Lunchtime Live with David Thomas | Raising Emotionally Strong Boys

Welcome to Lunchtime Live, everyone. It is May 2nd today. Second or the third? May 3rd. It's already May 3rd. I love May because it means summer's coming and my birthday's in May. And my computer is making beautiful, amazing noises. It sounds like something. Oh, it's my. This is my double plane. Hold on a second. Grabbing some technical difficulties. Okay, I've got a split screen here today so that I could read your comments. And then an ad just popped up on my YouTube, but it sounded like epic, like something amazing was about to happen. Anyway, okay, It's May and I'm happy because warm weather is coming. I've already had my first watermelon, which is my favorite fruit of the summer. I slice it all up and ask Graham to take out the trash. And Graham said that the trash smelled like summer. And. And it made me so happy because summer is my favorite. I don't know if that's your favorite too. So I want to know, where are you watching from? Where are you joining us? What's your name? It is Lunchtime Live. So we do always like to talk about what we eat because I'm a food person and I always like to talk about food, what I ate, what I'm gonna eat for dinner. I had tzatziki's today. I had like one of those little like chicken pita wraps with the tzatziki sauce and everything. Last time we did a Lunchtime Live, I hadn't eaten yet. So I'm really happy that today my stomach is full. And I am so excited about our interview today. Now, I don't know if you saw on my YouTube, I am going to read some of your, some of your comments as they're coming in. But before I get to that, I want to tell you how excited I am about my interview today. We are talking with David Thomas and he is the author of. Well, he's the author of 10 or the CO. Author. Author or co author of over 10 books. But this is the book we're going to be talking about today, raising emotionally strong boys. And I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It is full of so many great practical handles to raising boys in this age of worry and anxiety and all of the things that our kids are going through right now. And so today we're going to talk with David Thomas and we're talking specifically today about raising emotionally strong boys. But here's the exciting thing because I already know that you guys are going to put in the chat. What about those of us who have girls? Well, guess what? Next week. This is a special, like, what do you call it? Like a, not a trilogy. What's it called when there's two, two part series. This is a special two part series. So this week we're talking to David Thomas about raising emotionally strong boys. And then next week we're talking to David's partner. Her name is Sissy and she's written a book called Raising Worry Free Girls. So today it's all about raising the boys. Next week it's all about raising the girls. I hope that you will be here for both, whether you have boys or girls or nieces and nephews or grandkids or your teacher. There is so much wisdom in what we're going to talk about today. And I'm so excited to get David on here in just a second. Let me see who's joining us and where are you watching from? So let's see, we've got Barbara Grimard from North Canton, Ohio, who also loves watermelon. Stephanie Goodall watching from Argyle, Texas. Let's see, we've got Daughter of the King on. Yeah, I'm a daughter of the King too. I love that. Antonio. Antonia Cooper is watching from her vacation in the Bahamas. Wow. I hope you are living it up. I hope you are sitting in the sun and I hope you are soaking up all of the amazing vitamin D rays. Isn't it vitamin D that we get from the sun? I was about to say vitamin C. That's orange juice we got. Oh, Daughter of the King is from Jamaica. Her name is Rosalie. So hi, Rosalie. Tabitha is on from Yale, Michigan, Jay Gamer from Flagler Beach, Florida, Crystal Hodges from right down the street here in Charlotte, North Carolina, Whitney Lawson. Hello. From Roanoke, Virginia. Let's see. Sharon Anderson from New Jersey, Cindy Osborne. Hello. From South Africa. What time is it in South Africa? Like nighttime, I think. Yeah. Liz Walker from Fort Worth, Texas, Elizabeth Knight from Florida, Terry Sanchez from right here in Matthews, North Carolina. Guys, welcome to Lunchtime Live. If you're just joining us, we are starting a two part series, a Lunchtime Live two part series. It's a first for the Holly Furtick YouTube channel. Today we are talking with David Thomas about raising emotionally strong boys. Next Wednesday we'll be back here, same time, same place, YouTube at noon Eastern time. And we're going to talk with Cissy Goff about raising worry free girls. It's all about our kids today. And I am so excited for this conversation because I just finished reading this book and it was really, really great and super helpful. So all you need to know is join us for the ride. If you have a question that you'd like to ask David, put it in the chat. I will try to get to it, but I also have a long list of questions that I'm going to ask myself and they're probably all the things that you're wondering too. So hang in there. If I don't get to your question. And then also at the end, of course, as always, I want to give away a couple copies of this book and so I'll give you instructions, but stay with me, leave some comments, stay till the end, and I'll give away a couple copies of this book at the end. Welcome to Catherine Vivaros. Catherine is from Florida and she is the mother of four and three boys. Oh, you guys got to tell me in the comments, like, if you have kids or if you have boys and how old they are. Most of you know that I have three kids, two boys and a girl, and my boys are now 17 and 15, and I kind of can't believe that. But this book is for moms of boys of all ages and I think you'll find it helpful no matter what. So are we ready? Let's get David on. Let's get this going. I can't wait to chat with him here, from all of his wisdom. Hi, David.

Hey. It's great to see you.

Good to see you too. We met at Julie Richard's conference, her shout out to Fearless Mom. I guess it was a little over a year ago and so I'm so excited to have you on today. I don't. So your book wasn't out when we met.

It was not. And I was so grateful our past intersected. I've been so thankful for the work you were doing in this world for so long. I was grateful we finally got a chance to meet. And thanks for having me on today.

