Correcting the Boy Crisis

Family policy matters and engaging and informative weekly radio show and podcast produced by the North Carolina family policy Council hi this is John Ralston, presidency, family, and were grateful to have you with us for this week's program. It's our prayer that you will be informed, encouraged and inspired by what you hear on family policy matters and that you will fold better equipped to be a voice of persuasion for family values in your community, state and nation, and now here's our house to family policy matters. Tracy Devitt Griggs thanks for joining us this week for family policy matters over the last half-century or so American society and culture have worked to rectify some iniquities in our culture concerning women and girls, including establishing title IX in athletics and working toward pay equity in the workplace. But during this effort halfway at the same time left behind our boys and lost focus on their unique needs and struggles will Dr. Warren Farrell argues that we are facing a boy crisis today and that harms not just males but also girls and women. Besides being on the board of four different national men's organizations. Dr. Farrell has also been elected three times to the board of the national organization of women he has just written a new book, the boy crisis why our boys are struggling and what we can do about it. Dr. Warren Farrell. Welcome to family policy matters start off by telling us why do you think that we are suffering from a boy crisis many people to understand that there really is a boy crisis said that it's not just that boys are going to be only half as likely as girls to graduate from college in the very near future and early about 44% of the college graduates right now but there also far more likely to commit suicide. Their IQs mail IQs have gone down in the last decade in 70 different areas of measurements boys have fallen behind where they used to be, and/or where girls are in the problem with that is so for example on the education issue when girls graduate from school to college at twice the rate of boys most girls who are college graduates are not looking to marry a dropout or somebody that never even got into college to begin with. So this affects the ability of girls to find a father they feel is appropriate for helping to raise children and so this therefore impacts whether or not they even raise children by themselves or with a man that impacts the children because we know the children that have minimal or no father involvement do much worse than children that have both father and mother involvement in this is especially true for boys. I'd say the boy crisis resides where dad to not reside more than any other single of perhaps 10 causes of the boy crisis. I can understand a lot of the examples that you gaze based on what's going on in our culture to graduation from college, the number of men in college suicide talk a little bit about the IQs we don't fully know how much like that of what I do know is that his people feel a sense of purpose and people take fewer risks when you taking more risk.

So for example father is far more likely to encourage the child to take risks likely to climb the tree but be careful when we do that that risk-taking or we roughhouse with the child. The synapses in our brains develop and they go into two areas that they didn't go into before and that does increase the IQ of a child. The degree to which we protect the child or the child doesn't feel a sense of purpose that is when you have a sense of purpose. You should've really you try harder.

You take risks you wake up every day and you're really motivated and when you have less motivation and less sense of purpose. Your IQ also goes down, so this lack of father involvement that you keep referencing is mostly because our families are are not as intact as they used to be, or is there something else that's happening even in intact families love her so. It mostly happens in non-intact families and particularly non-intact families with his lack of father involvement or what I called dad to probation. So for example, for parents, get a divorce and they have children that see their mother and father about equally if they have for things after divorce the children don't do as badly as they do almost as well as it as an admin tech family and those four things are an equal amount of time with mom and dad number two. Dad and mom living within about 20 minutes drive time from each other so the children shall resent the father of the mother that's living far away. I may have to give up their soccer practice are going to their best friends birthday party number three that they don't detect any badmouthing from dad to mom or mom to dad and number for the faith of the parents are involved and consistent couples communication counseling, not just emergency counseling inconsistent counseling. There is an opportunity for each parent to see the best intent of the other parent in the value of dad say doing roughhousing and having the kids take risks for them and the value of mom doing but usually more protected. Let's talk about suicide rate among young boys. I believe it is swearing to really see in some issues this is been going on for quite some time and when I mentioned that to people there surprised that that they can't believe that that boys rate of suicide is so much higher. Why do you think that is and why do you think we don't.

We are not talking about it truthful to support your point that it is when boys and girls are nine really commit suicide and they commit suicide exactly equally between the ages of 10 and 14 boys commit suicide twice the rate of girls between the ages of 15 and 19, four times the rate of girls between the ages of 20 and 24 five times the rate of girls and so that's that of the overall picture. Now why an example boys in college 75% of the people in college who report suicidal ideations to a psychologist in the car on the college campus, 75% are female.

75% of the people that commit suicide in colleges.

In the same colleges are male and so what's happening there is that males are programmed and socialized to repress their feelings. Females are programmed and socialized to express their feelings, females are far more like.

