“It is difficult to put into words the sadness I feel for the people of Newtown, and the victims of the Sandy Hook tragedy. My team and I join with all of you in sending our thoughts and prayers to the families and community of Newtown. A civilization measures itself by how it cares for its children, and we can do better in that regard. I know our country will absolutely do better and do more in 2013. We are a caring and adaptable nation. So that these children do not die in vain, I hope we can come together to address issues of mental illness, school safety, and gun violence. Part of enhanced focus on these issues will need to be a renewed and expanded focus on the lives of boys. Male development needs to get to the front of national conversation, or we will lose more innocent children to violence. Thank you for all that you do to make the lives of children better in your communities.”

Blessings on us all.

Its hard to let go of summer…you may be counting the days… of either summer staying or summer ending!

 Either way, it is inevitable. 

Use these tips to keep your cool:

PLAN it!

1. Get back into a “school” routine – earlier to bed, less screen time, and back to regular meal times.  
2. Visit school – do the drive, the walk, the bike, so everyone knows how much time it takes – where to meet you for pick-up, etc.
3. Visit the teacher – she likely doesn’t have time to visit you but may welcome a quick visit to the classroom with a bouquet of flowers, an offer to wash desks, or a Starbucks double caramel frappucino!  (Your child benefits from the sneak peak…and many anxieties can be allayed by just seeing where he or she will be.)

FUEL up!

1. They’ve been on the go all summer, grabbing snacks whenever they were hungry.  Now,  its back to eating on a schedule. 
2. Make sure meals are packed with protein – especially breakfast.  Try some ‘non-traditional’ breakfast foods such as chicken, nut butters, and cheese.  Proteins take longer to digest and will give your child the extended fuel needed to make it to lunch time.

3.   See a great idea for lunches here:  http://www.bigredkitchen.com/recipes/mason-jar-meals/

FRIENDS – or not!

1. Friendships change over the summer if kids have been out of touch.  Talk about possible changes ahead of time so your child isn’t surprised.
2. Brace yourself to keep your distance as friendships grow (sure, be aware and active but you are not reliving your childhood angst through your children).
3. Girls, especially, have relationship upheavals.  Michael Gurian, author of The Wonder of Girls suggests that along with your empathy, also ask her what role she played in the interaction.

It is a bittersweet time of letting go of summer and the relaxed, fun atmosphere yet it is also exciting to begin new adventures – to stretch and grow in new ways.  Be careful not to overcommit yourself early on and you’ll have the energy and enthusiasm to meet all that comes your way this year!

Here’s to a fabulously successful 2012-2013 school year!

But still, their testosterone and brains wire them to process feelings and emotions in these very boy-specific ways:

1.  The Action-Release method: Boys process and release feeling in quick bursts of displayed energy.  Slamming doors, angry yelling, burying themselves in a video game or physical activity – they are processing their feelings through action.  Sometimes this feels like rejection to us because they are processing the feeling through actions that seem to isolate or may be dangerous.

2.  The Suppression-Delayed Reaction method:  The male brain is a problem-solving brain, so emotional reactions are delayed in order to solve the problem.   It is common to see boys who do not come to their parents with problems until a week or more later.  They may have seemed off-kilter, then when he says what has been bugging him, he realizes that he had experienced some emotional pain, and didn’t recognize it as such.  Best strategy: let him know you’re there and show him that he exists within a safe structure to continue living his life despite his twisted insides.

3. The Displacement-Objectification method:  Boys need us to give them more time to talk than girls typically need, and they often need us to connect their feelings to objects in the outside world.  Boys tend to project emotions into outside space and to displace emotional responses from original sources to safer, inanimate receptacles.  A smashed up car as a metaphor for feeling beat up, for instance.