Oh, yeah. I'm so excited. And like I said, I just, I thoroughly. I don't want to say I enjoyed this book because I enjoy fiction. I. I consume a lot of fiction, but I did get a lot from this book. It was super helpful. There were moments when I was reading this book that I was like, I think maybe there was a camera in my house. And. Well, I'll just tell you the part about the mom whose son, like, was following her around the house and she would go in her room and shut the door and he'd come in the room or he'd sit on the other side of the door. I've been there many times with both of my boys. And so I just, I just really related to a lot of the content in this book. Raising boys is like I came from a home of all girls and so I had two sisters and, and I've shared this before, but I didn't know until I found out the day that I had my ultrasound and I found out that my first was going to be a boy. I cried. And I didn't know that I had never pictured myself having boys. Like I had literally I grew up with all girls and I just, whenever I pictured myself having kids, they were girls. And so the ultrasound tech told me that I was having a boy and I held it together and we got out to the car and I looked at my husband and he was like, this is great. And I started bawling and he was like, what's wrong? And I was like, I don't know. So it's sort of been a journey of raising voice for me from the very, from the very first moment and. But it's also been like the most amazing experience. And I thank God regularly that I only have one girl because. Because it turns out it's a lot no matter what sex they are, right?

Yes, indeed. I cannot tell you how many moms have told me a similar, almost identical story to that too. And particularly moms who grew up with only sisters. Because it's like this is all of what I know. And boys are just different creatures. I mean they are completely different creatures. So I want you to know those tears make sense to me. And I've heard a version of that often.

My sister's on and she says, is it too late for me? Our boys are 16 and 20. And then she said the 16 year old is having an out of school suspension due to being stupid. Yes, Emily is not, it's. No, it's not too late for you. Okay, so David, let's jump right in. This book is sort. I already said this is sort of like a two part series. I'm talking to you today about raising emotionally strong boys. I'm talking to Sissy or your partner on when next Wednesday about raising worry free girls. And I heard you say that this book is sort of like a response to the book, the success that she had with raising worry free girls and sort of like the whole climate of raising kids today is all centered around the epidemic of anxiety. But your book is more like how do we address this in boys? So tell me like what is different about specifically raising boys in this day and time? Maybe versus, versus the, the, the, the, the way we see anxiety Coming out in girls.

Yeah, I think there are a lot of differences and, and you know, I would even track back to if, if we think about kind of the foundation of a boy's emotional development, I would say first appearance, that it's important to acknowledge that pediatricians would say at 16 month, well, visits that girls are saying about 100 words, boys are saying about 30. So let's start there and acknowledge the fact that her general vocabulary is bigger. So it makes sense that her emotional, her emotional vocabulary would be bigger, would be more expansive. So from the get go, we're going to have to labor longer to help boys develop this strong, expansive, foundational emotional vocabulary so that they can figure out whatever it is that's going on inside of them. And I think to the degree that we don't acknowledge we've got to labor longer in these spaces, it's where I'm never surprised. And I share a lot of stats in the new book that adult men lead some of the scariest statistics out there. Adult men lead the stats for infidelity, for Internet pornography, for substance abuse, for suicide. And if you think about just those four categories, the common denominator with all four of those is it is a male's attempt to try to numb out or shut down whatever it is that he's feeling. And so if we know that to be true and we've got to acknowledge that harsh reality that is true, then my great hope with this book was let's talk about what it looks like on the front side of development to be laboring in those spaces. Because that truth I just shared about 16 months stays true. What we know a little farther down the road in development is that somewhere around 9 to 10, boys will begin to channel all primary emotions. Fear, sadness, confusion, disappointment, everything will get funneled into anger and anger, culturally, I think we communicate to boys is an okay emotion. It's okay to be angry, it's not okay to be sad. And boys can see plenty of evidence in media all over the place of adult males who are swimming in anger, but they don't see a lot of evidence of what it looks like for an adult man to be experiencing the other full range of emotions. And so if all that's true on the front side, and then I would only add to that there's a lot that we do to socialize. There's. I included some great research in the book around how often it is on the front side of development when kids are even toddlers, that when we're not even where it's Happening. Dads will roughhouse their sons and speak in more emotional terms with their daughters. And moms will, when they're not aware of it, work to control their son's emotional volatility more where they will invite more expression with girls. And so there's just so much we're doing if this biological process is in play and then we're socializing in that direction. And that I think in some ways kind of sets the stage for boys to shut down and to numb out. So we got to be working against those things. And it's where to your great question. We're going to miss anxiety with boys a lot. Yeah. Because it's going to look different. With girls it tends to look more like classic worry and fear. With boys it tends to look more like anger and volatility, which is not the first two things we think about when we think about anxiety. So anxious boys, for example, in a classroom look distracted, restless, fidgety. Those are some of the very things we think of when we think of adhd. And I can't tell you how many boys over the years I've seen in my practice who were misdiagnosed with ADHD, who actually had an undercurrent of anxiety in play. But unless we're looking for the right things, it's easy to miss.

So one of the things that you talk about in the book that I, that I loved is helping boys develop a more expansive emotional vocabulary. And it's actually really funny that you would even talk about misdiagnosis with ADHD and anxiety and all of that. My father was diagnosed as an adult with ADHD and ended up having to go through a lot of therapy that was coming out in his relationships and his habits and all of this. And I remember probably about, I don't know, maybe like seven or eight years ago. So my dad's like a 65 year old man and his therapist had given him this piece of paper with about, I don't know, 25 different like emoji faces. And the therapist would say like, you know, what are you feeling? And he's like, I don't, I don't know any of these feelings. I know happy, sad and angry and, and Even as a 65 year old man, my dad having to like educate himself on his own emotions. So how do we do that with our boys, no matter what age they are, but the boys that are in our homes, Yes.