But let's say there's a breakup in a relationship will talk to their girlfriends about of the girls will be supportive and say yes no don't worry sweetie you're to be fine, but the time the girls are finished yet she feels like she's made the right decision. Guys talk to their guy friends about it and they in the get about two or three minute window of opportunity. The guys were like this it will what did you do wrong and and then after about 2 to 3 minutes of the topic is changed to something else and the boys don't feel hurt so they start keeping their feelings inside of themselves and so boys who commit suicide are far more likely to feel that node nobody loves them that nobody needs them.

There is no hope of that changing, and if there is somebody that loves them and needs them and respects them that if they share their feelings and their fears to those people that feel that way that they will lose respect the respect of those people. And so when I do the research for the boy crisis. I ended up coming up with 63 red flags of potential depression or suicide that boys are more prone to many of those overlap with girls but about 40 of those 63 are much more prone for boys to be vulnerable to success what you mean by boys and men seeing themselves as disposable are you talking at something different there. What I just described is a result of our seeing ourselves as disposable. So, for example, in every every generation has its war and during that war where the males are tolls on some level Uncle Sam needs you to fight to make sure that Hitler doesn't take over the nation. For example, and so boys are are given social bribes like being told. You will be a hero if you fight in that war, and there also told you'll be your needed to fight in that war. So in Ukraine, for example, every single male between the ages of 18 and 60 has to stay in Ukraine are not allowed to leave the Ukraine but all the females are allowed to leave the Ukraine to the degree that they can do so under the circumstances, so males all over the world have learned that when there is a war that we're needed to be potentially disposable and our disposability is our function and the purpose of that disposability is to make sure that other people survive while we are willing to die. The other areas disposability which still exist today is that even today, 93% of the people that are killed in hazardous jobs are males and so the more hazardous the job is the more likely the mail is to be the predominant gender in that job and they feel disposable in that way on the construction site and yet almost all the safety provisions on construction sites were developed as a result of a female being heard some things about what we can do about this. You mentioned your 63 red flags which is written about. I'm hearing encouraged our boys to express feelings.

You also mentioned that family dinner night it which is something we've heard for many years is still a very important tool for our sons family tonight is crucial. However, as I looked into it. It's far more effective when families know how to prevent family dinner nice from becoming family dinner night bears the many parents have told me know. Like we started a family dinner night but I got no I can even get started because you know the kids were saying they wanted to bring their their electronics the table and they were looking at electronic forward trying to conduct a family dinner night when I did the boy crisis book. The other was just dozens of areas where family dinner night would have been really effective areas of of having deep discussions about every controversial topic you can think of but many parents didn't know how to actually bring that about. So one of the things is making sure that you know how to enforce boundaries to say hey were having family dinner night. One night a week on that one night there will be no electronics at the table all dad. I want to pop electronics.

The table you could have electronics for the table if you want them taken away from you by me and will be returned to you the following morning, the first step in family dinner nights not coming, family dinner nightmares is to make sure the parents are parents, not that the children are setting the parameters number two is to make sure everybody is listened to and the way we make sure that everybody… Into his first appeal we rotate topic some different family members can choose a different topic each week and then secondly when one person speaks up about what their opinion of perspective is on that topic that somebody else or the rest of the group. The family together shares what they heard that person say until the person who shared that feels that they were come 100% undistorted that nothing was missed, and that there invited to add something that they feel is necessary within a time limit. Then when that person is satisfied you move on to person number two to your teaching everybody in the family to know how to listen so effectively to each other that each family member feels completely heard and this is very important because parents often times feels that the do that really well for their children, but they don't oftentimes require their children to do that very well for them and when empathy only goes one way the children who were only empathize with but don't learn how to be empathetic to the parents perspective for their brothers and sisters perspective. Don't become empathetic themselves that his empathetic parents do not create empathetic children.

If the empathy only goes one way that produce self-centered children who think that all the feelings that the children have and that they have are important, but they don't even think about the feelings and fears that the parents have we could go on and on because you of all kinds information you've done this for a really long time.

You've written a lot of books.

So tell us where our listeners can go to get this book. The boy crisis why our boys are struggling and what we can do about it.

But also see all the other resources that you have for us is the other resources on my website which is Warren Farrell.com and the Charlotte F a RR EL L since Will Ferrell's become a lot more famous and I've been a people spell that if you keep it that's he's funnier than I am Dr. Warren Farrell, thank you so much for being with us today on family policy matters.

Family policy does matter, and so thank you for adding much of your life into taking sure that people have you been listening to family policy matters.

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