Online exclusive
In July, US academic and author Andrew Reiner visited New Zealand to talk at six boys’ schools. Reiner, author of 2020′s Better Boys, Better Men: The New Masculinity That Creates Greater Courage and Emotional Resiliency, now writes about his visit, and offers solutions to the problems boys face, academically and beyond.
Everything hinged on a few honest words, creepy-looking white masks and getting hundreds of boys to go along with both. Let’s just say I had my work cut out for me.
I flew from the US to take part in a speaking tour of six boys’ schools in Christchurch, Auckland and Tauranga. The talks were the easy part. The harder part? Facilitating 15 workshops for hundreds of boys from Year 7 to 13.
My assignment was one I could easily fail: Getting boys to write on these masks, or on pieces of paper, words they rarely, if ever, uttered aloud. Most New Zealand boys — actually, boys everywhere — believe these words should never see the light of day.
Before I could get the boys to even consider thinking about these verboten words, I had to prime the pump. First, I walked them through a presentation about courage: the most celebrated forms of it (many of which require risking physical injury) and suggested that perhaps there were other forms of courage they had never considered.
Next, I presented clips from The Mask You Live In. This riveting documentary grabs viewers by the collar and helps them get inside the heads and hearts of boys and men who have struggled beneath the yoke of the old-school masculinity messages forced upon them when they were young and vulnerable.
These sound-bite stories left many younger boys’ mouths agape and it quelled some, not all, of the laughter and talking from older boys. Another part of the movie sucked the remaining resistance out of the rooms: a scene featuring a teacher and boy advocate, Ashanti Branch, sitting in a circle with five or six male students who looked to be 15 or 16 years old. Branch held up a piece of paper.
On the front of it, he asked each boy to write words that described the “face” they showed the world. On the back, he asked them to write words that they didn’t feel “safe” showing the world – the words they believe should never see the light of day.
When Branch read aloud the backside “mask”, the students grew gallows faced. One boy slumped down and hid his face as the group heard that he was struggling to care for a younger brother, struggling to make it through school. His friend put an arm around him, leaned into his hidden face and whispered something.
Normally, dramatic music that accompanies such stirring moments elicits jaded laughter from older boys. Not this time. The older boys (I didn’t show this clip to younger ones) grew silent, motionless, as if awaiting their own verdicts, which in a way they were.
“You may not have ever thought of it this way,” I told groups after turning off the video, “but what you just saw is also a form of courage.”
At each school, boys were given either the blank, plastic white masks with black Sharpies or pens with pieces of paper. I told them they were going to do the same activity as the one they’d just watched and braced for their resistance.
After all, I – a complete stranger and wonky educator-researcher-writer-type, from another country, no less – was asking them to commit to ink the sorts of feelings they rarely, if ever, admitted to, let alone shared with anyone. So, I expected the sort of responses they eventually wrote on the front – traits they showed the world: “Upbeat”, “happy”, “confident”, “funny”, “sporty”, “got it together”.
But I wasn’t expecting these responses on the flip side: “lonely”, “sad”, “lost”, “confused”, “scared”, “angry”.
These adjectives were so ubiquitous at every school it got to the point where I collected the plastic and paper masks and asked, “What do you think your classmates and friends wrote on the inside of your masks?” Every single time, the boys repeated these negative emotions and feelings, and more, as if they were scripted.
Which, in a way, they are.
Not making the grade
What I encountered is common around the world.
One of the most glaring ways boys are foundering occurs in the classroom. A 2024 UNESCO Report found that, globally, boys are at greater risk of falling behind in school or dropping out. Childhood Education International (CEI) spokesperson Jeremy Booth observed that since the early 2000s, girls have finally been receiving the access and resources to education they need.
“What has inadvertently fallen from public view is boys’ disengagement from education,” Booth says.
Reasons for boys’ decline range from the well-documented - social media, gaming, lack of sleep - to the less documented. Think: chronic stress, boredom, perceiving education as a disconfirmation of their masculinity and as futile in the pursuit of fame and wealth, among other factors.
Unfortunately, this isn’t something many older boys and young men just mature out of. Neuroscientists now recognise that brains mature later than we realised, for males as late as their early 30s. The right hemisphere of boys’ brains matures more slowly due to the flood of testosterone that occurs during adolescence. Other research finds that testosterone impedes young men’s emotional control in the prefrontal cortex, starting in early adulthood.
Other factors impacting boys’ resiliency may seem less intuitive. Many adults bemoan boys’ excessive consumption of online pornography. What they don’t realise is that, like excessive gaming, alcohol and cannabis consumption, porn plays a self-medicating role - especially for Generations Z and Alpha, who struggle with crisis levels of stress.
Masturbating releases hormones such as oxytocin, serotonin and endocannabinoids, which reduce anxiety, regulate emotional behaviour and support greater cognition and sleep. In the report “NZ Youth and Porn”, one 16-year-old boy observed, incisively, “I mainly tend to look at porn when I’m quite or very stressed and/or strained… The stress just gets to me, and I feel porn is the only real way to feel better…”
Amidst all of this sturm und drang, it’s no coincidence boys are turning to something that gives them confidence and agency, such as their physiques. This is why they’re vulnerable to the buffed influencers and imagery barraging them from social media, YouTube and streaming shows.
