You walk down your hallway and do a double-take.

At about the height that a six-year-old stands, in the chicken-scratch scrawl that a six-year-old uses, someone has written “PoOPy HEAd” in crayon on the wall. 

Your son is six years old, as tall as an average six-year-old, and enjoys saying phrases like “poopy head.”

Hmmm . . . using your keen Sherlock Holmesian detective skills, you deduce it was your son who graffitied the hallway. 

So you confront him about it.

“Hey Jeff, did you write poopy head on the wall?”

Jeff looks you dead in the eye: “I didn’t do that.”

“Are you sure? Because it looks like your handwriting.”

“Nope.”

“Are you lying to me?”

“No.”

Jeff’s well-acted protestations aside, you know he was the perpetrator. 

Now you’re ticked at him for writing on the wall and for lying to you about it. 

So you raise holy hell about both crimes.  

You send him to his room after harshly lecturing him on the importance of telling the truth. 

While he’s in there wailing and gnashing his teeth, you wonder, “Is my kid some kind of sociopathic liar? How can I make sure he doesn’t grow up to be a crook?”

Below we highlight research-backed advice on what to do when your kids lie to you and how to encourage them to grow up to be honest and upright.

The Good News About Childhood Lying

While catching your kid lying can feel like a gut punch that makes you doubt your parenting, it’s not necessarily as bad of a thing as you might think. Here’s some good news about childhood lying:

Lying is part of children’s cognitive development. If your kids are lying to you, then celebrate! They’re developing the cognitive skills needed to become fully functioning human beings. 

Lying requires having theory of mind. Theory of mind is the ability to understand that other people have minds of their own and don’t think/know the same things that you think/know. It allows you to step into other people’s shoes.

When you lie, you understand that the person you’re lying to can’t read your thoughts and doesn’t know stuff you know. So if your kid ate a cookie when you weren’t looking, theory of mind allows her to know that you don’t know that she ate the cookie. So when you ask her if she ate it, she sees an opportunity to get away with her crime and lies to say she didn’t. 

Children start developing a theory of mind around three or four years old. Until then, infants and toddlers think that whatever they’re thinking/feeling/perceiving is what others are thinking/feeling/perceiving too. It’s why when my son Gus was eighteen months old, he would “hide” by simply covering his eyes with his hands. He thought that because he couldn’t see me, I couldn’t see him, even though he was sitting right in front of me in his high chair. While undoubtedly cute, it was a big fail in terms of theory of mind.

Childhood development specialists notice that most kids start lying around age three because that’s when their theory of mind is beginning to turn on. As they get older, it develops more and more.

While it can be a bummer to have your kids lie to you, understand that it’s a sign that their minds are developing as they should. The same theory of mind that allows them to lie about breaking the lamp will one day enable them to become compassionate and empathetic adults. 

Your kid likely isn’t a pathological liar. While it might seem like your kid lies to you a lot, especially in those middle childhood years that span ages five to eleven, you don’t need to fear that your child is a sociopath. 

Research by Victoria Talwar, a psychologist who specializes in childhood deception, shows that most kids who lie a lot in childhood still grow up to be honest adults. Honesty is something that increases as people get older. 

So if your kid is lying, don’t freak out. It’s probably not setting a pattern for life. 

How Do I Know If My Kid Is a Pathological Liar?

Pathological lying is defined as:

“a persistent, pervasive, and often compulsive pattern of excessive lying behavior that leads to clinically significant impairment of functioning in social, occupational, or other areas; causes marked distress; poses a risk to self or others; and occurs for longer than six months.”

If your kid’s frequent lying is getting them into trouble at school and in other areas of life, it might be a pathological problem. Moreover, pathological lying is often associated with other issues like anxiety and conduct and personality disorders. 

If your kid is lying a lot and it’s impairing their life, and you see other behavioral issues related to the lying, consider getting professional help.

But if your kid lies, even fairly often, but is for the most part an otherwise well-adjusted kid, you probably shouldn’t sweat it too much. Just focus on consistently disciplining them so they learn to tell the truth.

What to Do When Your Kid Lies to You

Stay calm. If you blow your gasket every time your kids do something wrong, they’ll be motivated to lie about their mistakes to avoid experiencing your wrath. So when you’re chastising your children for a misdeed, be firm yet dispassionate with your discipline. 

Don’t give them the option to lie. If you know your kid did something wrong, don’t give them the opportunity to lie by asking, “Did you do X?” It’s like entrapment. Instead of making the initial misdeed the issue, you turn it into a test to see if they’re going to lie or not. Your kid will likely feel backed into a corner and will lie to avoid the negative consequences of the initial misdeed. 

Instead of asking, “Did you do X?” say, “I see on the Screen Time app that you were using your iPad at 4 a.m. this morning. Consequently, you’ll have no screens for the rest of the week.”

In cases where you think your kid did something wrong, but you can’t prove it (e.g., you think your kid snatched a $10 bill off the counter, but it’s also possible you lost it yourself), and your child denies the crime, persistently badgering them with “Are you lying to me?!” isn’t likely to get you anywhere. Your kid will just get defensive and double down on their innocence. And you don’t want to continually accuse your child of being a liar when it’s possible they’re telling the truth. Emphasize the importance of being honest even when it’ll lead to negative consequences; but if your kid doesn’t confess, sometimes you just have to let things go.

Don’t call your kid a liar. You don’t want to label your kid a liar. You don’t want a discrete misdeed to become a general, globalized label that your child may absorb into their identity. Concentrate on the particular instance of lying at hand and treat it as a behavior, not a pervasive flaw.  

Establish a clear, consistent consequence for lying. When a child plays a video game, he knows that if he makes X misstep, he gets Y penalty; a mistake dings his life-o-meter without fuss or variability. 

Parent in a like manner: Instead of allowing the severity and consistency of your punishments for misbehavior to vary according to your particular mood and/or how effectively your child pleads for clemency, establish a clear consequence for lying in advance; then, when your kid lies, dispassionately implement the consequence. The type of consequences you establish will vary depending on your child’s unique circumstances. The key is to keep them consistent.

Treat the misdeed and the lie covering the misdeed as separate issues. The most common reason kids lie is to avoid taking responsibility for the negative consequences of their misbehavior. One of the reasons most parents feel so concerned when their children lie, is that a sense of personal responsibility is something they very much want their children to develop.

To help inculcate responsibility-taking when disciplining your children for lying, be sure to separate the consequences for their initial misdeed from the consequences for lying about the initial misdeed. In the heat of the moment, the punishments for the former and the latter often get mixed together, and the child receives one blanket punishment. Instead of bundling their crimes, be clear that they are receiving X punishment for their initial misdeed, and Y punishment for lying about that misdeed. This separation drives home the idea that every decision has consequences. And by emphasizing to your child that they are receiving a punishment for lying on top of the punishment for the initial misdeed, it discourages them from lying in the future. 

Something we always try to emphasize when we catch one of our kids lying is that there’s no reason to follow the making of one mistake with the making of another; it only makes things worse. 

Emphasize the importance of truth-telling. You don’t need to give a twenty-minute lecture about the importance of honesty, but when your kids lie to you, spend a few minutes discussing the importance of telling the truth. Talk about the centrality of honesty to good character. Talk about the centrality of honesty to strong relationships — that if they lie, you can’t trust them, and you want to be able to trust them.

