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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers.

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Speaker 2: Now, it's not just schools that need to talk about consent.

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Speaker 2: It is every level of us and we must start

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Speaker 2: much earlier.

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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum

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Speaker 1: and dad.

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Speaker 3: Hello, this is doctor Justin Coilson.

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Speaker 4: I'm the author of six books about how to make

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Speaker 4: your family happier and I'm here with Kylie, my wife

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Speaker 4: and mum to our six daughters. How much fun was

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Speaker 4: yesterday's conversation with Maggie Dan.

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Speaker 5: Just so eye opening. I absolutely loved it and I'm

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Speaker 5: really looking forward to doing it again today.

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Speaker 4: Australia's Queen of common Sense. If you missed yesterday's podcast,

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Speaker 4: will pop into the show notes. We'll just jump into

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Speaker 4: your podcast feed and go back and have listen really

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Speaker 4: illuminating conversation about raising boys. Maggie is the author of

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Speaker 4: a bunch of great books, including Mothering Our Boys and

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Speaker 4: the new one, From Boys to Men, And we're going.

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Speaker 3: To continue our conversation with you. Maggie. Thanks for joining

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Speaker 3: us for the second day in a row.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much.

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Speaker 4: After a great conversation yesterday I want to make the

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Speaker 4: conversation a bit trickier today and spin around towards the

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Speaker 4: topic of consent and respect. So, Maggie, my first question

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Speaker 4: is how do parents help their boys to navigate these challenges?

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Speaker 2: All Right, The very first thing I want to start

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Speaker 2: with is what we've done in the last fifteen to

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Speaker 2: twenty years since the digital world arrived, is we've dropped

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Speaker 2: off the rails of the bridge that we used to

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Speaker 2: have in place around our boys and your girls in

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Speaker 2: not ways. So boys find out about the world through

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Speaker 2: that lens now, and then sadly, that's a lens that

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Speaker 2: lets them see really violent content which desensitizes them. They

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Speaker 2: do see pornography that it's very free. That's the meaning

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Speaker 2: of women. It's all about parent it's giving them mixed messages.

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Speaker 2: But also they're spending hours and hours in their bedrooms,

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Speaker 2: not around dining tables chatting to parents or uncles or aunts,

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Speaker 2: or they're actually dropping their participation in sports. So all

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Speaker 2: the influencers that were what I call lighthouse figures that

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Speaker 2: help their conscience have dropped away, and it's really really

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Speaker 2: been difficult. So what is happening is, yes, they are

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Speaker 2: being misled in this direction, and we have to all

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Speaker 2: step up. And I wrote a really powerful blog about

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Speaker 2: around It's not just schools that need to do talk

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Speaker 2: about consent. It is every level of us. And we

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Speaker 2: must start much earlier, so you can't just expect the

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Speaker 2: health teacher to just drop it in. And also what

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Speaker 2: we know in adolescence, you know they do start putting.

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Speaker 2: They meant to push back from us, They question what

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Speaker 2: we say. They want more autonomy, they want to have fun,

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Speaker 2: they want to take risks. They're biologically got no gabber

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Speaker 2: in their brain, which means their impulses are even worse

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Speaker 2: than they were when they were three and four. And

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Speaker 2: we need to see that. Many boys are incredibly confused.

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Speaker 2: And I kind of see there's four groups of boys

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Speaker 2: out there at the moment. There are the ones who

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Speaker 2: are genuinely, like you said, tender harder, being raised with

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Speaker 2: people who've spoken about what's the way to initiate anything

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Speaker 2: that's sort of an intimate level, and they are, yep,

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Speaker 2: making the right choices. We have the second group, and

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Speaker 2: they're the ones in bedrooms gaming who've decided, I don't

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Speaker 2: want to go out with my friends because I know

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Speaker 2: that I could be led into stuff I don't want

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Speaker 2: to do, so I'm going to stay here because I'm

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Speaker 2: not near alcohol, drugs, or inappropriate behavior with girls. The

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Speaker 2: third group are the boys who know it's wrong and

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Speaker 2: do it anyway, and that's a small group that is

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Speaker 2: contaminating everything. And the fourth is the boy who felt

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Speaker 2: that he learned online what he needed to do and

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Speaker 2: has now realized that wasn't okay and is now feeling

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Speaker 2: really bad. So we need to make sure the conversation

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Speaker 2: is kind of you know, nuanced in all of those directions.