Their makeovers begin during early adolescence with dieting, which can lead to anorexia, excessive working out and steroid usages - slippery paths to pernicious physical and mental health outcomes. In the US, approximately 60% of boys change their diet on the path to muscularity. Research from Canada has shown that as many as 25% of Canadian adolescent males and young men struggle with muscle dysmorphia. What compounds this problem is that boys and men stigmatise eating and body image disorders, which makes them far less likely to seek help.
Perhaps no factor undercuts boys’ resiliency more so than anxiety and depression, which often goes untreated. And not merely because boys are resistant to seeking help. More than half of all New Zealanders aged 15-24 experience daily anxiety or depression. The epidemic of suicide among young men spotlights their quiet desperation, and a growing body of research reveals that when depressive symptoms that more commonly manifest in males are considered, there is far greater parity between males and females.
Then there’s this: Many males don’t realise their somatic symptoms – those physical symptoms that coincide with excessive and maladaptive thoughts, emotions, and behaviours – reflect depression or anxiety. In turn, this is exacerbated by healthcare practitioners who mis- and under-diagnosis depression in males because of their own biases.
The solutions
There are small, digestible steps we can take to help boys better develop resiliency and zero in on the one thing many boys need but lack — feelings of connection, of being in relationship, not just in a relationship.
Create a safety net
Too many boys (and men) lack what I call an “emotional safety net”. They don’t seek out the unconditional emotional support of close friends when they are struggling emotionally, because they don’t believe they have permission.
One way we can help boys feel they have a safety net is simply by reminding them, “I’m here if and when you want to talk,” when they are clearly upset. Modelling help-seeking for boys is also important. Just knowing they have permission to approach us with anything upsetting them is a gift many boys don’t have.
Keep the door open
If your son or any boy comes to you and wants to talk, try hard to have that conversation then and there. If that isn’t possible, let him know when you can have the conversation he wants to have – and keep your word.
The head of a boys’ school told me how he wishes his sons, in their 20s, would seek him out for conversations the way they do their mother. “They used to ask me to talk at 11 o’clock at night, when I was exhausted,” he told me. “I told them we’d talk the next day at some point.” That never happened. “Their feelings were hurt. For them, that door with me closed. It’s the one thing I regret as a parent.”
Try to remember: For many boys and men, crossing a room to have an emotionally honest conversation requires a lot of courage. Because so many males fear appearing vulnerable, that three-second-long walk can feel like 30 miles.
Don’t minimise or judge
Think about a time someone told you to “calm down” or “stop getting so worked up”. It probably enraged you even more, right? Boys feel the same way. Considering how wary many males are of showing their deeper feelings, sending them such critical messages feels shaming to them. And it reinforces the message that guys aren’t supposed to be emotional beings and thickens the wall to the emotions and feelings we want to encourage.
Instead, if your son or a boy exposes “big feelings” in front of you, try leading with a little empathy. For example, say, “I can see that you’re upset. Do you want to talk about it?” Or this: “I know I would be angry or frustrated if that happened to me. I don’t blame you for feeling that way.” The important thing is normalising their emotions, giving them permission to have them, so they learn to take down the wall, one brick at a time, deep within.
As with feelings, many older boys want their thoughts and opinions to be taken seriously – they want to know that they, too, have something important to contribute. That said, the quickest way to shut down a boy or young man is to invalidate his opinions. Like them or not, they are central to many adolescent boys’ identities.
Even if your son or student says something cringey, that’s okay. We don’t have to agree with or like everything that comes out of his mouth. Remember, brains and world views change with time. What’s far more productive is practising neutralising curiosity. “Huh, that’s an interesting insight [or opinion]. Why do you feel this way about it?”
Consume together
Many adolescent boys want to learn and experiment with their burgeoning sense of independence, which includes developing their own cultural tastes. And they want to be validated by people they care about and respect. The more we reject (think: criticise) their beloved pop culture forms or icons, the more they feel alienated from us.
Show some interest in the pop culture that your son enjoys and that is important to him. As painful as it might be, spend some time with him listening to his music or watching his favourite streaming shows. Once again, lead with curiosity: “What do you love about this song [or TV show]?” “How does it make you feel when you watch/listen to this?”
Little things matter when creating connection
After my workshops with boys in New Zealand, a surprising number of them approached me, shook my hand and thanked me for starting this conversation. At one school, five Year 7 boys told me afterwards how much they appreciated “talking about our deeper feelings” and asked for my autograph. (You better believe I photographed this moment.) One boy’s father shared with me that his son tacked on his bedroom wall the paper mask he created.
It’s important to remember that if we create a “safe” space and give boys “permission” to mine their deeper struggles, they will talk. Reconnecting with boys is the biggest step, and gift, we can offer and give towards helping them learn greater resiliency.
Boys and young men do want connection. More often than not, though, we have to be the ones re-braiding those ties, over, and yes, over again.