October 8, 2025 • 27 mins
Today’s guest, J. Timothy Davis, Ph.D. joins me to explore his work with boys who are often labeled as “challenging”—and why that label doesn’t tell the whole story. Drawing on his clinical expertise and his experience as a volunteer firefighter, Tim shares how he blends multiple therapeutic approaches to connect with and support these boys.
We talk about the growing pressures boys face in elementary school—academic demands, reduced opportunities for physical activity, the influence of screens, and shifting cultural norms—and how those factors impact behavior and relationships. We wrap up with a look at his book, Challenging Boys, which offers practical strategies for both parents and clinicians.
Explore his book, Challenging Boys: A Proven Plan for Keeping Your Cool and Helping Your Son Thrive, for evidence-based strategies to support boys' emotional and behavioral development.
Sponsored by TherapyNotes®: Looking to switch EHRs? Try TherapyNotes® for 2 months free by using promo code ABUNDANT at therapynotes.com.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, welcome to the Abundant Practice Podcast.
I'm Allison from Abundance Practice Building.
I have a nearly diagnosable obsession with helping
therapists build sustainable, joy-filled private practices, just
like I've done for tens of thousands of
therapists across the world.
I'm excited to help you too.
If you want to fill your practice with
ideal clients, we have loads of free resources
(00:29):
and paid support.
Go to abundancepracticebuilding.com slash links.
All right, onto the show.
So I've talked about therapy notes on here
for years.
I could talk about the features and the
benefits in my sleep, but there are a
couple of things I want you to know
about therapy notes that doesn't typically make it
into an ad script.
First is that they actually care if you
(00:50):
like their platform.
They don't only make themselves available on the
phone to troubleshoot so you don't pull your
hair out when you get stuck.
They also take member suggestions and implement those
that there's client demand for, like therapy search,
an included listing service that helps clients find
you, internal and external secure messaging, clinical outcome
measures to keep an eye on how your
clients are progressing, a super smooth super bill
(01:12):
process, real-time eligibility to check on your
client's insurance.
In my conversations with the employees there at
all levels, they all really believe in their
product and they want you to love it
too.
Second, they are proudly independently owned.
Why should you care about that?
Because as soon as venture capital becomes involved,
the focus shifts from making customers happy to
(01:33):
making investors happy.
Prices go way up, innovation plateaus, making more
money with as little output as possible becomes
the number one focus.
With over 100,000 therapists using their platform,
they've been able to stay incredibly successful and
they don't have to sacrifice your experience to
stay there.
You can try two months free at therapynotes
(01:53):
.com with the coupon code ABUNDANT.
Welcome back to the Abundant Practice Podcast.
I'm your host, Alison Freer, founder of AbundancePracticeBuilding
.com.
I'm here with Dr. Timothy Davis, and I'm
excited about this conversation because we're going to
be talking about healthy masculinity in boys, how
as therapists, we can help parents guide and
(02:15):
support their boys without getting super burned out,
engaging in a bunch of power struggles.
For those of you interested in boys' mental
health, this is a niche that could absolutely
use some more therapists who know what they're
doing.
Thank you so much for being here, Tim.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me.
I really appreciate being on your show.
(02:35):
Yeah.
Tell me some of why is this such
an area of interest for you?
What have you found in your research and
your experience that you wish other therapists knew?
Well, I've been in the male development world
since I was a fellow at the Harvard
Study of Adult Development back in the 90s,
(02:57):
and I've been interested in male development since
then.
In my practice, I have a specialty working
with boys who I call challenging because their
behavior problems are a challenge for their parents,
their teachers, their siblings, and their peers.
It's been a journey of learning and discovery
(03:19):
for me.
I was trained in the one-on-one
model for child therapy, so child therapy is
a little mini version of adult therapy.
I found that it just didn't work with
my clientele, so I had to go out
and learn things that I didn't learn in
grad school.
From occupational therapists, I learned about co-regulation.
(03:40):
I learned about sensory sensitivities.
From family therapists, I learned about understanding the
boy in his family context and the importance
of family dynamics.
From educators, I learned about the importance of
the school context, so I started going to
school meetings and talking to teachers and talking
to special educators.
(04:00):
Challenging boys cause marital problems, so I've done
three levels of Gottman couples therapy training to
learn about how to help parents navigate the
differences that they have in their instincts and
backgrounds about being parents, which become magnified when
they have a child with behavior problems.
(04:22):
Then I've had another unusual place where I've
drawn lessons from, and that was my time
as a volunteer firefighter.
These things, I bring them all together in
my approach to working with these boys.
Amazing.
Is there an age group that you typically
focus on for boys?
I'm typically working with kids who are in
(04:43):
elementary school.
That's when the demands of school academically and
the demands of school for behavior regulation, sit
in your chair and do your work, start
exceeding what these boys are capable of managing
easily.
That's when their parents tend to reach out
(05:05):
to me.
Right.
I've got an elementary school kid right now,
and thinking about the neighborhood kids that she
runs around with, and most of them are
pretty regulated, but not always.
