstein.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Now, the conversation that we're going to have is actually
part of the.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Bringing Up Boys' Summit. We had a whole lot of
experts from around the world join us for conversations about
what it is to bring up boys. But I think
that you'll find that this content is useful not just
for parents of boys, but for parents generally. My sense
is that hearing what doctor Arna Rubinstein has to say
will make a big difference in the way that you
engage with your family. Doctor Arna is the CEO and
(01:54):
founder of the Rights of Passage Institute. He has over
thirty years experience as a medical doctor, counselor, mentor, a
speaker and a workshop facilitator. The programs, the seminars and
the camps that he's helped to develop have been attended
by more than three hundred and fifty thousand people globally.
While some of the largest schools in Australia have implemented
(02:14):
his framework in wonderful ways. His programs are designed to
support boys and girls to successfully transition, healthy, safely into adulthood.
His goal is to make rights of passage mainstream once again.
Doctor Arna Rubenstein is the proud father of two wonderful
young men and a mentor to many others, and he
(02:37):
joined me for this discussion about why boys seem to
be natural risk takers.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
There's a reason for it. And when I studied rights
and passage all over the world, what I discovered that extraordinarily,
despite the fact that they never met their shatter, they
all did the same thing. So they all reckon. They
all did at the same age sort of when the
boys were hitting puberty, and they would always be taken away.
And then there would be four elements that always happened.
(03:03):
The first is that the boys get to hear the
stories of the elders. They get to hear the men
talking about their lives and the big things that had
impact in their lives. And that's how they actually received
wisdom and knowledge, not by being told how to live
their lives and what to do, but by actually hearing
the stories. So stories were an incredibly important part of
(03:25):
Rutza passage. That was the first element. The second element
is there's always a challenge, and there was always a
challenge that pushed a boy to his edge. And actually
it did a couple of things. It actually made him
face his own mortality and fear, and it humbled him.
(03:46):
It humbled him, which is very interesting because if this
is anate need inside a boy, and if we don't
create it for him, he will go and do it himself.
He will push himself to a point where his mortality
is challenged. And if there's no supervision, the danger is
(04:07):
that he'll actually kill himself or badly injure himself, which
you know, I know did emergency man, I did retrieval medicine,
and or all the young men even make it to
the hospital. And so I actually believe that every boy
is going to go through a rite of passage. The
question is are they going to create their own which
you know, we hope is not too disastrous, or we're
(04:30):
going to create something for them which is actually appropriate.
And then the other thing is if the humbling doesn't occur,
then they end up arrogant and entitled. And you know
how many young men do we know out there who
are arrogant and entitled and think the world is there
for them and their role is to take as much
(04:52):
as they can. So that was the set the first
element story, the second element, there's always a challenge. The
third element is creating a vision for how you want
to be in the future. What sort of man do
you want to be, what's your role you know, how
do you want to be in the community. And included
in that vision is what are the from your childhood
that you need.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
To let go of.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
If you're going to become that man. And then the
fourth element I call it an honoring or a recognition
of spirit, and it's based on this idea that every
boy is different, and every boy is born with their
own unique gifts and talents, their own genius and spirit.
And one of the key things of a rite of
passage is to recognize and bring out those gifts, bring
(05:36):
out that talent, bring out that spirit. And they were
things that were done and so our challenge is then
to make that appropriate for today because we don't live
in you know, the jungles of Africa a Papua New
Guinea to one hundred years ago, the deserts of Australia,
it's whatever we do has to be appropriate for now,
(05:56):
and I can talk about that. But if we don't
do that, those things we don't create a rite of passage.
The danger is the boys do not evolve and end
up becoming physically out up men, but still with the
psyche the behavior boy, which is a disaster.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
So in your book The Making of Men, you actually
talk about a world that runs on boy psychology? Correct?
Can you just maybe? Because I definitely want to get
to these solutions and these ideas about what we can
do it, because we're not going to send our kids
out to hunt a wildline in the forest just down
the street here. What does a world running on boy
psychology look like? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (06:38):
So when I was doing the work, someone said, well,
if you're going to talk about boys to men, you
have to be able to define the difference. I wrote
a model boyscology, healthy maunt psychology, and boy psychology is
what we typically see in a six to eight year
old boy. I'm the center of the universe. It's all
about me, all about me, me, me, Me. I want
constant acknowledgment. I can't handle my emotions if something goes wrong.
