Maggie Dent should be Queen of Australia.
You know, we all muck up.
I'm an advocate for imperfect parenting.
You only have to be good enough 30 to 40% of the time.
We've had these boys in our homes who've brought endless amount of mates into my house.
They eat the whole fridge out some days accidentally and go, sorry, sorry Maggie.
Excellent impersonation.
Of any man.
The term I keep saying is no matter what.
No matter what it is, there's nothing you can do that will stop me loving you.
So any time anything bad happens, no matter what.
Every time they walk out the door to a party say no matter what.
You know, there's a thing I talk about, micro connections, because we'd love quality time.
Of course we would.
One-on-one time would be beautiful, wouldn't it?
But who's got it?
So it's the ruffle on the head as you walk past, and it's the tickle on the back, and it's the bump.
And then, of course, if they were really being difficult in the kitchen, then I'd drop a well-timed fart.
Yeah.
Wow.
It's been a long time coming for us to... So overdue.
So overdue to have this incredible woman.
I'd say it's like when you discover a library book in your house that you actually borrowed 12 years ago.
That's what it feels like.
It's that overdue.
It's similar to that.
It's similar to that.
But it's like it's so amazing to have Maggie Dent here, someone who can finally tell us why boys are better than girls.
Too much.
That's so overdue.
That's overdue, that discussion.
Let me introduce properly Maggie for those.
I mean, everyone knows Maggie, but here's what I've written anyway.
So Maggie Dent should be Queen of Australia.
That's it.
That's it.
Welcome to...
Growing up at a farm in rural WA.
She spent a great deal of her time with her dad and younger brother.
Maggie was loud, sporty, opinionated and smart.
Initially attending university with a goal of journalism or law, Maggie transferred into teaching, realising that being there for vulnerable teenagers was where her passion lay.
Maggie spent almost two decades as a secondary teacher raising four boys of her own before moving.
I can't believe that, by the way, but before moving to counselling and working, that's the thing that stands out amongst everything for me.
Before moving to counselling and working in palliative care and suicide prevention
Maggie realized that working with parents had the biggest impact on children's lives and began writing what she knew and soon became a voice of expertise in the parenting space.
Maggie is the author of 10 genuinely like, actually best, because everyone's like oh, it's a bestselling book, but this is actually bestselling books.
Maggie is a host of podcasts, The Good Enough Dad and Parental as Anything.
Maggie is a true national treasure.
Her wisdom, compassion and fierce advocacy for our kids has helped an entire country feel more connected and more hopeful as they navigate.
The toughest gig there possibly is parenting.
We are so happy you're here.
I was just before we came on, just asking you how come it took so long that you got someone who's a boy champion in amongst a room of guys who are still quite boy-like.
Very much so.
I hope I'm always boy-like.
Yeah, so do I.
So let me just do one other thing too around me having the four boys, because I kind of got boys.
You know all the reasons that you said.
I hung out with them a lot as a kid.
But it was when I had my third son.
I had people coming up to me just like crying, saying you, poor thing, I can't believe you've had another boy.
Oh, my God, I'm so sorry.
Yeah.
And when I had the fourth one, it was worse.
And one lady even went and lit candles in the local Catholic church.
And my eight-year-old son at the time turned to me and said Mummy, why do they speak like that about us as boys?
And that's when I lit the fire that says, how come this has appeared to be a dud gender?
And that was really where the boy champion came alive.
It's like, that's not okay.
Yeah.
I did not know that probably because I am a boy and I think we're the best.
But like I didn't know that that was a common thing.
Yeah, mums still come up to me today and say if they've only got boys, people apologise to them and wish them all the best.
I know sometimes people run into me and realise I've got four adult sons and they say you don't look that bad.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, yeah.
So I'm sure they don't say that about girls.
So I'm going, you know, this is that cultural stuff and the conditioning stuff still, and that sometimes the things that make boys tricky, we automatically assume they deliberately make poor choices and that they, you know, we just say there's boys being boys,
Yeah.
When you decode some of that, what's under it and the reasons why, then we can come along.
When they feel understood, then we can coach them into making those better choices, you know.
So that's a big passion in my work.
That's very exciting.
I mean as someone who does.
I'm not a parent, but it's still.
I'm so fascinated to understand the answers to that why.
Why does anyone do anything, but particularly why do boys do what they do?
Let's do the disclaimer.
We know that gender is not an either box and that we have gender fluid in the middle.
But what the stats really show is around 70% are fairly atypical, and so that's girls and boys.
But also then when you factor in the temperament issue.
So of that 70, probably only half of those are what the man box would say is the right boy.
You know, it's the go-getter, the winner, the loud, the champion, whereas we negated the lambs, the sensitive boys.
They were sort of less than, and we need to recognise they're equally valid.
Right.
You guys are a bit lamb-like, so even that's a bit of a rooster.
He's got some lamb.
You reckon Hugh's a rooster?
Well, now the sport he's played, often that's a big drive when they're wanting to be so competitive.
Yeah.
I got an encouragement award in under 14s.
Yeah.
See, you could be too.
Probably a rooster.
We want them in the middle.
Oh.
Right?
So you're capable of assertiveness and courage, but you're also capable of being caring and thoughtful.
And that's the bit that the traditional man box likes to shut down.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love the thought of a rooster's body with a lamb's head on it.
That's what I'm picturing right now.
I think you'd go the other way around.
I reckon you'd go lamb's body, rooster's head for visual appeal.
I'm just the balance alone.
So good.
I feel like there'll be a lot of people who just quickly will know what lamb rooster is.
Maybe if you could just give a really quick explanation, the difference between the two.
Yeah, so you'll know your rooster because you can't get them asleep.
They hate missing out on anything.
They argue before they're verbal.
I think they poo more.
They will try anything.
They're so brave and fearless.
They'll terrify the hell out of you as a parent.
And they will, like I said, you know, before you know it, you just cannot...
Rest.
The lamb is gentle thoughtful, often slow to warm, takes a while to step into their power, but they make you look like a great parent.
You know, you look in the playground and the lambs are quite obvious.
I just want to give context to this.
I mean, Maggie is like a leading voice on boys and boys' education.
But just to give further context to why we want to sort of talk about this, just some statistics.
So as far as mental health is concerned, three out of four suicides in Australia are men.
Suicide is the leading cause of death for boys aged 15 to 24 in Australia.
Men are far less likely to seek professional help, with only 30 of mental health services using being male.
In the education spaces.
Maggie would know all too well.
Boys make up 80 of school suspensions in Australia.
Boys are far more likely to struggle with literacy, as Maggie just alluded to, falling behind girls by year three and often never, ever catching up.
Boys are 40 less likely to graduate from year 12 than girls.
On the topic of violence and risky behaviour,
Boys and young men are dramatically overrepresented in all forms of risk-taking behaviour.
Road fatalities, substance use, physical fights 90 of violent offending in Australia is perpetuated by males.
And critically most, male violence is the result of untreated trauma, emotional illiteracy And disconnection.
And the last statistic, which is kind of what I when I think about Maggie's work.
I think a lot of it comes down to this, but the social connection.
So one in three Australian men report having no close friends.
Men's friendships network shrink dramatically after their 20s, and loneliness increases men's risk of early death by up to 26.
So Maggie, you've spent decades helping Australians understand that boys aren't broken, they're hurting.
Yeah.
And I think just with that context, I think you are just such a wonderful person to talk on this topic.
One of the things that comes from traditional patriarchy is that boys and men are tough.
That wasn't my dad.
My dad was an incredibly beautiful human with an incredible good sense of humour, but a really kind, good humanitarian, which is a great model for me.
I was going to say, you can see all that in you in 10 minutes of meeting you.
You can see that.
He just didn't care what colour his skin was.
Whether you're educated or not, you're a male or female, whatever.
Just, yeah.
So what happens is we are conditioned by those messages from when we were quite little.
So when I sometimes saw in early childhood settings a little girl fall over, So often the response from an educator and it can happen out and not even in that setting is we sweep over and speak gently to her and help her up.
And then if a boy falls over, we often say, kid, come on, mate.
Now both of those are actually incorrect because they're both feeding incorrect messages, because most girls don't actually need help either.
And then when I brought that up, there's research that shows we speak more harshly to boys.
Mm-hmm.
So when I wound that back and thought well obviously, if they're unable to feel safe when they do hurt themselves, they're going to push that down.
I've got to look tough.
And then you know that male fragility stuff that you know it took me.
When I landed on that I sort of thought, oh my God, if we'd known this before.
So in the first five years the more securely attached and loved a little boy feels and the better he goes right through life.
It's not just his mental health, it's his physical, it's everything.
The other part to the fragility, of course, is that it took us a while to discover, thanks to Dr Alan Shaw's work, that when the fetus is being formed in that first 12 weeks between 8 and 12 weeks when it gets flooded with testosterone, the actual brain development slows down.
So at birth, they're cognitively behind little girls.