As a mom to two girls, I find
that sometimes the way I respond to them,
if they get dysregulated in my house, is
(05:25):
maybe not exactly what they need because I'm
so girl attuned.
Are there some ways that you support boys
differently than the way we might be supporting
girls?
Coincidentally, my practice with boys compliments the fact
that I have three girls as children.
(05:47):
I think that in the time that I've
been practicing, and I've been in practice for
almost 30 years now, life has become harder
for boys.
Yes.
Schools are less and less a place where
the need for kids to get out and
be active has been respected, so there's less
(06:09):
recess time.
There's just less movement that's permitted generally.
There's less hands-on work, which boys tend
to prefer.
Life is harder for boys than it was
back in the day when we said boys
will be boys and allowed more of that
(06:29):
rambunctious behavior.
Now, we're in a turning point culturally.
We don't want to say boys will be
boys to forgive hurtful behavior, but we want
to respect the differences between boys and girls
and, for example, the kinds of activity level
that they need.
I mean, as far as handling them in
(06:50):
your house, I mean, you have to set
the limits and have the rules that you
have.
The kinds of boys that I'm working with
are ones who are kind of on the
extreme end, that they have a hard time
managing a lot of the ordinary demands of
life that other kids might need some nudging
(07:11):
and encouragement sometimes to do or even sort
of holding a firm line, but they can
manage it.
But these boys have problems with hygiene.
They might be adamantly opposed to brushing their
teeth.
They have a hard time with transitions, going
to bed, going to school, getting off their
(07:31):
devices.
They have a terrible time handling frustrations if
they lose a game or they can't get
what they want or they're told no.
They have a very difficult time kind of
generally meeting the expectations that kids who are
their same age typically can meet okay.
And what sets them apart, what makes them
(07:53):
really challenging is that when parents try to
do the thing we're all taught to do,
have firm, consistent limits, it causes these massively
escalating power struggles that just make everybody feel
terrible.
You had mentioned the way that schools have
(08:13):
changed so that there's less of an outlet
for that energy.
What are some other changes in our culture
that you feel have led to what now
ends up feeling very escalated in the home
and probably in school too?
I think that screens are obviously a massive
problem.
And at the time that screens were introduced
(08:35):
in the schools, I think everybody thought this
is a good idea.
We live in a computerized world, so we
want to have our kids be familiar with
these devices.
But this has been terrible for boys because
when it comes to screens, a lot of
them, it's like a moth to a flame.
And so there's all of these opportunities for
(08:56):
battles at school or battles at home over
the boys' drive to want to be on
these devices and the parents or the teachers
trying to limit their access.
Are there particular things on screens that are
making this worse or are there some things
that are maybe safer and more appropriate?
Well, I think that's a great question because
(09:18):
screens covers a wide range of activities.
Of course, at one extreme end, we're worried
about kids being exposed to things that would
be inappropriate.
Pornography is so easily accessed today.
If we take something like video games, it
depends a lot on the games and it's
(09:40):
a mixed bag because in this day and
age, a lot of the social connections that
happen between boys might be them meeting up
online and playing a game together.
So generally, we'd see that as a positive
thing.
If the games are especially violent in content,
then that is a source of concern.
(10:00):
Yeah.
I think YouTube is a wide range of,
you know, some of the content is educational
and some of it is quite harmful.
I think about how young some boys are
exposed to these ideas of masculinity on YouTube
that maybe they weren't searching for, but it
(10:21):
ends up in their algorithm and it starts
to become what they expect boyhood or manhood
to look like, even if they have other
examples in their life.
Are you helping boys that young sort through
what masculinity looks like maybe in their real
life versus what they're seeing online?
(10:42):
Well, the kids that I'm working with, their
understanding of themselves as boys or future men
really isn't the primary concern.
For them, I think they have a more
general feeling like they're a square peg and
the world is full of round holes and
all of the grown-ups in their lives
(11:03):
are constantly trying to ram them into these
round holes.
And so there's kind of this transition that
happens that's very worrisome where they go from
being a child with a problem, so somebody,
a human being, we all have problems, we
all have things we work on, to feeling
like a problem child, like I'm a bad
(11:24):
kid, I ruined the family, it would be
better off if I'd never been born.
I don't think for these kids it's necessarily
gender-based.
I mean, it's, there are more opportunities for
round holes because of the changes that have
occurred in schools.
But the kids that I'm working with, masculinity
(11:45):
is not primarily an issue for them.
I'm thinking too about like the impact of
screens, get burned out parents, right?
Often we'll hop on our phones and scroll
away if we're feeling a little crispy or
we feel like I just need something to
downregulate me a little, even though that's not
what scrolling ever does.
(12:08):
And how that lack of eye contact, feedback,
connection with our kids can ramp them up
more, make them feel more like they're not
accepted, they're not loved.
Just how it becomes this kind of cyclical
thing of even if a parent's trying really
hard, sometimes some of the things that we
are now accustomed to doing as a part
(12:29):
of our daily life can be harmful if
we're trying to support our kid.
Absolutely.