(07:02):
I have a temper tantrum. I want as much power
as possible. I'm going to live forever. I can never
be wrong, never wrong. And I want a mother. I
want a mother to be my sur to do everything
for me, to tell me how wonderful I am. To
just be on call twenty four to seven. Now, that's
fine in a six to eight year old. But if
(07:23):
you imagine a man like a global leader, or a
head of community or ahead of a family, who still
thinks he's the center of the universe, still thinks it's
all about himself, wants as much power as possible, can
never be wrong. When he doesn't get what he wants,
he has a temper tantrum and wants a mother instead
(07:44):
of a relationship. That's a major problem. And I can
think we live in a world that's run by boys.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I was about to say, isn't it great that all
of the men who run various countries in our woo
who have done isn't it wonderful that they've actually mature
from that voice?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
We don't know, yeah, you know, it's but it's a
serious issue when those men can push buttons that change
the lives of hundreds of thousands or millions of people
or make decisions. You know, do we want those decisions
to be for the best of the people or for
the best of that person? And so healthy man psychology
(08:23):
is I'm not the center of the universe. I'm part
of a community, and power is not just for me.
Power is so I can do more good in my community.
And if something doesn't work, I don't have a temper tantrum.
That's actually domestic violence. I have to be able to
stand with my emotions. And I'm not going to live forever.
(08:44):
One day I'm going to die. And I'm not always right.
I make mistakes. When I do make mistakes, I have
to be accountable. And finally, I'm not looking for a mother.
I'm looking for genuine relationship. And when I give my talks,
which I do all around and around the world, and
I talk about this model, and I say to any
of the women in the audience, know any men who
still think that the center of the universe want power, acknowledgement,
(09:08):
can't stand their emotions, are never wrong, and want a mother.
And you see the women and they sort of think,
and they look at their husband and they look back.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
And then there's this sort of this awkward shuffle.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
And you know, we know exactly what I'm talking about here,
and it's actually not okay. And all the stuff we're
seeing in the Me Too movement and toxic masculinity and
the patriarchy, and that's all inappropriate boy behavior from men,
and it's just it's not okay. It's completely not okay.
(09:39):
And a big part of it is because we don't
have the rights or passage to create this shift from
boy to men.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Okay, So you can't start raising a teenager once it
becomes a teenager. I wish don't necessarily say that we
can still do some good right, it's never actually too late.
But we've got parents of boys from eight to eighteen
who are watching as many of them are actually watching
it with their boys. In the book, you've got quite
a lot in chapter five about how you can't start
(10:15):
raising a teenager once it becomes one. So we need
to we need to start pairing young boys the right
way to transition them effectively from that boy psychology into
what it is to be a man. Where do we start,
How does this place this happen? Because, by the way,
you're not sending eight year olds out for these rights
of passages opportunities as they're moving through with their adolescens.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Now, look, that's completely true, and ed's one of my saying,
you can't start raising, you know, teenage, you want to say,
become a teener. So it does come down to parenting.
And one of the things I've discovered, despite the fact
that my main interest has been right to passage, is
there is a parenting issue and many many parents feel
very lost and feel like they don't have a basic
sort of God book and they want to be the
(10:55):
best parents they can, but it's hard because they're so busy,
their children are so busy. There's so much technology available
every moment, and there's not a lot of I have
found a lot of great guidance. So even though I
do not want to be a parenting expert, I have
found myself drawn into that sort of area. And we
developed a model and I can give you the link
(11:18):
to send it up if that's okay. On the thing
great and we talk about seven strategies for building healthy
relationships with our sons. And the first and it's quite basic,
but our experience has been that parents love this knowledge.
