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I've been thinking lately about boyhood and masculinity and emotion. There's this anti-trope in US society - by which I mean it's a trope that was formed to combat another trope. The trope is, "boys shouldn't cry", or sometimes "real men don't cry." I'm going to keep talking about boys because I'm specifically thinking of my teenage kid. But this trope is like the number one example in any article about toxic masculinity. This trope is seen as making boys repress their emotions and not allowing a healthy emotional life. The anti-trope is, allow boys to express their emotions. Encourage them to be sensitive and talk about their feelings and develop emotional intelligence.
But...what about anger? As a parent, I worry all the time about my kid. He's got some neurodivergent issues, we're seeking treatment for it. But one thing that's really started to bother me lately is his interactions with his school. I get a call at the snap of a finger, the minute he loses his temper or has an emotional meltdown or refuses to work on an assignment. "Ms. Prydain, please talk to your son." Every incident requires an incident report and a committee meeting and a notation in his permanent file.
Oh, he wasn't totally cooperative today? He had an understandable reaction to being disappointed or anxious about something? Oh no, have I failed as a parent? /s
And I mean, I get it, I do. They have a school to run and can't be spending all their time on the neediest kid. But I do worry at the message that he's getting. "It's not okay to be anxious." "It's not okay to get angry" - or at least not in a way that anyone can tell. Keep those feelings bottled up, young man, and only express them in socially acceptable ways. Otherwise, grit your teeth and get with the program.
What is a socially acceptable way to express anger? Is there such a thing when you're a child in school? For all the talk about how all emotions are healthy, I think it can't be denied that some things are okay to express, and some things will get the psychiatrist called in.
And yes, it's good to have emotional intelligence and it's good to learn some emotional regulation, I just think it's kind of weird that amid all the talk about how toxic masculinity discourages boys from expressing emotion, I'm not sure that doing it this way is much better. Is he actually learning healthy strategies to regulate his emotions, or is he just learning to mask and not express how he feels or that something bothers him?
This is already all over the place but I thought of this quote from a character on Marvelous Mrs. Maisel:
So as the mom of a sensitive, creative, intelligent, and conscientious teen boy, what am I missing here and how could I be doing better?
Two things I might offer.
a question. You mention he is "neurodivergent." That could mean many things, and you do not have to tell me any of them. But do you suspect this is what's the root of the issue, and that his anger is an artifact of this? That he is acting out anger in inappropriate ways due to an overreaction to stimuli that a less neurodivergent person would react to differently ? If so, that's a tougher issue.
Dad is a model of manhood, for better or worse. Many men I know consciously try to be UNlike their fathers (in my mind they fail mostly). But I for example try to be a lot like my dad in terms of temperament. I can remember what would set him off and when. He never really lost his temper--where I have regularly lost mine. I have shown anger in front of my sons in ways he never did, but I have his model to sort of steer me back to how I would like to be. But if 1) is the issue my 2) might again be less relevant. If your son is overreacting to benign stimuli that's going to take more work. I will say that you as the mother are not the model, so there's that. You're more the model of how he will view women.
Heavy exercise is great, sports are great ways to exhaust the body and vent. I agree with whoever already said that. I have two teenage boys.
Finally, I can't comment on your school system in any way but the most vague generalizations, but school has been in some ways always stifling of boys, to varying degrees. Your write-up isn't specific enough for me to know if that's what's going on. I'm pulled back to the word neurodivergent however and wonder if there's more going on.
AuDHD. Interesting you mention the father thing because he's exactly like his dad, which is what scares me sometimes. We're divorced because he couldn't reign in his emotions. They both get extremely frustrated when there's a task they're having trouble with.
Society doesn't seem to have the right model for it. "Oh, he's an abusive husband because he yells and throws things, he's using his emotions to control you." I don't think it was that calculated (and for the record, he never laid a hand on me). I would describe his outbursts as panic attacks - just really accelerated breathing and heart rate and this kind of spiral of escalation that he seemed unable to break out of.
Anyway with the teen, we're trying to figure out the right mix of medication and talk therapy approaches. His school has a 504 with him and we're working on an IEP. Overall they've really tried to work with us. I just have some discomfort around the idea that we're pathologizing what to him is a normal emotional reaction, and making him feel somehow broken. But it does need to be addressed because living with his dad was volatile and unstable. I hope Junior can find a better way to manage it all.
Seems a little extreme to jump straight to talk therapy and medication. Have you tried heavy metal and a personal trainer?
But yes, you have correctly identified an issue. His emotions are an inconvenience to virtually every woman on the earth (which includes most of his teachers, administrators, therapists, and IEP-professionals). The call for him to express himself is somewhere between solipsistic ignorance and a cruel, Mean Girls lie.
This is unfair. There is no systematic solution. The closest you can get is to stop asking other women to fix him (be wary of feminine men here, too). My own teen son is very well-adjusted, and I still have frequent issues where his grandmother freaks out over his being "moody". Whereas I can tell that she's just utterly incapable of reading his moods and either working around them or overriding them. He needs male role models, male peers, and acceptably pro-social outlets. Sports would cover all three, but if he's not that kid, then at least try a gym membership with a trainer and a Dream Theater concert.
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He is a teen and he is having tantrums and meltdowns in school? That doesn't sound like a case of a school overreacting to normal male behaviour.
Whether something this is "normal to him" doesn't really matter. This is unacceptable behaviour and he will have a really hard time if he doesn't learn to manage this.
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Many such cases. My advice stands, he must learn to stuff his emotions.
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