Not only that, it impacts the way the left and right brain are working, which is why girls are so much better linguistically.
And we keep thinking they're the same.
One size fits all.
There's another study done by a researcher at the Kids Institute in Perth which I found fascinating.
He was researching core blood of the cord and then linking it to all sorts of things to see if there was, And what he was looking at was the level of testosterone in core blood of little boys and what that came up against, and he found an interesting correlation.
Remember not causation correlation between high testosterone levels at birth to difficulty learning to read.
Oh, right.
And again, it's the left brain that needs the reading.
So again, so what did we do?
We stole the age of five off our boys.
They actually need more time to be cognitively ready for the same things that we push down with formalized learning.
And then, the more we pushed down, the more we took away their need to move, their need to play, their need to work out how to have friends.
Because the Fragile Boy Friendship that was a blog I wrote once and it went insane, went right around the world because nobody really considered it.
When I was doing some of the stories on the TV programs all of them I said so how many good friends have you got?
And they say, two.
I said, when did you last see him?
Oh, 10 years ago.
Hmm.
Because you actually have to spend time, because little boys don't do what girls do, saying I really would like to play with you.
So we go and play dolls.
So we go, when can I see you again?
And all that stuff.
Boys just go out and give you a punch.
It sort of feels like and maybe this is obvious to say this, but it's like boys, from the very beginning, are expected to be more self-sufficient than girls.
Yes.
And that kind of carries through for the rest of the boy man's life, to the extent where it's like if they're not able like, and maybe that is.
Maybe that's sort of why girls traditionally sort of lean on each other a little bit more and catch up.
Oestrogen.
Yeah.
Oh, right.
Okay, that's fine.
Yeah.
And we've got to remember that still there is in our epigenetics those biological drives that boys are meant to be.
One day grow up and defend, protect and provide for everyone else.
You know, it is really important.
That's why sometimes, when they play those stupid superhero games or they want to make guns out of their toast, they're not going to turn into a murderer.
But what they're doing is I want to kill baddies to save goodies.
And we need to allow that to be in its, you know, what's okay.
But we also need to let some of the girls join in there.
I'm not making this up.
Our daughter made a love heart out of her toast this morning.
Yeah, see?
Actually.
She said, if you squeeze the bottom of toast, it's a love heart.
Can you put some Vegemite on it?
I love it.
So she said, Vegemite love heart.
I love it.
I probably wouldn't make a gun.
So that also, you know, when you understand that.
Estrogen is bonding.
It's caring.
It's coming together.
And that also affects the way we communicate.
So those fragile boy friendships, if we take away play, neighbourhood play has disappeared.
We don't breed as much, not as much cousin play.
And schools, you know, when they get to school, recess is shortened, lunch is shortened.
And so all the things that help boys build social and emotional competence have diminished.
So what do we do then?
What do we do for our boys who say they're five years old and they're probably not quite ready for school, but they're going to have to go because that's the way society is set up?
What can we do for them at home to support that understanding that and supporting that as much as possible?
Yeah, well, I'd like them to be as feral and free as possible, if you can possibly arrange.
You know, what children have always needed has not changed but the world has changed is to try and find where they can play with multi-aged children of all genders in an environment with potential risk, within the blood-curdling safety of one adult.
Because what happens, boys and girls automatically will step up to be the protector.
So boys don't get that opportunity anymore to actually step up and be, they just are wired to do it.
If you don't ever have a chance, you don't know how to do it.
Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking.
The first thing that comes to mind, and this is topical for me because I used to be – I would go to the park.
Mum would take me to the park as a little boy and I was so scared of – I've shared the story before, but Mum had an old handbag and I loved walking around with Mum's handbag and I used to hold my arm up so it wouldn't – just walk around my arm yeah, so it wouldn't fall off my shoulder.
And we went to a friend's house once and these other boys took it off me and beat the living daylight out of me with it.
And ever since then, I was just so scared of boys – that I didn't know.
Yeah.
I see boys at the park with my kids.
I go, well, boys are coming.
We need to just be careful here.
And so I think my kids haven't played the park anywhere near as much as I should, because I'm scared of little boys.
So let's touch on that a bit, because the hitting, hurting and stuff of little boys, that's usually a bid for connection.
Right.
So when we reframe it to bid for connection, they also need to be coached into what are the signs when that other person's not enjoying that.
And lectures don't work, but often doing it with play works, especially if adults role play it.
And it's just such a big thing.
You know, there was so much wrestling in my house.
Yeah.
And they are learning about boundaries.
But I keep saying if little boys are wrestling, they actually like each other.
It's called aggression, nurturance in boy world.
And that's why sometimes that run up, a little boy might run up to farewell his best mate and accidentally punch him in the head instead of the arm.
Now, he didn't mean to do that.
So there's often this thing that boys really mean to hurt.
When no, they accidentally do dumb things in the spontaneous moment of wanting to connect.
And they sometimes can kick mum after school.
And this is one of the things when I say that I've had so many women go, yes, he's done that.
So you can pick your little boy up and you're heading out towards the car and you stop to talk to someone and your son starts kicking you in the leg and you think what's he doing that for?
And what's possibly going on is he has a poo that's due.
And boys don't poo at school.
So he's trying to tell you to hurry up so he can drop it off.
And, of course, we never grow out of that.
And they don't have words.
We never grow out of that.
That's still how we communicate.
We need to do a poo.
Even at 44, isn't that weird?
I know.
There's another side to that that we don't understand.
It took me a while to work it and I've now got grandsons who – run in and tell me, come and have a look at my poo nanny.
It's a dinosaur, not a lion.
So poos to boys are kind of like achievements.
A gift.
They're a gift and they're something to celebrate if it's good, right?
And most women don't get that kind of thing, right?
Which is why, also when we put pressure on them, we do know statistically that boys are the last to be able to be toilet trained around pooing.
Because they're so much more sensitive and it's this vulnerable, fragile side of boys.
And that's the kind of gift that, God, I don't want to get emotional here.
The number of times mums have said to me, I couldn't stand my little boy.
He was just an absolute, he was.
And then I realised he wasn't this tough little thing and I started to really lean into nurturing that tender part of him.
And he, within two or three days, is coming up linking his fingers with mine saying I love you mummy, because they know when they're safer, you know, and they do muck up right the impulsive, poor decision-making.
We keep thinking they deliberately plan it.
But when you come in, I'm sure you didn't mean to hurt your brother.
Oh, dear, look at that.
How are we going to clean that up?
So when you come in without the shame, you create such a safer space.
And then when they've all calmed down and there is some really big science that's so handy to understand about this that when the amygdala fires up for little girls and women the next centre in the brain that fires up is the word centre.
Yeah.
Have you ever had one of those, Vince?
Okay.
So what happens for boys and men?
The amygdala fires up.
There's a threat and there's something upset me.
And then it goes into the body.
Right.
The shove, the push that we see on TV with men breaking things.
And then a long time later, it comes from the body back up into the word centre.
And so often it still happens in school environments where a boy may have done something.
And sometimes it's, you know, running in accidentally into someone and knocking them in the playground.
You get sent to the, you know, to get growled at.
And they have no idea what they've done wrong because they didn't plan to knock that kid over.
Mm.
And then they get interrogated and they can't speak.
Mm.
Because it's too soon for them to, you know, and I love the principles.
There's some great primary principles that take boys for a walk around the oval.
So what happens when we're walking?
Is it actually helps to open up the word centre so they can communicate?
But often they need to process it a bit first and that's what guys do.
They often.
That's why sometimes they're not so good after a trauma going to talk to a counsellor.
They can often trigger them to be worse because they haven't worked it out themselves.
There's a really big story that came from a dad.
He reached out to tell me that he'd heard, sorry, I'm going to mention another podcast.
That's okay.
We're okay with other podcasts.
ABC Conversations, and it was with Richard.
Never heard of it.
And apparently this guy came running into the house and he said ah, because we had lots of problems with the 14-year-old son.
Like he's been suspended and they've taken everything off him and it hasn't changed his behaviour.
And he's still, you know, school's ringing again and he's come in the back door and said I've just listened to this lady on the radio.
I'm going to try something new with our son.
And the mum said, yeah, the school's rung again.
Anyway, so he's called out to his son.
He said, hey, mate, let's go for a walk.
And his son come out looking a bit dubious.
Anyway, they walked all the way up to the Maccas, which was about a kilometre away.
And he said he just had a big smoothie and a bucket of chips.
And he just walked on home.
And halfway home, his son starts to cry.
And then he's sobbing in his dad's arms and said, it's the Year 11 boys.
They keep belting me up.
And they've told me if I dob on them, they're going to cut my face with a razor.
Oh, my God.
So he's held his son while he owned into this.
And, you know, by the time he's walked home, this boy is a different boy.
And the dad walks in and says, who would have thought?
Just a walk and a bucket of chips and we sorted it out.
Yeah.
But he did that beautiful thing.
