Ray Swann July 29th, 2024 5 min READ
Ray Swann
6 min READ
May 19th, 2025
Ray Swann
6 min READ
May 19th, 2025
Helping to build more authentic young men for this age.
Last year, I became aware that there was a disruptive bunch of boys not engaged in learning at our school, and offered to take the class to see what was going on.
The students entered the classroom, and as soon as I asked them to sit, it became clear where the friction points were. Straight away, the banter began, led by a ringleader. Let’s call him James. They were sussing me out. A substitute teacher—it might be fun to stir the pot!
After I established the initial part of the lesson, I approached the troublemakers, who were lurching and leaning on chairs, smirking as I came toward them.
“Hi James, are you clear on what we are doing?”—Me, smiling on approach.
“Yeah, but this is boring.” —James, sizing me up.
“That may be so, but the task right now is to see if you can recall the three main plot points in the previous chapter and write them into your book. It’s a memory task.”—Me, tactically ignoring the challenge and redirecting him back to task.
“Well, I don’t even have a pen.”—His next challenge, but a gift to me, as I learned something vital. It wasn’t about the pen.
During this final exchange, I saw that James spoke to me, but he looked to his friends for validation.
The reality was that James was not “performing” to me; he wasn’t even really engaging with me. Rather, he was doing something boys and men do all the time. But it’s not something we talk about.
I glimpsed the truth behind the veil of secret men’s business.
So much has been said and written about boys pushing boundaries that it’s become a stereotype. The philosopher Wittgenstein suggests that for us to really understand a boundary, it makes sense to look to the other side of it too. In other words, it’s normal to look over the boundary a bit rather than blindly accept it. But this wasn’t what James was doing.
Let’s start with the basic notion that we all wish to be seen and validated as human beings. We wish to belong and to seek connection. There are two things that impact boys and men in this process.
The first is what researchers call pluralistic ignorance.
The idea here is that individually, boys have views and values that are different from the ones that they perceive others have, but they have to “perform” to those values to fit in. They seek validation from their peers, performing to a set of values that they think are shared. For example, a real man doesn’t do his school work, he has power over the teacher, and he doesn’t get pushed around. A real man is already smart enough, or has street smarts. These are the messages being driven by some online influencers.
When we counsel boys in behavioural interventions, it’s clear they know the difference between right and wrong—but they believe that to fit in, they must perform in a certain way.
This is why James didn’t look at me for my response. He looked to his peers. He wasn’t performing to the online influencers per se, but rather to what he thought his peers saw as being good.
Other examples we see include making sexist remarks to appear dominant over women and girls, or mocking a sensitive classmate, because “real men” aren’t emotional.
The second factor is what researchers call precarious masculinity.
Precarious masculinity both impacts behaviour and has a compounding effect. Because there is no fixed point for a boy to become a man, young men must continually attempt to prove it—being a man is hard fought, and easily lost. Being seen as “not man enough” can cause boys to be anxious, withdrawn, angry, or even aggressive.
So what do they do?
They perform to what they think success looks like for men.
There is nothing wrong with being strong and stoic, and being able to regulate our emotions. Life calls us to be resilient. The message isn’t that these aren’t desirable qualities in certain contexts. The issue is that “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”
We are looking for ways to help boys and young men build more flexibility in how they see success.
People often struggle to name examples of positive masculinity in the broader community, or online, when I ask for examples.
But when we look closer to home, we often find we are blessed with good men.
When chatting with your son, have him give examples of what he recognises as good in the men he knows, and what they do. In an alongside way, provide him with feedback on his language and phrases—boys don’t always have the words and practice to talk about the more feminised aspects of maleness.
My WIN model, which I wrote about previously here, helps boys work through emotional volatility and learn more about emotional regulation.
Having strategies to use when his peers are pushing boundaries can really help your son to stick to his own values, rather than simply performing to what the dominant view of masculinity is, particularly what he sees in the online space.
Take time in the week to specifically acknowledge, give weight to, and even prioritise a greater diversity of his emerging maleness. It doesn’t need to be heavy-handed, but where you see positive change, perhaps an expression or action that shows connection, care, and compassion, it’s good to call it out.
This is something you can do for all kids, but for boys, it helps to challenge the dominant, and often unspoken, lore of “manning up.” Success as a human being is, in part, about finding out who we are and what we can contribute to the common good. We can guide our sons to be strong, caring, warm, and empathic while staying true to their own values—a more integrated vision of what it means to be a good man.
This article was first published for www.psychologytoday.com in May 2025