And the first is finding something that you both enjoy doing. Together,
(11:40):
turning off your mobile phone and doing it regularly. And
this is for dads and mums. And it might be
walking the dog, it might be going fishing, it might
be listening to music, it might be having a cup
of tea in the day, whatever it is. But first
of all, if you're going to have a relationship with someone,
you have to have time with them. And extraordinarily I
find a lot of especially dads, just never have one
on one time with their children. That's the first one. I'll
(12:03):
just name a few of them. The second is practicing
acknowledging what they do well, so you know if you
see them do something well, or their gifts or whatever
you actually name it. It's very easy for parents just
to tell their kids what they're doing wrong. And once
again especially dads, but it is very good name of
things they do well. Teaching skills of reflection. So when
(12:24):
something happens, ask your child what they think about it first,
rather than just giving them the lesson and saying if
they have a problem, getting them they can come up
with a possible solution or some ideas and then working
with them on that. And then the last one I'll
mention is that when something goes wrong when they do
(12:46):
something wrong, which will happen at some stage, separating the
person from the behave. So you know, I still love you,
but you know burning down the house was not okay,
or you know, hitting hitting your sisters not okay. We've
got to talk about that, you know. Or if they
don't do well at school, rather than shaming them, saying, hey,
(13:08):
what's going on? You know, because one of the things
we know with boys is when they act out often
that actually means they've got a problem going on. So
their way of expressing the problem is actually acting out.
So those sorts of things, and we have like a
wheel where we have all those things and parents can
give themselves a mark out of ten in each of
those areas and then join the dots. And you know,
(13:30):
it's a simple thing. And the final one, actually I
will mention, is sharing stories about when you were their age,
including what went well and what didn't go well, and
those sorts of things. It's just about building up strong,
healthy relationship. Actually, there is one more which I do
need to mention, keep going, connecting privileges with responsibility. I
(13:54):
can't not name that because when we just give our
boys everything regardless of how they behave regardless of how
they are, and they become entitled. That's a problem. And
from quite an early age, yes, we give them things,
but if there's an agreement, like you know, you'll take
your dishes into the kitchen, or you'll tidy your room,
(14:15):
or you'll you know, be home when you say you're
going to be home, and the privileges come together with that,
that's a very important lesson because if we don't teach
it to young as teenagers, when they're you know, six
inches taller than us and big and strong and grumpy,
that's not the time to be trying to sort of
put in the boundaries. And unfortunately, I get a lot
(14:37):
of phone calls from parents who say, I don't know
what happened to my twelve thirteen year old son overnight.
They won't talk me, they won't cuddle me. They just
go in their room and lock the door, you know,
and there's a war going on in the house. So,
you know, I think there's a lot we can do
around our sort of early stage parenting.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Throughout those ideas that you've just shared. You've used dads
and the importance of his role multiple times. Can you
just talk a little bit about I mean, you've talked
about rights of passage and the elders, the men go away,
the elders spend time talking with the youngsters, and once
again you've brought you brought the dads in the male
role model. There's two parts to this question, and I'm
(15:19):
not supposed to ask two questions at once, but they
flow together. The first that can you just talk about
why dads are so important? But the follow up is
there's going to be a whole bunch of single mums
who are watching this. There's going to be a whole
lot of families where dad is either not safe or
not present, or for whatever reason, wants to be but
maybe even can't be. We want to give dads a
benefit of the doubt as often as we can as well.
(15:40):
What are parents do in that situation?
Speaker 4 (15:43):
Okay, so yeah, thank you for bringing that up. Equally
important dads and mums, for sure. But the thing that
we often find is that mums are so much more present.
And these are generalizations, you know, very often the mums have,
you know, so much more to do, especially in the
early years with boys, and and we do have a
(16:09):
lot of single moms who are trying to be mum
and dad, which is very difficult. And one of our
big recommendations there is to bring for the mums, to
bring other men in, whether it's uncles, friends, grandfathers, are
brilliant to bring that influence in. And what I also
say to mums, there's a few really key things here,
(16:30):
which is, you know, not to put up with inappropriate
behavior from your boys. They've got to learn early that
swearing at you, trying to hit you, you know, any
of that stuff is just not okay, and they need
to learn that while they're with you in the house.
You know, it's a tricky one because you're right, something
like a third of boys are now being brought up
(16:52):
by single mums and not having contact with their fathers.