4.  Physical-Expression method: Boys will experience, express, and expel their feelings physically.  We must give boys enough physical space, enough disposable objects, and enough training in boundaries of physical space.   A punching bag in the basement means he has a place to dispel his feelings physically.  That is not to be confused with having permission to hit anything or anyone.  A wise adult teaches, “When feelings overwhelm you, bring them here.  Then you’ll know how to return to the company of others, with your feelings more clear.”

5.  The Going-Into-The-Cave method:  Boys do not process feelings quickly.  Males can take up to seven hours longer to process emotions.  Boys often feel overwhelmed by the swirl of feelings and verbalizations around him.  The often need time away, in their room or their fort, to get away from the stimulation.  Boys often need us to show them that it’s okay to go into the cave and it’s essential that the boy feel good about coming out of the cave (where we’ll be waiting) to be reaccepted and refined by his insights.

6.  The Talking-About-Feelings method:  After about seven or eight, boys  are less likely to process their feelings by talking about them.  It’s a lot easier to ask him later what he felt; at the time the experience is happening, he often just doesn’t know what he feels and feels invaded when we force him to say what he does not know.  Talking about feelings often doesn’t work – yet we have to keep trying.  Pick the right moment.  Ask him “What do you think?” rather than “How do you feel?” to start the flow of conversation.

7.  The Problem-Solving method:  Males move to problem-solving as quickly as they can.  They see a problem, it agitates them, and once they solve it they feel much better.  They don’t give as much emotive energy to low-level problems as we think they should.

8.  The Crying method:  Boys, by the time they reach school age, will cry only under very stressful or very safe circumstances.  It is about the most vulnerable a boy can be.  That vulnerability is frightening not only because culture teaches him not to cry but because in order to cry he must be processing hard emotive data at such a fast and confusing rate that he feels he is losing himself.  Boys process their feelings through other methods than tears – through action, problem-solving, displacement.

We must recognize that the danger in male biology is its tendency to repress feelings.  “I don’t know what I feel,” a boy (or a man) will say.  “I just don’t know, help me.”  This is a terrible problem for males.  Thus, many of our cultural efforts to help boys and men feel more, even cry more, are worthwhile.  Yet emboldening the male-specific methods might be more fruitful than some of the methods for sensitivity training in which we try to get males to talk about their feelings and cry on call.  This is often unnatural for them, whether they are a boy or a man.

How do the males in your life handle their feelings?  How can you support their unique expression of feelings without overlaying how you think feelings ‘should be’ expressed?  It’s a big task…tell us what your experience has been!

Girls Need Safe, Intimate Relationships

Girls naturally seek intimacy and attachment, even from a young age.  Witnessing his daughters’ approach to playing soccer when they were young, Michael Gurian noticed that when the girls would knock another player over, they would stop and make sure they were okay.

[note: the girls in the photo stand under the banner: "Sisters United"]

Observing the boys, Michael noticed that they would knock other boys over and not stop to help them up, intent on making the goal.

Carol Gilligan, the noted Harvard feminist, asked women to describe themselves and compared their self-descriptions with men.

Women spoke of their:

• Sense of identity
• Sense of purpose
• Sense of passion

Men, on the other hand, spoke of their:

• Search for independence
• Focus on a singular goal

Gilligan summarized, “In all of the women’s descriptions [of themselves], identity is defined in a context of relationship and judged by a standard of responsibility and care.  Similarly, morality is seen by these women as arising from the experience of connection…”

Though Gilligan did not use brain research in her studies as Michael does in The Wonder of Girls, they come to a similar conclusion.

When you look into your daughters’ eyes, do you notice your daughters defining themselves, to a great extent, by how they connect with others?  As Michael observed his growing daughters, he saw girls who liked to be alone sometimes, but also girls who are searchers into the webbed mysteries of intimate connections in nearly all their interactions.  He watched girls who, even when alone, naturally focused on how relationships went or are going.

Boys certainly possess an imperative to intimacy, too.  And yet, the male’s need for intimacy is not quite the same thing as the intimacy imperative that so completely awakens a girl’s heart – and her brain.