That helps to open in a safe space like nothing else.
It's really been something that I think I've always done whenever I've been overwhelmed or stressed.
Jam, my partner and I often talk about this.
When she's really overwhelmed or has anxiety.
She really needs to talk about it instantly and needs to talk it through.
But whenever I'm overwhelmed or anxious about something, I need to just be by myself.
That's exactly – and guess what happens though?
Sometimes when she's going through her talking, is there part of you thinking –
Is there something I need to fix?
Absolutely, all the time.
Right, because that's that wiring in us again.
And there's nothing more irritating when your male partner says well, why don't you try this?
You just want to punch them out.
Yeah, until they fix it.
Yeah.
And that's a good moment.
It's just so tempting.
So tempting.
I know.
I reckon when I'm doing the dad's only, I keep saying stuff.
They're doing a big vent, mate.
You just, you nod.
Yep.
Nod.
Listen.
Don't distract.
You can't even remember what she's saying, but let it go right till the end till she takes a breath.
And then you say, do you want a cup of love or a glass of wine?
That's it.
I've held space.
Yeah.
I've held the space in the way that you need it.
And then we can discuss the solve.
I wonder when that comes in though.
Sometimes what's happened, it just didn't need solving.
It just needed expressing the frustration from that place.
But let's celebrate the greatest social shift that's happening in Australia at the moment and that's our dads turning up with beautiful big hearts and really team parenting.
And, you know, everywhere I go, sometimes in a playground on a weekend, there's no mums.
Dad's baby's tied on, toddler's nailing it.
We have to celebrate that.
That's a massive cultural shift.
And I think the other part to that is they keep saying you know, so often they say I just wish there was a game book, but there isn't one for women either.
Yeah.
Do you know?
Because let's talk about that sense of self-worth that boys and men are different to most girls and women, and that is that boys and men give themselves self-worth and what they do they judge as good and worthwhile.
So think of boys who want to hit targets, climb the highest tree, build the biggest duplo tower.
They set themselves up for something.
And when they do it, they go, yes, I've done good.
Now we can't give them that.
And so I love it when I get a story that's influenced a mum particularly.
And so this boy came into his mum, he was eight, and said, I'm going to dig to China.
Fortunately, you know, every mother thinks what an idiot, might as well tell him now.
No, she'd heard me and she said, well, let me know how it goes.
This boy dug for a week.
Look, he had blisters, you know, and she used to take drinks.
He was determined because he set up a target and a project and then finally realised it wasn't going to work.
So he came in and said, oh, mum, can't dig to China.
She said, never mind.
And it's such a shift.
When I see the women in the room go, oh, because... Yeah.
And there's this part, you know that kind of, you know protect a defender brave part which has the testosterone.
They do want to do stuff every now and then that scares the, you know, what out of most women.
And I keep urging them just to keep breathing and hold back because...
You know, when we keep holding that back, then we make it harder for them to stretch and grow later.
And then the natural consequence is the way they learn that it doesn't always work out.
I'm not bad.
I'm not useless.
I'm not dumb.
It just wasn't the right time or energy.
And so I had my two lads at one point on the farm.
We went back to wandering and I guess the minus five is freezing.
There's a stream through the farm and the six and four-year-old were out there walking.
And I said, I can't jump in.
The first thing is I hear my mum voice.
Don't be so stupid.
You'll get a cold, which of course you can't get, but it's an old story.
And then I realised, hang on a minute, I used to jump in there.
And so I just paused.
And then, of course, most boys want to get naked.
The whole anti-clothes bit.
Oh, man, I've got naked boys.
No undies, Monday, Sunday, Tuesday.
Anyway...
No woman understands that.
Anyway, off go the clothes.
Off go the clothes.
In they jump and I think, one will be enough.
Let's do it again.
And I'm thinking, it is freezing.
But that little warrior that wants to stretch and grow, they do it again.
And then I thought, no, definitely.
And by the third time, you have to laugh.
They're completely blue around the lips, but their whole little package has been sucked inside.
Because it was too cold for the testes.
Yes.
And so I keep going.
You know, they've just had this wonderful adventure, which doesn't make any sense to women, but it does to boys.
They're having fun, but they're stretching and growing.
And that's exactly how we grow healthy men.
Yeah.
Josh has got two boys.
He's got a rooster and a lamb.
I'm so interested to know what's going through your head because I feel like every single topic you've touched on you've had a thousand questions.
So I just want to give you a chance to.
I don't know where to start.
I think, yes, I've got five and three.
One thing I find hard is that I think this goes to my inner critic and my own sort of story that I find it very hard.
I'm trying really hard to be one of those men who's really getting as involved in the most present parent I can possibly be.
But I, As just evidence to that, I have a video of Josh playing on our trampoline, severely hungover but still there playing with my kids and his kids playing ring-a-ring-a-rosies and them crawling over him.
And I just remember thinking, well, that is a dad who is committed, is struggling.
Yeah, I was really struggling.
Whilst my kids are trying to pull your pants down as well.
Yeah, there's a lot going on.
They don't like to just get themselves naked.
They seem to want to go for the adults too.
Yeah.
I think because of growing up in a family where there wasn't any male roosters or rooster behavior, I found it really difficult.
And I find myself making so many mistakes as a dad.
But one thing I notice is that my rooster, he's very physical, loves to bite, loves to pull, loves to pinch, loves to do all these things.
And I think about a mistake I made yesterday, when we were rolling around having a good time and then suddenly bit me really hard on the leg and I reacted with a with anger.
And then why did you do that?
And I suddenly expected this three-year-old to be able to explain the cognitive decision that led up to him biting.
And he looked at me makes me very sad to say, because he looked at me with this wobbly bottom lip and had no idea and was completely and it's happened a few times where I've reacted and he's completely caught in the headlights and I feel so bad because of the mistake I've made.
But also to see that this rooster, I think, has so much emotional depth and complexity going on underneath the surface that I miss all the time and I'm trying so hard to focus on it and respond to it, or at least be there for it.
But I don't know sometimes, I don't know how, without the sacrifice of say, he's bitten the lamb, and I'm stuck in this situation of well, I can't.
I want to protect the lamb, but I also want to acknowledge the rooster and I don't know how to play this situation without letting one of them down.
All right.
So this is so common.
I have a membership group and I think that question gets asked now every month.
Okay.
Now, the important for you is to react with, oh, no, that's too hard.
Yeah.
So that's where he learns gradually that it's too hard.
Yeah.
Okay, rather than why did you do it?
He has no idea, no cognitive, but he can know that's too hard.
And that's the same why stacks on and roughhousing and all that sort of stuff is actually really good, because they need to know there's a point where it's no.
Yeah.
Right, that's the kind of boundary stuff.
And we often find that boys who've had those sort of moments tend to navigate.
You know the nightclub scene a lot better than others, because they read the unspoken cues on the face a bit better.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's called a play code.
So that's the first thing to say.
Any time it actually really hurts, we're, oh, no, this one.
That hurts.
It's too hard because he's still three and he doesn't even know what hard is.
Interestingly on that topic, when I do do that, when I have a better moment where I say in a calm way, he will put his mouth on my arm and like bite down and he'll go like is this okay?
Is this okay?
And then he'll test the limit of when.
It's perfect.
And then he's like, and I'm like, no, that's too much.
And he's like, yep.
And then he's pretty good.
Yeah.
Yeah, no joke.
And I think the other thing that we, you know, we all muck up.
You know I'm an advocate for imperfect parenting.
I need to remind all parents that you only have to be good enough 30 to 40% of the time.
But when you do do big bugger-ups and you know it in your heart, you can feel it, right?
Yeah.
Then once you've become calm, you come back and repair that rupture.
Even with a three-year-old, I'll come back and say wow, shouting's not okay, and I'm going to work on that right.
Yeah.
Because that doesn't happen in previous generations.
And so that imprint of behaviourism is still deeply embedded into anyone over 40.
You know, that the only way to stop that behaviour is to punish the child. but it doesn't teach.
And what it does is threatens the relationship.
And remember, that's the core to it.
And I guarantee just listening to you, you don't have any problems with connection with your kids.
Anyone who's half drunk on a trampoline.
Anyway.
And so the other part to it, especially for roosters, is where is your connection time with your rooster?
Because they're harder to connect.
They genuinely are.
They're often more physically active.
So I have, you know, there's a thing I talk about micro connections because we'd love quality time.
Of course we would.
One-on-one time would be beautiful, wouldn't it?
But who's got it?
Now, let's be honest, especially if you've got more than one child.
So it's the ruffle on the head as you walk past and it's the tickle on the back and it's the bump.
I used to walk past my boys even when they were teenagers and deliberately tread on their feet.
Oh, sorry, sorry.
So that counts.
Or if you're sitting on the couch, I'd sit on them.
I'm sorry.
And they'd go, oh, my God.
But a physical connection can often work more than words.
And then, of course, if they were really being difficult in the kitchen, then I'd drop a well-timed fart.