And I think that that's a really important
observation that a lot of parents don't quite
understand is that how we relate to our
devices models for the kids something about how
(12:50):
they should relate to theirs.
It means our attention is distracted from them
in often in moments where we have an
opportunity to connect.
Also, I find in the kids that I
work with that they don't respond well to
authoritarian approaches.
I mean, most kids don't, but a parent
(13:12):
saying, hey, I'm struggling with my phone or
I'm struggling with being on Facebook too much.
These things are so tempting.
Let's work together because I noticed you're on
your device too.
A lot of kids, especially these challenging boys
that I work with respond to that approach
(13:33):
much more than here's the new rule.
This is how your phone is going to
be handled or this is how your Xbox
is going to be handled going forward.
I've got pretty, we have rigid rules around
screens in our household, but that doesn't mean
that as adults we follow them.
And so what I've done is train my
(13:54):
daughters.
I've talked about how social media is meant
to reel you in and keep you there
and how it'll kind of hijack your brain
a little bit sometimes.
And so if they see me on my
phone scrolling, they have full permission to say,
it's sucking you in mom.
And it gives me a moment of like,
oh, I don't need this.
This is not helpful.
(14:14):
My kids are right here.
Right.
So that you're all working together and it
shows that you respect them.
Yeah.
You want to hear from them.
Yeah.
I think that's really great.
Yeah.
That one of the things that I find
myself saying to parents is, you know, tragically
some of the greatest minds of the millennial
(14:36):
generation were devoted to figuring out how to
make phones addictive rather than to scientific discoveries
or some other more socially beneficial pursuit.
So yeah, these devices are very, very tempting.
I'm thinking about the overlooked piece.
I think of the boys that you work
(14:57):
with and how so many people are just
like, I don't know what to do with
him.
He's just out of control.
Yes.
Our systems are not set up for these
boys, like our school systems.
How can we as therapists support when the
systems are so in some cases detrimental to
just like these boys finding peace and having
(15:20):
what they need.
Yeah.
So I think the first thing when parents
come in and they're struggling with a situation
like this is to use our basic therapist
toolkit is to have empathy.
These people are going through something terrible.
And in our culture, we give parents way
(15:41):
too much credit when kids do well, and
we blame them unfairly when things go badly.
And so these are people who they're dealing
with these repeated challenging episodes that happen at
the worst time.
They're trying to get to work in the
worst place they're at a restaurant or in
a supermarket, or they're at their friends for
(16:04):
family get together.
And they feel like their personal challenge of
the parents authority, that the kids saying, I
don't have to listen to you, which some
kids say, but it's not something to take
literally.
So it's just having empathy for that.
So the first thing I try to do
is just to like set this basic understanding
(16:27):
that this wasn't caused by your bad parenting.
You're not a terrible parent.
I cannot begin to tell you how many
parents in the first meeting say, you probably
think we're the worst parents in the world.
Well, no, I don't, because I know that
this situation, you didn't cause it.
And Stanley Greenspan, who was a kind of
(16:47):
eminent child psychiatrist of the last century, he
has this quote that I love that I'm
saying all the time to parents, which is,
you're not the cause, but you can be
the solution.
So I want to lay that groundwork of
taking away blame.
And then I want to help them understand
(17:09):
what the causes are and which is going
to help them know what problems to focus
on.
And to go back to your question, it'll
help them when they go to school.
So with these kids, emotion regulation is a
huge issue.
And that when I meet with parents and
I take a history, it's not that bam,
(17:31):
the challenging behavior problems started in elementary school.
I hear a story about an infant who
was difficult to soothe, who cried a lot,
who had a hard time getting to sleep.
I hear about a toddler who had epic
tantrums.
So what I've learned over the years is
that most of these boys start off life
(17:52):
with a temperamentally-based vulnerability to experiencing negative
emotions intensely, easily, and they linger.
So that's a really tough spot to be
in life because it makes you very vulnerable
to emotional flooding.
And then the other main area of lagging
(18:16):
skill development that these boys frequently have is
in the area of executive functioning.
So if you can go into the school
armed by a therapist explaining why your child
is having these struggles and it's not willfulness.
I mean, another one of, I probably stole
this from somebody, but I don't know where,
(18:37):
but I always say it feels like willfulness,
but it's really a lack of skillfulness.
So if we can go into the school
and say, we're on your team.
We're not looking for a pass for our
child's behavior.
We're looking for a partnership.
We're working on these.
We're trying to help him learn the skills
that he needs to handle these situations.
(18:59):
And we want you to work together with
us.
And we have found, and the science supports
this, that harsh rigid discipline does not teach
the skills that our son needs in order
to be able to manage the challenges of
life without being challenging.
(19:20):
It's interesting how there's a willingness we all
have to have the bandwidth for to support,
right?
Like I'm imagining a teacher who's got a
classroom full of kids and parents having that
conversation with the teacher.
And honestly, the teacher's bandwidth probably makes or
breaks what happens next.
(19:42):
And teachers vary widely in terms of just
how naturally gifted they are at dealing with
kids who don't fit the mold.
Right.
So I think it's important to acknowledge that.