Let your kids know that you expect them to be honest with you in the future. The goal of discipline isn’t just to punish bad behavior but to encourage kids to grow in character and do the right thing next time. To best nudge them in that direction, don’t just tell them that honesty is important — explain why it’s important. 

How to Raise Honest Kids

Walk the talk. Kids imitate what they see. If you want them to be honest, be honest yourself. If you’re always going on about the importance of honesty, but then your children overhear you lying to get the under-age-12 price on a ticket into an amusement park, they’re going to pick up on your hypocrisy. Your actions will always speak louder than your words. 

Talk about honesty. Devote some of your weekly family meetings to discussing the importance of telling the truth. Read stories or watch movies that grapple with honesty. Go through hypotheticals with your kids that involve the temptation to lie. The more your kids stew in the idea of integrity, the more likely they are to develop it.

Acknowledge and recognize honest behavior in your kids. You get more of what you reward. So if you want your kids to be more honest, recognize and praise their honest behavior. Researchers point out that positive feedback is more effective than negative feedback in inculcating good habits. So as much as possible, aim to “catch” your kids being truthful. When they fess up to a mistake of their own accord, tell them that you really appreciate their honesty. And remind them that, while you still have to enact a consequence for their misdeed, their punishment would have been worse if they’d lied about it.

The post What to Do When Your Kid Lies to You appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

With our archives now 3,500+ articles deep, we’ve decided to republish a classic piece each Sunday to help our newer readers discover some of the best, evergreen gems from the past. This article was originally published in June 2014.

Throughout this year we’ve been running a series on how to father with intentionality and create a positive family culture.

Whenever we’ve written on this topic, we invariably get comments from some men who have decided to opt out of the marriage and kids route altogether. Often (though not always) the root of these commenters’ decision to steer clear of family life is their own personal experience: they come from families where home was not a haven. Arguing, infidelity, a lack of love, and ultimately divorce are what these men know of family life. Maybe they were even abused as children by one of their parents. Why even get married or start a family if that’s how it’s going to be?

And they have a point. The research strongly suggests that marriage and divorce patterns get passed along from generation to generation. If you come from a family of divorce, your attitude about marriage is less likely to be positive, and if you do get married, the chances your marriage will end in divorce are statistically higher than for folks who come from intact families. Also, research shows that people who were abused by their parents as children are much more likely to abuse their own children. It’s sort of a fulfillment of the biblical idea that curses persist through many generations.

But those studies only tell half the story.

Other research suggests that you’re not destined for the divorce courts and multiple Christmases just because you and/or your spouse come from divorced families.

In fact, the research shows that individuals can consciously choose to break the cycle of unhappy home life by becoming what marriage and family scholar Carlfred Broderick calls a “transitional character.” A transitional character, according to Broderick, is:

A person, who, in a single generation, changes the entire course of a lineage. The changes might be for good or ill, but the most noteworthy examples are those individuals who grow up in an abusive, emotionally destructive environment and who somehow find a way to metabolize the poison and refuse to pass it on to their children. They break the mold. They refute the observation that abused children become abusive parents, that the children of alcoholics become alcoholic adults, that ‘the sins of the fathers are visited upon the heads of children to the third and fourth generation.’ Their contribution to humanity is to filter the destructiveness out of their own lineage so that the generations downstream will have a supportive foundation upon which to build productive lives.

I love the idea of being a transitional character — of forging a new, stronger link in your family lineage. Instead of being tethered to a string of weak links, you can proactively create a new chain and a new story for your family — one that’s much more positive.

I’d argue that being a transitional character applies to more than just family stability. Even if you didn’t come from a family of divorce, maybe you want to be more involved with your own kids than your dad was with you and your siblings. You don’t want your life to mimic the song “Cat’s in the Cradle.”

Or maybe you have a family history filled with overweight and out-of-shape men who’ve keeled over from a heart attack at age 50. You can be a transitional character by leading your family into a life of health and fitness, and sticking around to see your grandkids get married. If debt troubles have plagued your family for generations, be the first person that shifts your family history towards the path of financial responsibility.

Being a transitional character means looking at any vice or problem that’s been a common thread throughout your family history and deciding: “It stops with me.”

With that said, becoming a transitional character is often easier said than done. You’re fighting against the stream of deeply ingrained patterns that you picked up in childhood and throughout your formative years. Becoming a transitional character requires you to completely transform how you see and respond to your world and environment. It’s a difficult task fraught with missteps and backsliding.

But it can be done.

Below we provide some research-backed suggestions on how to forge a new chain in your family history by becoming a transitional character:

1. See yourself as a transitional character.

The initial step in becoming a transitional character is simply to see yourself as one, and to make that mantle part of your identity. This first requires recognizing that you’re part of a negative family story. It necessitates the humility to admit that without intentional, concerted effort on your part, there’s a good chance you’ll continue that negative narrative. We like to think of ourselves as capable of overcoming our parent’s influence, but it’s surprisingly hard. We often think we’re nothing like them, only to see the old familial traits suddenly, and dishearteningly, emerge in us during certain periods of our lives. Certainly it’s a truism of parenthood that you’ll eventually catch yourself doing or saying the exact same thing to your own kid that your parents said or did to you. It’s one of those moments of anagnorisis when you realize, “I’m just like my father!”

Once your recognize the obstacles you have to surmount, mentally and emotionally anoint yourself as the transitional character in your family. Tell yourself that things will be different with you.

2. Imagine your posterity.

To give yourself motivation on those days when you feel like being a transitional character is too much work, take five for a quick visualization exercise. First, imagine the negative effects you could pass down to your kids, and their kids, if you don’t uphold this new set of standards. For example, if you come from a family where most everyone is obese, imagine your kids married and overweight, and your obese grandchildren wheezing as they try to play, being bullied for their size, and getting a diagnosis of childhood diabetes. Now wipe that disconcerting scene from your mind and instead imagine your grown children in another way: fit and happily looking on as their own healthy kids energetically romp around the backyard.

When you get overwhelmed about the effort it takes to reverse negative familial patterns, take the time to think about the kind of life you want for your posterity. Will they be telling stories to their children and grandchildren about how just three generations ago divorce, poverty, obesity, and addiction were the family norm, but that it all changed with you?

3. Marry someone from an intact family.

According to Brad Wilcox, The Director the National Marriage Project at the University of Virginia, research shows that if you come from a broken home, your chances of divorce decline if you marry someone from an intact family. Someone whose parents are still married has likely picked up some positive habits for marriage and parenting. And by spending time with your in-laws after you get hitched, you’ll also get to see a model of how an intact family operates.

Now, I’m not suggesting that you make your potential spouse’s broken family a deal breaker (you wouldn’t want her to use the same standard on you!), but it’s something to keep in mind as you date. If both you and your spouse come from families of divorce, recognize that you may have to work harder at building a strong marriage than couples where both partners, or even just one of them, come from intact families.

4. Be intentional!

Remember, good families don’t just happen! Not even for folks who come from intact families. If you’re serious about creating a positive family culture, you have to be intentional about it. As social scientist Scott Stanley says in his book Fighting for Your Marriage, we either “decide or glide” in our relationships and families. Gliding gets you in trouble; deciding takes you where you want to go. Following the path of least resistance is not enough — you have to be proactive!

