Letting Boys Be Emotional

This week's article summary is The Importance of Fostering Emotional Diversity in boys

If you asked people what’s the most important goal in their life, the most common response would be ‘to be happy’.

And happiness extends to our emotional state--we all want to be feel good and be happy most, if not all,  of the time.

 

If you’re familiar with the Buddha’s life, you know that for his first 20 years he was a pampered prince, never experiencing or even seeing any sadness or heartache; in the cloistered protection of his palace, he was shielded from the real world--its ills, pain, suffering, and ugliness. 

 

Not surprisingly, Buddha at some point had to leave this utopia and experience the real world. 

 

His story is an allegory for all of us. As we all know, experiencing only continuous joy and happiness is unrealistic and ultimately unwanted. Yes, we want to experience happiness but we also need to embrace a full range of emotions that result from the vicissitudes of our life.

 

As the article explains, parents/teachers encourage the full range of emotions with all myriad nuances in girls, yet don’t do the same with boys. Experiencing all our emotions and learning how to deal and react with them takes practice, reflection, and guidance. We do a disservice to boys by limiting their range of emotions to societal expectations for males—being stoic and unemotional. Consequently, boys/men are often more emotionally distant than girls/women because they haven’t been afforded the opportunity to experience their full emotional range.

 

The story of Buddha reminds us that perpetual happiness is an impossibility. We can dream of perpetually sipping a bottomless margarita on a Caribbean beach under a cloudless, azure sky, yet deep down we know that’s an unfulfilling existence. We all need to experience all life has to offer including its pain and suffering and employ our full range of emotions to handle the ups and downs of life.

 

Joe

 

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Psychologists have long championed the importance of cultivating positive emotions as one path towards optimizing well-being, resilience to stressors, and salutary physical health outcomes. Not surprisingly, when people are asked what emotions they want to feel, we place a heavy emphasis on wanting to feel primarily positive emotions.

 

However, research suggests the choice may no longer be a straightforward one. Recent work by psychologists reveals the once hidden benefits of experiencing a diversity of emotions, both positive and negative. 

 

This is consistent with what we have long known about emotions; namely, those emotions serve as a guidepost on the map of human experience, drawing our attention to the important markers in our environments—the warning signs, or things that need to be noticed, changed, or processed and understood. 

 

If having lots of different emotions is good for our health as adults, then shouldn't we be fostering the experience of a diverse range of emotions in young children as well? 

 

Research suggests we are not fostering emotional diversity from a young age, especially when it comes to raising young boys. As early as infancy, boys’ and girls’ emotional landscape differs. One study reported that when watching an infant being startled by a jack-in-the-box toy, adults who were told the infant was a boy versus a girl were more likely to perceive the infant as experiencing anger, regardless of whether the infant was actually a boy. Gender differences in the diversity of emotion words parents use in conversations with young boys and girls also emerge. Another study examining conversations between mothers and young children, mothers interacting with daughters employ emotion vocabulary of greater density and depth, whereas conversations with sons tended to focus primarily on a single emotion—you guessed it, anger. 

 

Regardless of whether gender differences in adult behavior arise from conscious or unconscious psychological processes, one thing is clear: boys grow up in a world inhabited by a narrower range of emotions, one in which their experiences of anger are noticed, inferred, and potentially even cultivated. This leaves other emotions—particularly the more vulnerable emotions—sorely ignored or missing in their growing minds.

 

Indeed, a lack of fostering emotional diversity in youth may have long-term problematic consequences. As early as elementary school, the avoidance of strong emotions (besides anger) results in academic underperformance in boys. Later in development, men suppress their emotions more than women; and men, in turn, experience greater depressive symptoms, and resort more often to physical violence. Scientists speculate that trouble regulating emotion may explain the link between restricted emotions and aggressive behavior towards others in men. This seems likely, given that the skills to regulate emotion are gained through practice, which boys may be less likely to have if they do not have permission to experience the full range of emotions.

 

Unfortunately, men’s restriction in emotional expression extends to the home—men are also less likely to share their own vulnerable emotions with partners and are less open to these experiences in their partners.

 

Experiencing the full range of emotions may not only benefit young boys’ psychological health but have far-reaching benefits for society at large.