And when I'm at a meeting with a
teacher with parents, I will be sure to
(20:02):
point out, look, I understand you're not just
educating Johnny.
You've got 25 other kids that you have
to teach.
And his behavior is making that more, your
job more difficult.
So we're aware of that.
And we're here, I'm repeating myself, but it's
so important that the schools feel like the
(20:24):
parents are partners.
Because if you go in with this kind
of like, you got to do this or
you got to do that.
Well, the teachers feel disrespected.
They've built their careers around educating children.
They see themselves in this socially positive way.
And if you come in and you're sort
(20:45):
of criticizing what they're doing or challenging them,
that feels terrible to them.
We want to respect that they want the
best for everyone.
They're doing their best and we want to
work together.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And you've written a book.
Can we talk about that?
So I wanted to be able to reach
a wider audience and I can see in
(21:06):
my practice with the lessons that I've learned
over the years.
So I wrote a book called Challenging Boys,
A Proven Plan for Keeping Your Cool and
Helping Your Son Thrive.
And in it, I kind of weave the
theme of the lessons that I learned from
firefighting.
And one of the most important lessons I
learned in firefighting is that firefighters stay calm
(21:29):
and act effectively and efficiently in very, very
stressful circumstances because they have a plan.
They're not winging it.
They're not making it up in the literal
heat of the moment.
They arrive at the scene knowing exactly what
they're going to be doing there.
And so with the parents that I work
with, I help them make an emergency plan.
(21:53):
It turns out that these challenging behavior episodes
occur in, for most kids, after a relatively
few number of triggers, just one or two.
So I help them identify what the triggers
are and then we can build a plan
around, okay, when you're...
One of the cases that I mentioned in
(22:13):
the book is the kid that I called
Josh and he's eight.
He was having gigantic meltdowns and escalated power
struggles in the house.
And he was crying, hitting, running away once
it got so bad that he had one
of his legs fully out the window of
his second story bedroom and he was threatening
(22:34):
to jump.
So his parents, of course, were overwhelmed and
beleaguered.
And so what we did is I had
parents keep a log or I call it
a parenting journal where they write down records
of all of the challenging episodes.
And then that becomes the data where you
can identify the triggers.
So what we learned quickly is for Josh,
(22:56):
it was transitions, getting him off his video
games, getting him to bed, getting him to
soccer practice or soccer games.
So now we know where the problems occur.
And we also learned something really interesting is
that his parents' attempt to be firm and
(23:16):
hold the line didn't get him to soccer
practice, didn't get him off his computer, just
escalated things.
And we also learned surprisingly that the biggest
problem was actually getting him to soccer practice
or games because they felt more free to
be flexible around bedtime or the computer games
(23:37):
because nobody else was involved, but they felt
a responsibility to get him to practice or
games.
So armed with that data, we were able
to make an emergency plan where it dramatically
reduced the frequency and intensity of the challenging
moments.
Yeah.
(23:58):
So I love the being able to couch
it in firefighting, like that experience.
It also makes me think of how important
it is for us to be regulated, right?
If a firefighter showed up to my house
freaking out, I'd be like, oh no, you're
the one in charge here.
I tell a story in the book about
that too, because as a firefighter, you're wearing
(24:20):
your air on your back when you go
into a fire and that air bottles are
rated for 30 minutes or 45 minutes, but
it really depends on how fast you're breathing,
how long they last.
So the first time I was inside a
house where there was a fire, my air
bottle lasted me 10 minutes, even though it
(24:41):
was rated for 30, because I was breathing
so hard in the situation.
So yeah, that's one of the skills that
firefighters learn is how to keep their breathing
under control, how to stay regulated so that
their precious air is going to last through
the time that they need it.
So that's something for parents too, is helping
(25:03):
them learn strategies to regulate themselves.
The plan makes an enormous difference.
Part of what can be so triggering for
parents is they're in these moments and they
don't know what to do.
And so they're just kind of throwing things
out, a threat, a punishment, a bribe, but
when they have a plan and they're executing
(25:25):
what they've decided to do ahead of time,
it makes it much easier to not get
swept up in the drama of the moment.
Absolutely.
I'm going to make sure that we have
a link to your book in the show
notes so that it's easy for people to
find, because it sounds like it would be
good for therapists who are parents, therapists who
are therapists, therapists who are sick parents.
(25:46):
I think that, I mean, it's written for
parents, but it also, it's a roadmap that
therapists can use to walk parents through making
an emergency plan.
And then the second plan is a prevention
plan because firefighters don't just fight fires.
They're also working to prevent them.
I got a great example this week, sort
of randomly, my youngest daughter's an RA at
(26:08):
her college.
And so she was at RA training and
the fire department came to RA training and
they taught the RAs how to spot fire
hazards.
They filled one of the dorm stairwells up
with training smoke that's non-toxic and they
showed them how to evacuate kids from the
dorm.
So that's the ultimate goal of firefighters is
(26:30):
no fires ever.
And so that's another part of what's talked
about in my book is, okay, so we
know how to manage things when the child's
melting down.