So anything we can do to support mums is really
important and I've actually got cap through about that in
my book. So and those same principles with the mums
are finding something you can do with your son one
on one, sharing stories, separating the person from the behavior.
(17:12):
All of those things are as important as well as
doing whatever you can to have good men in the life.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Of your boys.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
And we look at it as a community thing, So
you know, I say, dads, whenever I work with them,
you know, keep an eye out not only on.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Your boy, but all the boy.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
The ideas were sort of trying to create an umbrella
where the whole community is looking after all the children.
And that's part of our work that we do in
schools is trying to create community so that those who
are on their own actually do have support.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Hi. Everyone, Justin from Bridge Media. Again. You can hear
that whole conversation as well as our long discussions with
Peggy Orenstein, author of Boys and Sex, profess some Mark
Brackett from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Manbox researcher
Matt Tyler, and many many more in the Bringing Up
Boys Summit that's fifty percent off until March thirty first
(18:11):
at Happy Families dot com dot au and don't Forget
the Misconnection Summit also on sale at Happyfamilies dot com
dot au. We'll put those links in the show notes.
The Happy Families podcast is produced by me Justin rule
On from Bridge Media and don't Forget. You can get
more information on improving your family's happiness at happy families
dot com dot au
The Hi everyone, it's Justin Ruland from Bridge Media here.
And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking, where's the
other Justin? And he is coming. Because normally on a Friday,
Justin and Kylie do their I'll Do Better Tomorrow episode
where they look back at the week that was. But
this week Justin's media schedule has been absolutely enormous. He's
been slammed with media requests as a result of his
(00:27):
viral post about the Netflix hit Adolescens on his Facebook page.
So as a result, what we're going to do today
is we'll be replaying a discussion that Justin had with
doctor Arna Rubinstein about Bringing Up Boys. It's actually an
excerpt from a longer conversation about boys, part of the
Bringing Up Boys Summit at Happy Families dot com dot au. Well, look,
(00:48):
we hope you enjoy the conversation and if it sparks
something for you, the entire Bringing Up Boy's Summit is
available now fifty percent off. That's ninety nine dollars until
March thirty one at Happy Families dot com dot com.
That's fifty percent off. Bringing Up Boys plus the Misconnection
Summit will also be on sale for ninety nine dollars.
That's at Happy Families dot com dot au will put
(01:10):
the links in the show notes. Now here's doctor Justin
Coulson with doctor Arna Rubinstein.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
I'm really super excited to be able to spend some
time talking today with doctor Arna Rubinstein.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Now, the conversation that we're going to have is actually
part of the.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Bringing Up Boys' Summit. We had a whole lot of
experts from around the world join us for conversations about
what it is to bring up boys. But I think
that you'll find that this content is useful not just
for parents of boys, but for parents generally. My sense
is that hearing what doctor Arna Rubinstein has to say
will make a big difference in the way that you
engage with your family. Doctor Arna is the CEO and
(01:54):
founder of the Rights of Passage Institute. He has over
thirty years experience as a medical doctor, counselor, mentor, a
speaker and a workshop facilitator. The programs, the seminars and
the camps that he's helped to develop have been attended
by more than three hundred and fifty thousand people globally.
While some of the largest schools in Australia have implemented
(02:14):
his framework in wonderful ways. His programs are designed to
support boys and girls to successfully transition, healthy, safely into adulthood.
His goal is to make rights of passage mainstream once again.
Doctor Arna Rubenstein is the proud father of two wonderful
young men and a mentor to many others, and he
(02:37):
joined me for this discussion about why boys seem to
be natural risk takers.
Speaker 4 (02:42):
There's a reason for it. And when I studied rights
and passage all over the world, what I discovered that extraordinarily,
despite the fact that they never met their shatter, they
all did the same thing. So they all reckon. They
all did at the same age sort of when the
boys were hitting puberty, and they would always be taken away.
And then there would be four elements that always happened.