Work to put in place the family culture you’ve always wanted by formulating a family mission statement, establishing family traditions, and making shared meals a priority.

5. Distance yourself from toxic relationships.

If creating a strong marriage and family is your goal, but your parents or friends love to sit around and carp about how horrible and dumb those institutions are, you might want to consider distancing yourself from those relationships. Distancing doesn’t necessarily mean cutting these loved ones off completely. It just means being aware of the possible negative influence these gloom n’ doomers can have on your own familial goals and establishing boundaries with them to limit that influence in your life.

6. Surround yourself with positive examples.

Don’t just limit the time you spend around negative folks — proactively seek out the company of those who have strong and happy marriages and families. Watch what they do in their homes and emulate their best practices. Share what you’re struggling with and don’t be afraid to ask for advice when you feel like you need it. Simply rub shoulders with happy couples and families whenever you can; you’ll be amazed by the amount of good, reorienting vibes you’ll absorb via relational osmosis. 

7. Hold fast to your goal by regularly reading things geared towards helping you become a better husband and father.

It’s easy to have good goals — harder to keep them. We get busy and stressed and lose track of the direction we want to go and the men we want to become. We must regularly remind ourselves of these things by reading as much as we can on becoming better husbands and fathers and creating a positive family culture. We must then “hold fast” to what we have learned by frequently revisiting those books or articles. Becoming a transitional character (or a better man, period) is a never-ending process. We need to constantly remind ourselves of best practices so we can stay on track.

Read the other posts in the series: 

• The Importance of Creating a Family Culture
• How and Why to Create a Family Mission Statement
  
  
• The Importance of Establishing Family Traditions
  
  
• 60+ Family Tradition Ideas
• How to Plan and Lead a Weekly Family Meeting
• How to Get the Most Out of Family Dinners

The post You Don’t Have to Be Your Dad: How to Become Your Family’s Transitional Character appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

A lot of young men today struggle in finding their footing in adulthood. They feel lost, directionless, and unsure of who they are and how to confidently and competently navigate the world.

Part of the reason for this is that most young men today lack something which was once a part of nearly every culture in the world, but has now almost entirely disappeared: a rite of passage.

My guest today didn’t want his son to flounder on the way to maturity, nor to miss out on having an initiation into manhood, so he set out to create a 6-year journey for him that would help him move from boy to man. His name is Jon Tyson, and he’s the author of The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character. Today on the show, Jon unpacks the components of the years-long journey into manhood he created for his son, beginning with how he brainstormed those components by doing “The Day Your Son Leaves Home” exercise. We then discuss how old Jon’s son was when he started his rite of passage and why it began with him having a “severing dinner” with his mom. We get into what his rite of passage consisted of, from the kickoff ceremony to the challenges, experiences, trips, and daily rituals Jon used to impart values and teach his son the “5 Shifts of Manhood.” Jon shares how moving his son’s focus from being a good man, to being good at being a man, helped him get remotivated to continue the process, why his rite of passage included a gap year after high school, and how Jon celebrated the end of his son’s journey into becoming a man. We also discuss whether Jon did something similar with his daughter. We end our conversation with some key principles any dad can use to start intentionally helping their kids become well-rounded individuals who can confidently step out on their own and into the world.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• AoM Article: The Importance of Fathers
• AoM Article: The Importance of Male Rites of Passage
• AoM Article: Male Rites of Passage From Around the World
• AoM Article & Podcast: Man’s Need for Ritual
• AoM Series on the origins, elements, and future of manhood
• AoM Article: The 7 Habits — Begin With the End in Mind
• AoM Article: The 3 Families Every Young Man Needs to Grow Up Well
• James Hollis
• AoM Article: Carry the Fire
• Art of Manliness’ Carry the Fire Zippo Lighter
• AoM Article: What Is Manliness?
• AoM Podcast #527 With Richard Rohr
• The Power of Moments: Why Certain Experiences Have Extraordinary Impact by Chip and Dan Heath
• The Way of Men by Jack Donovan
• AoM Podcast #49 With Jack Donovan
• AoM Series on the Four Archetypes of the Mature Masculine
• AoM Article: 100 Skills Every Man Should Know
• AoM Article: 80+ Quotes on Men & Manhood

Connect With Jon Tyson

• Primal Path
• Jon on Twitter
• Jon on IG

Listen to the Podcast! (And don’t forget to leave us a review!)

Listen to the episode on a separate page.

Download this episode.

Subscribe to the podcast in the media player of your choice.

Listen ad-free on Stitcher Premium; get a free month when you use code “manliness” at checkout.

Podcast Sponsors

Click here to see a full list of our podcast sponsors.

Read the Transcript

Brett McKay: Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of The Art of Manliness podcast. A lot of young men today struggle in finding their footing in adulthood. If you’re lost, directionless and unsure of who they are and how to confidently and competently navigate the world. Part of the reason for this is that most young men today lack something which was once part of nearly every culture in the world, but has now almost entirely disappeared: A rite of passage. My guest today didn’t want his son to flounder on the way to maturity nor miss out on having an initiation into manhood, so he set out to create a six-year journey for him that would help him move from boy to man. His name is Jon Tyson, and he’s the author of The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character. Today on the show, Jon impacts the components of the years-long journey into manhood he created for his son, beginning with how he brainstormed these components by doing the day-your-son-leaves-home exercise.

We then discuss how old Jon’s son was when he started his rite of passage and why it began with him having a severing dinner with his mom. We get into what his rite of passage consisted of, from the kick-off ceremony to the challenges, experiences, trips and daily rituals Jon used to impart values, teach his son the five shifts of manhood. Jon shares how moving his son’s focus from being a good man to being good at being a man helped him get re-motivated to continue the process, why his rite of passage included a gap year after high school and how Jon celebrated the end of his son’s journey into becoming a man. We also discuss whether Jon did something similar with his daughter. We end our conversation with some key principles any dad can use to start intentionally helping their kids become well-rounded individuals who can confidently step out on their own and into the world. After the show’s over, check out our show notes at aom.is/passage.

And away we go. Alright, Jon Tyson, welcome to the show.

Jon Tyson: Good day, mate. How are you? Thanks for having me on.

Brett McKay: So you got a book out called The Intentional Father: A Practical Guide to Raise Sons of Courage and Character. And in this book, you walk readers through on how you developed and carried out a years-long rite of passage into manhood for your son. So let’s talk about this. When did you first get the idea of doing this sort of… This was involved. This started… This was years long, right? Started when he became a teenager, went through… Till he left the house. When did you come up with this idea?

Jon Tyson: I think the first moment it really hit me was driving back from the doctor when they told me, “Hey, do you wanna know if your son’s a boy or a girl?” And I said, obviously, “It’s a boy.” And I just had this profound sense of being overwhelmed that I personally did not have what it took to help my son become a man. I got married young and faced all the challenges of my own inadequacy, dealing with the complications of life, and I thought, “I have got to do better for my son.” And that’s where the idea was born. So I think another key moment, I was meeting with a local faith leader, and he was talking about the way their community helped young men move from adolescence to manhood, and I thought, “I don’t have anything like that, and I have got to build something like that.” Yeah, so very, very early on, and I spent about a decade reading, trying to figure out how to do it.