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Speaker 2: And I think the thing is the message is that

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Speaker 2: being sexually intimate is something that needs to be valued

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Speaker 2: in relationships. One of the shifts that's happened via I

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Speaker 2: believe the digital world mainly is that sex is just

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Speaker 2: something you do right, It's just an activity. So many

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Speaker 2: boys have that notion, whereas that's not something for a

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Speaker 2: you know, someone enters their body that is that is

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Speaker 2: not something that's an activity you do lightly. And I

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Speaker 2: think there's we have big conversations, and I notice it

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Speaker 2: starting to change my challenges. Parents need to have these conversations.

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Speaker 2: I know they're all squirming, but we have to be

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Speaker 2: part of that and we have to be part of

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Speaker 2: it in our school environments and our community environments, that

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Speaker 2: we have this really clear message that everyone deserves to

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Speaker 2: be respected and that you know that that rule, that

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Speaker 2: three three way rule, would have been handy to have

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Speaker 2: by now. But I am really worried because I hear

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Speaker 2: a lot of boys just saying they're so disillusioned with

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Speaker 2: how badly they're being portrayed, you know, made to look awful.

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Speaker 2: They were the enemy in when they were little boys,

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Speaker 2: and now we're all bad now, and that's causing enormous angst.

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Speaker 2: And we already have some really serious concerns about heightened

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Speaker 2: levels of mental illness, and I don't even want to

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Speaker 2: mention the suicide word, but we really have to be

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Speaker 2: very careful how we manage this. And they're our boys

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Speaker 2: together and tell them that we can love them even

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Speaker 2: when they make mistakes.

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Speaker 5: Maggie, I'm just I'm loving this conversation. And in spite

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Speaker 5: of the fact that I'm a mother of girls, my

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Speaker 5: mother heart right now is just breaking for these boys

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Speaker 5: as we talk about the way, you know, as a

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Speaker 5: society they are being raised, and you know, I'm listening

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Speaker 5: to the conversation we're having around these really really difficult

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Speaker 5: conversations that we have to have with our children. And

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Speaker 5: you know, you've talked about these four different groups of

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Speaker 5: boys and the kinds of I guess, the way their

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Speaker 5: brains are working, and their challenges and is part of

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Speaker 5: the challenge that we're experiencing with the minority acknowledging that

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Speaker 5: this is definitely a minority because parents aren't stepping up

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Speaker 5: and having these conversations, or is this a much bigger problem?

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Speaker 2: Good question. I think it's a much bigger problem. I

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Speaker 2: think I've been talking a while about digital abandonment, that

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Speaker 2: the phone has actually really stepped into parents' hands just

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Speaker 2: as much as it is in our teens hands. So

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Speaker 2: we're actually less connected, we spend less time. If there's

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Speaker 2: one gift that came from twenty twenty, it was that

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Speaker 2: somehow or other, we got full people back together a little.

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Speaker 2: And I think that that role of key key people

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Speaker 2: in our lives what I call light house figures. And

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Speaker 2: I know you write the importance as well about aunties

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Speaker 2: for girls. I have been, you know, the auntie unofficial

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Speaker 2: auntie for many boys. But I think it's a collective

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Speaker 2: parenting that's dropped Kylie that we we kind of don't

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Speaker 2: seem to bat for as much for other people's kids,

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Speaker 2: whereas what we know is as our teens push us back,

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Speaker 2: what they need is other people's are the growing ups

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Speaker 2: in that space who they will listen to. And that's

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Speaker 2: part of my challenge at the end of the book

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Speaker 2: is we all have to step forward and say, right,

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Speaker 2: this is a time. We've got to all step forward

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Speaker 2: now collectively and say, look, I'm you know, I'm going

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Speaker 2: to watch out for my boys, you know, mates, because

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Speaker 2: listen to me, whereas he won't listen to his mum,

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Speaker 2: so I can suggest he washes the greasy hair or

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Speaker 2: wear some deodorant, and I won't get the kickback that

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Speaker 2: he will get with his mum or his dad did it.

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Speaker 2: So we've got to go back and say it's crazy.