Because that can get a grin on a 45-year-old's face.
I want to ask what does that look like?
What the fuck?
Pretty sure we're not doing it right now.
It's dangerous territory, yeah.
And so other things in that space are make sure you've got photos of both your siblings in really happy moments and cuddles with you.
I really encourage you if you've got boys, in the toilet.
Because remember, they've got to become calm before they poo.
So the more they see images of joy and connection, it triggers endorphins in the brain of being loved, especially roosters, because they're the ones who break more things and damage more things.
And we're forever going through the process.
You know what were you trying to do and what are you going to do to make it right and all those sorts of things.
Making sure that is, but also sometimes writing.
Obviously, a three-year-old won't be able to read yet now, but sometimes notes for boys are really powerful.
You know we think the verbal thing and this is another thing that women really take a bit of time and they don't like it when I first say it.
But you use way too many words sometimes for boys.
And so I can only take a few and they glaze over and go, I can't remember what she said.
So, even as a high school teacher, I had to learn that if I was delivering an assessment and I started with now you've got to choose whether you want to write a poem, a short story or a play.
And then what you're going to do is choose a character and you're going to have this kind of contest with Mother Nature.
And I'm looking around the room and I've lost every boy.
And what the boys told me is what they're doing is they're going, what's the easiest thing to do?
So until I solve that problem, I'm not ready for this.
And it's the same around home.
We think that I've told you three times, I haven't heard it.
Sometimes, you know, a little boy can be just over there.
And you can yell at him, you know, or say loudly, can you go wash your hands?
It's time for dinner.
And he doesn't move.
And you say it again.
And dads don't tend to do this.
It's mainly mums.
And then they're saying, he's deliberately not listening to me.
And they yell at him.
And he's suddenly going, why is my mother suddenly yelling at me?
And this is that single focus that they are so absorbed in what they're doing.
They actually don't hear sometimes.
Yeah.
And that's a really important one.
So, you know, encourage mums to go up and rub their back and go, time to wash your hands.
Or you go up and just, yeah.
That was Maggie making eye contact.
Just quickly.
Wash your hands.
Sometimes some more signs of what you want them to do.
Yeah.
Hat on head.
Yeah.
They're spatially quite good.
Yeah.
Lunchbox in bag.
Yeah.
Because spatially boys, they're much stronger and they're also very strong at non-verbal stuff.
So they see every time that particularly a mum, but even a dad, rolls their eyes going.
That's like a knife in little boys' hearts.
It's insane in teenage boys.
They know when they've disappointed their parents and it's a really big burden.
I've always sort of I think I've always known that within myself, that I will comprehend something clearly if it's shown to me.
Yes.
And I've always sort of labelled that as like I'm a visual learner.
I've sort of always said, I've always just sort of that's just the thing that I've invented, and just feels true.
And I was like oh, if you need to explain something to me, I need to see it or be shown it, and then I'll remember it.
But that's so interesting.
It can be another layer of the boy bed.
It's more that.
Yeah.
Yeah, wow.
So one of the other most powerful ones and this is something I've probably been saying now for 18 years and it's the bedtime ritual.
Oh, boy.
So no matter how many times.
Hang on, I've got a notepad.
Hang on.
Okay.
No matter how many times you've had to growl, and you know pull them back in and you know remember, you know use soft hands, all that stuff.
And please, we're in the toilet, not up the wall.
And, you know, all those things that you've had to say.
You're writing this down here?
It's that, and not every night.
You can't go in and do a warm bedtime ritual when you're pissed off.
You just can't.
You've just got to make sure.
So it's not every night.
And that, when you can, you lay next to that little precious boy and you tell him how much you love him.
And because they're good with numbers and spatially you say look, I love you more than every star in the night sky.
Every grain of sand on every beach in the whole world and every hair on every bear.
And they'll go, man, that's a lot.
My parents used to say and still say, I love you to the sky and back, plus a metre.
Yeah.
Plus a metre.
Plus a metre.
And then, oh my God, over the years, oh my God, I've just had so many gorgeous messages come back, because when they add something else, it personalises it.
Yeah, yeah.
And all the bums and all the you know fishes in the world and all the poo in the zoo, and you know, because quite often they go to that.
Yeah.
And I think when that happens two or three times a week, we deeply embed that, that sense of loving connection, into the ones who are going to be harder to love some days.
And it's so profound.
And it's something that can play out later.
You can, you know, write a message to a teenage boy who's slammed the door in your face and hasn't done the dishwasher and left the milk out.
You know, remember the stars.
Remember the sand.
They'll know exactly.
And that's that, you know.
When we think we need to be harder on boys, it's coming from a space of behaviourism that does not actually work, except on possibly, rats.
And I share the story about one of my.
I've got a feisty rooster who landed on Halloween.
Who's a whoopsie.
Work that one out.
Whoopsie means it wasn't planned.
Oh, okay.
And to land on Halloween.
Yeah.
Anyway, he was 15 or something.
It's a pretty intense trick or treat.
Oh, every, can you imagine?
He's 21st, every party at uni, everything, Halloween's huge.
Anyway.
And he was absolutely giving me a serve in the kitchen because I wouldn't let him go to a party because, you know, I didn't let mine go out to parties.
You know, with my knowledge, until I was 16, year 11.
And he goes, everyone else is going in and where's mum on earth?
And yeah, yeah.
Anyway, he walked off, slammed the door.
You know, officially I'm actually probably the best mum on earth according to all my books.
No, that was before I wrote the book.
Anyway.
And I knew like, and I know you know in your head you're saying he shouldn't speak to me like that disrespectfully.
And I need to, you know, I need to come down hard on him to stop that.
But that's the old thinking again, not recognising that that is just equally as tender heart as a girl who feels these things.
So does he need more harshness?
Does he need more darkness?
Does he need more criticism?
Anyway, so about 20 minutes later.
I go down and knock at the door and I've said that anyone who's got a teenage boy.
You wait a good 20 seconds.
Yep.
You do not open that door for 20 seconds.
Yep.
And then you open it gently and you shove in their favourite drink, like Milo or something, and some biscuits and you shove in the dog and then you shut the door.
And you go back.
And even though in your mind you'd love him to come out and say gee mum, I'm sorry, I used those disrespectful words to you earlier and I really apologise because it's not going to happen.
He's not really got that cognitive capacity.
Most teenage girls wouldn't either.
But I need him to know we're still okay.
And so often, you know, when he comes out, you might get a bump.
But I need him to know that.
That's the vulnerability of teenage boys and that...
You know, you mentioned that suicide rate, spontaneous suicides that come out of nowhere.
It's the last thing.
And if your safe base and this is what came up in that research from Boys to Men is who was the most important thing in your life over that bridge to adulthood and over 60 said their mum.
So if she's your safe base and she turns on you, That's a really dark place to go.
And that's why we have to know it's a really vulnerable time and that we need to be bigger and not listen to the rubbish that we had from you.
Know, rats that said punish them when they're badly behaved.
The term I keep saying is no matter what, no matter what it is, there's nothing you can do that will stop me loving you.
So anytime anything bad happens, your first thought needs to be call mum, call dad.
Yeah.
No matter what.
Every time they walk out the door to a party, say no matter what.
Because that's exactly what they need to know.
There's an anchor that's safe for them.
Lots of teens don't have it.
They might think their parents may think that they've got it, but if they're, you know the boys know they're disappointing their parents because their grades, or you know yes, they've left the milk out in the fridge yet again, or they haven't done the dishwasher, or all these things that we think are important.
Mm-hmm.
You don't know what's going on while they've been at school or what they've got copped online.
And they're so much more fragile psychologically than any other previous generation.
My rooster child, I have a picture of him on my key ring.
He made it at childcare and I was looking at it.
I can't remember how this came about.
It was just me and him at home and he was asking me about it.
I wrote, I love you on it and I showed it to him and he said, what does this say?
And I said, it says, I love you.
And he gave me this look on his face like it really hit, like he hadn't quite realized or something.
And I tell him all the time that I love him and I cuddle him and I thought he would really get it.
And then, and I thought it hit a bit different and it makes me emotional talking about it.
And then later that night my wife says you know, after you did that, he came into my office and he held this up and he said daddy loves me.
Oh God.
Yeah, and let me tell you that it's about the written word.
You know the spoken word?
This flies around.
Wow.
The number of times because I've mentioned that in that micro moments write a note to say you love your son.
And the stories I've had back, particularly from dads who have written the note that changed the whole relationship for the rest of their lives.
So boys keep those notes.
It was...
Yeah.
So just to I guess I think I thought I was doing it and it obviously wasn't landing like I thought it was.
So it was a really, yeah.
How could you land it?
Oh, it felt good.
It's really good.
I've thought about it so much since.
And I do, I honestly think our relationship is a little bit better because of it.
And he's only three.
But it really, we're just that little bit better and closer.
Sometimes those micro notes that go into lunch boxes can do that too, especially if you've had a rough morning or a rough night.
