What About Boys and Young Men? A Call to Action

Boys and young men are still struggling, now perhaps more than ever. As of this writing in early 2025, we have collected an abundance of information about early boyhood, boys in school, the development of masculinity in boys, ADHD, boys in peer groups; and the multiple, combined influences of cell phones, social media, video games, pornography and manosphere rabbit holes.

On April 14, the WBUR audio program On Point debuted an extraordinary five-episode series, Falling Behind: The Miseducation of America’s Boys. The series was broadcast nationwide on National Public Radio and affiliate stations, and remains available as a podcast. This series alone consisted of nearly four hours of discussions with researchers, teachers, educational specialists, and yes, boys and young men themselves.

On March 13, the four-part psychological drama Adolescence was released by the streaming service Netflix to worldwide acclaim and a great deal of discussion. The story follows an apparently ordinary British family whose adolescent son is accused of murdering a female peer. Outwardly a normal kid but inwardly self-loathing, the dramatic series reveals how the boy is radicalized by (it is suggested) his exposure to misogynist manosphere influencers.

A complete literature review is obviously not possible here, but mention of a few ground-breaking works seems appropriate: Hanna Rosin’s (2012) The End of Men: And the Rise of Women; Kay S. Hymowitz’s (2011) Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys; Warren Farrell and John Gray’s (2018) The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It; Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s (2015) feature-length documentary, The Mask You Live In; Richard V. Reeves’ (2022) Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do About It; Niobe Way’s (2024) Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture; and Ruth Whippman’s (2024) BoyMom: Reimagining Boyhood in the Age of Impossible Masculinity.

At this point, there are also dozens of books written for parents on how to raise boys in ways that do not fill them with toxic masculinity. Somehow, in previous times, parents raised boys without much thought to the hazards involved. But there are huge divides between then and now, and between naive ignorance of the hazards of raising children and later coping with the outcomes, problems and issues of today’s men.

What Have We Learned?

Parents make many mistakes when raising children, and we need to be compassionate about this very difficult process. As the saying goes, a parent does not receive a handbook when bringing a child into the world. Most struggle and believe they are doing the right thing. But so many of the most common mistakes are built into modern society, so avoiding the various pitfalls of what one author calls “man-up culture” is challenging.

Society has changed in ways that no longer favor boys. Manual and skilled labor professions have been disappearing due to automation and free trade; men’s wages have fallen since 1979, while women’s wages have risen; and most evidence points to structural challenges as the main culprits.

Primary education. Boys are less prepared to enter primary school, their brains develop more slowly than girls, and they need far greater physical activity in order to sustain attention. Teachers who ignore these factors find their boys becoming inattentive and disruptive. Lunch and recess are often boys’ favorite school activities.

One child developed an acronym for SCHOOL: “Six Cruel Hours Of Our Lives.”

An epidemic of diagnoses. Young boys are such a poor fit for educational environments that they have been diagnosed at extraordinary rates. Almost one in four (23%) have been diagnosed with a developmental disability, while 15% of boys ages 3–17 (7 million boys) are diagnosed with ADHD or Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. Many have looked at these numbers and doubt that the problem is the boys, but rather the educational environments into which they are placed.

Secondary education or high school. Young men are falling behind young women in terms of GPA or grade point average. According to research by Richard Reeves, “two thirds of the highest-GPA high schoolers are girls; two thirds of the lowest-scorers are boys.”

Public education is a female-oriented environment. Many have come around to this general consensus. Young boys are expected to learn in an environment where female teachers predominate, and students are expected to sit still for extended periods of time and listen quietly, an ability many young boys simply do not possess.

Higher education. Gender inequality in higher education is wider today than it was fifty years ago, but today in favor of young women. Men in 1972 were 13 percentage points more likely than women to get a bachelor’s degree. Now women are 15 percentage points more likely than men to get a bachelor’s degree.

Emotions are unexpressed, hidden or locked away, leaving boys unable to fully express themselves, or in the worst cases, creating ticking emotional time bombs. As one young man put it, “As men, we’re like in jail with our emotions, like we can’t let them out, it just sucks.”

The masculinity trap. Most boys find themselves stuck amid significant confusion about what it means to be a man. This is a three-legged stool consisting of false representations in the media including motion pictures, sports and video games; “man-up” restrictions imposed as early as kindergarten; and bullying and social out-casting through the teenage years, some of which is vicious and violent.

In recent years we may add an unnecessary fourth leg to our three-legged stool, and that is masculinity under fire as part of the culture wars. There is no doubt that kids will be influenced by the hostility and discord surrounding masculinity as an object of ideological warfare. What is needed is for parents and other live influencers to offer a positive, uplifting and powerful image of the masculine that effectively counters the culture war agendas.