Brett McKay: Did you have something like that in your own life when you were a boy transitioning to manhood? Did you get a rite of passage?

Jon Tyson: I had absolutely nothing. I mean, zero. So I was working from a pretty big deficit, and I think a lot of dads are. A lot of folks out there sort of feel there’s a hole in their life, and they’re trying to figure out how to catch up, fill that and then do something better for their own kids.

Brett McKay: Yeah, I think a lot of men are like that. They didn’t have that experience but they want it for their own sons, so they’re trying to give their sons the experience that they didn’t have.

Jon Tyson: Yeah, totally.

Brett McKay: And something you start off in the book talking about is the research. You’ve done a lot of research about what happens when boys don’t have fathers, don’t have involved fathers. What does the research say as to what happens to boys when they lack a strong father figure?

Jon Tyson: Well, it’s actually very, very clear. Sort of the go-to research most people reference is from fatherhood.org, but it’s basically what you think. Kids are four times more likely to live in poverty, more likely to suffer emotional behavioral problems, higher levels of risky and aggressive behavior, two times the risk of infant mortality which is crazy, more likely to go to prison, only one in five inmates grew up in a home where their father was present, twice as likely to be involved in early sexual activity. So the presence of a dad in a home makes an incredible difference. With all of our conversations about justice in the world today, I don’t know why this one doesn’t get more attention, because one of the greatest cultural advantages that someone could have in life is a present, loving father figure. So yeah, the impact is massive.

Brett McKay: Well, and besides, you’re trying to move beyond just having a present, involved dad. Your ideal of a good dad is an intentional father, where a father intentionally thinks about walking their sons through an initiation process. What do you think men lack when they transition into adulthood without having almost like a ritual to carry them into manhood?

Jon Tyson: Well, I think there’s some kind of deep, internal inadequacy. There’s some sense of a desire to bless, pass on, and help, but they don’t have a source to get it from. So I think there’s a lot of confusion. I think there’s a lot of pain. Our culture has gotten rid of most of the sort of life passages other than formal education, and so there’s a lot of people walking around really wondering, “Am I even a man?” When are you a man? When you lose your virginity? The first time you drink alcohol? When you get your first paycheck? When you leave home? No one seems to know when manhood is conferred on them, and then how they distribute it to other people. So yeah, I think there’s a hole in the soul of most men and they’re seeking and striving to catch up with it.

Brett McKay: And something you talk about in the book, one way men often fill that hole is they create self-initiations for themselves.

Jon Tyson: Yeah. You see this… Young people… I mean, you obviously remember this. When you hit puberty, the whole world changes. Your body is filled with testosterone, you got chemicals pumping, you got all of this energy. And the number one thing you’re trying to figure out what to do with it is, how do you channel this in a life-giving rather than destructive way? And that’s what these rites of passage historically were designed to do, to create guard rails, so the gift of male energy could be channeled for the good of the community and the man. Without those guard rails, you see all the damage we see in our world today. Without initiation, young men will seek to do something with their energy that confers a sense of confidence and blessing.

So, whether it’s risky behavior, whether it’s underaged drinking, whether it is sexual behavior or whatever, you’ve basically got young men saying, “Help me figure out what to do with this energy.” And when you look at some of the other rites of passage that other cultures have had, they are… Some of ’em are harrowing. And we would probably take kids away from parents who did some of these ancient rites of passage. They can sound kind of barbaric. But when you look at the levels of anxiety with our young people today, depression with young men, the challenges that teenage boys face, our lack of initiation at scale is more damaging than the initiation cultures, no matter how intense they were, of other societies. So, yeah, I’m a big believer that we have to reclaim rites of passage, create guard rails, so that male energy can be channeled for the good of society. And that’s definitely what I’m trying to address in the book.

Brett McKay: Yeah, I like that… The idea of… This is… The idea is to channel male energy or masculine energy. And it’s one of the analogies I’ve used throughout the years when I’ve tried to explain difference between masculinity and manliness. Masculinity is just that energy and vigor that’s borne through testosterone, right?

Jon Tyson: Yes.

Brett McKay: And then manliness is a culture that you use to direct that energy, or manhood is a culture that you direct that energy. So it’s kind of like electricity. Masculinity is electricity. You create a culture of manliness or manhood to funnel that energy. But if you don’t have any wires that’s directing that masculine energy, it becomes dangerous.

Jon Tyson: Yeah, definitely. Totally agree. Yeah.

Brett McKay: Okay. So let’s talk about… You had this idea, your son was born, you’re like, “Okay, I’m gonna… I wanna create an initiation for him, to give him things that I didn’t have. And so when you started this planning process, you went through this exercise you call, the-day-your-son-leaves-home exercise. Walk us through that. What kinda questions are you asking yourself as you guide yourself through this thought process?

Jon Tyson: Yeah. I got the idea from Stephen Covey’s book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, where it talks about, Begin with the end in mind. And it has that exercise where you pretend it’s your funeral, and then you go back and sort of ask yourself the question, “What sort of life and legacy do I wanna leave?” And I thought, that’s a great framework to apply to a ton of different areas of life. And I thought, I’m gonna apply this to the day where I send my son off to either college or some sort of gap year or whatever. And I did… I thought about this when he was really young. And I basically just worked my way backwards, try to keep that day very, very vivid and real in my heart, and then ask a series of questions to design this pathway for him. The first one was like, What do I want my son to know? I want him to be a man of wisdom. I want him to be able to navigate the complexities of life. Number two, Who do I want my son to be? And this was about his moral, ethical and character formation. Then, What do I want my son to be able to do? And this is sort of skill acquisition. A man should be able to do stuff, step in a room and add value through skill acquisition. And then, What experiences do I need to design to make this happen? With all the best intentions in the world, without a conscious pathway and designing experiences where these things are developed, it’s never gonna be there.

So, yeah, I basically worked backwards. And just like you do with a college degree, sort of you say, “Hey, in order to get a degree, you’re gonna have to do X amount of classes, and it’s gonna have to either be a two-year associates or a four-year or a graduate degree.” I just worked backwards, starting at around age 13 when he was hitting puberty, and then worked it out till he was 18, and then created a pathway around knowledge and character and skill development and the experiences to help him do that. And then one of the things I did was to basically ask the question, Who can help me with this? I’m a big believer that dads are fundamental in a young man’s formation. But we’re living in a world where a lot of people don’t have dads or step dads or they’re asking the question about mentoring. And so I sort of came up with this idea of building a tribe or a cohort of fathers who do this together, and then coming up, with those dads, with an asset map. And sort of everybody puts in the middle of the room, What assets do you have available in your life? Someone may say, “Hey, we have a lake house.” Someone may say, “I got a second car, and I’m willing to let the boys learn to drive in it.” Someone may say, “Hey, I’ve got a series of key relationships in my industry, and I can… ” Or that, “I’ve got access to some cool sporting events.” And then you sort of start dreaming from there.

So it was like a big white board exercise. And then I worked my way backwards, and that was how I basically designed what I call the Primal Path, which is the sort of six-year journey I came up with.