Or you just write a note saying, I love you, mate.
Yeah.
That's such a good tip.
Yeah.
Hi, it's Ryan from The Imperfects, and I'm reaching out to you now because we need your help.
Gosh, darn it.
Hang on, why do we need?
Sorry no, I'm just making a plea to the listeners and viewers to ask them to subscribe to the show in whichever way they see fit, because it really helps.
The more subscribers, the better we can make this show, am I right?
Yeah, but I don't think we need to.
I think we could just ask them politely.
Yeah, but if I use the emotional music.
I think the music's a bit much.
Is it?
Who's playing that music?
It doesn't matter who's playing the music.
The important thing is we're pulling at the heartstrings and asking them to do us a solid.
Could we not just ask them straight?
It would really help us if you guys subscribed, because we would be able to make more of the show and make the show better.
Oh, and not use emotional manipulation.
Yeah.
Yeah, I reckon.
We can give it a go, but I doubt it'll work.
Can I ask you about your?
I guess I'm just asking to speak generally about the area that you feel most passionate about, but screens and social media for boys, the damage, your advice, what you've seen.
Oh, no question.
But it's been big.
And we know that.
You know some of our boys are definitely being influenced by the manosphere online and the negative algorithms that so big tech is to blame, not parents, not schools, not boys.
But it's not as many as we thought.
And I think that was the thing.
We started to have a shift in sexual harassment in schools, where boys have always said things like you know, rank girls from super hot to freezing cold.
Only that's the thing you did on a piece of paper once and threw in the bin, but now you do it online and share it except.
Well, that's literally how Facebook started.
Yes, it is literally how it started, except that now, with the boys watching so much more pornography, the language has gone to unrapable.
Oh, God.
Right?
What?
So, yeah, that's exactly what the ranking stuff happened.
So, again, if that wasn't there... that wouldn't be happening.
That's a shocking thing to hear.
Teachers, there are rape threats in classrooms.
The language in some, it's not all schools and it's not all boys.
Some schools don't even know what you're talking about.
Other ones have been working on it to come through, which is why...
You know, boys still need good guidance and mentors on that bridge to adulthood.
Rails on the bridge.
So the pornography is the first thing.
The second thing was not as many boys on social media than you think.
Where are they?
They're gaming.
Oh, right.
Yeah.
And so gaming has a really positive space, especially if they're gaming with their mates, you know.
We also know the sexual predators are out there as well.
So the sexual extortion has increased 1,300% over the last three years.
Jesus.
And we have to just think if a 14-year-old boy thinks a 14-year-old girl is really keen and sounds really gorgeous and she'd like to see a photo of his best friend, he's going to obviously share it.
And so it's.
You know, we understand the maturity of them, but if that wasn't there, that wouldn't be happening.
And some of those boys, as you know, are dying by suicide because of the shame.
The other thing that's happened as well is that in the boys, it's not just manosphere stuff.
The body stuff in terms of being buff and looking a certain way.
So body image stuff is actually impacting boys at the highest level it's ever impacted again.
So when you pile it all together it makes it even harder that unless they've got you know good enough.
Parents, shall we say at least one and I know most boys tell me they're hungry for a warm relationship with their dad.
Mm-hmm.
But of course most dads tell me I'm hard on him because I don't want him to be a dickhead like I was, which is you can see that.
But of course, the more hard you were because that's what happened when you were that age the more you push your son away when he needs you.
So that's why I talk a lot about the lighthouse figures, which was me as an English teacher, but it's those.
Sometimes it's a teacher in a subject that might be physics, or it might be music or it might be.
It might be the coach, right.
When they... kind of show they care, it's like a lifeline.
And I think that's exactly what you do with your work in schools.
You are actually setting up teachers and people to be to know that you can make a difference in kids' lives and you know it's how you be, not just what you do.
So we've got to find where do we find the safe spaces, you know, for our boys.
But I'm...
I'm hoping.
I'm hoping.
When we talk to boys, older boys, who've gone through this, they often say yeah, I was a bit more interested when I was 13 and 14.
But, you know, the prefrontal does a big growth around 16.
But once I got to 16, I started working it out myself.
That wasn't who I wanted to be.
That wasn't the man I wanted to be, quietly in their own world.
What do you think of the –
The factors, and are there consistent factors that are present in?
Is it just what you said, or are there consistent factors that are there in boys who are able to get to that point of working it out for themselves?
Because they're all in the sort of washing machine of 13, 14 year olds?
So a minimum of one good enough parent with some good enough friends, engaged in some good enough activities in a good enough school.
Yeah.
Those boys will usually come out okay at the other end, regardless of what's thrown at them.
I really like that phrase, good enough.
Good enough.
Yeah.
So where we find you know.
So a family might not be the good enough, but those are good enough school and are good enough, you know, whatever it is, if they're into music or they're into something else.
Something that I call is the spark.
And it's so interesting.
You know, obviously I had four sons.
They were into sport, but when they took up surfing, oh man, is that what I wanted to do on a Saturday morning after teaching full-timers, get up at 6 o'clock and go and look for surf hours.
Oh, man.
So I'd have two brothers and three of their mates driving around farting in the car you know being ridiculous.
And then, when I watched them come out of the surf, I saw something like profound that I didn't see in my classrooms, and that was five boys fully alive.
Yeah.
And that meant they could go back and suck up school with whatever it dealt with, because there was this big part of them that was alive.
And so...
I talk about that a lot to parents.
Find the spark for your teen.
Yeah, of course, schools matters, but they can always pick that up later.
But it's without a spark, they're more likely to dive into dark places.
And that spark sometimes can be something you never want them to do like that.
God, I couldn't wait for the olds to get a licence.
And that's a mum of a 14-year-old whose dad had died by suicide.
So the boy had been, you know, really going through a tough time.
And she said, so Maggie is in, you know, going into year 10 and he loves racing motorbikes.
He did it with his dad.
And so should I get him off his motorbike?
So he focuses on his studies.
And I said, so tell me what his average morning and night is like during the week.
And she said, well...
He gets home from school, goes for a quick ride.
Yep.
And then he comes home, does his homework so he can go to bed early and goes for another ride first thing in the morning.
And I'm looking at her going, I don't know any 14 year old boy that does his homework.
Like he's connecting to his dad.
So there's a, you know, what's his face like when he comes in?
He's alive.
He can't wait to get his chores done so he can go to school.
Seriously, do not remove that ever.
And I meet so many teens today who think that their social media is their spark.
Oh, yeah.
But it's not necessarily, you see, and that's why we have a new generation of lonely teens.
Have you seen that?
There's a documentary about a guy, I think his name is Marc Andre or something.
He was a free climber.
Yes.
Have you seen this?
Whatever it is, it's in the show notes.
It'll link to it.
He really struggled at school, was not a happy kid.
And then he discovered somehow, I forget how, he discovered this like climbing, rock climbing.
And his mother, this incredible woman just sort of like exactly how you described, taking the boys surfing.
She did not enjoy necessarily driving into the woods to find like these rock climbing walls, but that's all he wanted to do.
He was reading, he was engaged with this thing and he became not that this matters, but he became like one of the best in the world at rock climbing, at free climbing.
Super dangerous.
No doubt his mum was terrified.
And it unfortunately has a bit of a tragic ending of that story.
But what is so hopeful about it is to see this mum just recognise what this boy really loves and what like brings him alive and makes him so happy and connects him with those other people who are doing it and her just like wholeheartedly supporting it.
Yeah.
It's really magical.
It is.
So there's a window of incredible importance that we need to understand in adolescence.
And it's the same for girls and boys.
But because girls go into puberty earlier, it's earlier.
But the boy window is the same window they get so super disengaged at school.
Like, what's in it for me?
This sucks.
So you know the brain does this pruning, which is why sometimes I've got messages from mums saying has an alien stolen my son?
He was really great two weeks ago and he's awful now.
And I keep explaining that, when you understand the why that your son suddenly gets more grumpy is because any change triggers stress in the body.
So their body is already physically changing and hormonally changing and cognitively changing and emotionally changing.
And I don't know what the hell's going on, right?
And so one of the first steps is the pruning.
And as I explained before, you know, girls have much better memories and organisation skills.
Oh, man.
So a bit more of that gets pruned off on boys than it does girls.
And they can even you know when it happens forget everything, their maths test or leave their backpack on the bus and feel really stupid.
And so we need to prepare them before it happens.
So that they can go, oh, this is the brain pruning.
It's not just me.
Because I could have 500 boys in a seminar and say, have any of you noticed your memory?
And if you nod your heads and the boys are all nodding and they're looking at their mates?
Has it happened to you?
They don't talk about it.
Yeah, wow.
But when we shine a light on it, then we can set up strategies with them.
What does that look like at home for parents though?
Floor droves.
Cannot put the towel on the hook in the bathroom that it used to be able to do.
I mean, that means I've never recovered from the wardrobe towel floor.