And then we also learn how to teach
him the skills that he needs to handle
those situations going forward.
Right.
Amazing.
(26:51):
Well, Tim, thank you so much for your
time today.
I really hope that therapists got a lot
out of this.
I hope they pick up your book and
share it with their clients because it sounds
like it could do a lot of good.
Yeah.
Thanks so much.
I really appreciate it.
If you're ready for a much easier practice,
TherapyNotes is the way to go.
(27:12):
Go to TherapyNotes.com and use the promo
code ABUNDANT for two months free.
(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) Hi, welcome to the Abundant Practice Podcast.
I'm Allison from Abundance Practice Building.
I have a nearly diagnosable obsession with helping
therapists build sustainable, joy-filled private practices, just
like I've done for tens of thousands of
therapists across the world.
I'm excited to help you too.
If you want to fill your practice with
ideal clients, we have loads of free resources
(00:29):
and paid support.
Go to abundancepracticebuilding.com slash links.
All right, onto the show.
So I've talked about therapy notes on here
for years.
I could talk about the features and the
benefits in my sleep, but there are a
couple of things I want you to know
about therapy notes that doesn't typically make it
into an ad script.
First is that they actually care if you
(00:50):
like their platform.
They don't only make themselves available on the
phone to troubleshoot so you don't pull your
hair out when you get stuck.
They also take member suggestions and implement those
that there's client demand for, like therapy search,
an included listing service that helps clients find
you, internal and external secure messaging, clinical outcome
measures to keep an eye on how your
clients are progressing, a super smooth super bill
(01:12):
process, real-time eligibility to check on your
client's insurance.
In my conversations with the employees there at
all levels, they all really believe in their
product and they want you to love it
too.
Second, they are proudly independently owned.
Why should you care about that?
Because as soon as venture capital becomes involved,
the focus shifts from making customers happy to
(01:33):
making investors happy.
Prices go way up, innovation plateaus, making more
money with as little output as possible becomes
the number one focus.
With over 100,000 therapists using their platform,
they've been able to stay incredibly successful and
they don't have to sacrifice your experience to
stay there.
You can try two months free at therapynotes
(01:53):
.com with the coupon code ABUNDANT.
Welcome back to the Abundant Practice Podcast.
I'm your host, Alison Freer, founder of AbundancePracticeBuilding
.com.
I'm here with Dr. Timothy Davis, and I'm
excited about this conversation because we're going to
be talking about healthy masculinity in boys, how
as therapists, we can help parents guide and
(02:15):
support their boys without getting super burned out,
engaging in a bunch of power struggles.
For those of you interested in boys' mental
health, this is a niche that could absolutely
use some more therapists who know what they're
doing.
Thank you so much for being here, Tim.
Yeah.
Thanks for having me.
I really appreciate being on your show.
(02:35):
Yeah.
Tell me some of why is this such
an area of interest for you?
What have you found in your research and
your experience that you wish other therapists knew?
Well, I've been in the male development world
since I was a fellow at the Harvard
Study of Adult Development back in the 90s,
(02:57):
and I've been interested in male development since
then.
In my practice, I have a specialty working
with boys who I call challenging because their
behavior problems are a challenge for their parents,
their teachers, their siblings, and their peers.
It's been a journey of learning and discovery
(03:19):
for me.
I was trained in the one-on-one
model for child therapy, so child therapy is
a little mini version of adult therapy.
I found that it just didn't work with
my clientele, so I had to go out
and learn things that I didn't learn in
grad school.
From occupational therapists, I learned about co-regulation.
(03:40):
I learned about sensory sensitivities.
From family therapists, I learned about understanding the
boy in his family context and the importance
of family dynamics.
From educators, I learned about the importance of
the school context, so I started going to
school meetings and talking to teachers and talking
to special educators.
(04:00):
Challenging boys cause marital problems, so I've done
three levels of Gottman couples therapy training to
learn about how to help parents navigate the
differences that they have in their instincts and
backgrounds about being parents, which become magnified when
they have a child with behavior problems.
(04:22):
Then I've had another unusual place where I've
drawn lessons from, and that was my time
as a volunteer firefighter.
These things, I bring them all together in
my approach to working with these boys.
Amazing.
Is there an age group that you typically
focus on for boys?
I'm typically working with kids who are in
(04:43):
elementary school.
That's when the demands of school academically and
the demands of school for behavior regulation, sit
in your chair and do your work, start
exceeding what these boys are capable of managing
easily.
That's when their parents tend to reach out
(05:05):
to me.
Right.
I've got an elementary school kid right now,
and thinking about the neighborhood kids that she
runs around with, and most of them are
pretty regulated, but not always.
As a mom to two girls, I find
that sometimes the way I respond to them,
if they get dysregulated in my house, is
(05:25):
maybe not exactly what they need because I'm
so girl attuned.
Are there some ways that you support boys
differently than the way we might be supporting
girls?
Coincidentally, my practice with boys compliments the fact
that I have three girls as children.
(05:47):
I think that in the time that I've
been practicing, and I've been in practice for
almost 30 years now, life has become harder
for boys.