Brett McKay: No, the-day-your-son-leaves-home exercise is really powerful. I went through it through my head and trying to imagine what my son… He’s 11 right now, and imagine when he’s 18, and he’s leaving the roost. It’s just… It really gets you…

Jon Tyson: It’s heavy. Yeah.

Brett McKay: It’s a gut punch. You’re just like… And you wanna know, like, What is he gonna be like? What do I want him to be like?

Jon Tyson: Yeah, totally.

Brett McKay: And I like this idea of developing an asset map. So it’s… You get the idea of what… The things that you want your son to know, understand, be able to do. But then try to figure out, Okay, what do I have at my disposal to make that happen? And not just things, but, Who are the other people in my life that can help me make this happen? I think that was… I loved how you focused on that in making this a community project. Oftentimes, when I think… When I hear dads talk about, “I wanna do a rite of passage for my son,” it’s just him and their son. That’s fine. But I think something… There’s a power when you bring other men into the process as well.

Jon Tyson:Yeah. If you put too much pressure on a dad… No dad is gonna be a perfect father. And so to put all that psychic pressure on a dad can be overwhelming, but to distribute that through a community of men where a father or a mentor plays a primary role, but is surrounded by this cast of other sort of like wise, passionate, helpful men, I think that is a real gift. And I think it’s actually something that young men ache for. Why is there such devotion to teams, team sports, having coaches around? It’s ’cause we need that sense of community and belonging as we grow and develop. So it was very important for me, not just to be, my son and I, but it was like my son and I and a cohort of other guys walking through this.

Brett McKay: Well, I think too, part of the… What you’re trying to do in an initiation or rite of passage is help the boy cut themselves off in a way from their family. So if it’s just the dad, that’s a problem. That’s gonna be hard to do. ‘Cause if you’re always there in the process, it’s hard to cut yourself off away from your father. But if you have another man there, you can have those periods where you can experience that. And I’ve noticed in my own life, I look back in my own life, my dad was always there and he taught me a lot of important things. But I remember, it really… Like a lot of times, oftentimes, the things that he told me or he modeled hit home when there was another man that wasn’t my father…

Jon Tyson: Yeah, totally agree.

Brett McKay: Showing me that. Okay. So you came with this idea what you wanted your son to be like, then you did… You started off an initial ceremony, but it was with your wife. It was mom that kick-started this thing off. What’s… That’s… I think that a lot of guys think, what’s going on there? Why’d you do that?

Jon Tyson: Well, that was interestingly enough, the most controversial piece of this period. And this is the place I get the most feedback. Just to take a little half step back, James Hollis who was I think the president of the Jungian society, he’s written a ton of books on midlife, on pathways, on stage development and theory. He basically said all societies have a six-step process of walking boys through adolescence into manhood, and one of those stages is what he calls the death of childhood thinking.

And it’s an environment where you’ve gotta be cut off from the primary influences of childhood in order to enter liminal space. And one of the things that a lot of societies did was consciously severed an overemphasized bond between mother and child, so that he could learn to be formed by the community of men. So I did what I called a severing dinner, which the publisher reduced down to a directional dinner, which sounded less threatening. And it was basically, I talked my wife into doing this, and my wife’s an absolute legend. She’s an incredible woman. And I said,” Hey, look, I need Nate not to shrink back to you for comfort, but I need you to push him back to me for formation and for challenge.” And so she took him out for a dinner to his favorite restaurant. Even though I’m from Australia, she took him to Outback. It’s a cliche, but it is what it is. [chuckle] And he’s at Outback steakhouse and then she gave him a series of gifts.

And then, I come from a faith background, so she prayed a prayer of blessing over him, sort of like an important marking moment. And then she said to him, “Hey, I’m your mother. I love you. I’ll always be here for you and I’ll care for you, but you need to be handed to your father to learn how to become a man. This is gonna be hard. It’s gonna be a challenge, and you’re gonna want to come back to me to ease and find comfort for the discomfort and challenges you’re facing. And I want you to know I’m gonna push you back to your dad and I’m not gonna nurture your immaturity.” And that was a really powerful moment. Now, to fast forward several years, when I was with my son closing out our journey together, I said to him, “Hey, Nate, I’m getting quite a bit of pushback on the dinner that you did with mom.” And he said, “No, no, no, no, you have to include that.” He said, “I cannot put into words how psychologically powerful that was for me, to realize I was entering this journey primarily being formed by men.” And he was like, “That jump-started this whole thing in my heart that I was actually entering into a different stage together.” So, yeah, it began with my wife and then sort of moved to a formal initiation ceremony on a beach off the coast of New York City.

Brett McKay: And what did that ceremony look like? Who was there and what did you do?

Jon Tyson: So I basically got three other dads together. I’ve been in New York city for the last 17 years. So, it was a few other dads who were my son’s closest friends, and basically cast this vision for him about building this pathway from adolescence into manhood. And then we designed an initiation ceremony. So we hyped it up for a few months, so they’d be a little nervous and also excited. And then when the day came, when all the boys had turned 13, this is late summer, we took them out to the beach and sat them in the sand and gathered around, told them a series of stories, shared some of our own personal lessons and learning. And then sort of tried to put… To say it in a good way, sort of inspire them and paint a picture of what was coming, and put the fear of God in them about how hard this was gonna be.

So there was sort of like that anticipatory terror. And then they ran into the water sort of like a religious baptism into this journey, dying to their old ways of childhood. And then, rising into this journey. And then we took them to Coney Island where they played a bunch of games together. And that was the kickoff. I then gave my son some gifts. I’m a big believer in the power of artifacts. And there’s something potent of one generation passing on something to the next generation that they can handle and know that they’re in a part of a continuing story. So I gave my son a really strong leather journal, I gave him a really nice pen. And then along the way, a whole series of gifts to sort of like mark it out and get along. I had this vision before I started where I wanted my son to start on the coast of New York. And I wanted his journey to end on the coast of Spain. And there’s a little town called Finisterre, and it’s a place where pilgrims, after they do this long hike, leave behind something at the end of their pilgrimage. And I had planned to sort of like go into the ocean in New York and go into the ocean in Spain. And so I had it planned to bookend and so that’s why it was done at the beach, and that’s why water was an important part of that.

Brett McKay: You were thinking way… You were thinking with the end in mind, again going back to Stephen Covey.

Jon Tyson: Yeah. That’s exactly right. Yeah. And when he leaves home, I really just… And this is one thing I would encourage dads or mentors to do. A lot of times men get into the workplace and they have…

They’re casting vision. They’re thinking abut sales or strategy or how to build things out, how to take ground, and they’ve got a ton of energy and gifts of vision casting, and that sort of stuff. But when it comes to their own kids we don’t apply any of the skills we have in our jobs to our parenting. And, if you were to put me on like a strength finder test, strategic would be number two for me. So I was like, “Hey, I’m a pretty strategic person. Why not apply this to fatherhood and then build this out?” So yeah, I had thought through this journey and tried to figure out the core components of it, and that certainly took away a lot of the panic and fear, even though there still was a ton of that being a dad.

Brett McKay: So when do you think a son should start the rite of passage? Like how do you know that they’re ready?

