Supporting Boys’ Emotional Resilience
Film poster by Ben Holmes
By Jonathon Reed
Welcome back to Learnings & Unlearnings! We’ve got a lot to look forward to in 2021. I will be aiming to publish on a bi-weekly basis, in collaboration with some of my colleagues on an exciting new project. Check out nextgenmen.ca/future and stay tuned!
In October, I wrote a L&UL blog post called 6 Stories About Boys Losing a Parent. One of the stories was Siobhan Dowd and Patrick Ness’ A Monster Calls—a book published in 2011 that was recently adapted into a film. I decided I wanted to further explore its narrative of emotional resilience, which resulted in this video essay on boyhood masculinity in film.
One of the major takeaways from this project was the complex relationship between anger and grief for boys and young men. In the video essay, I share this quote from Michael Reichert’s book How to Raise a Boy.
“When a boy feels threatened, his angry reactions are more about fear. Fear as a response to change, and fear of loss. In most cases, it is often easier to react angrily than to feel one’s vulnerability. Boys express angry feelings because they can—and because expressing other feelings is more difficult. Many boys fight when they feel like they can’t do what they really want to do: flee a situation or break down emotionally.”
It’s particularly important that we extend this level of compassion to boys as we head into increased uncertainty related to COVID-19 and school shutdowns. Boys may translate feelings of stress, anxiety, loneliness or loss into anger or frustration. As parents and educators, we can help them identify and navigate those feelings for themselves.
Read more: You can find Michael Reichert’s How to Raise a Boy in the NGM Library.
ICYMI This Week
Tips to help parents tackle feeling overwhelmed in lockdown (Metro)
Four Ways Educators Can Meet Middle Schoolers’ Social Needs During the Pandemic (AMLE)
Talking to kids about the attack on the Capitol (The Educator’s Playbook)
Written by Next Gen Men Program Manager Jonathon Reed as part of Learnings & Unlearnings, a bi-weekly blog reflecting on our experiences working with boys and young men. Subscribe to Future of Masculinity to get Learnings & Unlearnings delivered to your email inbox.