(03:03):
The first is that the boys get to hear the
stories of the elders. They get to hear the men
talking about their lives and the big things that had
impact in their lives. And that's how they actually received
wisdom and knowledge, not by being told how to live
their lives and what to do, but by actually hearing
the stories. So stories were an incredibly important part of
(03:25):
Rutza passage. That was the first element. The second element
is there's always a challenge, and there was always a
challenge that pushed a boy to his edge. And actually
it did a couple of things. It actually made him
face his own mortality and fear, and it humbled him.
(03:46):
It humbled him, which is very interesting because if this
is anate need inside a boy, and if we don't
create it for him, he will go and do it himself.
He will push himself to a point where his mortality
is challenged. And if there's no supervision, the danger is
(04:07):
that he'll actually kill himself or badly injure himself, which
you know, I know did emergency man, I did retrieval medicine,
and or all the young men even make it to
the hospital. And so I actually believe that every boy
is going to go through a rite of passage. The
question is are they going to create their own which
you know, we hope is not too disastrous, or we're
(04:30):
going to create something for them which is actually appropriate.
And then the other thing is if the humbling doesn't occur,
then they end up arrogant and entitled. And you know
how many young men do we know out there who
are arrogant and entitled and think the world is there
for them and their role is to take as much
(04:52):
as they can. So that was the set the first
element story, the second element, there's always a challenge. The
third element is creating a vision for how you want
to be in the future. What sort of man do
you want to be, what's your role you know, how
do you want to be in the community. And included
in that vision is what are the from your childhood
that you need.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
To let go of.
Speaker 4 (05:15):
If you're going to become that man. And then the
fourth element I call it an honoring or a recognition
of spirit, and it's based on this idea that every
boy is different, and every boy is born with their
own unique gifts and talents, their own genius and spirit.
And one of the key things of a rite of
passage is to recognize and bring out those gifts, bring
(05:36):
out that talent, bring out that spirit. And they were
things that were done and so our challenge is then
to make that appropriate for today because we don't live
in you know, the jungles of Africa a Papua New
Guinea to one hundred years ago, the deserts of Australia,
it's whatever we do has to be appropriate for now,
(05:56):
and I can talk about that. But if we don't
do that, those things we don't create a rite of passage.
The danger is the boys do not evolve and end
up becoming physically out up men, but still with the
psyche the behavior boy, which is a disaster.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
So in your book The Making of Men, you actually
talk about a world that runs on boy psychology? Correct?
Can you just maybe? Because I definitely want to get
to these solutions and these ideas about what we can
do it, because we're not going to send our kids
out to hunt a wildline in the forest just down
the street here. What does a world running on boy
psychology look like? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (06:38):
So when I was doing the work, someone said, well,
if you're going to talk about boys to men, you
have to be able to define the difference. I wrote
a model boyscology, healthy maunt psychology, and boy psychology is
what we typically see in a six to eight year
old boy. I'm the center of the universe. It's all
about me, all about me, me, me, Me. I want
constant acknowledgment. I can't handle my emotions if something goes wrong.
(07:02):
I have a temper tantrum. I want as much power
as possible. I'm going to live forever. I can never
be wrong, never wrong. And I want a mother. I
want a mother to be my sur to do everything
for me, to tell me how wonderful I am. To
just be on call twenty four to seven. Now, that's
fine in a six to eight year old. But if
(07:23):
you imagine a man like a global leader, or a
head of community or ahead of a family, who still
thinks he's the center of the universe, still thinks it's
all about himself, wants as much power as possible, can
never be wrong. When he doesn't get what he wants,
he has a temper tantrum and wants a mother instead
(07:44):
of a relationship. That's a major problem. And I can
think we live in a world that's run by boys.
Speaker 3 (07:52):
I was about to say, isn't it great that all
of the men who run various countries in our woo
who have done isn't it wonderful that they've actually mature
from that voice?
Speaker 1 (08:01):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (08:02):
We don't know, yeah, you know, it's but it's a
serious issue when those men can push buttons that change
the lives of hundreds of thousands or millions of people
or make decisions. You know, do we want those decisions
to be for the best of the people or for
the best of that person? And so healthy man psychology
(08:23):
is I'm not the center of the universe. I'm part
of a community, and power is not just for me.
