Raising Boys with Purpose: Dr. Alan Hahn on Masculinity, Mental Health, and Mentorship

So I wanna start this podcast with looking at some s- like, a couple stats and a couple figures.

And we know that our boys aren't doing well, and we're starting to see a, a shift.

And as a mom to a boy, I always tell the story that when I found out I was having a boy, I had a reaction at first that, of concern, and it wasn't that I didn't want a boy, I just knew there would be more struggle psychologically because he was male.

And how ...

Like, isn't that an interesting reaction to have because I'm a psychologist, that I worried having a boy?

Well, I suspect that most men when they hear they're having a daughter react very similarly, because it's just different.

And this is a good thing, that we don't understand the opposite sex fully, and it's probably a great thing that we don't fully understand each other.

But, you know, how am I gonna relate to my daughter? I have a son and a daughter, and I love them both equally, but I was, I felt especially unprepared for my daughter.

Yeah.

I think for me it also came from working with males and boys in therapy, and I saw this disparity, this where, you know, with our girls would come in, their struggles were normalized.

Does that make sense? Like, they were allowed to struggle with anxiety.

They were allowed to struggle with depression.

They felt like they could come and, like, open their heart up.

And I just found when I would see boys in therapy, whether they were seven or s- or 70, that there was, there was this piece around struggle that, that wasn't allowed.

Like, they felt so weak.

And I think what we know, like- And boys also now struggle more in education.

And I was a teacher, and I saw this.

The kids getting in trouble in class were boys.

The ones who were struggling academically were usually boys.

I also think that's how our education system is formulated, does not-- And Dr. Michael Gurian's work, we've had him on the podcast, he speaks to this at length, that schools are not designed for boys.

And I wholeheartedly agree with that based on the research on the brain.

But for an example on a stat that I read was that boys are two and a half times more likely to be suspended and expelled, that boys trail behind girls nearly a full grade by the eighth grade.

Boys comprise of seventy percent of K to twelve suspensions, uh, in the US.

So, and then there's, of course, a rising dropout of mental health-- dropout and mental health struggles in male youth.

We know suicide rates are much higher in males than, than females.