I am so grateful you told that story because I can't tell you often I've heard a version of that. Story. In fact, I have a friend here in Nashville who runs a treatment center for adult professional men. So these are primarily Doctors, attorneys, pastors, CEOs, men who have been wildly successful vocationally but have found themselves in the throes of addiction of some kind. And on the very first day when they come, they'll do group together and he'll put a feelings chart in the middle of the circle and say, how are you feeling about being here right now? And he said, david, you can't imagine how many Harvard educated, Duke educated professionals I work with who can't answer that question. To your great point of they've not been equipped with an emotional vocabulary, so it makes sense they would find themselves in the throes of something like addiction at some point because every one of us is made. God made us as emotional beings. And so our objective becomes figuring out how to name and navigate our experience. And so I think to your question, it really starts with a feelings chart. We keep those on our website. You can download one off our website, raisingboysandgirls.com we travel with them everywhere we speak. Because in my perfect world, every family would have a feelings chart accessible somewhere in the house. That is not all that different than the way we use the letters of the Alphabet in a classroom. So think about it. Any kindergarten or first grade classroom across the globe is going to have the letters of the Alphabet there because we know that as kids are learning those letters, when they can see them visually, it strengthens the connection. And the same is true if we use a feelings chart. And then secondly to your great question, I want parents to just be folding more emotional vocabulary into their reporting. So when we just sit around the dinner table and we're like, hey, how was your day? My challenge to parents, we can laugh about this. My challenge to parents is I don't want anybody going forward to say it was fine. Fine. Fine is an acronym for feelings in need of expression. That's what fine. I like that kids hearing their parents say things like, you know what? Today I felt embarrassed. I had to give a presentation to the board of directors and I didn't feel as prepared as I wanted to or I, I felt sad. I think I said something to a friend or co workers that hurt their feelings. And I want to circle back and check in on that tomorrow. So knowing that that kind of reporting, that kind of narrating of our experience, what I call it, is landing on the kids we love. And I talk throughout the book about how kids learn more from observation than information. They learn Way more from watching us, observing us than anything. So if that kind of reporting could just be happening in the everyday, it changes the game for kids.

That was one of my favorite things that you said in the book, and Cissy says it a lot in her book too, is that the best thing that you can do for your kids is, is model what it means to be an emotionally strong person. And for me, that just, that sets me free. Because a lot of times, like, I honestly don't read a lot of parenting books because they make me feel bad or like guilty or like, oh my gosh, I didn't do this right? Or this didn't. And actually it started for me early on. I read I wanted to be a mom so bad and I wanted to be good at it. So I read like every book that you could read about caring for a baby, from baby wise to, you know, healthy sleep habits. And I mean I probably read like five or six books and probably had like confusion, like theory confusion by the time my baby came, but none of it worked. Like, I tried everything. I tried shushing and I try, I mean, I tried everything and I always felt like none of this works. So to pick up a book like this that starts with the best thing that you can do is model the behaviors that you want your children to have. Even as a mom of a 17 year old. Because there were times where I was reading and I was like, oh, I don't think I did this right. But I do know that for the most part I have modeled what it looks like to be an emotionally strong, stable adult. Although my children have been the primary, the primary people who caused me to lose my everything. But for the most part, and so talk about like just for a second, like what are some of the things that you tell parents? Like, this is what you need to do for yourself. Because I also think like in marriage, my sort of, my, my mantra is, if I change me, I change us. So what does that look like? As a parent, you know, I'd say.

Two things to that. First thing I want to say is this. I love when your sister sent that question in. And I am so grateful to get to say back to parents who asked the question, is it too late? Consistently, it's never too late. In fact, I laughed with a mom the other day. I, I wrote this workbook to go along with a book called Strong and Smart. And it's for 6 to 12 year old boys to kind of put these principles into practice. And I had a mom say to me the other day she Said David, I bought your workbook for my 7 year old son, but I'm mostly using it with my 37 year old husband. That's great. It works with a male of any age. And it's confirmation of it's not too late. It's not too late for any of us to develop these skills. It turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks. And so I very much want that to be said first, I think. Secondly, Sissy and I are often asked by parents, for example, with anxiety, like, what is the single best thing I could do to support my anxious child? And our answer always has been and always will be, manage your own anxiety. It's the greatest gift we can give anxious kids because anxiety is contagious. But the good news is calm is contagious as well. And so to your question, to the degree that I'm developing these practices to settle myself when I get in dysregulated moments, it's the greatest thing to have to offer kids. One, so that I can be more the parent I want to be. Two, to the very thing you and I were just discussing about observation, so that my kids can sit front row and watch the grownups they trust the most in this world doing this work in front of them. And so it's where that reporting is so valuable. I challenge parents. If you're in carpool tomorrow and you left the house five minutes late, as we do with parents, and we're stressed and thinking everybody's going to be tardy, I want you to say things like, okay, hey, I feel stressed. I can feel it in my body. I WISH we left five minutes earlier. @ the next stoplight, I'm going to do a minute of deep breathing. At the next red light, I'm going to turn on some worship music and just let that wash over me and see if it doesn't create a settling effect. I want kids to hear that kind of reporting. You know, if you were feeling a lot of anxiety yourself and you went on a walk with a trusted friend, I want you to report on that. Like, hey, I was feeling so worried, like consumed with worry. And I went on a walk with my best friend this morning and it's amazing what moving my body and talking with a trusted source did to just settle me. And so knowing that that kind of reporting is landing on the kids we love, that prepares them to be adults in this world who will one day be in carpool running late with their own kids, who will be swimming in worry and needing trusted sources in their own lives.