Jon Tyson: I think, universally through history, it’s sort of around the age of 13 or so. And I don’t know if that is… I don’t know if there’s anything culturally specific around that. Certainly not in our world anymore. Turning 13, I guess you’re a teenager, but that’s not that big a deal. I think it’s more connected to puberty. It’s when your body’s beginning to change. It’s when testosterones coming in. It’s when you start to think about sexuality. It’s when you start to think about your strength. It’s when competition really sets in. That’s when you start thinking about even a sense of vocation. You stop wanting to be the things you say when you’re four or five, and you’ve got a bit more of a realistic sense of where it is. You’re getting into sports or into academics in a new way. And so I think, again, it’s about that male energy. You’re trying to figure out “What do I do with this?” It can be very, very confusing and disorienting energy too. So right around the time this is happening within you, you want a community of men to come around you and to tell you the energy is good. It’s a gift. It must be channeled the right way and here is the path. So yeah. Universally, it seems to be sort around 13, around the age of puberty.

Brett McKay: Okay. So your son does the ceremony with his mom. You have the initiation ceremony with his friends and some other dads at the beach. The first part of this initiation, year’s long initiation process, was you actually took your son back home where you grew up. Why did you do that? What was the point of this?

Jon Tyson: Well, I mean, if I could sum up modern culture in one phrase, it would be this, project self. Project self. We live in a world that’s telling you all the time, “You are the center of everything.” Narcissism is at epidemic proportions in our world today. And particularly when you’re a teenager, you can be pretty inwardly focused. It is a confusing time. And you can think that there’s nothing outside of yourself and that there’s nothing that mattered before you showed up. And I wanted my son to have a bigger picture of life. I wanted my son to realize what shaped me, what was gonna be shaping him, and I wanted him to step into sort of a family narrative. Various family traditions, some ethnic, some religious, record family trees for different reasons. I happen to have a cousin who was a history buff, and has got a PhD in history, and he traced our family line back to the 10th century. And so he presented me like this hundreds of pages of book of our family story. And, I mean the whole thing, family crest, family mottos, it was amazing. And so, I presented that to my son, “Hey, you’re a part of a long line of Tyson men and this is what it means.” And then I wanted him to see where I grew up and what it was like for me to develop my own values.

So I took him back to Australia where I grew up, I’m from a city called Adelaide, and basically had him go through the places that formed the values of my life so that when I talked about something, he’d knew where it was. I wanted him to have a context for the story that he was stepping into. And I think without… Alastair McIntyre said this, “We can only ask the question, what am I to do if I can answer the previous question, what stories am I a part of? Or what story or stories am I a part of?” And so if you’re gonna figure out your role you’ve gotta figure out the story that you’re in, and I really felt it was important to give my son the sense of continuity and history so he could understand the story that he was extending.

Brett McKay: Now, I think that’s important. I think another way you could sum up modern life is lack of context. A lot of people were just… You’re kind of thrown into this milieu where it’s just, you’re getting bombarded by all these different stories, and you don’t have a story that you’re embedded in. And so, you’re disoriented. And I think telling your kid like, “Hey, this is… You’re part of this story. This is our family story. This is what you’re part of,” gives them some context. Now, I think this is important because it can give them, one, they could step into that and lean into it. But even if they decide not to, by giving them that story, they’re able to know like, “Oh, how can I make myself different?” It gives them something to push back against if that makes sense.

Jon Tyson: Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Brett McKay: Yeah. I think a lot of young people, they’re just kind of flapping their arms. They don’t know what they’re doing.

Jon Tyson: And I think there’s a… I think it’s important too to tell the family story in a compelling way and an honest way. The whole idea of a family reunion where it’s like a bunch of people you don’t really like wearing weird t-shirts, I wasn’t trying to do that with my son. I was trying to let him know, “Hey man, our family has an incredible history. It’s a history of people who have taken big risks. It’s a history of people who’ve sacrificed. It’s a history of people who’ve paid a real price for you to be where you are in the world today. And I want you to know you come from good stock. To be a Tyson, Tyson means fire brand, like carry the fire.” I have the Carry the Fire lighters from Art of Manliness.

But like that whole concept man, this you are born into a legacy and you don’t get to invent a universe from nothing. And there’s good things I want you to have. There’s bad things I wanna warn you about that could flow into your life because of the things we’ve been through, and then I wanna figure out how to help you carry this forward through your calling and your personality. And that was actually a really, really amazing time. I’ve had a pretty wild life. I dropped outta high school, worked in a meat factory, bought a house when I was 19, immigrated to another country. I’ve had pretty wild teenage years, and I wanted my son to sort of like see that and feel the weight of that so he could understand the context that I was parenting out of. So he really enjoyed that time even though I was heartbroken that he came back saying, “Dad, American food is better than Australian food.” But what can you do?

Brett McKay: And what I like about what you did too is you would take him to places where you made really big decisions in your own life.

Jon Tyson: Yeah.

Brett McKay: And I think that’s a really great idea cause it allows your son… It gives him a pattern to follow, when he’s making his own big decisions.

Jon Tyson: Yeah. My values were vision, passion, discipline and risk. When I go back through history, I’ve always valued visionary men. They look beyond the horizons of what is possible, and they dream bigger dreams for themselves and for the culture. I’ve always loved men of passion. I’ve respected men of discipline, who have channeled again their energy to something redemptive and something good. And then if you’re good at those things, if you’ve got vision and passion in your discipline, you’re gonna get opportunities that’s gonna require risk. So, I took him to the four places I learned those values. And again, I totally agree, when something emerges in your life, in order for it to be internalized and to become a sacred part of your story, you go to market. The power of ritual and recognition, so our life is not just a blur of ordinary days. So yeah. And I see my son doing that now. My son will take time and say, “This place matters to me. This is an important part of my story. Those sorts of things.” So yeah. He learned that by seeing it on that trip.

Brett McKay: We’re gonna take a quick break for a word from our sponsors. And now back to the show. So one of your big goals through this whole entire process was to teach your son values, family values, to help him develop his own personal values, but you also had this idea like, “I wanna inculcate masculine values into my son.” What were those values and why do you think that was important?

Jon Tyson: It is a confusing time in our culture to ask the question, “What is a man? What does it mean to be a man?” There’s a lot of stereotypes out there. There’s a lot of negative press in there. One of the things I try to emphasize to sort of get away from the controversy, and there is a lot of controversy, was the power of classical virtues. So the four classical versus: Justice, wisdom, courage, and self-restraint. I felt like the men we need in our world today are embodied in these values. We need just men in a world of tyrants. We need restrained men in a world of excess. We need wise men in a world of fools. And we need courageous men in a world of fear. Again, as someone from a faith tradition, the most important values according to St. Paul are faith, hope and love. And so to extend that I’m like, “We need faithful men in a world of compromise. We need hopeful men in a time of despair. We need loving men in a world of hate.”

So, I try to take these noble historically proven virtues and make those the baseline. And, particularly in Greco-Roman culture, these were masculine values. These were values that were associated with men. And so rather than just sort of pluck from thin air, choose random cultural values, I tried to find something that was a little more timeless and rooted.

