What do sons need? Football. And a dog.
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It’s been a tough year for Boy 12. He was caught shoplifting and stealing in other ways, lying, got poor grades in school, was mistreating Boy 7—just generally unpleasant to be around.
Mothered Five and I tried all the conventional wisdom, alternately going for sensitivity and understanding, then rapid harsh discipline and logical consequences. We tried ADD and depression meds. We took him to a counselor, where Boy 12 demonstrated that he wrote the book on passive aggressive behavior, and even tried a handwriting analyst. Nothing seemed to work, and although we always loved him, it was sometimes hard to like him.
The last couple of months have been dramatically better. He engages with the family, is less angry at his brother, has started taking responsibility for his actions, and we rarely see him in blatant lies. He was excited to start school, which was a minor miracle, is usually quick to obey when we give him his marching orders. I can point to two specific events that brought about these changes.
A dog
One day on our way to the local Krispy Kreme for a family treat, Boy 12 slapped Boy 7 in the back seat of the car. (Not without provocation: boy 7 has issues of his own, but he’s not the center of this post.) I stopped, he and I got out and the rest of the family went along without us.
I successfully resisted the urge to throttle him, though I badly wanted to, and we walked to the park instead. We had a long talk about his general behavior and demeanor. I asked what he needed to be better.
“A dog,” he said.
I thought: that will never happen. Too much expense for vets and food, poop on the lawn, more work for me. But I said, “How will a dog help you change your behavior?”
His reply shocked me. Near tears, he said, “Because then I would have something to look forward to. I wouldn’t be so sad.”
Something within me instantly changed. I was no longer angry and challenging. My son was perpetually sad and he was offering a solution that we hadn’t yet tried. There was something here I needed to understand.
“How would you having something to look forward to help you make better choices?”
“I don’t know. I’d just feel better and maybe that would make me want to act better.” It made sense to me. I’ve felt that connection myself between how I feel and how I act. We talked some more about it so I could understand more of what he expected and what he was going through, and I promised him that we would seriously look into it. This was a huge step because I had always refused in the past whenever the subject of a dog came up.
Boy 3, Boy 7, Boy 12, and Lilly
We brought Lilly home from a shelter three days later. A young black lab mix, she instantly pumped life into Boy 12. I don’t know why it worked to change his behavior, but the change was fast and dramatic. Maybe it’s because a human can’t shower that much love on something without it changing his heart in some way. It works that way for parents and children, why not for a boy and his dog?
Football
Michael Gurian writes that boys need a tribe—a community of other boys so they can learn about masculinity, engage in productive rituals, and embrace boyhood. The key is that they need good men as leaders to guide the way so the more destructive aspects of testosterone-induced boy culture can be harnessed and trained.
Boy 12 had been signaling for months that he wanted to play football this summer and fall. We resisted because he’s small for his age and because of the expense and hassle of driving to practices and games. He persisted and we relented. As with Lilly, it’s hard to pinpoint how football has changed him. He has an outlet for his aggression, he gets encouragement and discipline from coaches, and has a role to play on a team.
Here they are, desperately trying to concoct a game plan that would save them from the 42-0 defeat they were headed towards. See the guy in the red hat? He’s an ex Marine. When he walks into a room, the atmospheric testost- erone increases measurably. He’s the kind of guy you always want on your side. But more important, he’s the kind of guy that would cause me to reconsider my position if I found myself on the side opposing him. That is to say, he’s a good man. When he gets in the boys’ faces and tells them he expects more, believe me, they deliver. It’s a thing of beauty that I’ll write more about later.
Who knew it was that simple? Get a dog. Get your son into football. Life is better for everyone.
September 4th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
Joe, there’s some outstanding parenting and parenting moments here. I say well done first of all on LISTENING.
Your son’s in that pre-initiation age where he’s testing his mettle and as you say trying to do something positive with his testosterone. I can highly recommend John Elderege’s Way of the Wild Heart & Brian Molitor’s Boy’s Passage, Man’s Journey on this age. I’m a year behind you with my eldest so I’m watching you and learning! (It might be time for a walk to the park for us too).