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Speaker 2: But the more we get back to traditional kinship ways

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Speaker 2: of raising children, the healthy we all are because parents

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Speaker 2: also need growing ups around them supporting them during this

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Speaker 2: time and the world's become so judgy and nasty. And

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Speaker 2: I do believe that the negative effects of social media

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Speaker 2: impacts our boys and our girls deeply. And it's something

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Speaker 2: that you know is a whole new paradigm. It's like

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Speaker 2: an experiment on humanity. And it doesn't matter how much

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Speaker 2: we talk about it, that we all get caught up

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Speaker 2: with it, don't we. We all make moments where we

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Speaker 2: wish we hadn't said something or hadn't responded in a

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Speaker 2: certain way. So the immaturity that boys are later to mature,

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Speaker 2: they're later to mature as they go into school. They're

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Speaker 2: later to mature later on, and we're expecting them to

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Speaker 2: step up with the mature oudot brainon. And I just

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Speaker 2: think that's why I wanted to write the book. I

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Speaker 2: wanted you to understand the world through the lens of

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Speaker 2: a boy who has a very rapid changes in his brain,

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Speaker 2: his body, his psychology, his cognitive processing, his emotional brain,

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Speaker 2: so that most days he does not want to get

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Speaker 2: out of bed and be grumpy and moody and disrespectful. However,

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Speaker 2: it happens even before he knows has and he's probably

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Speaker 2: got a randomly erect penis that he hasn't even noticed

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Speaker 2: as well, So it's all going down and then people

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Speaker 2: laugh at them and make fun of them, which just

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Speaker 2: causes more shame and more self despair.

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Speaker 4: So if we were to summarize because unfortunately our time

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Speaker 4: is up. What do you think the three most important

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Speaker 4: things are for mums and dads?

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Speaker 5: Well, let's face that the village. We talk about these

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Speaker 5: lighthouse fiakers, Megan. I love that because my mantra for

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Speaker 5: our children has always been it takes a village and

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Speaker 5: as parents, trying to surround our children with strong figures

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Speaker 5: that they can look up to and they can turn to,

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Speaker 5: because there are some times we just don't want to

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Speaker 5: go to Mama, or you just don't want to talk

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Speaker 5: to dad, and you know, to be blessed with people

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Speaker 5: in your life who will invest in your children is

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Speaker 5: so imperative.

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Speaker 2: A boy tribe and it's really interesting that there's this

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Speaker 2: incredible shift in boys when they are around people who

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Speaker 2: love them when they were young boys. It's crazy, they

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Speaker 2: just melt into this different space. So boy tribe is

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Speaker 2: absolutely fundamental. Justin in this two is that we need

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Speaker 2: to be able to understand exactly the changes that are

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Speaker 2: going on and see the world through that poorly developed

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Speaker 2: brain and all those things. And the third one, you

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Speaker 2: just have to love them fiercely, unconditionally, over and over

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Speaker 2: do everything you can to connect in a way that

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Speaker 2: they know it. And I used to do little things

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Speaker 2: like randomly sit on them on the couch, tread on

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Speaker 2: their foot, or bump them sometimes, or make them their

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Speaker 2: favorite supper when they least deserved it, because I want

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Speaker 2: them to know that I'm not back in the way

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Speaker 2: and I've got your back all the way through. There's

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Speaker 2: nothing you'll do that will stop me loving you. That's

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Speaker 2: what they need.

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Speaker 4: Beautiful, such a great conversation. I wish we could talk

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Speaker 4: to you all day. We should do this more, Maggie.

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Speaker 4: Maggie Dan is the Queen of common sense. She's the

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Speaker 4: author of Mothering Our Boys. Oh, in fact, the author

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Speaker 4: of a bunch of books, but the most recent one

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Speaker 4: from Boys to Men, And if you're a parent of boys,

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Speaker 4: this is a book that really needs to be on

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Speaker 4: your bedside table and it becomes your bible in some

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Speaker 4: way if I can use that metaphor. Hey, we really

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Speaker 4: appreciate you, Maggie. Thanks so much for sharing your wisdom

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Speaker 4: with us on The Happy Families podcast.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much, you guys. Bye.

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Speaker 4: The Happy Family's podcast is produced by Justin Rulan from

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Speaker 4: Bridge Media. Craig Bruce is our executive producer and we

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Speaker 4: hope that you've loved it and that it's made your

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Speaker 4: family happier. If it has, please jump onto Apple Podcasts

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Speaker 4: and leave a five star rating and review. Because when

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Speaker 4: you do that, other people find out about the podcast

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Speaker 4: and then they get to listen to it and make

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Speaker 4: their family happier and everyone makes well, we get to

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Speaker 4: build up that village that Maggie was talking about. In

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Speaker 4: the meantime, if you'd like more info about making your

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Speaker 4: family happy, you can check out Maggie's website. I really

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Speaker 4: recommend you have a look at what Maggie has to offer,

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Speaker 4: or you can visit mine happyfamilies dot com dot au