Yes.
Schools are less and less a place where
the need for kids to get out and
be active has been respected, so there's less
(06:09):
recess time.
There's just less movement that's permitted generally.
There's less hands-on work, which boys tend
to prefer.
Life is harder for boys than it was
back in the day when we said boys
will be boys and allowed more of that
(06:29):
rambunctious behavior.
Now, we're in a turning point culturally.
We don't want to say boys will be
boys to forgive hurtful behavior, but we want
to respect the differences between boys and girls
and, for example, the kinds of activity level
that they need.
I mean, as far as handling them in
(06:50):
your house, I mean, you have to set
the limits and have the rules that you
have.
The kinds of boys that I'm working with
are ones who are kind of on the
extreme end, that they have a hard time
managing a lot of the ordinary demands of
life that other kids might need some nudging
(07:11):
and encouragement sometimes to do or even sort
of holding a firm line, but they can
manage it.
But these boys have problems with hygiene.
They might be adamantly opposed to brushing their
teeth.
They have a hard time with transitions, going
to bed, going to school, getting off their
(07:31):
devices.
They have a terrible time handling frustrations if
they lose a game or they can't get
what they want or they're told no.
They have a very difficult time kind of
generally meeting the expectations that kids who are
their same age typically can meet okay.
And what sets them apart, what makes them
(07:53):
really challenging is that when parents try to
do the thing we're all taught to do,
have firm, consistent limits, it causes these massively
escalating power struggles that just make everybody feel
terrible.
You had mentioned the way that schools have
(08:13):
changed so that there's less of an outlet
for that energy.
What are some other changes in our culture
that you feel have led to what now
ends up feeling very escalated in the home
and probably in school too?
I think that screens are obviously a massive
problem.
And at the time that screens were introduced
(08:35):
in the schools, I think everybody thought this
is a good idea.
We live in a computerized world, so we
want to have our kids be familiar with
these devices.
But this has been terrible for boys because
when it comes to screens, a lot of
them, it's like a moth to a flame.
And so there's all of these opportunities for
(08:56):
battles at school or battles at home over
the boys' drive to want to be on
these devices and the parents or the teachers
trying to limit their access.
Are there particular things on screens that are
making this worse or are there some things
that are maybe safer and more appropriate?
Well, I think that's a great question because
(09:18):
screens covers a wide range of activities.
Of course, at one extreme end, we're worried
about kids being exposed to things that would
be inappropriate.
Pornography is so easily accessed today.
If we take something like video games, it
depends a lot on the games and it's
(09:40):
a mixed bag because in this day and
age, a lot of the social connections that
happen between boys might be them meeting up
online and playing a game together.
So generally, we'd see that as a positive
thing.
If the games are especially violent in content,
then that is a source of concern.
(10:00):
Yeah.
I think YouTube is a wide range of,
you know, some of the content is educational
and some of it is quite harmful.
I think about how young some boys are
exposed to these ideas of masculinity on YouTube
that maybe they weren't searching for, but it
(10:21):
ends up in their algorithm and it starts
to become what they expect boyhood or manhood
to look like, even if they have other
examples in their life.
Are you helping boys that young sort through
what masculinity looks like maybe in their real
life versus what they're seeing online?
(10:42):
Well, the kids that I'm working with, their
understanding of themselves as boys or future men
really isn't the primary concern.
For them, I think they have a more
general feeling like they're a square peg and
the world is full of round holes and
all of the grown-ups in their lives
(11:03):
are constantly trying to ram them into these
round holes.
And so there's kind of this transition that
happens that's very worrisome where they go from
being a child with a problem, so somebody,
a human being, we all have problems, we
all have things we work on, to feeling
like a problem child, like I'm a bad
(11:24):
kid, I ruined the family, it would be
better off if I'd never been born.
I don't think for these kids it's necessarily
gender-based.
I mean, it's, there are more opportunities for
round holes because of the changes that have
occurred in schools.
But the kids that I'm working with, masculinity
(11:45):
is not primarily an issue for them.
I'm thinking too about like the impact of
screens, get burned out parents, right?
Often we'll hop on our phones and scroll
away if we're feeling a little crispy or
we feel like I just need something to
downregulate me a little, even though that's not
what scrolling ever does.
(12:08):
And how that lack of eye contact, feedback,
connection with our kids can ramp them up
more, make them feel more like they're not
accepted, they're not loved.
Just how it becomes this kind of cyclical
thing of even if a parent's trying really
hard, sometimes some of the things that we
are now accustomed to doing as a part
(12:29):
of our daily life can be harmful if
we're trying to support our kid.
Absolutely.
And I think that that's a really important
observation that a lot of parents don't quite
understand is that how we relate to our
devices models for the kids something about how
(12:50):
they should relate to theirs.
It means our attention is distracted from them
in often in moments where we have an
opportunity to connect.
Also, I find in the kids that I
work with that they don't respond well to
authoritarian approaches.
I mean, most kids don't, but a parent
(13:12):
saying, hey, I'm struggling with my phone or
I'm struggling with being on Facebook too much.
These things are so tempting.