The digital age and digital media have spawned a crisis of attention, particularly among boys. Surrounded by buzzing screens, social media and video games, the ability of boys to focus has been severely compromised. Media content is also a significant concern. Video games have become known for their disturbing hate speech and hyper-violent rhetoric, pornography has widespread implications for rape culture, while social media is now a well-known source of addictive play and peer abuse.

Boys in the manosphere. Boys as young as twelve years are engaging in manosphere programming which promotes virulent misogyny, male victimhood and all manner of anti-social hatred. There is evidence suggesting that the algorithmic echo chambers of these extremist influencers may be particularly damaging to teenage boys who are disproportionately concerned with their peers’ opinions, and may be facing the embarrassment and rejection associated with dating girls for the first time. This is the premise of the Netflix program Adolescence.

Suicide and “deaths of despair.” Men accounted for four out of five suicide deaths in 2023, and three out of four deaths of despair (due to alcohol or substance overdose). The suicide rate among young men ages 15–24 has increased more than twenty fold since 2010, part of a dramatic rise in mental health issues among youth.

Racial disparities in youth incarceration are the widest they’ve been in decades, although all-youth incarceration rates are down significantly since 2000. Data collected in 2023 show that Black children were nearly six times more likely to be incarcerated than white children; American Indian children were nearly four times more likely; and across the board, 86 percent are boys. According The Sentencing Project, these are the largest racial disparities in history.

What Needs to Be Done?

It is clear at this point that many of the problems facing boys’ development are systemic in nature, and short of massive overhauls in family life, gender relations and educational systems, the necessary changes are unlikely to be realized. Yet the task here is to outline what should be done and what could be done, changes that we know from research and experience are needed to save the next generation of boys and men.

Tips for parents of boys. You are likely not immune to gender biases, toxic masculine assumptions, and differential parenting between father and mother. Nevertheless, we will list the major pitfalls for parents of boys. Many of these issues are gathered in a book for parents: Raising Boys to be Good Men (2020) by Aaron Gouveia. Another exceptional resource is Jennifer Siebel Newsom’s (2015) film, The Mask You Live In, available through local libraries, schools and universities.

Lower the pressure around gender. Avoid the gender reveal party, do not dress small children in gender-standard colors or styles. Dads, take as much paternity leave as you can; be present with your children. Teach your kids to embrace differences and to stand up for what’s right. Teach boys that “gay” is not an insult nor is “acting like a girl.” Teach boys about the joys of platonic touch, what’s okay and what’s not, and that feeling sad is natural.

Parents should have a social media plan for young children, one that it modified and adjusted as children grow. Introduce electronic devices early, but with parental controls in place. Beware of the influence of gun culture in your town; teach boys about bodily autonomy, boundaries, and consent for sexual contact.

Talk to boys about rape culture and the dehumanizing hazards of pornography. Avoid spanking your kids, and also raising your voice when you are angry. Prepare yourself to listen deeply when your adolescent child begins to display serious anger.

As your child ages into adolescence, educate yourself on their generation’s games. Apply strict limits on violent video games, and restrict access to social media. Use monitoring software if necessary.

Prepare to be a relentless advocate for boys.

Boys’ behavior visibly changes as soon as they encounter peer groups in school. Parents must prepare for the powerful influence of peer groups, especially as related to man-up and boy-culture behavior. As early as kindergarten, boys experience intense bullying and gender policing. Young boys have a deep need to fit in, despite their apparent individualism.

Bullying is severe when children enter school and continues at least through middle school, frequently confirming the worst of hyper-masculine boy-culture. For boys, this means being coerced into stereotypical man-up and boy culture. Begin an early and regular discussion with your child about the nature of bullying, discuss protective and compassionate responses, and bring the matter to the attention of school administrators.

Prepare yourself for dealing with teen boys’ anger. Ideally, discussions during adolescence will smoothly transition into the teen years. Be ready to assist your child with self-regulation skills, especially related to angry or destructive outbursts. If the problem gets worse, or if your teen boy displays excessive sadness or depression behaviors, contact a professional counselor.

Turning to education, beware the myth of the “default student” which is inevitably a girl, and know that within this context boys are often viewed as “malfunctioning girls.” Boys are far more distractible and have less ability to quickly refocus their attention. Perhaps if we make classroom activities more interesting and active, boys would benefit significantly, as would girls.

Regarding school systems, let’s empower administrators to hire more male teachers and more teachers of color. Is there sufficient one-on-one teaching assistance available? Examine school system policies regarding “poor behavior” in the classroom. Find constructive alternatives to suspension, and focus on keeping students in school. Reconsider teacher incentives and the demands of top-down curriculum standards.

