Here's an idea that changes how parents see the teenage years: your influence with a boy isn't a right that comes with being his parent.

It's the balance you build, and just like a bank account, every interaction is either a deposit or a withdrawal. Every transaction contributes to whether it is a healthy balance or not.

Here's one of the most freeing things a parent of a boy can learn: when he's in the grip of a big feeling, that is not the moment to teach, reason or discuss.

A flooded brain can't take any of it in.

This one's for the dads and father-figures out there; your son is learning how to be a man by watching you. Not by your lectures, but by the ordinary, unguarded moments.

Let me say the reassuring thing first: a boy who parrots Andrew Tate isn't a bad kid, and his parents haven't failed. He's a kid looking for a map of what it means to be a man, and right now, the loudest, slickest map is the one being handed to him online.

Here's what years of spending time around boys have taught me about screens: the number on the timer matters far less than whether your son will come and tell you when something goes wrong online.

We've inherited an idea that a "real" conversation means sitting a child down, face to face, eye to eye, and talking it through. For a lot of boys, that setup does the opposite of what we want. Direct, sustained eye contact can read as pressure, even as a low-grade threat, and a brain that feels under threat isn't a brain that opens up. So the talk stalls, everyone feels it, and the story hardens into "he doesn't tell me anything."

We ask boys a lot of questions. "Why aren't you trying?" "Don't you care about your future?" "What were you thinking?" We ask them with the best of intentions...we want to understand, to help, to get to the bottom of things.

I recently had the privilege of assisting in the facilitation of one of our Making of Men programs, a process which see’s over the course of 5 days, 25 boys and their fathers or significant male figure work to create new bonds and transform the relationship from child and adult to one of peerage and mentorship. 

Over the past couple of months I have met around 500 young people between the ages of 14-16. I have been so inspired and deeply moved by their vision of who they want to be as adults.