That's so great. I've never actually thought about articulating in the moment what I'm doing. I remember one. One time, my daughter Abby, she was like, mom, why are you breathing like that? And I was just like, not even. I wasn't doing conscious breathing. I was doing, like, unconscious, subconscious, like, you know, and she was like, why are you breathing like that? And so. But even, like, talking, talking them through, like, I felt this way today, and this is what I did. That's. I mean, that's so great. And so I just. I hope that anybody who's watching, like, before we go any further and talk about, here's the things you can do with your boys, you know, blah, blah, blah, the number one thing you can do is take care of yourself and manage your own emotions and your own anxiety and. And talk your kids through the things that you're going through. Because I think so, like, so often, we want. We. We want to protect our kids from seeing us struggle, and they see us struggling anyway. So talking to them about how we're coping with it is. Is. Is more of what they need. Okay, so speaking of coping, so in the book, you talk about this, like, series, naming, breathing, coping.

Explain that, because I. I call those the ABCs of emotional strength. And so what I comment on, that I want parents to hear me say right now is that I think for boys, we have to reverse the order.

Okay?

So order is naming, breathing, coping with boys. I want us to think about coping first, breathing second, naming last. That's a mistake I think we make with boys. They're in this emotionally charged moment, and we're like, what are you feeling? It's like, I don't know, anger, you know, they can't access anything underneath the anger.

I'm feeling like I want to hit something.

Exactly. And the equation I use is, let's regulate first and let's talk second. In fact, I would add to this question that research tells us the two biggest mistakes we make as parents with discipline are too much talk and too much emotion. Too much talk and too much emotion. So think about how that fits within that equation. If we would regulate first and talk second, there's greater likelihood that we're going to avoid that tendency to lecture on and on and on, or to scream when we don't want to scream as parents. That's where starting with coping, moving toward breathing, and then ending with naming. Whatever was going on with me, I think is the right sequence. And you mentioned something as we were laughing that I want to go back to because it's so important. Research tells us, and I talk a lot about this in the book, that boys tend to have more physicality to their emotions. And so it's why, in a preschool classroom, toddler age, boys are more likely to bite, hit, kick, screen, throw. Teenage boys are more likely to punch holes in drywall. It's that need for release. And so in the coping section, I talk about creating what I call healthy outward movement and some opportunities for boys to release the physicality. So when my boys were two of my three kids are boys as well. When they were little, we got a Bozo Bop it. I don't know if any of you listening had one of those. It's got sand in the bottom and then you blow it up. It's inflatable and you could punch it down and it would pop back up. We went through about five of those. And I would, when my boys were having meltdown moments, usher them toward this space we created in the corner of the playroom where we put some oversized pillows and this Bozo Boppin and different things that they could use to release that physicality. Because, for example, you can see I'm in my office right now, I've got big oversized pillows. I use those as a teaching tool with kids all the time. I will say it is a good thing to scream into a pillow. It's a bad option to scream at a person. It's fine to punch a pillow. A pillow's not hurt. You punch your sibling. That's not a good option. It's okay to throw a pillow down. The pillow's not hurt. You don't want to shove a friend down. But unless we create that healthy outward movement in those constructive ways, we're going to end up in destructive moments, yelling, hitting, screaming, regretting whatever it is that we've done because we didn't have enough of that release. Now, as my kids grew, that space in the playroom turned into a workout space in our basement. And so we ended up hanging a full body bag. We looked like we were training boxers. And I would frequently come home and some of the first sounds I might hear walking through the door were kind of some grunting and punching and my kids releasing some of that intensity. And the next thing I would often hear, this is important to that sequence of coping, breathing, naming. If I let them spend whatever time they needed in that space, I would often at the end hear crying. And if I went to check in on that kid, I heard every story imaginable. I got cut from a team. I didn't get asked to a dance. Felt left out by a friend. I tanked a test, like all the things all kids are going to experience, but they couldn't get to that sadness until they released some of that anger and intensity and physicality that allowed them to get to the naming. But it started with coping.

Yeah.

Then we move towards some deep breathing. And I would simply just say to the breathing component that research tells us at least 20 seconds of deep breathing will begin to reset the amygdala. If we double that to 40 seconds, twice the benefit, one minute, three times the benefit. And so I teach every kid who walks through the door of this office deep breathing in her office. With girls will call it square breathing. I call it combat breathing. With boys. I have to dress it up a little bit to get boys to buy into it. But it's actually something that I learned from work I've done with Navy Seals and arms, Army Rangers. Combat breathing is a required skill because unless those individuals can reset their amygdala, get out of that fight flight, or freeze part of the brain into the thinking brain, we with kids, we call it traveling from the emotional brain to the thinking brain. If I can't get to my thinking brain, I can't make rational decisions. And the mistake we make back to that too much talk, too much emotion, is getting in too much conversation with kids when they're emotionally charged, which is where I hear parents every day in my office say that they hear kids say things like, I'm just a worse person. You wish I'd never been born. Everyone in this family hates me. I have no friends. These big declarations that any one of us is vulnerable to making when our thinking brain goes offline and the amygdala is flying the plane. And so. And we make the mistake of getting in the middle of those emotionally charged moments and playing what I call emotional tug of war. You are not the worst person in the family. What made you believe that? Why would you say that? And it's like they're not even in their right mind. And we do the same as parents. You know, we try to discipline in those moments. And it's when we say things like, you're grounded for life.