Power is so I can do more good in my community.
And if something doesn't work, I don't have a temper tantrum.
That's actually domestic violence. I have to be able to
stand with my emotions. And I'm not going to live forever.
(08:44):
One day I'm going to die. And I'm not always right.
I make mistakes. When I do make mistakes, I have
to be accountable. And finally, I'm not looking for a mother.
I'm looking for genuine relationship. And when I give my talks,
which I do all around and around the world, and
I talk about this model, and I say to any
of the women in the audience, know any men who
still think that the center of the universe want power, acknowledgement,
(09:08):
can't stand their emotions, are never wrong, and want a mother.
And you see the women and they sort of think,
and they look at their husband and they look back.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
And then there's this sort of this awkward shuffle.
Speaker 4 (09:17):
And you know, we know exactly what I'm talking about here,
and it's actually not okay. And all the stuff we're
seeing in the Me Too movement and toxic masculinity and
the patriarchy, and that's all inappropriate boy behavior from men,
and it's just it's not okay. It's completely not okay.
(09:39):
And a big part of it is because we don't
have the rights or passage to create this shift from
boy to men.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Okay, So you can't start raising a teenager once it
becomes a teenager. I wish don't necessarily say that we
can still do some good right, it's never actually too late.
But we've got parents of boys from eight to eighteen
who are watching as many of them are actually watching
it with their boys. In the book, you've got quite
a lot in chapter five about how you can't start
(10:15):
raising a teenager once it becomes one. So we need
to we need to start pairing young boys the right
way to transition them effectively from that boy psychology into
what it is to be a man. Where do we start,
How does this place this happen? Because, by the way,
you're not sending eight year olds out for these rights
of passages opportunities as they're moving through with their adolescens.
Speaker 4 (10:34):
Now, look, that's completely true, and ed's one of my saying,
you can't start raising, you know, teenage, you want to say,
become a teener. So it does come down to parenting.
And one of the things I've discovered, despite the fact
that my main interest has been right to passage, is
there is a parenting issue and many many parents feel
very lost and feel like they don't have a basic
sort of God book and they want to be the
(10:55):
best parents they can, but it's hard because they're so busy,
their children are so busy. There's so much technology available
every moment, and there's not a lot of I have
found a lot of great guidance. So even though I
do not want to be a parenting expert, I have
found myself drawn into that sort of area. And we
developed a model and I can give you the link
(11:18):
to send it up if that's okay. On the thing
great and we talk about seven strategies for building healthy
relationships with our sons. And the first and it's quite basic,
but our experience has been that parents love this knowledge.
And the first is finding something that you both enjoy doing. Together,
(11:40):
turning off your mobile phone and doing it regularly. And
this is for dads and mums. And it might be
walking the dog, it might be going fishing, it might
be listening to music, it might be having a cup
of tea in the day, whatever it is. But first
of all, if you're going to have a relationship with someone,
you have to have time with them. And extraordinarily I
find a lot of especially dads, just never have one
on one time with their children. That's the first one. I'll
(12:03):
just name a few of them. The second is practicing
acknowledging what they do well, so you know if you
see them do something well, or their gifts or whatever
you actually name it. It's very easy for parents just
to tell their kids what they're doing wrong. And once
again especially dads, but it is very good name of
things they do well. Teaching skills of reflection. So when
(12:24):
something happens, ask your child what they think about it first,
rather than just giving them the lesson and saying if
they have a problem, getting them they can come up
with a possible solution or some ideas and then working
with them on that. And then the last one I'll
mention is that when something goes wrong when they do
(12:46):
something wrong, which will happen at some stage, separating the
person from the behave. So you know, I still love you,
but you know burning down the house was not okay,
or you know, hitting hitting your sisters not okay. We've
got to talk about that, you know. Or if they
don't do well at school, rather than shaming them, saying, hey,
(13:08):
what's going on? You know, because one of the things
we know with boys is when they act out often
that actually means they've got a problem going on. So
their way of expressing the problem is actually acting out.