Oh, it's the same thing.
It's like putting empty containers, like empty yogurt containers, back in the fridge and the milk on the bench.
Or saying, I heard this beautiful year eight boy run all over the school and find me.
I was teaching year 12s and he's found me.
And I said, what are you doing, mate?
And he says, So can you tell me where I'm supposed to be now?
I said, where's your timetable?
What's that?
Mate, this is week four.
Go down to the front office and they'll give you your time tablet.
It just got pruned off after it started.
What's a front office?
Yeah, what's a front office?
Where's that?
Anyway.
So the next stage is interesting because that's where Mother Nature says gee, we better hurry up and make these kids smarter, because they're going to be adults and if they don't, they start breeding soon or the species dies out, you know.
So it makes lots and lots and lots more dendrites, which is so exciting because you can learn faster.
Anything you throw your energy into in the window under 16.
Anything that they do, they get better amazingly.
And yet it's the same window that they're feeling really dumb, stupid and useless and more forgetful.
So that's why I keep challenging our best teachers should be in middle school.
This is where you can tap into something.
Totally agree.
Tap into...
You know that hope, that place.
You know, and there were boys in my class that struggled with whatever you know and I used to say things like why do I have to learn to write an essay?
I'm going to play football for Australia.
Yeah, great.
Good one.
Now you're going to learn to write an essay.
Because they can't see the point, right?
And it's so amazing.
If you fire up a kid in that window with, it doesn't matter what it is that's in that school smorgasbord, whether it's cooking or it's clay fun or mountain bike riding you can stoke something that helps them get over that.
Yeah, it's a protective factor through that.
That's exactly what it is.
And we need to invest, as parents, lots of time to nurture that window, because that's the window we most likely lose our boys.
So just to clarify as you're going, the window we're talking about, what is the ages here?
Okay, so now that puberty is moving earlier, it used to be for girls it was like 11 to 13 and for boys it was 13 to 15.
So it varies around that.
But we know for our boys, some of them are around 12 when that kicks in now.
But the big one is that most of those big shifts have finished.
And by 16.
That's when there's a big growth in the prefrontal cortex, where they can be much more reasonable.
So if you've lost your son because he was incoherent and couldn't speak and all those things talking in a plucky bag, he comes back sometimes.
With the dendrites.
So the brain pruning you're talking about and the dendrites?
Yeah.
Can you explain?
I mean, I obviously know, but for anyone else who doesn't know.
Because you're so smart.
Yeah, I know most things.
So intelligent.
Yeah, yeah.
So what happens is so brain cells and neurons, and then, when you're going to join up to another one, which is when learning occurs, there's an axon, and at the end of the axon are feathery bits called dendrites.
And so when there's a massive growth of dendrites, it means more of them are grabbing onto more and more neurons.
So when the pruning happens, it prunes all the... Whatever you're not using gets pruned off.
And that's why girls who use their memory and are quite organised don't have theirs pruned off to the same degree as boys.
And that's frustrating as hell for mums.
Right.
And is that part of sort of because your body's putting so much effort into growing, going through puberty almost like an efficiency thing it needs to shed?
Yeah, so it's changing a child brain into an adult brain, and that's part of the journey, which it would have been good to know about it when I was teaching them.
Yeah.
Huge knowledge.
Yeah.
Because I never, you know, you never, ever had.
There's a whole list in one of my books that says you know the number of times that a girl forgot when the assessment was just was very rare.
I had a boy, a teenage boy, just forget his bag once, just turned up and walked in.
Those boots, shoes.
I forgot my bag today.
Totally.
Or, this is what I love, their accommodations.
I saw a boy once carrying this massive bag full of And I said, mate, that's huge.
What have you got in there?
He put everything out.
And I said, but you don't have chemistry every day of the week or biology?
He said, no, no, I don't.
But I can't remember what day it is, so I just lug them around.
I guess he's solving the problem.
He's solved the problem.
Yeah.
Oh, dude.
That's amazing.
It's a little bit like how I pack to go on our tours.
I bring seven days' worth of clothes because I can't.
I'm like, I don't know what's happening tomorrow, so I'll bring everything.
Yeah, just bring everything I might need in any conditions.
Cricket whites.
No undies.
Don't worry about undies.
No.
I think I just took it for granted.
I think I have just taken it for granted that at the school that I went to and I guess probably mum and dad chose this school for a reason but at the school I went to I'm so lucky that we could do media and drama.
Yes, yes.
Because if I went to a school without media and drama, I reckon I would have come out of school probably being fine socially, but I think I would have felt like a real failure in terms of my intelligence because I just didn't really click with most of the other school subjects.
Yeah, I would love to ask you about the narrative around teens which you've sort of been talking about a little bit.
But we were having lunch a couple of days ago with some of the Resilience Project people because we're in the same office.
Just so you know.
I deliberately didn't tell them Maggie was coming today, because she wouldn't have got in here.
Everyone's such a big fan.
We wouldn't have got her in here.
We'll get the selfies on the way out.
And I was chatting with one of the incredible people there called Belinda.
And what struck me was that this is the first time I think I've ever heard this.
But she said I'm sick of everyone saying how bad teens are.
I love my teens.
She's got teen kids.
And she's like, they're the best.
Yeah, they're a bit challenging at times.
I get it's hard for some people and it's more extreme, but I love them.
And she's like, I'm going to do whatever I can to break this bullshit about teens being crap.
Yeah.
How damaging is that teens are crap narrative?
Oh, they're so used to it.
And that's exactly what that survey said, help me help my teen.
It was just over and over again.
We're so sick of being, you know, marginalised and made to feel we're all useless.
And the boy narrative makes me even more annoyed because you know we keep seeing a small number of boys who are, you know, behaving badly and assume it's all boys.
You know, there's a few people in my circle who are also mums of boys, teen boys, and we're on to anything to correct the narrative, because we've had these boys in our homes who have brought an endless amount of mates into my house.
I've had so many boys come through my house.
Look, they eat the whole fridge out some days accidentally and go, sorry, sorry, Maggie.
LAUGHTER
Excellent impersonation.
Of any man.
I just, yeah, I'm right with Belinda on this one because...
When a teen can't communicate and can't and looks grumpy and moody, it's a lot to do with all the things happening to them.
So we can't expect them to suddenly cheer up.
And it's one of the things I think we oversell in mental health, isn't it?
That we're all supposed to be chirpy, chipper or calm all the time.
That's rubbish.
We all have moments.
And I think that's how do we approach them?
And that's Probably the reason I wrote Help Me, Help My Teen, is I give scripts on how you open the conversations, because if you don't know how to, you need to learn how to.
So when they come in and you know they failed the test, you don't go give them a lecture on why they needed to study more.
You go, oh, mate, that sucks.
Sucks, eh?
Oh, it's lousy when you fail something you want to pass, you know.
Shall I get you a sandwich?
Get the ice cream out?
Right?
Is this coming alongside?
I think in the past it was.
You were above and you had all the power and the wisdom and the knowledge which was also rubbish, because previous teenagers were probably doing things around the edge and they were new because they weren't there.
And I think that's what I say again.
When hard things happen, our job's not to rescue or fix our teens.
It's to make sure that we first don't just launch into anger, which is a natural reaction of every parent is to call our jets to get a bit more information before we start the conversation.
Because so often, even if you find a vape in a bag and you go in and rip the hell out of your teen, whatever it might not be theirs.
They might be having it in their bag, because the dad found it in the other one and belted the hell out of the son, so he's protecting him.
He's got to get all the information.
And then you go, okay, so here's the challenge.
Let's find some good information.
And then what is your plan?
What's your plan A?
What's your plan B?
And how do I help you?
Because if you don't start dealing with the hard things, they're never going to learn how to do it.
You can so see how this evolves in a person and how, like you know, there are people who kind of like, are constantly, I don't know like they're living day to day on lots of little micro lies and it's nothing that harmful.
But I guess it's like if you've grown up in a place where you didn't feel like you could make mistakes, or you felt like you know if you get really in trouble, or you had to be really good at a good boy.
And if you weren't a good boy, then you would get in trouble.
I can kind of see how that kind of like develops into like, well, I need to be good for everyone.
Yeah.
And there's another line that boys tell me is one of the most painful to hear, and you'd think it wouldn't be, but it's when your parent says I'm so disappointed in you.
That one is like a really big knife, right?
Because this is boy's self-worth.
You've just validated that I'm worthless and useless and that I'm not enough and I've let you down.
So when they muck up, there's a process that we do, right?
We don't assume it was deliberate.
We go, God, what were you trying to do when you broke the window?
Right?
But you still damaged someone's property.
So how are you going to make it right?
Hmm.
So how does that accountability?
We start younger and we don't tell them by about eight or nine they have to start becoming accountable.
And then we talk about, so what are you going to do next time?
Because they don't have any other way of making a different choice until we help them work out.