Right.

And then we got to go back and redo that. It's like, no, you're not grounded for life. You're grounded for a week. But it's like, we're not in our thinking brain. So we throw out these ridiculous consequences declaration statements when what we should be doing is again, starting with the first part of that equation, coping, Regulating myself so that I can offer some of that calm to my kids. Going to my space to figure out what I need to do to be the parent I want to be.

Yeah. I love how you say in the book, like, you talk about helping them find, like, their activity and how boys need their activity, whether it's riding their bike or going for a run. I know for my oldest son and my other, My other son too, but my oldest son, who's less into organized sports, but he loves to work out and have. Helping them have these things that they realize help bring them back to themselves. But you, I want you to talk for just a second because I know we could have an entire hour conversation about screens, but talk for just a second about how you said. And I can't find where I wrote it down in my notes, but something about how screens are numbing, not coping.

Yes, yes, you nailed it. Screens are for numbing, not for navigating. And I would even go a step further and say that I think screens, I think technology. And I want to be very clear in saying, as I say this, I'm not against technology at all. I just want it to be available to kids with good, healthy limits and not for the purpose of coping.

Yeah.

Because I think screens move us away from regulation, not toward it. And you know, my, my top three rules when it comes to developing a list of coping strategies is no screens for the reasons we've named. I want breathing on there somewhere for just what I said, because it's the most effective, easy way for us to reset the amygdala. And then thirdly, mostly movement, I want mostly movement because breathing and movement are the most well researched practices that any of us can use in any given moment to create this reset in the brain and body that we need. So no screens, mostly movement and breathing are kind of my three rules of thumb when it comes to helping kids. Otherwise, you've got free range of figuring out what works for you. And I loved hearing you say that for your son. Like, I have so many boys who will say, I feel different in my body after a workout. Like, I can come into that with all kinds of intensity and anger and I leave that in a place that's settled. And I'm like, I love that you figure that out for yourself and that you are knowing that you need to incorporate that regularly as a practice for release. And. And I believe in it strongly.

Yeah. So you take us from naming, breathing, coping, and then you talk about how time and space is everything. And I I love this idea because again, this is something that I had to learn the hard way in my own marriage. Right? Like the time to have the discussion about what happened is not while you're arguing, while your emotions are, you know, off the charts. So it's, I almost feel like, especially when I read this book, I was like, I was able to implement that in my marriage, but I had a very, very, and still do have a difficult time implementing that with my kids because like I said, they will chase you around the house. They, they, they, they, they are relentless when they feel like you are not listening or you don't understand or you know, whatever. So like how do you move. We all know time and space because we've all experienced a moment where afterwards we're able to have like a logical conversation about what happened. But how do you get a. Take a child who is, and I'll go back like five years for my kids, they're in the middle of a tantrum. So you can't even say, honey, go ride your bike, go play basketball, go outside, go punch a pillow. Because they're literally like in a tantrum. So what do I do in that moment?

In that moment I would go back to. Part of why I mentioned creating that space in the corner of a playroom when my kids were toddlers is that I want an easy accessible space in every home, particularly with kids pre 12. Because kids pre 12 in terms of their cognitive development are in what we call concrete thinking. So they haven't developed abstract thinking. And when I can create concrete experiences for those kids, it's a win. So when I was saying here's our space, let's go together and the going together in the beginning is key because that's part of the long journey that I talk about in the book of moving from co regulation to self regulation. And we always want to be traveling that journey. Otherwise I love when you mentioned that story on the front side. Part of why I wrote that story in the book is that I've had thousands of parents, mostly moms, tell me a version of that story that kids follow them around, they want to stay stuck in co regulation because there's this sense of if you will be my resources, I never have to develop any resourcefulness.

Okay.

And it's part of that classic, you know, at a 11 year old boy in my office the other day and his mom was talking about how he gets frustrated. So he's saying, I'm like, hey, what happens if you go to school and you forget your sports equipment and you Realize your coach is going to make you run laps afterwards. And he was like, my mom will bring me that. What happens if you forget your lunch? My mom will bring me that. It's like my mom was the answer to every question because she developed a pattern of becoming his resources that this kid didn't have to develop any resourcefulness. And so we want to always be traveling that journey and having that space set aside where we go with kids to again, model for them. This is what it looks like to release those big feelings in a constructive way, and then we're going to name those feelings afterwards is what I'd love for it to look like on the front side. Now, if we didn't do this, any parent listening who has an adolescent or young adult, we can still add this in. And the actual space itself is not magical. What we put in the space is not magical. The separating out is the magic. And so for those kids who follow you around, I talk about developing a one liner. I love this one liner of saying to adolescents, hey, I love you too much to argue. I love you too much to argue. We're done talking right now. I'm going to go for a walk. You do what you need to do. But we're not staying in emotional tug of war, which is what it is otherwise. I had a mom, I laughed with her years ago. She's like, david, I don't want to be dramatic, but my son, in those moments will create what feels like a hostage crisis.

I've been a hostage. Exactly.

