Friday, May 07, 1999
Writer has plan for raising nice boys
BY CINDY KRANZ
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Take five ingredients — a family problem, cruel peers, violent media images, failure to express feelings and guns. Put them together, and you have a boy at risk for the kind of violence that forever changed Littleton, Colo.
Blame it on our culture's misguided beliefs about what makes boys strong. Boys don't cry. Boys don't talk about their feelings. Boys don't hug their mothers — at least not in public. It's those kinds of notions that discourage the emotional development of boys, leaving them sad, angry, afraid and silent, says Dr. Michael Thompson, a Boston child psychologist who comes to town next week.
“I can't diagnose these (Littleton) boys without knowing them, but in general, boys are too angry, and they believe being aggressive is part of their masculinity,” Dr. Thompson says. “We don't use emotional language with boys. By kindergarten, a girl is six times more likely to use the word "love' than a boy.”
Dr. Thompson will work with teachers, parents and students at Cincinnati Country Day School and will give a public lecture on child development on Tuesday night. He conducts workshops at schools nationwide and has been widely used as a resource since the Littleton shootings. Dr. Thompson and Dr. Dan Kindlon are co-authors of a new book, Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys (Ballantine; $24.95).
Coincidentally, Dr. Thompson is not the only psychologist talking on the topic Tuesday. Dr. William Pollack, a clinical psychologist and co-director of the Center for Men at McLean Hospital-Harvard Medical School, will be in Kettering to discuss and sign copies of his book, Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons From the Myths of Boyhood, which came out last June.
In an interview with the Enquirer, Dr. Thompson talked about the Littleton school violence and raising boys:
QUESTION: In the Littleton school shootings, people blame the parents and violence in the media. What do you think causes school shootings?
ANSWER: “It's a combination of factors. There are five risk factors that set you up for this.
• First is some wound or loss in your family life — an abusive father, a divorce, a mentally ill mother or an alcoholic parent. We don't know what it was in the Littleton case, but I'd be surprised if there wasn't something.
• The second factor is that you're tormented by your peers. Dan and I call it the "culture of cruelty.' Boys are very hard on each other. They attack each other, not as much physically as verbally, about who's cool and who's athletic. We think it makes boys tough. What it does is it scars them emotionally.
• The third factor is you are saturated with images of media violence where aggression is glorified. Bruce Willis, Lethal Weapon, "Make my day,' are the definition of masculinity.
• Then you have the emotional miseducation of boys. Boys don't have the language to say what's happening to them. They often deny their pain. They say "I'm fine. Leave me alone. Butt out.' They don't let you get near their emotional life. Boys are scared to express any feelings weak or vulnerable because they think it makes them less masculine.
• There have always been kids like this, but they haven't always had easy access to guns. Guns in and of themselves or media violence in and of itself don't cause this. But if you have all of these risk factors, and then perhaps you have a friend who is as depressed and nihilistic as you and you're in each other's company constantly and become each other's reality, you can go seriously off the track.”
Q: What if you're a parent or teacher and you notice a child who is into similar things as the Littleton shooters or has signs of being destructive. How do you approach the child?
A: “In every teen-ager, there is a certain amount of living a double life. What makes a healthy teen-ager is their ability to keep up their grades, keep up relationships with their family and maybe do some things that they shouldn't be doing, but they have control over it.
When you have a child who's totally isolated from friends, whom nobody seems to know, whose mood is dark and nihilistic, that's not normal adolescence. Many people believe normal adolescence is dark and tumultuous and anti-adult, and research says that's simply not so. Only one-third of adolescents have a turbulent adolescence. The media would have you believe they all are having a turbulent time, and that's not so.
The thing that worries me is the average adolescent depression isn't diagnosed for three years. They've lost that much of their life to depression. Parents often are in denial, or they rationalize it. It's very painful to have a sad child. They often don't interpret it accurately. They think, "My son is the strong and silent type' or "It's just a phase.'
Parents need to say, "We're worried about you. We need to go as a family and talk to somebody. You won't go? Then we'll go and talk about it.”'
Q: We often learn that school shooters were taunted or ignored for being nerds or outcasts. What lesson can we learn about how people treat other people who seem different?
A: “The capacity of human beings in groups to gang up on each other is well documented through history. I don't think kids are unusually cruel compared with adults. We have the opportunity to supervise them better, to not let boys pick on one another in classrooms, to not let boys pick on one another in locker rooms. A school should have a moral ethos, which is in some ways, better than the outside world. I know that sounds idealistic, but where there are kids you should hold out an example to them of a higher standard.
The problem is, in a large high school, it's hard to provide the adult contact and supervision. If it were my wish, every child in school would have to meet with an adult every day to shake their hand and look in their eyes and say, "Hi. Good morning,' so somebody is in contact or knows if they weren't in contact with them.
Teachers need to have that as part of their responsibility and be trained for it. Great teachers do it naturally, and kids gravitate to them. I like it when big high schools are broken up into houses or advisory groups and that's where kids check in in the morning . . . There's so little adult presence in the lives of our teen-agers.”
Q: What can parents do to change how we raise boys?
A: “I think what's most important is to give boys permission to have an internal life and use emotional language with them. With a small child, you just indicate intense interest in their feelings and ask them follow-up questions when they talk.
With a teen-ager who's not telling you much, you may have to use another technique ... You don't say, "How are you honey? Why don't you talk to me?' That's a big loser.
What if you said to your son, "I can see you've been upset the last week, and I've been thinking about it and realize your friend Andy doesn't call much anymore. I wonder if something is going on.' He'll say, "No Mom, I'm fine.' Then, a few days later you say, "I miss Andy being around, and if something happened, I'm really sorry.' He may not answer you that moment, but two days later he may say something about Andy.
Give them a safe place to talk. Maybe it's in the car, or doing some activity together. Moms are pretty good at this, and dads are really not very good at this. Their fathers haven't been involved enough. Boys are desperate to have (these conversations) with their fathers.”
IF YOU GO
• What: Dr. Michael Thompson, co-author of Raising Cain, speaking about child and adolescent development.
• When: 7-9 p.m. Tuesday.
• Where: Cincinnati Country Day School (lower school auditorium), 6905 Given Road, Indian Hill.
• Cost: Free.
• Information: 561-7298.
• What: William Pollack will sign and discuss Real Boys: Rescuing Our Sons From the Myths of Boyhood (Henry Holt; $13.95).
• When: 7-8 p.m. Tuesday.
• Where: Books & Co., Town & Country Shopping Center, 350 E. Stroop Road, Kettering.
• Information: (800) 777-4881.
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