September 5th, 2007 at 4:19 am
Very interesting post.. came here from Pete’s blog.. I have a 13 year old and I have been struggling to get him focussed on studies… sometimes I feel he hears but does not listen…
September 5th, 2007 at 7:28 am
Joe, I’m with you. Boys tribe very well - whether that is football, scouting, insert other boy past-time here. Going for a walk with him and talking it out is a great strategy too - Pete from FreakedOutFathers has a post from a guy who has written papers on dealing with boys in a school environment, and this is one of his identified strategies. I’ve used it without realising it, and it works a treat.
I’m WELL behind you (my eldest is 2 and a half), so I am furiously taking notes from people like you, Mr FOF, BadDadRadio and GrowingUpWithTheKids, because between all of you I am sure to find holes I can sidestep in my parenting journey and ways to get out of the trenches I will find myself in from time to time.
Some of my best memories as a maturing kid was in my tribes (field hockey team and scouts). Somewhat safe places for me to learn how to grow up by myself.
Keep at it, brother…
September 5th, 2007 at 9:21 am
@ Pete: I’ll look into those sources. I realized it was a breakthrough moment when at the end of the conversation, Boy 12 said, “Thanks for listening. Most people don’t care.” I appreciated that he felt listened to, but had to correct him about most people not caring. Explained that grownups’ emotions often get in the way and make it easier to preach than to listen.
@ Vijay: It’s a tough age for that reason. Two suggestions: Captive audience (lock him in a car and go for a drive), and work first on hearing him, THEN on being heard.
@ Molk: Boy 12 is in Scouts, too, and I recently went to a court of honor. Some things about the rituals of Scouts bother me (subject for another post), but I recognized the good aspects of the tribing.
September 5th, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Joe should we feel honored or slighted that The Molk is using us as a guide for what NOT to do??
September 5th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Well, I definitely feel slighted. I hope he sends hundreds of his readers and friends over here to slight me!
September 5th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Slight, slight, slight… sheesh, some people take offence at the smallest things. Just because I recognise how bad they are at things and want to learn from it - is that MY fault?!
How Gen-X was that response!
September 13th, 2007 at 9:21 am
[…] (and maybe interact) without runny noses, homework, Boy 7 screaming at Boy 12, or Boy 3 pulling Lilly’s tail. Most nights, at about 9, we collapse onto the sofa and retreat into our own internal space […]
October 10th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Joe, I agree to being bothered by some scout rituals, maybe more annoyed than bothered. Sometimes it is so cheesy, then I look at all the boys laughing and realize, once again, that the moment is for them and not me.
Excellent dog and football story, especially guiding us into appropriately providing positive tribal experiences for boys. I have one question-when boy12 said, “Because then I would have something to look forward to. I wouldn’t be so sad.” Do you know why he is so sad? Delving into that with him might provide us with another learning experience. Maybe he is unaware of what is the cause of his sadness. If there is a root to the sadness problem, it would be nice to find it. Otherwise a dog and football (although create excellent memories and benefits) may simply be the steroids that ease the symptoms.
October 10th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Yes, I am sometimes slow to remember it’s not for me. But the rituals are not only cheesy–they’re appropriations of others’ traditions and symbols (specifically American Indian). It’s as if some group were to take a valued symbol from your tradition and turn it to their own ends. It kind of cheapens the symbol, I think.
I did not ask Boy 12 why he was so sad and here’s why. He’s had at least two depressive episodes and has been on anti-depressants (yes, even that young). From personal experience I know that depression is not easily explained. There is often not a “reason” to be sad, it’s just the way you feel. It’s not like appendicitis. You can’t just excise the sick organ as the root cause and expect everything to be better. With brain circuitry, in the end, all the organs are interdependent and hopelessly slippery, continually morphing into one another as experience reshapes the circuits.
When neurochemistry is involved, I think asking why is an exercise in diminishing returns. Any narrative we tell ourselves, any answer to the question of “why,” is necessarily rooted in the same neurochemistry, and thus suspect, at best. Maybe. Maybe he’ll be sad again in a year and I’ll wish we’d treated the disease, not just the symptom. But it’s shaping up to be a really good year for him while it lasts.