Let's work together because I noticed you're on
your device too.
A lot of kids, especially these challenging boys
that I work with respond to that approach
(13:33):
much more than here's the new rule.
This is how your phone is going to
be handled or this is how your Xbox
is going to be handled going forward.
I've got pretty, we have rigid rules around
screens in our household, but that doesn't mean
that as adults we follow them.
And so what I've done is train my
(13:54):
daughters.
I've talked about how social media is meant
to reel you in and keep you there
and how it'll kind of hijack your brain
a little bit sometimes.
And so if they see me on my
phone scrolling, they have full permission to say,
it's sucking you in mom.
And it gives me a moment of like,
oh, I don't need this.
This is not helpful.
(14:14):
My kids are right here.
Right.
So that you're all working together and it
shows that you respect them.
Yeah.
You want to hear from them.
Yeah.
I think that's really great.
Yeah.
That one of the things that I find
myself saying to parents is, you know, tragically
some of the greatest minds of the millennial
(14:36):
generation were devoted to figuring out how to
make phones addictive rather than to scientific discoveries
or some other more socially beneficial pursuit.
So yeah, these devices are very, very tempting.
I'm thinking about the overlooked piece.
I think of the boys that you work
(14:57):
with and how so many people are just
like, I don't know what to do with
him.
He's just out of control.
Yes.
Our systems are not set up for these
boys, like our school systems.
How can we as therapists support when the
systems are so in some cases detrimental to
just like these boys finding peace and having
(15:20):
what they need.
Yeah.
So I think the first thing when parents
come in and they're struggling with a situation
like this is to use our basic therapist
toolkit is to have empathy.
These people are going through something terrible.
And in our culture, we give parents way
(15:41):
too much credit when kids do well, and
we blame them unfairly when things go badly.
And so these are people who they're dealing
with these repeated challenging episodes that happen at
the worst time.
They're trying to get to work in the
worst place they're at a restaurant or in
a supermarket, or they're at their friends for
(16:04):
family get together.
And they feel like their personal challenge of
the parents authority, that the kids saying, I
don't have to listen to you, which some
kids say, but it's not something to take
literally.
So it's just having empathy for that.
So the first thing I try to do
is just to like set this basic understanding
(16:27):
that this wasn't caused by your bad parenting.
You're not a terrible parent.
I cannot begin to tell you how many
parents in the first meeting say, you probably
think we're the worst parents in the world.
Well, no, I don't, because I know that
this situation, you didn't cause it.
And Stanley Greenspan, who was a kind of
(16:47):
eminent child psychiatrist of the last century, he
has this quote that I love that I'm
saying all the time to parents, which is,
you're not the cause, but you can be
the solution.
So I want to lay that groundwork of
taking away blame.
And then I want to help them understand
(17:09):
what the causes are and which is going
to help them know what problems to focus
on.
And to go back to your question, it'll
help them when they go to school.
So with these kids, emotion regulation is a
huge issue.
And that when I meet with parents and
I take a history, it's not that bam,
(17:31):
the challenging behavior problems started in elementary school.
I hear a story about an infant who
was difficult to soothe, who cried a lot,
who had a hard time getting to sleep.
I hear about a toddler who had epic
tantrums.
So what I've learned over the years is
that most of these boys start off life
(17:52):
with a temperamentally-based vulnerability to experiencing negative
emotions intensely, easily, and they linger.
So that's a really tough spot to be
in life because it makes you very vulnerable
to emotional flooding.
And then the other main area of lagging
(18:16):
skill development that these boys frequently have is
in the area of executive functioning.
So if you can go into the school
armed by a therapist explaining why your child
is having these struggles and it's not willfulness.
I mean, another one of, I probably stole
this from somebody, but I don't know where,
(18:37):
but I always say it feels like willfulness,
but it's really a lack of skillfulness.
So if we can go into the school
and say, we're on your team.
We're not looking for a pass for our
child's behavior.
We're looking for a partnership.
We're working on these.
We're trying to help him learn the skills
that he needs to handle these situations.
(18:59):
And we want you to work together with
us.
And we have found, and the science supports
this, that harsh rigid discipline does not teach
the skills that our son needs in order
to be able to manage the challenges of
life without being challenging.
(19:20):
It's interesting how there's a willingness we all
have to have the bandwidth for to support,
right?
Like I'm imagining a teacher who's got a
classroom full of kids and parents having that
conversation with the teacher.
And honestly, the teacher's bandwidth probably makes or
breaks what happens next.
(19:42):
And teachers vary widely in terms of just
how naturally gifted they are at dealing with
kids who don't fit the mold.
Right.
So I think it's important to acknowledge that.
And when I'm at a meeting with a
teacher with parents, I will be sure to
(20:02):
point out, look, I understand you're not just
educating Johnny.
You've got 25 other kids that you have
to teach.
And his behavior is making that more, your
job more difficult.
So we're aware of that.
And we're here, I'm repeating myself, but it's
so important that the schools feel like the
(20:24):
parents are partners.
Because if you go in with this kind
of like, you got to do this or
you got to do that.