Brett McKay: And one way you passed on these values or taught your son these values, you did this, you’d take him on trips and you’d of you’d just show it. I think that’s a very… I think that’s probably the most powerful way. But then you’d have these… Every morning you’d sit down with him and you’d have these little talks, and you’d also assign him books to read. Tell us about that.

Jon Tyson: Yeah. Well, again, I think I got the vision of just college or high school, which is, “What do you need to cover in order to graduate? How do you graduate into manhood? What do you need to have passed?” And again, getting back to know be and do as the sort of core tenants there. So yeah. I got a calendar and I worked back through a series of months, and I just said, “Here’s the content I wanna cover in this time,” and then I just broke it up into little chunks and then we just talked through it. So yeah. I just wanted to have this point every day where I was connecting. When you ask the question, “How does somebody grow? How does somebody change? How are they really shaped or formed?” It’s normally two things. It’s big, powerful, catalytic defining moments, and then it’s like the ordinary everyday habitual repetitive stuff we do in our lives. And so, that’s what I was doing in the daily little check-ins. Sometimes they were 15 minutes, sometimes they were 40 minutes, depending on what we were talking about. But it was just getting up early before school and then picking the theme we were working on, whether it was like one of the archetypes or one of the shifts.

And then I’d just come up with content and we’d just talk it through. So, I think just sowing those small seeds every day over the course of years produces a massive kind of fruit. So, I asked my son like, “What are some of the takeaways that you got from that?” And a lot of it were like pithy little phrases. My son said the number one thing that I’ve taken away from all of these years of content was this idea, “You are who you are when no one’s looking. That’s your true self. When you’re accountable as your own man in the world before your creator, that’s who you really are, without people pushing you.” And that was just something like I winged one morning. It was just like, “Okay, let me just throw that in. You know?” So again, you never know by sowing those seeds what’s gonna stick and what’s really gonna like impact and help.

Brett McKay: And then also throughout the process, you’d read books together or you’d even watch movies. So if you were talking about courage, you would watch Band of Brothers, for example.

Jon Tyson: Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean we just churned through the movies. If you’re a busy dad, I can tell you, come up with a few discussion questions, watch a movie, make him thoughtful, and you can have a great night together. Yeah, the Band of Brothers and barbecue was a very, very strong season that we did. So we would just like talk about… Watch an episode, talk about what we learned in the characters, and then we’d go out and eat meat. And we sort of went through the… Because I used to be a butcher, we would go to different barbecue restaurants, and we honestly sort of ate our way around New York City as a reward for doing these nights together. So that was a lot of fun. Build your traditions. With my daughter, we did it with cookies. She didn’t wanna eat brisket every week, so…

Brett McKay: Yeah, I wanna talk about something, what you do with your daughter, in a bit here. Okay, so one of the things you did with this right of passage process is you used the work, or looked at the work of Richard Rohr. We’ve had him on the podcast before. Franciscan Monk, who’s thought and does a lot about male initiation. And you took this idea that Rohr has, of the five rules of manhood that every boy needs to learn in order to become a man, and then you modified it to… And you called them the shifts of manhood. So what are the five shifts of manhood?

Jon Tyson: Yeah, I mean, Rohr is obviously a sage. He spent half a lifetime thinking about this stuff and has some very, very strong works on that. But I felt like, I mean how do you say to a 13-year-old kid, “You are gonna die. You’re not that important. Life is not about you.” And then how do you help him see that he’s making progress on that? And so, I sort of converted him into these shifts. Yeah, so the shifts are from ease to difficulty. Boys embrace ease men embrace difficulty, from self to others. Boys are about themselves, men are about others. From the whole to a part, boys are all about themselves, men realize they’re only a part of a greater story. From control to surrender, boys think they can maintain control, men understand the mysterious power of surrender. And then, from the temporary to the eternal, boys only think about what matters right now, but men think out of a larger picture. And then, yeah. I designed these units to help him really learn these lessons.

And so, to be able to say, “Hey, boys are about ease themselves, the whole thing, control and temporary things, and men are about difficulty, others, humility, surrender, thinking big picture.” So yeah. I would take a couple of months on each of these, have a little daily talk about it, do this weekly thing that we call man school, and then at the end of it we would do a challenge.

So from ease to difficulty, for example, my son’s terrified of heights. So I took him in Australia to the highest ropes course and Mike, this thing was… I hate heights too. This was horrific but I wanted him to see, “Hey man, if you do this, you’ve passed like you have now embraced difficulty. Like you’re ready to move on to the next unit.” And so it was a real joy seeing him do an actual challenge that kind of scared him a bit where he had to overcome something. But it was just a way of showing progress. I think there’s nothing more demoralizing for men than working hard and seeing no progress from your labor. And so I wanted to build in this sense of “I am taking ground. I am moving down the path. I am heading down the road from adolescence into manhood” and this was something that, particularly with my son, was very, very effective.

Brett McKay: No. And I love one for the shift for temporary to the eternal like you took him to a graveyard and that was really impactful. That was one of those other things that really stuck with your son when you asked him, “What was some of the things that stuck?” And he was like, “This pithy off-the-cuff remark about “You look at a gravestone and you see the date someone’s born, then a dash and then the date they die.” And you said, “That dash, that was their life. And what’s gonna be what’s gonna be your dash?”

Jon Tyson: Yeah. What’s your dash? That was actually a really meaningful moment. And my son, anytime we go past a graveyard would to this day be like, “What’s your dash, dad? Make it count.” And it is kind of amazing to think there’s that person, their life is over. They’d do anything to get a second chance at it. Gosh. Don’t squander your life man. Time is a gift. Time is the most important commodity. And so, think properly and steward your time. And I think to this day, my son is very time-conscious as a result of that moment.

Brett McKay: Okay, so these five shifts, you would spend a few months and would you revisit like, say if you did… From whole story to part of the story, a year before, would you revisit it and say, “Hey, we’re gonna talk about this and more?”

Jon Tyson: Yeah. I’m always just… When we talk about how memory works, we forget in a week 75% of what we’ve heard a week earlier. And so you’ve got to do what they call deep encoding. And that primarily comes through spaced repetition. And we all know that you can cram overnight and pass a test and learn nothing, or you can study, which means like every couple of days you’re like loading it back into your mind, and yeah. I was constantly trying to reinforce the core ideas. And I did that over the course of several years. So yeah. Spaced repetition is really important. Keep hitting the same things again and again and again, and I think all people that educate well get this just like refocusing, putting the emphasis on these things, so they go from external into an internal component where they can carry with them for the rest of their lives.

Brett McKay: Another thing that I really, I like that you talked about in the book is this idea of preparing for moments that your adolescent’s gonna face as they go through puberty right into adulthood. And I think these moments are often, if you don’t have a conscious, intentional rite of passage, these moments often become the rite of passage.

Jon Tyson: Yeah.

Brett McKay: But what you’re trying to do with this idea of preparing for moments is making these moments part of a larger rite of passage. And so these are things like, first shave, when your kid gets their first cell phone, when they get a driver’s license. And you thought about like, “What can I do to make these… Make my son see, these moments are part of a bigger picture?”