And I believe it. I've seen teenage boys do it. And so I know how that looks and feels and can be. And I said, well, then let's stay with your analogy and laugh together. What is the United States position on terrorists? We do not negotiate with terrorists. And we don't do it because we know it doesn't lead to a good outcome. What if we're to apply that same wisdom, like, if I stay in this negotiation over and over, when we're both amped up, it will never lead to a good outcome. So that separating out, that dropping the rope, to stay with that analogy of tug of war, think on that. If one person lays down the road, the game of tug of war is over, that other person's welcome to keep yanking back and forth. But if I leave and go for a walk, if I go to my room and lock the door, whatever it may be, to create that space, there is no option but for him to have to figure out some of what he's going to do. If I Don't take that lunch or that sports equipment to school. He's got to figure out how to work through the heart of that. And that ability of working through the heart really is regulation. The definition I give to it in the book is just employing calming and coping strategies when my nervous system goes into a heightened state of arousal. And that's something I want us to be on a long journey of with boys so that they don't live into those scary statistics I named on the front side because they never developed regulation skills. So they're constantly trying to create opportunities to numb out or shut down.

Yeah. Yeah. So would you say that because I'm trying to envision this with my kids, this whole, like, dropping the rope situation. Would you say that in your experience that the first couple times you do it, you know, you go to your bedroom, you lock the door, they're going to be sitting outside your door. But the more that they learn, mom is not going to play tug of war with me. The more you do it, the better it gets. It's not always going to be them sitting outside your door, but it may be a couple of times.

Absolutely it will. And I would even add to that that I talk a lot in the book about the three R's. So regulation is one of the three R's. The other two are recognize and repair.

Okay.

And all throughout a boys development, I want us to be practicing the three R's. And I walk you through. Every chapter ends with five intentional practice. So I'm not just throwing out ideas. I'm giving you nuts and bolts of how to teach this. Yeah. And I believe that the teaching of the three Rs and the practicing of the three Rs over the course of a voice development eventually moves him in other directions so that he's not just sitting outside the door.

So.

So to stay with that analogy of if I stop bringing sports equipment, eventually having to relapse or getting embarrassed in front of the team will be enough to motivate him to get on his game. And so I love the way you even describe that because I think it's in keeping with that analogy and that eventually he will. But as long as we keep picking the rope back up and staying in that tug of war, he's not developing any skills in that space. And I'm quick to say emotional skills are no different than any of the other skills. Think about bike riding or swimming. Like that's not something you practice one time and get down. Like, I took swimming lessons every summer for like six Summers in a row, you know, it's like. And then if I did too, and.

I never advanced above the beginner class.

There you go, There you go. It's like if I don't ride my bike for long periods of time, I look like a person who's never been on it. But if I get back into the practice, the skills come back to me. So these are not just learned skills, they're practice skills, but I believe they're vital skills to a boy's health. Not just emotionally, but relationally and spiritually as well.

And as I'm hearing you talk, I'm thinking about how hard it is in the moment. Like the, in the arguing, the arguments. Obviously those are really hard situations. But also as a mom, when your child is like, I forgot my lunch. As a mom, you're like, they're gonna be hungry if I don't bring them their lunch. It's hard. Like, emotionally it's difficult. But when I think of like, as a mom, you go through a lot of emotional milestones. Like the first thing that you have to do is let your baby cry a little bit so that they learn how to self soothe. So it's sort. But it's like every stage is, is equally difficult and you don't realize that you're. You're constantly. I just love how you say it over and over again. We're constantly moving them to resourcefulness. And if I'm always bouncing them, shushing them, every time they make a whimper, then I'm really creating a monster for myself. And if I'm bringing them their homework and their lunch, and I'm always doing that, like my kids, we live 25 minutes from their school, so that, that is not. Wasn't an option for them. I'm like, guys, if you forget something, most likely I won't even be able to get it to you in time. So I actually had the, like that one was done for me. But they're all of these stages are so hard. And one of the. My favorite quote from your book is, okay, so where you, you talk about how boys give the most of who they are to their mom. And so when you read that, at first you're like, yes, they do. And then you go on to talk about how they give the most of their. They give the best of themselves and they give the worst of themselves. And that's why like they can hold it together for other people. Then they come home and they lose it on you. And then so my favorite quote was like, I love that idea. And Then you said, you are not a punching bag. You're a sounding board. And like I do that, I don't want to be my kids punching bag. I understand why, because they feel safe with me. And so that's a good thing. But I want to move them to being, to be a sounding board for them, not this place where they just like take everything out on me. And so when you're talking about that, you talk about the blame shame cycle and how we're trying to move them to ownership. So give everybody just a little taste of that from the book.

I love to. And, and I want to first say I'm grateful you to highlight that section particularly for any moms listening because I think not only will a boy get situated in that pattern with his mom, but I think he'll eventually translate that over to the next female in his life. Like that'll become my girlfriend, that'll become my fiance, that'll become my wife someday. That the primary female in my life is always my punching back, not a sounding. And so I think it is such an important priority. I talk a lot about how moms have these unique challenges and unique callings. And one of the unique callings is one I call staying steady, which is learning not to stay in that emotional tug of war for the sake of preparing him for all his future relationships. And he will also, it is so hard. And he will also, left to his own devices, stay stuck in the swing. You mentioned a blame and shame. And the definition I give to blame in the book is blame is nothing more than discharge pain and shame is nothing more than self contempt. And neither are healthy or helpful. Neither move kids toward repair or restoration or resolution of any kind. And so if I just stay stuck between blame often with boys, looks like my teacher didn't teach it the right way. My coach won't give me enough playing time. My sister made me angry, pointing the finger outward.