Her Brain and Her Natural Need for Intimacy

Females have 15% greater blood flow in the brain than most males.  And this blood flows to both hemispheres, which means her brain is more active – all the time!  Have you noticed how hard it is for girls and women to “turn off” their thinking and how it is much easier for males?

Girls tend to be more attentive to more people more of the time than boys.  Boys tend to focus their energy on narrower stimuli.

Female/Male Channel-Surfing Patterns

Males often “zone out” in front of the TV, channel-surfing and not stopping for any long-term engagement, especially with any material that will require a lot of mental or emotional processing.  It’s a form of brain rest for males.

Females, on the other hand, more often stop surfing at a drama that involves scenes in which people are talking or otherwise in interaction and relationship.

Notice how girls, more often than boys, quickly tire of video games?  Girls seek talk and other relational stimulation that excite more parts of the brain at once.  If a typical 13-year old girl has to choose between a video game and giving a friend a call, she’ll generally choose to pick up the phone.

Attention Differences

In the classroom, teachers reported 2 boys to every girl “blanking out” in the school day.  With more blood flow in the female brain, she is more able to pay attention to others.  Given this blood flow difference, it is no wonder males are about seven times more likely than females to develop an Attention Deficit Disorder.  The female brain is, by genetic structure, less prone to an attention problem because it is internally, inherently and more constantly attending to others and to the flow of connections, lessons, learning, and relationships.

What does it mean to have a daughter?

As Michael grew up, his boyhood was dominated by a “good guy” and “bad guy” psychology – black and white.  His daughters are more interested in the subtleties of relationships, beyond black and white.

He sees their “swords of words” rather than the physical fighting and wrestling that he enjoyed.

Though his daughters enjoyed soccer, he saw less will to compete and more will to connect.

The female mind is electrified by the constancy of contact and attachment, we must help them find ways to have the safe,  intimate relationships they need.

From The Wonder of Girls:  Girls’ biology differs significantly from boys’ biology.  Because of structural and functional differences in the female and male brain, girls [and women] sense, remember, enjoy and experience personal needs and desires differently than boys [and men].  They use their bodies differently, and their words.  They even experience God, religion, and spirituality in neurologically differing ways.

The Stages of Female Brain Development

Brain development milestones make each developmental stage unique.

The Child: Birth to Five -

Girls and boys are relatively alike in this stage, compared to later stages of development.  Their bodies look the same and you may have to look closely to see physical, emotional and mental differences.

By five, her brain is, in general mass, nearly completely formed.

Female/Male differences:  Her brain grows more quickly from right to left.  She, at very young ages, already uses a higher quantity of words and more coherent language.  She speaks, in general, earlier than he does.  Her brain secretes more serotonin, which is directly related to greater impulse control, making her physically calmer than most 2- and 3-year old boys.  Her brain secretes more oxytocin, stimulating a tend-and-befriend feeling.  She plays with more “care-objects” than he does (at any age).

Many brain structures and patterns are well set by age five – the foundation has been set.  But the foundation is not enough to live in, she needs to start constructing the house.

The Girl: Six to Ten -

Now the girl knows she is a girl – she has gender identified.  Male/female differences are becoming clearer to her.

By ten, the epic use-then-prune of brain cells begins, as does the cognitive development that makes an adult brain think like an adult.

Female/Male differences: She can now begin to hold back from throwing a temper tantrum, being able to think and talk when she is hurt or angry.  By eight or nine, the hippocampus, the home of memory storage is developing (at a different rate than boys).  She tends to be better at completing a three-step task than he is because she remembers the steps.  She is even more compelled to “connect” with new input, information, new designs (algebra) and new emotive stimulants (friends, more time alone with one parent).

The Adolescent: Eleven to Fifteen -

Adolescence often begins before eleven and so this age-beginning is not set in stone.

At fifteen, the adult cognitive thinking is nearly fully formed.