Yeah, yeah, I'm going to make sure we're a bit further away from the window.
And then we forgive and forget.
You don't keep bringing it up.
And if you keep that over and over again, you get a boy who's not only responsible for when he mucks up.
He does tend to start thinking a little bit better about it than just how do I get away, how can I get out, how do I blame someone else and how can I tell a lie and a fib and you know whatever.
And so that's how we build that layer of character that, you know, you work on as well.
We want to build a boy who's got character inside him, gradually growing as his brain myelinates, which doesn't finish, of course.
Well, it used to be at 27, but apparently the more they've been online it's slower, so it means about 30, now that they think the full myelination of the average boy is.
This is full brain development.
Yeah, full brain development.
Yeah.
Girls are around 22 to 23.
Yeah, because all those instant things are delaying the thinking capacity, because there's no deep thought anymore, because they just go straight on their phone or straight on to something else.
So deep thought, which is part of why your programs work, why I'm such a believer in rites of passage where you go away and think about things deeply, about who you are and what sort of man you want to be.
They're so fundamentally important because they've got it in them.
But if someone doesn't bring it up to think about, it just stays dormant.
I mean, when you think about the brain fully developing, then one of the reasons this is a very obvious problem is that by the time you're 30, you're much more likely to be a parent.
So you're much more likely to be parenting without a fully formed brain.
I mean, there are so many arguments against social media.
Everyone's aware of it.
It's just become disgustingly addictive.
But that is a...
That's a really concerning one.
They're in relationships probably married by well.
A lot of people are married by then and we're doing it without all our brain.
There's some good news though, because and I found this out that when a father becomes a father the first time, regardless of his age, Mother Nature says holy heck, we better grow a lot more brain cells for this baby to survive.
So no matter when you have your first child...
There's a massive growth spurt of.
Unbelievable.
Oh, no, such good news.
That's what it felt like, to be honest.
Genuinely what it felt like.
The head got bigger.
Yeah.
It's like Jason Bourne.
No, that, wow, that's a real, that's, yeah.
And you don't sleep for eight years and then.
And then you're destroyed and you're back to where you were.
So do you keep getting smarter each kid you have?
Apparently it's the first that's the urgent one.
Oh, it's the first.
Yeah, it's urgent.
Yeah.
Urgent.
Yeah.
It sounds like.
I mean it's very clear that when you were parenting your boys when they were children, it was clearly a lot of like humour and play in the house that would probably come from you.
And that would be incredible.
But like a lot of people, a lot of parents, I know like they're not playful or funny people.
What if you don't have that in you?
Well, I can tell you now that any parent who lightens up a bit will notice a definite shift in a home.
So what's happened with kind of too much information is that parents want to be perfect.
They don't want to get anything wrong.
And you know, when I first started appearing on radio in Perth, You know I'd get a mum ring out and saying so Maggie, how do I stop my two and a half year old having meltdowns?
And I said, oh no, that's actually a sign they're developing beautifully.
That's exactly what they're supposed to be doing right now.
Gosh, my kids are developing well.
Yes.
No, seriously, they're supposed to do that because they're not able to get everything they want.
And that's because their autonomy is growing and they haven't got the words and they've got an underdeveloped brain.
And so well done.
What?
So they were so serious about everything.
And so I think I hope that's something I've brought to that that if you lighten up at any point, just when everything's getting a bit hot, go on a monster, chase around the house or be a dinosaur and you will shift.
Because what we know, you can shift from cortisol, which is the stress hormone, over into the endorphins of laughter and lightness really quickly by what we do.
And what's really beautiful now is, if you can keep that lightness, your boys are more likely to feel safe coming to you when they've really mucked up, because you don't go into the oh my God, it's catastrophic and this is serious and how could you think?
And then that shuts everything down.
Yeah, yeah.
I know it's not my episode to give advice, but I also think on the playfulness thing, I think.
Watch the episode of Louis Octopus.
Yes.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
I think that is unbelievable for like finding your way to play with kids.
Blue has added so much lightness to families and imagine you know he's just no wonder he's been a big hit in America.
That's all I'd say.
I think I'm trying my absolute hardest to turn up to parenting with the biggest heart I can and try and meet their little hearts and big growing hearts and And I think I'm doing okay.
But one of the problems with that is that I feel the guilt and shame of mistakes.
I feel more because I'm opening up to it.
And I think I find myself... I mean, I don't think there's a day...
I can think of where when I'm lying in bed at the end of the day, no matter how many good things that have happened, I don't fixate on the mistake I made or feel guilty about myself as a parent and the job I'm doing.
Yeah, parental guilt is a massive thing today, isn't it really?
Because in the past, we didn't actually have a lot of things to compare it to.
And we probably didn't have the information.
No, so that overload, but also the sense that we are actually having less children, so we want to make sure they all work out well.
Parents being super hard on themselves is just really a kind of normal thing nowadays.
Mm-hmm.
So the mental load on women has become extremely excessive, because they will ruminate on everything they didn't do all day, and last week, and last year and five years' time.
And so we're actually noticing a really increase in burnout in women particularly.
So the parent guilt bed...
The very fact that you acknowledge that we mucked up.
But I think you have to come back and land on what the research says.
And that means you just have to be good enough 30 to 40% of the time.
So the days that we aren't, that is actually normal.
Humans raising little people who can be really annoying messy unpredictable frightening, don't sleep.
All of that is completely normal.
And so there's no perfect in parenting, never has been and never will be.
So we can always go and just pretend we've got guilt on our hands and go and give them a good wash with lots of shower gel and wash it down the drain hole, because there's always tomorrow.
And that's the thing.
I think that we can drop the guilt when we know.
Tomorrow I'm going to see if I can go better.
It's a great point and to think that if I look at my day, did I do it well at least 30% of the time?
Yeah, I probably did.
Yeah.
It's such an excellent thing.
You definitely did.
Yeah.
I've seen you do that.
Yeah.
Anyone on trampoline is half hungover.
Yeah, that definitely nailed it.
I also parent not hungover too.
Yeah.
It is my, because I filmed it.
I filmed him on the trampoline jumping in a circle with five kids singing, and I still.
It's my kid's favourite video to watch because they can see the pain in his eyes.
So those muck up moments and that's what I share a lot of them, because people think oh, she must be amazing.
I show this picture of these gorgeous handsome boys you know as men and they go wow, she did a great job.
No, I didn't. slam their fingers in car doors and says, what did you do that for?
I forgot the wrong assembly.
You know, I failed the worst thing you can do as a woman nowadays.
And I forgot book week.
I left one at the pool.
Well, technically I thought dad had him.
Dad thought I had him.
And so no one does it perfect.
Right.
And when we own up to those things, we all realise, hang on a minute.
Yeah.
That's why we kind of need the village to bring me kid home after you've forgotten them.
Throughout this entire conversation.
I have no doubt the majority of people out there are going, for example, with the roosters veal lambs going yep, that's mine.
My son's this, my son's that.
And yep, I see my son in that teenage.
I do feel like there might be a group of people going, I don't know, and where my son fits.
And I certainly put myself in that category having an autistic child.
And I would expand that to say not just autistic but neurodivergent kids.
Yeah.
But for me, that's our situation.
I'm thinking about our child going, I actually don't know.
And because of that I don't know if a lot of this stuff then applies to them, because it's been a – this is something I knew nothing about three and a half years ago.
Now I know – I wouldn't say everything about it, but I know a lot more about it.
And I'm always – when I'm listening to parenting – or I'm always thinking how does this apply to my child?
So I'm just wondering neurodiversity, more specifically for me autism, but these things you've talked about today Oh, there's no question that temperament can play in that space.
But in terms of neurodivergence, there is only one autistic child that came in your family that is like yours.
So your job is to work out what works for your child, regardless of what everybody tells us.
I think that's the thing, the same with boys as well, is that sometimes I find...
Parents think oh, I'll give them love how I like to get love, but that's not how they like to get love.
So the languages of love can be really helpful at working out how to connect with any child.
So my oldest isn't a hugger and I couldn't wait to get a baby I could hug the hell out of, and that was really hard for me.
Even today, I'm lucky we take the piss out of each other about it.
Can I get a sideways one?
Just give me half your shoulder.
Yeah.
So I think that the additional challenge in you know kids who are wired differently and they're all wired in very special ways is that our challenge is to see how does the world turn up for them and how much can we influence the environment, still knowing that neurodivergent kids who feel safe and securely attached are going to do better anyway, no matter how hard that is.
Yeah?
Yeah.
And it's interesting because I had...
I work with quite a lot of boys with ADHD.
And it's interesting because I listened to your episode on that Hugh, and it was interesting because you know how you weren't picked up.
And part of the reason if I can explain this in a little way is that we now know from polyvagal theory that there's ways we cope when we regulate or not regulate.
So the green zone means we really beautifully regulate, we can play and we can learn and we can do everything.
And then the red zone's the one when we're fired up and that's the fight one we know.