Shame.

That self contempt looks like I'm the worst person. I should just die. I should have never been born. No one likes me again. Neither of those are helpful places to stay stuck and swinging. So the healthy middle ground is ownership. And it's really rooted in that third R of repair. And so I don't just teach the third R repair. I break it down and talk about how do we help boys develop the muscle of repair, of taking ownership and doing any needed relational work. And one of the things I talk about is early on, I really want us to be communicating clearly to kids that forgiveness is a decision and not a feeling. Yeah, so often I think kids are waiting until they feel remorseful. And you and I, as adults know, sometimes I don't get to the remorse until I get into the act of forgiveness. Like, until I move toward the other person that I harmed with my words, that are harmed with a decision in some way that I start to feel a softening take place inside of me. And so I very much want kids to be about the practice of asking forgiveness. And again, I want parents to be about modeling the art of forgiveness in front of kids. That's one of the things that I think a lot of parents of our generation just did not experience our parents doing themselves. So we don't have a blueprint for what it looks like to come to the kids we love and say, hey, I lost my temper. I did not mean what I said. You know, whatever it may be, I don't think kids know what it looks like to walk that out in their own relationships that they can't see it on us.

Yeah, I just, the, the whole idea of the blame and shame cycle was really helpful for me because, because as you were talking about in the book, I could think back to one of my sons. Not he, he. He's not a details guy. And so therefore he didn't always do that well in math. Now, not like he was failing or anything, but it just didn't come easily to him. And so there were so many afternoons at the kitchen table with anger and tears because I also think I, I, this was a shock to me as a mom, but how boys cry when they're angry because I was like, what is this? But it's like, like their body, everything, it just comes out. So there was all this anger and tears and these statements like, whether it was shame, I'm so stupid, or blame, my teacher doesn't teach us this to. My teacher didn't explain it to me just to even. It's so helpful just to even have those handles and go in the moment, like, I don't need to be like, no, honey, you're not stupid. Because that's just making him say that even more. And I also don't need to be like, yeah, your teacher's an idiot, because that's just reinforcing that. But just to even know that that's what he's going to do. And let him, let him do it in the moment and then later talk about, okay, now what could we have done better? Like, how, you know, and just the whole, just. There's so many helpful techniques that are in this book that just were really eye opening for me, even as my boys are teenagers, of just like looking back but knowing like this is not over. Like, just because my son's going to college in the fall, that doesn't mean that he, we're going to be, you know, he's going to be off on his own and everything's going to be great, you know. And so just to have some of these handles and, and definitions and, and things to, to really put words to what we're experiencing, it's just so wonderful and so helpful. So I'm just, I'm so grateful for you for just putting these words on the page for, for me and for so many others. I, I do have to tell you a really great Bible story that would, that went so perfectly with this. So in my husband and one of my sons and his girlfriend, we have like a Bible reading club and we've been reading through the Bible and we're in First Samuel, Second Samuel. And I don't know if you remember the story of David when he was moving the ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem. And, and there's this, there is this whole cycle of, of anger where the, one of David's men goes to, goes to stop the ark because the, the oxen stumbled and God strikes the man dead. And David was so, so angry at God and he left the ark there at like a nearby man's farm or property or whatever. And he goes back and it's not for three months until he goes and tries to move the ark again. And it was this, as I was reading your book and reading this passage of scripture, I was like, this is the, this is the whole thing of, of where you move from like anger to understanding to action and like. And it took him three months to process what happened and then how he was going to move forward with it. And so I just, I love how the Bible and there's so much psychology in the Bible, right? And it just all came together for me at the same moment. And so I'm just so grateful to have tools like that and to have scripture that's reinforcing what I'm learning and it's just, just, it's really awesome. So thank you. Before we go though, I want to ask you because I love. I'm. It's May and we're heading into summer and you have this, this like, significant section that talks about how to plan for your summer. So can you just give us like a few tips for like, let's set ourselves up for a good summer as we're Going into like, because I loved how you talked about how boys, all boys, say I just want to chill. So will you just talk about that and give, give us like a few tips to have a great summer.

And I would say, you know, it makes me laugh even to hear you say it because I have honestly heard that word spoken a thousand times in this office. If I had a quarter for every time I'd heard a boy say, I just want a chill summer, always ask, tell me what you mean by that. I know what they mean by that. But so often what that means for so many boys is I don't want any chores, I want unlimited screen time, I don't want a bedtime, I don't want a wake time, I don't want any expectations. And I'm very clear in saying in that section of talking about the summers, I do want that to be a time where boys get to pull back because boys have to expend a lot of energy, mental energy, emotional energy, relational energy, navigating the academic year. And so I very much want him to experience the volumes getting turned down. And I also know boys well enough from having studied them for 25 years that they aren't self actualized enough to structure their summers well. So left to their own devices, they would stay up till four in the morning and wake at noon and eat Doritos and Dr. Pepper. You know, it's like they just aren't developed enough to structure that well. So they need our involvement, they need our input. So I think it starts with asking that question, tell me what you want the summer to look like. Tell me what you want to accomplish, like beginning. I've got some questions in that section that we can ask boys that move them toward giving some input because I don't want us to just structure and plan that without his input. Because I've had plenty of boys say, my mom playing my summer, my dad playing my summer. And I didn't feel like I had any input or I didn't have any free time or I was away too much and I wish I'd been home or I was home too much and I wish I'd done more. And so I think engaging them in that. In fact, throughout the book I've got a lot of questions to ask boys. There's a section called the Strength of Connection and I've got specific questions to ask boys about their friendships. Yeah, you know, there's questions to ask boys about their emotional experience because kind of back to where we started, because he has fewer words, it's just harder for him to articulate his experience, his emotional, his relational, spiritual experience. And so the book is full of different questions. It's also full of experiments to do with boys because, you know, I talked about boys being concrete pre 12. They are also experiential learners. So I've got all these experiments. I've got this great experiment called four Quadrants that dads can do with their sons. Moms could do it too. I've got a backpack experiment. I've got all these different experiments that hopefully help boys make some connections in this space. And so questions and experiments that, that I'm hopeful will make the journey of traveling these spaces easier, make the moments of talking about summer a little bit easier because there's some jumping off points. So thank you for mentioning that. It is timely.