This is a second birth for your daughter and can be a frightening episode due to the massive changes on all fronts – physical, mental, social.  Reassurance is essential now – “You’ll be okay.” While she is more independent and self-sufficient than she was as an infant – she is also vulnerable – emotionally and physically.  Her abilities are growing in leaps but may be less obvious because you aren’t around her as much.  She takes on new skills, new insights, new abstract concepts, and new abilities to think and argue with you – and just as quickly crash with drops in self-esteem as she seeks to manage an adult character and adult emotional structure.  These are amazing years of brain growth and it’s often found that what she enjoys at this stage, she will continue to enjoy throughout her life.

Female/Male differences:  Girls have increased brain activity and tend to think about a lot of things almost all the time.  They think everything out and take things personally.  He tends to be more single-task oriented.  He doesn’t tend to take in five or ten elements of any situation before he makes a decision.  Handling stress:  She will respond to stress much differently than he does.  Girls reaction to stress may be to become quiet, withdraw, unable to eat, and unwilling to communicate.  The male brain compels him to act out his stress in violence, increased drug and alcohol use, and other high-risk behavior.

The Young Woman: Sixteen to Twenty -

The girl makes her passage into womanhood.

At twenty, the myelination of the brain cells is mainly completed, thus the brain is technically adult.  Her brain is able to think in the abstract, giving her a new ease as she focuses on love relationships, her education, her future, and activities she enjoys.

Female/Male differences:  She completes the mylenation of the brain earlier than he does, signaling maturation sooner for her.  She is able to verbalize her emotions, think consequences out more fully, and use more words in general.  She can read emotions on faces more accurately.  She tends to feel pain more than he does and enjoy long-term tactile contact than he does. She is often more mature morally at 16, than he is at 21.

And, of course, in all of this there are many exceptions.  There are young men who are more mature, empathetic, and effective speakers than young women.  However, most of these differences hold true for all stages of female development.

More next time on : Girls and The Intimacy Imperative

Boys Need a Tribe

Boys have been tribal creatures for millions of years.  They protected their families and nations in tribal groups, groups we later called ‘armies’, ‘the workforce’ and ‘clans.’  Their brains are encoded with this experience.

The basic need for groups in boys’ lives has not changed much – boys still seek groups to grow up in, and men still work together in groups.

What has eroded is the rich tribal quality of the group.  Over the last few hundred years two distinct changes occurred in the workings of these tribal groups:

• The LEADERS became less service-oriented and more ego-oriented
• The FOLLOWERS became more individualistic and less collaborative

The culture in which you parent, mentor, or educate boys exhorts them to be individualistic and group-oriented at once, but does not give them a tribal structure in which to accomplish both in balance.  It used to be that the tribe formed a boy’s character while the peer group existed primarily to test and befriend that character.  Nowadays, boys’ characters are often formed in the peer group.

In order to learn how to live and learn how to love, boys need a tribe.  If they don’t get one from us, they’ll make one, and it may be a dangerous one.

The First Family

The key components of a first family are primary caregivers and role models.  Traditionally this has been mom and dad.  The “traditional 1950s nuclear family” is, for many, an economic and emotional impossibility.

Single mothers, single fathers, grandparents raising kids, gay and lesbian couples raising kids – these are all first families.

 The Second Family

Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., once had this to say:  “Until recent times, human beings usually had a permanent community of relatives.  They had dozens of homes to go to. .. if the kids got so fed up with their parents that they couldn’t stand it, they could march over to their uncle’s for a while.  Now this is rarely possible.  Each family is locked into its little box.  The neighbors aren’t relatives.  There aren’t other houses where people can go and be cared for.  When we ponder what’s happening to America – “where have all the values gone?” and all that – the answer is perfectly simple.  We’re lonesome.  We don’t have enough friends or relatives any more.  And we would if we lived in real communities.”

In most cultures some kind of nonblood kin system is built into tribal life.  The nonblood kin provide a second family for a boy, giving him a place to go when he is in tension with his first family, and providing him with echoes, new voices, and alternative visions.  What it takes, most of all, is an openness to nonblood “relations.”