But the blue zone is the, is the freeze one, the flight one.
And the way you described yourself in classrooms.
It's just, you were in the free and it looked like you were a really well-behaved little lad.
You know, you were in an equally high state of stress as the ones in the red zone.
So at one point I had a parent I had a number of them message me saying oh, they think I need to send my kid off.
Inattentive ADHD, he's daydreaming, not trying and And I got all fired up because we still sort of thought there's, you know, they're just cruising and they're fine.
And so I did a quick video.
And that's what every now and then, when I do a rant, it goes crazy all over the world.
That one did.
And I was explaining that.
That is equally as highly distressful for that particular and they were all boys as it is for those who are acting out.
And we need to work out how do we?
You know that environment becomes safer, but also that relationship needs to come safer.
So I had this beautiful boy coming to me.
He was definitely wired up ADHD.
And, yeah, very impulsive anyway.
The deputy principal had...
Called him up and shamed him in front of a group of his mates.
That's one of the things we keep saying.
If you're going to have to have a chat to a boy about something about their behaviour, do it one-on-one, you know, respectfully and quietly, without anyone hearing it, because that doubles their shame.
And he got so fired up about it, he wrote graffiti on the deputy principal's car with his name.
Wow.
He was 14.
They'll never find me.
Can you see again?
And then I had to convince him he was still a decent human.
You know, if we tried to get through that,
I think one thing I find interesting as a parent is sometimes doing the inverted commas wrong thing gets the immediate result in the moment of what you want.
So if it's to stop a behavior or something like that.
And so then I find myself getting, And I know it's wrong, but I find myself repeating that behavior because it worked.
Does that make sense?
Can you give me a specific example?
Sorry.
Yeah.
So let's go back to the biting thing.
So being bitten.
I yell really loudly.
The child stops, looks upset, but their biting has at least stopped.
Now I know that was the wrong response, but now I've sort of conditioned myself into thinking that oh, that worked.
Like there's a bit of my brain that goes, that worked.
So in desperate times, I'll pull that one out, even though I don't want to.
I find it really hard to avoid falling into the mistakes that work.
But I guess there's such a cost long term of continuing to make the mistakes.
I don't know what my question is.
Am I alone in that?
Yeah, I guess how do you resist that?
How do you resist the easy old method that we were taught as kids?
So the imprints from our childhood, yeah, they're massive.
And um, you know I, I think you know, we all know that you guys are having moments of therapy, but sometimes those voices just appear out of anywhere.
And it's usually when we are stressed and we are already in a semi-disregulated state.
So the more calmer and grounded we are as humans, the less likely we go to those places.
The first thing is to make sure you forgive yourself later, because this is exactly what's always happened.
You know I share a story about when because I was hit a lot as a little girl because I was the noisy, loud one who wouldn't do what she was told and all those sorts of things.
Only two in our family were hit a lot and that was me and my older brother.
He became an amazing emergency doctor.
Anyway, and it was only mum.
Mm-hmm.
Because that was her family.
That's exactly what happened.
She came from a family of 12.
And so at one point my oldest was just pushing all my buttons at one point and I swung back to hit him and I caught myself mid-flight and went whoa no, that's not who I'm going to be.
And that started a whole journey of therapy for me, exploring.
The reaction.
So I think it's really important that there's a difference between responding and reacting.
And my only tip to you is as you feel yourself getting, you can see what's escalating.
It's kind of going up the mountain is to really, that's when you take your steps.
That's when I'm going to take a few breaths.
I'm going to step outside for a moment and then I'll come back in.
Because you will more likely respond than react.
And it is just as simple as taking a few deep breaths.
There were times you know the boys all know that when everything got really fired up.
Sometimes I'd go for a walk, because that's just what I do when I'm wired up.
I don't talk about it.
I go for a walk sometimes.
And so if I'm only gone for 10 minutes, they're all going, wasn't she bad?
If I'm gone for 20, they sweep the floor.
If I'm gone for half an hour, they unpack the dishwasher.
Yeah.
They reckon if I go longer than that, they'll paint the house.
But I take responsibility for my hot feelings and I deal with them.
And I've said to parents you know, if you feel yourself getting poked in the bear by, you know, you know you're starting to escalate, put your hand up and go.
Excuse me, hold on.
I'm starting to get really, really stressed.
I'm going to take myself in my bedroom and I'm going to calm myself down so I can come out in a moment.
You go in, lock the door and you've kept some high quality fruit and nut chocolate in there.
It's really good.
You have to skomp some of that, take a few breaths, regroup and then you'll come out to be the parent you really want to be.
Now, what is your kid seeing?
They're seeing you.
Recognise. that I'm getting dysregulated.
And so you're actually modelling to them.
It's normal for us to lose our schmick, but that I'm taking responsibility.
And that's the scariest part of you know, parenting to realise that 92 of what your children will do is because of what you do, not what you say.
Damn it.
So it's the same thing.
It's what are you modelling to your kids?
I had a terrible moment yesterday that I just would give anything to go back in time and change.
I had told the kids I was going to take the three of them to a cafe, which for me as a kid, was just we didn't do it much.
It would have been so exciting and I just thought they'd be so happy to do it.
And all of a sudden they had decided it was a terrible thing to do and I wouldn't stop fighting.
And then I couldn't.
And there's some neurodiversity stuff making it extra challenging.
And then I just said the worst thing.
I said something had happened and I quite loudly yelled, I said, what is wrong with you guys?
Yeah.
It was such an awful thing to say because I really was looking at our you know, diverse child when I said it.
Yes.
And then I just, and then that child just looked so sad for the next couple of hours, like so sad, and said quite a few times because justice is a very big thing for this child said I actually wasn't doing anything.
I was sitting on the couch.
I was ready to go.
Why did you look at me and say, what's wrong with me?
And just kept asking me over and over.
And I said, I didn't actually mean to.
And they said, but you looked at me.
You're looking at me.
I didn't do anything wrong.
It was the other two.
And I just, I don't know.
But that thing of like, I just wish so much.
I had put my hand up and said, I'll be back in a second.
Yes, back in a second.
And just come back in two minutes because...
It's like the thing I think of is the guns they used to use back in the olden days, where you had to, like stoke the gunpowder and spend ages loading it and then by the time people are like no, I'm not that angry anymore.
So my top tip to anyone who has boys is I didn't go to a coffee shop for a very long time.
Yeah, okay.
That's why you're laughing.
It's my first mistake.
Okay.
And the second thing is that if I needed the boys to be able to really be trustworthy, to behave really well for 20 minutes, first thing I did was run the heck out of them, the gunk out of the motor, whether it was a park, or make them ride bikes for 20 minutes, shoot hoots.
They had to eat a sandwich in the bus on the way to the event, and I would get these immaculately well-behaved boys for 20 minutes.
But as soon as one of them starts wriggling, I'm out of there because I know they're not going to handle it beyond then.
Yeah.
And they gradually get better at it.
But, you know, like sometimes we take them to environments they will not be okay in.
Yeah.
And sometimes that's where there's China.
So don't take them into big department stores, because they're like picking stuff up and it could drop and then you look really bad.
Yeah, thank God for click and collect is all I can say.
I just feel like, I mean, there's so much, so many things to say right now as we sort of wrap up the episode.
Like one of them is keep talking.
Yeah.
Well, I was going to say I'm feeling the urge to make this 178 part series and we still wouldn't cover everything.
It's just, you're just incredible.
Like I would really like saying you're a national treasure is almost like if like it's an understatement.
I just feel like I don't know.
For me personally, you've made me want to get home and be my boys.
That's what I feel like doing right now, having spent time with you um and um.
I'm sure everyone listening right now feels a similar um, regardless of where they find themselves at the level of distress and stress for the parenting.
I feel like you you, I know you made me feel like I just want to be my boys at the moment, and that's a beautiful.
That's impossible at the moment.
So well done.
What's really?
You know, because I was just this little girl that came from the farm.
And then I was in Canada last year and I was at the Vancouver Aquarium because I like otters.
Are the otters the ones that hold hands?
Yeah, and babies on them.
Oh, man, they're so cute.
Anyway, this lady's reached out with a Canadian accent and said, Maggie, Dan, I love you.
You changed my life.
I used to hate these little poops.
Now I love them.
She's got three little boys.
And I held her hand and looked at her and we both burst into tears and I thought, how'd that happen?
Mm-hmm.
And then I've just come back from a trip to Romania where I spoke at a big parenting conference with Dr Dan Siegel, who I've been admiring for years.
And I had all these Romanian women doing exactly the same thing, because that's been translated to Romanian.
And to realise that you know, I could have done that from a little kid on the farm who was an annoying little rat who loved hanging out with her dad.
It's pretty mind-blowing.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, it's a bit unfair though, your brain developed when you were 22, 23.
That's an advantage.
Yeah, you've got a bit of a head start.
We pay our respects to elders past and present.
The Imperfix is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment.
The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 13 11, 14.
