'Boys will be boys,' right? Not necessarily so!

Highlights

• Nature vs. nurture
• Boys and emotions
• Teasing
• Masculinity in the media
• 10 things your congregation can do

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Boys are violent. Cool guys drink alcohol. Male jocks are dumb. Popular guys get lucky with the ladies. Because our society tends to generalize and simplify everything, we unfairly label and categorize boys. These stereotypes cause us to expect certain behaviors from boys. But more often than not, this is not the case with boys and young men we know.

Nature vs. nurture

An individual's characteristics are due to the influences of both human nature and environment. But whether nature or nurture, research has discovered characteristics that provide us with a clearer understanding of boys. Knowing them is the first step in reaching past labels and generalities and ministering to the boys and young men in our congregations and communities.

• Boys disproportionately represent the top leading causes of death: accidents, homicides and suicide. Young men are more likely to take risks that have potentially fatal consequences.

• Biological differences of boys and girls don't cause significant differences in behavior and brain activity. Studies show that, in general, boys and girls function on the same level.

• Boys are aggressive because of their environment. By nature, boys are not aggressive. Aggressiveness is societal and environmental, NOT biological. If a boy grows up in an aggressive environment, is surrounded by relationships based on aggressive behavior, participates in activities that encourage aggressiveness, he will develop aggressive behavior.

• Boys are more active than girls. Boys, by nature, need to be active; they need to be doing something. When boys socialize, they often do so while playing a sport or game.

• Boys are slower to mature. Because boys and girls mature at different rates, many parents wait to start their sons in school. So remember, when dealing with "hot topics," boys may not be ready to deal with the same issues as girls.

Boys and emotions

Like girls, boys are emotional beings. They can display several different emotions at once. When they are angry they may also be sad, embarrassed or afraid. Here are other characteristics:

• Often, men don't do hard emotional work. From a young age, boys are taught that mom is their go-between when it comes to emotional situations. When father and son quarrel, son goes to mom, mom goes to dad, dad apologizes via mom, and mom talks to son. In this pattern, father and son make up without even talking to one another.

• As a society, we don't often give boys the opportunity to work or talk through emotions and learn emotional lessons. When boys cry or are sad, we often tell them to "toughen up." Our task is to help boys cope with, not dismiss, their emotions.

• Boy babies show more facial expressions than girls. But over time, through socialization, boys' expressions decrease and those of girls increase.

• Boys have the capacity to nurture. Encourage boys to serve as nursery supervisors, Sunday school teachers, babysitters and mentors to children. Affirm their abilities to care for others.

Teasing

Boys often relate to one another by teasing. They tease each other about their bodies, their athletic and scholastic abilities, their relationships, and just about anything else they find different in one another.

Teach boys and young men that even if they are "just joking," teasing is harmful. It makes others feel inadequate and angry, and prevents boys from communicating true feelings by enabling them to relate in superficial ways. Teasing destroys, rather than builds relationships.

Masculinity in the media

Boys will only be frustrated if they try to shape their lives after the media's ultra masculine identity. Magazines, TV shows and movies show "successful" men as either muscular or slim and trim. These stereotypic images cause increased eating disorders and steroid use in boys and young men. 

10 things your congregation can do

In understanding these gender characteristics, we can rise above society's expectations and media images and challenge the boys and young men of our congregations and communities to look out for one another with care and compassion.

Additional resources

Contributed by Heidi Youngquist. Based on information from Daniel J. Kindlon, author of Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys (1999 Ballantine).