Girls are outperforming boys in reading and the gap appears to widen as students advance through high school. Many have suggested that boys’ brains develop more slowly than girls, and that the solution may be to “red shirt” the boys, enrolling them in kindergarten one year later than girls.

Richard Hawley: boys do better with “relational learning.” Address the relationship first: for whom is the boy working so hard? Encouraging teachers to be more relationally attentive will benefit boys as well as girls. Encouraging more men to become teachers will go a long way. Reducing the size of classes will also allow more of this approach.

Richard Reeves: we have coded K-12 education as an experience for girls. This is an implicit cultural pattern that boys detect, and as a result, many come to believe that school is not for them. Some teachers organize their approach so that students are regularly shifting about from one team to another. The teams work as social units and are competitive, and thus strike up interest from the boys.

One fifth grade male teacher believes that his socially competitive approach to learning effectively benefits boys as well as girls, and as a secondary objective, encourages greater positive interaction between girls and boys.

Another fifth grade teacher explains how he uses one-on-one instruction to help boys learn. This appears especially useful for boys who are overtly attention seeking, filled with kinetic energy, or highly distractible. In most school districts, this type of behavior is considered “bad behavior.”

Jayanti Owens’ long-term (2016) study of boys and girls in public education shows that significant behavioral differences between girls and boys in the fourth grade is reflected in poor educational outcomes twenty years later. She suggests this is related to differences in self-regulation and social skills that are largely the result of social conditioning in early childhood. Boys are generally not given strong incentives to develop self-regulation skills.

We need to beware of pathologizing boys’ natural behavior. It is generally not helpful to diagnose young boys with “developmental” challenges or ADHD. Rather, in most cases, the classroom environment and teaching approach may be modified to accommodate and better serve boys. A school system’s failure to make these accommodations should be considered discrimination and subject to legal challenge. As a parent, consider joining a support group. CHADD is one example, but there are many others.

A comparable dynamic develops in the later teen years when boys begin to see themselves as young men who are desperate to buy into hyper-masculine, misogynistic “man box” culture or die trying. Gang influence, experimenting with drug use, violent acting out — are all common. Consider these boys as living behind emotional masks and at high risk of suicide. If parent discussions continue through high school, you will need to adapt them this stage of development, children becoming men.

Examine your gender biases, and listen for ways of respecting your child’s developing identity. Avoiding gender-coded clothes and toys will help your child develop his or her own preferences and gender identity. Open discussion is appropriate, but is not always helpful for shy kids. During adolescence, it is quite natural for your boy or girl to experiment with gender-coding. Remember, your child must ultimately find his or her identity; your job as a parent is to honor this difficult process.

Raising a child of color? Non-white boys are said to face double-challenges: they are boys, and they fall into a racial minority. Whether or not you are a parent of the same ethnic background, it is essential that you learn how to counter the inevitable stereotyping your child will face. Learn what is wonderful and inspiring about being a Black or brown adult, and impart these inspirations to your child. Join a support organization. Raising Race Conscious Children is one example, but there are many others.

Beware of explaining “racism” much before a child’s teen years. Conflating ethnicity with racism too early sends the message that racism is the only thing of importance to Black or brown people. Share with your child her or his family origins and demonstrate pride at every opportunity. When they are ready, the greatest armor against racism is a positive reflection of Black hope, promise, and achievement. The same goes for brown skin tones of any ethnicity: teach your children about their heritage (and possibly, original language), join ethnic festivals and celebrations, locate family-friendly groups in your area.

Raising Kids Who Can

Raising Kids Who Can is a classic book for parents, originally published in 1990 by Betty Lou Bettner and Amy Lew, and is still a go-to self-help book even today. An updated version is Raising a Kid Who Can: Simple Strategies to Build a Lifetime of Adaptability and Emotional Strength (2023) by Catherine McCarthy MD, Heather Tedesco PhD, and Jennifer Weaver LCSW. These books help parents understand child-rearing issues related to resilience, attention and self-control, psychological flexibility, self-motivation, compassion and gratitude.

However challenging it may seem, as parents, teachers and concerned adults, we need to understand the full range of challenges facing growing children today, and especially boys. Children are only partly reflections of their parents. They are also unique and independent people who, like all people, are subject to social conditioning.

Aldous Huxley warned that “One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.” This is never more true than when a person is a child. It is up to us to provide the positive, affirming and nurturing conditioning every child needs. We know what we have to do. Let us set ourselves to the task.

Vic Caldarola is the founder and lead facilitator of the Shine a Light Men’s Project, a men’s mindfulness discussion program. He holds a PhD in Communication Studies and writes about gender issues, mindfulness and the American experiment.

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