Speaker 1the boys who are most at risk, at risk of being pulled towards extreme views, are the ones who don't feel seen. Showing vulnerability, admitting they're struggling, that's weakness. When they feel like they don't fit in, they become vulnerable to groups and voices that tell them, we see you, we understand you, you belong here. Their brains are essentially being rewired. Just listen, because for a teenage boy, that is everything. Is this you? You're parenting your son as thoughtfully as you know how. You're present, you're encouraging, you tell him regularly how proud you are of him, and yet something isn't quite landing. You watch him compare himself to other boys and come up short in his own mind. You see him shrink in certain areas of his life, and you see him shrink in certain areas of his life. You see him shrink in certain areas of his life. is also where things can get incredibly hot. If you're currently parenting a teenage son, you'll know the particular joy of getting responses that consist mainly of grunts. You will know the experience of asking a perfectly reasonable question and being looked at as though you've suggested something absolutely outrageous. You'll know what it's like to feel like your previously chatty, affectionate boy has become replaced by someone who not only doesn't want to talk to you, but seems actively to resent the fact that you exist. I hear you and I want you to know that this is normal. And I also want you to know that it doesn't mean the connection is broken. It just means you need different strategies because what's happening in those teenage years is enormous. Boys at this age are in one of the most significant developmental periods of their lives. They're navigating puberty. Which for boys happens later than girls. And that's important to remember because emotionally, a 15-year-old boy may be at a similar emotional developmental stage to a 13-year-old girl. So we're not comparing them here to diminish them. We're just simply recognising that they're developing on a different timeline. If you then also compound that, if you then add in the fact that you've got a neurodiverse child. Then we're then looking at an even different timeline. So instead of your 15-year-old being at an emotionally developmental stage of a 13-year-old girl, they could be at an emotionally developmental stage of an 11-year-old because we know that it's not that they don't get there, they're just on a different timeline. And in a world that has enormous pressure about what it means to be masculine, from social media, from their peers, from the manosphere that we've talked about in our earlier episodes, they are grappling with enormous questions about who they are and where they fit. And here's the crucial thing. The boys who are most at risk, at risk of being pulled towards extreme views, at risk of isolation, at risk of the mental health challenges that we know disproportionately affect young men, are the ones who don't feel seen, who don't feel like there is anyone who really knows them. And that's what we're talking about. So the work of the teen years is fundamentally about keeping that connection alive. And that means adapting. It means meeting your son where he is rather than expecting him to come to you on your terms. So if your son loves gaming, sit next to him and ask him to show you what he's playing. I know that that can feel really difficult, particularly, I mean, and I can speak to that experience, particularly myself, I've never been interested in those things. And it's been hard to genuinely look interested and be genuinely interested. But if you want that connection, and you want your child to feel seen, your son to feel seen, and therefore to create that sense of connection, we need to do that. If he's into music, ask him to play you something. If he's obsessed with football, cricket, whatever it might be, watch a match with him. You don't need to be an expert. You just need to show up with genuine curiosity. Because when you show up in his world, you're telling him something profoundly important. You matter. Your interests matter. I want to know who you are. And in those side by side moments, in the car, on a walk, cooking dinner together, that's when the real conversations happen. Boys often find it easier to talk when they're doing something, when they're not sitting directly opposite to you, eye to eye. So stop trying to have those big stage kitchen table conversations, and start having them in the car, or on a walk, or while you're kicking a ball around. The connection happens in the margins. And when he does open up, even a little, resist the urge to jump in with advice, with a solution, with a story about what you would have done. Just listen. Ask one gentle question, and let him know that you're not going to panic. You're not going to judge him. You're not going to lecture him. You're on his side. Because for a teenage boy, feeling that his parent is on his team, not judging him, not immediately trying to fix him, that is everything. Now, I want to pause here and talk about something that is absolutely central to confidence in boys at every stage, but particularly in the tween and teen years, and that's the peer group. We know that social acceptance is not a nice to have for young people. It's a biological need. And for boys, peer acceptance can become so important that they will compromise their own values, their own sense of self, in order to belong. Now, we talked about this in our episode on the manosphere, the risk that boys, when they feel unseen, when they feel like they don't fit in, they become vulnerable to groups and voices that tell them, we see you, we understand you, you belong here. And so building confidence in your son means helping him build a really strong internal compass, a sense of who he is that doesn't entirely depend on whether he's popular or accepted at school. And that starts with helping him know his own strengths, not in a vague, generic way, not just you're wonderful, but really specifically. I've noticed how kind you are to younger children. You have a real gift for explaining things. The way you handled that difficult situation showed real maturity, specific, genuine, honest recognition of who he actually is. That is what fills the confidence bucket. Not flattery, not empty praise, but real, truthful recognition of who he is and what he brings. And alongside that, and this is something I feel really strongly about, we need to teach our boys that asking for help is a sign of strength, not weakness. Because so much of the male socialization that our boys absorb tells them that needing help, showing vulnerability, admitting they're struggling, that's weakness. We need to actively and directly counter that narrative. We need to be the person who models it. I was really struggling today and I called a friend, I asked for help. That was the right thing to do. Because if we model it, if we talk about it openly, it becomes part of the family norm and that matters hugely. So now let's just move on to our older children. So these are our 17 and beyond. And then of course they grow up, don't they? I mean, they've grown up even earlier than that. But when we're thinking about this particular stage, and for some of us, maybe that's already happened. My own son is 26 and I can tell you that parenting doesn't stop. It just changes shape. As our boys become young men, the confidence work becomes less about what we do for them and much more about how we let them do things for themselves. This is the stage where our role shifts from guidance to being alongside. We're not at the front leading anymore. We're walking beside them and maybe sometimes even behind them. What confident young men need from us at this stage is our belief in them, our genuine unshakable belief that they have what it takes. Not just when things are going well, but when they fail, when they mess up, when they make a decision that you privately think was completely wrong. The message that matters most at this stage is, I believe in you. I'm on your side and I'm here. And here's the thing. If you've been having those conversations throughout his childhood, if you've been building that emotional vocabulary, that connection, that trust, this stage, as terrifying and uncertain as it can feel, is the proof of that work. Because he will come to you. Maybe not always, maybe not immediately, but he will come. Now my give for this week is a simple framework I'm calling the Confidence Conversation Guide. It's a set of prompts tailored to each stage. The things to say, the questions to ask, the moments to notice that will help you feel much more equipped to have these ongoing confidence conversations with your son, wherever he's at right now. To grab your free copy, head over to my free resource library, drmerryhand.com forward slash library, where you'll find the link to download the resource. If you haven't yet done so, all you'll need to do is pop in your email address and you'll get instant access not only to this week's resource, but all the free resources across all my podcast episodes. And if you've enjoyed today's episode, I would be so grateful if you could take just a moment to follow and review this podcast. It makes such a difference in helping other parents find us. And if you know someone who is parenting a son, please do share this episode with them because every boy deserves a parent who is asking these questions and doing this work. So until next time. you
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