Real Questions, Grounded Reflections for Ep 4: Raising Boys with David and Jenny Brown

One of the things that Justin said was that parenting has become increasingly controlling and that boys grow best through connection rather than being fixed or managed.

And he made that point that connection is the currency of relationships.

I like that a lot.

What are your thoughts on that?

Well, I have two things that stand out for me on that.

One is I really like that Justin was asking how do we raise boys without making them a project, which fits with parenthood project.

The parent is the project, not the child.

I love that there was so much resonance there.

The connection piece I also love because connection is part of differentiation-based parenting.

But you would say that too much connection can

smother.

Yeah, too much connection can have us doing too much for our kids and losing ourselves in it.

I do think that Justin talked about when we make a project out of our boys...

It can very often come through as more over-controlling because the challenges that parents most speak about with their sons is their over-active, more defiant behaviour.

That's not always the case.

I've certainly spoken to many parents who've got very anxious, inhibited and shy boys as well.

When there is a boy who's acting out, who's extremely energetic, you do have parents who their way of focusing on their boys moves into trying to manage their behavior.

And a lot of the treatment out there is behavior management.

So I do like that Justin is saying, let's make this about relationships.

and how we turn up in a relationship with our sons and boys.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, look, I think most people tend to be light on connection.

So leaning in on that makes a whole lot of sense to me.

I don't agree, actually, that people are light on connection.

I think it's what the world says, but I don't think we realize it's what I've written about in The Parenting Paradox.