Though we Americans are trained to do everything individualistically, we must come to realize that once we have kids, individualism is impractical and self-defeating.

We need to ask one or two people to become godparents.  And most of all, we need to feel comfortable relying on these people throughout our boy’s life.  We are giving them as much of a gift as they are giving us – we are giving them the beautiful responsibility over our child.

When we parents bring others into our family system, we often find we’re providing single people, divorced people, and elderly people with children to care for….trust a few others and build a family to include them.

The Third Family

In school, in the media, on the streets, our boys find their third family.  This third family is the hardest for us to manage.  Two key components are the educational system and community programs.  Mentoring programs should be mandatory for at least a year of junior high and a year of high school in which parents and a teacher, coach, or counselor mentor the boy on delicate issues, like sex education.  It would be very beneficial to link schools with other community agencies to build co-curricula for boys.  If schools can link up with churches and neighborhood action committees to provide programs for boys,  foundation will be set for the boy to feel that his third family is providing a place for him to learn who to be.

The 3-family system is just as crucial for girls as it is for boys.   Children yearn for the concentric circles of attachment.  Parents of daughters are challenged to create three families for girls in the way their brains emphasize:  ways that protect their need to be protected and enlivened by constant, various sources of connectivity.  They need the three families to teach them the codes of relationship, and even more importantly, be so stable as to give them safe environments in which to discover the codes themselves.

Girls AND boys need three families to teach them not only about themselves but about the confusing world of the opposite gender, too.

“A child’s life is like a piece of paper on which every passerby leaves a mark.”  Chinese proverb

Long before you may ever have imagined being a parent, Michael was sounding the alarm – our boys, along with our girls, needed attention – each gender having their own unique challenges.  Parents and teachers heeded his warning and made The Wonder of Boys a New York Times bestseller.

Then, six years later, at the behest of many parents of girls, Michael wrote The Wonder of Girls, which became a bestseller as well.  Subtitled “Understanding the hidden nature of our daughters,” Michael, as the father of two daughters, had at last written the book that would give parents the road map they asked for.

Now, a decade later, both The Wonder of Boys and The Wonder of Girls serve as a corner stone  of a revolution – a revolution for our children.  By rallying around them, we uplift boys, girls, women, and men.  And we thrive.

The Wonder of Boys -

In the introduction to his tenth anniversary edition, Michael reflects, “…boys have inherited from us adults not only a great deal of our mettle, our tenderness, our drive, and our accomplishments – but also our insecurities and unresolved conflicts, [and] the weight of our questions…”

These questions are more relevant than ever, and here at the Gurian Parenting Community, we’ll be returning to them again and again:

• What is a man?
• How should boys become men?
• How should boys and men show their love and be loved?
• In what way do males have a sacred role in this life?

The Wonder of Girls

Subtitled, “Understanding the Hidden Nature of Our Daughters.”

This book explores both the nature and nurture of why girls are the way they are and what girls need in the stages of life. 

Girls and boys mature, grow, and learn differently, and what works for a boy can, at times work for a girl, but at other times, different strategies and thinking are needed for positive and successful parenting.

This scientifically-based developmental map of girlhood gives parents a comprehensive guide to raising daughters.  From how her brain develops, and how her monthly cycle affects her outlook on life to how-to mother and father a daughter, Michael not only helps empower girls to succeed, but helps parents promote the ideals of self-knowledge and service.

Michael provides guidance for parents as their daughters begin to ask these important questions:

• Who am I?
• Can I trust myself?
• What are my core values?
• What is love?

We’ll continue to return to these questions – we want to hear your thoughts and experiences as you raise your daughters.  Sharing with each other makes a rich and rewarding conversation.

These are far-reaching concepts to consider but they are concepts that your daughter may ask you about in a variety of ways as she creates her own vision of what it is to be a woman.