Yeah. And you know, I found with my boys, like, they're like, it's important to know what they're motivated by. So, you know, like, there have been summers where they were motivated by wanting to be on the football team. There have been summers where they were motivated by wanting to earn money so that, you know that they're earning or saving for a car. And so capitalizing on that and wanting to give my, my kids. Like, I want you to chill, I want you to rest, but that doesn't mean that you play video games till four in the morning and then sleep till two. Because now we're in this like cycle of. And, and that actually, like eventually, like that's fun for a couple of days, but eventually that feeds into anxiety, depression, anger and like all of these things. So. And it's a great, like, I just love how you. You talk about talking about summer at the beginning of the summer so that it's not me just fussing all the time, but like us. Me saying like, okay, you want to earn money, so let's, let's figure out like what kind of job you can get and you're gonna have to. And then they, you know, they learn. I have to get up at 7am to go to football practice and I can't stay up till 4. Like they figure those things out with the natural consequences. So just such a wonderful way to like, it just was so timely, like the whole thing and the way the book comes to a close. And I'm just so grateful and so thankful that you would come and, and, and take this time to, to talk with us. I think this is going to be like a really, really helpful conversation for so many moms of boys.

Well, I'm just so grateful you let me come and talk about it. I can tell you how thankful I am to intersect with you again and we could have a conversation we're having today. Thanks for giving me the opportunity.

Tell everybody really quick how they can connect with you because you guys also have a fabulous podcast. I love the series Are My Kids on Track? Which if you go tell us about the podcast and I'll just tell everybody right now. If you're looking for All My Kids on Are My Kids On Track, you got to scroll way back because it's like, like a couple years old, but so good. And I think you have a book about that too. So tell us a little bit. How can we find you and follow you and all those great things?

I would say the easiest place to find us would be to go to raisingboys and girls.com okay. Boysandgirls.com and there is a tab that will take you straight to our podcast. Thank you for mentioning that. There's a tab that'll take you to all our books and resources. There's a tab that'll, you know, take you to our social media because we're putting out, we're attempting to try and put out as much helpful content for parents. So we'll make these quick three minute videos of here's three things to think about with this summer. Here's three things to do with kids who are anxious and so trying to really push out as much good and helpful information. But all of that is housed under raisingboysandgirls.com and so amazingboysandgirls.com it's perfect.

And then everybody is, they're asking how can we get the book? Here's the book, Raising Emotionally Strong Boys. I got mine on Amazon. I'm sure there's a, I'm sure there's an independent bookstore near you that would also carry it, but here's the book. And David, let me give a couple books away really quick. Courtney Martin. So Courtney, I saw her on earlier, she has six boys. So we bless you, Courtney. And we are going to send you this book if all you have to do is. What do we say, guys? Email me at Holly Furtick YouTube@elevationchurch.org Courtney Holly Furtick youtubeevationchurch.org We're going to send you this. And then let's also, Bree Moore says that this is chicken soup for her soul. So we're gonna send her some of the, the onions that are in the chicken soup, like the harder to digest part, but will eventually be soup for your soul. All right, David, thank you so much for joining us. Thank you for your work, and it's been impactful for me personally, and I just hope that more people will follow you and. And get their hands on all of this. So thank you.

Thank you for having me. It was a gift to spend this time with you.

Yeah. Awesome. All right, we'll see. We'll see you next time. Tell Sissy that she's excited to be with you. All right, bye. Okay, guys, so I hope you enjoyed part one. Now make sure that you set your calendar to join me for part two. So part two, we're gonna be meeting with Sissy Goff, and she has written a book called Raising Worry Free Girls. And we all went away. Right. Well, we all want to raise Worry Free Girls, and so I can't wait to talk to Sissy. I hope that you will pick up your copy of this book and make sure that you go to. What did he say? Raisingboys and girls.com raisingboysandgirls.com to find all the places to follow. I didn't follow them on Instagram, so I'm gonna do that as soon as we get off. And you can find their podcasts and. And all their books and all their information and all of that. So if you enjoyed this conversation, make sure that you let me know in the comments. I'm always trying to figure out what to do with these lunchtime lives and who you want to hear from. So let me know in the comments if this was right up your alley and if you really enjoyed it. Make sure that you like the video. Make sure you follow the Holly Furtick YouTube channel. You can click that little bell to get alerts for any time we go live. Especially if you're planning on watching next week. Make sure you click the bell to get the notifications. Also, follow me on Instagram. I always put it out there in my story, hey, I'm going live today or whatever. So anyway, I hope you have a great day, and I will see you back here next week for part two. Have a great day.