So those sorts of things, and we have like a
wheel where we have all those things and parents can
give themselves a mark out of ten in each of
those areas and then join the dots. And you know,
(13:30):
it's a simple thing. And the final one, actually I
will mention, is sharing stories about when you were their age,
including what went well and what didn't go well, and
those sorts of things. It's just about building up strong,
healthy relationship. Actually, there is one more which I do
need to mention, keep going, connecting privileges with responsibility. I
(13:54):
can't not name that because when we just give our
boys everything regardless of how they behave regardless of how
they are, and they become entitled. That's a problem. And
from quite an early age, yes, we give them things,
but if there's an agreement, like you know, you'll take
your dishes into the kitchen, or you'll tidy your room,
(14:15):
or you'll you know, be home when you say you're
going to be home, and the privileges come together with that,
that's a very important lesson because if we don't teach
it to young as teenagers, when they're you know, six
inches taller than us and big and strong and grumpy,
that's not the time to be trying to sort of
put in the boundaries. And unfortunately, I get a lot
(14:37):
of phone calls from parents who say, I don't know
what happened to my twelve thirteen year old son overnight.
They won't talk me, they won't cuddle me. They just
go in their room and lock the door, you know,
and there's a war going on in the house. So,
you know, I think there's a lot we can do
around our sort of early stage parenting.
Speaker 3 (14:57):
Throughout those ideas that you've just shared. You've used dads
and the importance of his role multiple times. Can you
just talk a little bit about I mean, you've talked
about rights of passage and the elders, the men go away,
the elders spend time talking with the youngsters, and once
again you've brought you brought the dads in the male
role model. There's two parts to this question, and I'm
(15:19):
not supposed to ask two questions at once, but they
flow together. The first that can you just talk about
why dads are so important? But the follow up is
there's going to be a whole bunch of single mums
who are watching this. There's going to be a whole
lot of families where dad is either not safe or
not present, or for whatever reason, wants to be but
maybe even can't be. We want to give dads a
benefit of the doubt as often as we can as well.
(15:40):
What are parents do in that situation?
Speaker 4 (15:43):
Okay, so yeah, thank you for bringing that up. Equally
important dads and mums, for sure. But the thing that
we often find is that mums are so much more present.
And these are generalizations, you know, very often the mums have,
you know, so much more to do, especially in the
early years with boys, and and we do have a
(16:09):
lot of single moms who are trying to be mum
and dad, which is very difficult. And one of our
big recommendations there is to bring for the mums, to
bring other men in, whether it's uncles, friends, grandfathers, are
brilliant to bring that influence in. And what I also
say to mums, there's a few really key things here,
(16:30):
which is, you know, not to put up with inappropriate
behavior from your boys. They've got to learn early that
swearing at you, trying to hit you, you know, any
of that stuff is just not okay, and they need
to learn that while they're with you in the house.
You know, it's a tricky one because you're right, something
like a third of boys are now being brought up
(16:52):
by single mums and not having contact with their fathers.
So anything we can do to support mums is really
important and I've actually got cap through about that in
my book. So and those same principles with the mums
are finding something you can do with your son one
on one, sharing stories, separating the person from the behavior.
(17:12):
All of those things are as important as well as
doing whatever you can to have good men in the life.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Of your boys.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
And we look at it as a community thing, So
you know, I say, dads, whenever I work with them,
you know, keep an eye out not only on.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Your boy, but all the boy.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
The ideas were sort of trying to create an umbrella
where the whole community is looking after all the children.
And that's part of our work that we do in
schools is trying to create community so that those who
are on their own actually do have support.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Hi. Everyone, Justin from Bridge Media. Again. You can hear
that whole conversation as well as our long discussions with
Peggy Orenstein, author of Boys and Sex, profess some Mark
Brackett from the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, Manbox researcher
Matt Tyler, and many many more in the Bringing Up
Boys Summit that's fifty percent off until March thirty first
(18:11):
at Happy Families dot com dot au and don't Forget
the Misconnection Summit also on sale at Happyfamilies dot com
dot au. We'll put those links in the show notes.
The Happy Families podcast is produced by me Justin rule
On from Bridge Media and don't Forget. You can get
more information on improving your family's happiness at happy families
dot com dot au
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