Well, the teachers feel disrespected.
They've built their careers around educating children.
They see themselves in this socially positive way.
And if you come in and you're sort
(20:45):
of criticizing what they're doing or challenging them,
that feels terrible to them.
We want to respect that they want the
best for everyone.
They're doing their best and we want to
work together.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And you've written a book.
Can we talk about that?
So I wanted to be able to reach
a wider audience and I can see in
(21:06):
my practice with the lessons that I've learned
over the years.
So I wrote a book called Challenging Boys,
A Proven Plan for Keeping Your Cool and
Helping Your Son Thrive.
And in it, I kind of weave the
theme of the lessons that I learned from
firefighting.
And one of the most important lessons I
learned in firefighting is that firefighters stay calm
(21:29):
and act effectively and efficiently in very, very
stressful circumstances because they have a plan.
They're not winging it.
They're not making it up in the literal
heat of the moment.
They arrive at the scene knowing exactly what
they're going to be doing there.
And so with the parents that I work
with, I help them make an emergency plan.
(21:53):
It turns out that these challenging behavior episodes
occur in, for most kids, after a relatively
few number of triggers, just one or two.
So I help them identify what the triggers
are and then we can build a plan
around, okay, when you're...
One of the cases that I mentioned in
(22:13):
the book is the kid that I called
Josh and he's eight.
He was having gigantic meltdowns and escalated power
struggles in the house.
And he was crying, hitting, running away once
it got so bad that he had one
of his legs fully out the window of
his second story bedroom and he was threatening
(22:34):
to jump.
So his parents, of course, were overwhelmed and
beleaguered.
And so what we did is I had
parents keep a log or I call it
a parenting journal where they write down records
of all of the challenging episodes.
And then that becomes the data where you
can identify the triggers.
So what we learned quickly is for Josh,
(22:56):
it was transitions, getting him off his video
games, getting him to bed, getting him to
soccer practice or soccer games.
So now we know where the problems occur.
And we also learned something really interesting is
that his parents' attempt to be firm and
(23:16):
hold the line didn't get him to soccer
practice, didn't get him off his computer, just
escalated things.
And we also learned surprisingly that the biggest
problem was actually getting him to soccer practice
or games because they felt more free to
be flexible around bedtime or the computer games
(23:37):
because nobody else was involved, but they felt
a responsibility to get him to practice or
games.
So armed with that data, we were able
to make an emergency plan where it dramatically
reduced the frequency and intensity of the challenging
moments.
Yeah.
(23:58):
So I love the being able to couch
it in firefighting, like that experience.
It also makes me think of how important
it is for us to be regulated, right?
If a firefighter showed up to my house
freaking out, I'd be like, oh no, you're
the one in charge here.
I tell a story in the book about
that too, because as a firefighter, you're wearing
(24:20):
your air on your back when you go
into a fire and that air bottles are
rated for 30 minutes or 45 minutes, but
it really depends on how fast you're breathing,
how long they last.
So the first time I was inside a
house where there was a fire, my air
bottle lasted me 10 minutes, even though it
(24:41):
was rated for 30, because I was breathing
so hard in the situation.
So yeah, that's one of the skills that
firefighters learn is how to keep their breathing
under control, how to stay regulated so that
their precious air is going to last through
the time that they need it.
So that's something for parents too, is helping
(25:03):
them learn strategies to regulate themselves.
The plan makes an enormous difference.
Part of what can be so triggering for
parents is they're in these moments and they
don't know what to do.
And so they're just kind of throwing things
out, a threat, a punishment, a bribe, but
when they have a plan and they're executing
(25:25):
what they've decided to do ahead of time,
it makes it much easier to not get
swept up in the drama of the moment.
Absolutely.
I'm going to make sure that we have
a link to your book in the show
notes so that it's easy for people to
find, because it sounds like it would be
good for therapists who are parents, therapists who
are therapists, therapists who are sick parents.
(25:46):
I think that, I mean, it's written for
parents, but it also, it's a roadmap that
therapists can use to walk parents through making
an emergency plan.
And then the second plan is a prevention
plan because firefighters don't just fight fires.
They're also working to prevent them.
I got a great example this week, sort
of randomly, my youngest daughter's an RA at
(26:08):
her college.
And so she was at RA training and
the fire department came to RA training and
they taught the RAs how to spot fire
hazards.
They filled one of the dorm stairwells up
with training smoke that's non-toxic and they
showed them how to evacuate kids from the
dorm.
So that's the ultimate goal of firefighters is
(26:30):
no fires ever.
And so that's another part of what's talked
about in my book is, okay, so we
know how to manage things when the child's
melting down.
And then we also learn how to teach
him the skills that he needs to handle
those situations going forward.
Right.
Amazing.
(26:51):
Well, Tim, thank you so much for your
time today.
I really hope that therapists got a lot
out of this.
I hope they pick up your book and
share it with their clients because it sounds
like it could do a lot of good.
Yeah.
Thanks so much.
I really appreciate it.
If you're ready for a much easier practice,
TherapyNotes is the way to go.
(27:12):
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