Jon Tyson: Yeah. I’m a big believer that the book, The Power of Moments by Chip and Dan Heath, that was just a masterclass. As a leader… As a person, your life is really a series of defining moments that have shaped you. If you were to sort of map out your story, you’re basically gonna pull out some disproportionately impactful moments, either of pain or of wounding. And I was like, okay, so these moments like we’re gonna be shaped by these moments. Is there a way to consciously cultivate them, to prepare in advance when the young men ones happen, but then sort of have a framework on how to do it? And so I was very, very aware. And I think scientists tell us as well, like the memories we form in our late teens and early 20s tend to be the strongest memories we carry our whole life, because we’re going through so many firsts and they find their way into our long term memory, they’re converted into long term memory by the potency and novelty of the event.

So, yeah, I was trying to figure out how to do those things and how to and how to build them up. A classic, my son got his driver’s license. He passed his test in New York City, and you wanna talk about a harrowing adventure, taking your driving test in New York City. And when he comes back, he didn’t even know if he passed or not. The lady just said to him, “You need to work on your three-point turns.” And then hands him a sheet. And I was like, “Did you pass or not?” He was like, “I don’t know.” I thought, “What a missed opportunity.” She could have said to him, “Young man, congratulations. You now can drive to California if you want. The car is yours, the roads are yours. Welcome to freedom.” She could have built this into a thing, and he would remember that forever. Instead, he had a terrible moment and he barely remembers it. So I had to mark that moment for him.

So, how do you make these moments and use them in ways that bring healing and blessing to our kids rather than our wounds? One of the big ideas they say in the book that I love is “Beware the soul-sucking voice of reasonableness.” And you can blow a moment out into a lifetime memory by adding 15% or 20% more energy to it. So just by adding a few more little details to it, you can change the whole experience. So I’ll give you a practical example. I had some dads who read my book, who flew in from Colorado to have a cigar and talk with me about the book. So here’s what I could have done, I could have sat them down and I could have said, “Hey, thanks for coming fellows.” But that’s not what I did. I went and brought a couple of bottles of very, very exquisite beverages to pair with the cigars. I got them a box of these Melanio cigars. I had this elaborate presentation and when they sat down, they were kind of dumbfounded. “Who’s this for?” I’m like, “This is for you. You came all of this way, I wanted to create a great experience for you.” And at the end of the night, I let him keep the glasses so that every time they use that glass they can remember the story, and it’s like those guys will remember that for a very, very long time because a normal moment was turned into a powerful moment.

And so I wanted to get a black belt in creating moments that shape people. And so I encourage dads that to be intentional, to think about these in advance, to have a plan. What are you gonna do if you find out your kid’s looking at porn, which statistically almost 90% of kids at some point will look at porn. How are you gonna respond to that? Are you gonna create a culture of shame or are you gonna help them understand sexuality and who women are? Yeah, so I just went through those moments and I’ve got a list of them in a book. Some of the big ones that you can think through and begin to plan around, but to me, getting those moments right is a huge, huge part of helping our son move through the world with blessing rather than wounds.

Brett McKay: So as you went through this process, I’m sure your kid was really excited at the beginning, ’cause beginnings are always exciting and new ’cause you’re doing new things.

Jon Tyson: Yeah.

Brett McKay: But then your son hit wall with this process.

Jon Tyson: Yes.

Brett McKay: He kinda started to lose interest, he’s like, “Ah, jeez. Dad, do we really have to do these morning talks?”

Jon Tyson: Yes.

Brett McKay: But this is hard part in any endeavor, this is the part where whether you’re starting a business, you’re doing a fitness routine, start training, start a fitness routine, this is the wall.

Jon Tyson: Yeah.

Brett McKay: You made a shift at this point to make the process not just about becoming a good man. So here’s what your trying to do. You’re trying to help your son harness his masculine energy to be… For the good of the community, but then you shifted it to about becoming good at being a man. What’s the difference and why did that shift reignite the fire in your son?

Jon Tyson: Yeah, you’ve had Jack Donovan on before. In his book The Way of Men, and he’s a somewhat controversial figure, I wanna note. But he had a core concept and I think really, really shook me, and his concept was he talked about Christian men’s movements, and that’s a part of the tradition that I come from, and he talked about a vision of good men in our society today looks typically like an overwhelmed suburban dad struggling to get his life together, and that’s basically it. It’s an overwhelmed, somewhat bored dad driven by obligation, trying to get his life together, and that’s what we think a good man is. He’s defined by what he doesn’t do. He’s not cheating on his wife, he’s not out there wasting his money, and it’s actually a pretty kind of time vision. It’s not super compelling at all, and he says, “What men actually want is to be good at being a man.” Which means when a man walks in the room, he should have a sense of confidence that he’s adding value. And so when you’re good at being a man, which means like, “I am good at understanding how women work. I am good at understanding what money is. I am good at practical skills around the home.” Obviously which your website is a…

You are a part of our central curriculum. There’s thousands of articles on practical stuff. And so I said to my son, “Hey, why do you think we’re doing this?” And he says, “You want me to be a good man.” And I said, “I do not want you to be a good man.” And he was kind of like, “What?” I was like, “No, I want you to be good at being a man” I was like, “Do you wanna walk into a room and understand how women think and not be intimidated?” And he’s like, “Yes.” I said, “Do you wanna be able to get through your high school years and have social skills where you can navigate bullies and build friends?” He’s like, “Yes.” So just like I’m trying to do the Winston Churchill which is like, get them saying yes or no. And I said, “Well, that’s what we’re here for. Man, I am here to help you be good at being a man, not to be some opaque kind of good man.” And that’s when it really kicked in, and that’s when I sort of unleashed the archetype content which is about like how to understand women and be a lover. How to understand and influence and be a leader, how to get in the fight, or how to have a cause and be a warrior, how to be a friend. What does it mean to be a brother, how do you be a sage in the world of fools, that sort of a thing.

And so when I sort of rolled out that those components, his motivation was so high, setting his own alarm, disciplining his life to get involved with it. So yeah, I kind of bland feeble morality with the stereotypical roles that has no passion, no teeth, no consequence, I’m not interested in that. And I think a lot of people today are sort of living half their lives because they’ve been shoved into these passionless scripts, and they think that this is what it is to be a man. I wanted to turn him loose, give him a bit of, as they say, fire in the belly. And that just had a massive impact on him. So it went from me trying to get him up to him voluntarily getting up. It was a real breakthrough.

Brett McKay: How old was he when this happened?

Jon Tyson: Oh gosh, he was 15.

Brett McKay: Okay, so you…

Jon Tyson: 15, so a couple of years in.

Brett McKay: And I liked how you took this idea of being good at being a man and tied it into these different roles that you started talking about. As a man, these are the roles you’re gonna have to fulfill as an adult. How can you be good at fulfilling that role? And I think that gives some direction for that, again, that masculine energy that teenage boys are starting to turn on.

Jon Tyson: Yeah, I totally agree. If you don’t… There’s nothing worse than standing in a room and feeling awkward. I don’t know how to talk to people, I don’t feel like I’m good at anything, and I don’t know why I’m here. If you’re projecting that sort of emotional field, it’s not gonna go well, for you, and that’s gonna lead… That’s gonna spiral into unhealthy places, so to begin to logically, sequentially, strategically break down the elements of how to be a man in the world and tell him, “You can do this, you can do this, man. And I’m gonna train you to be able to do those things.” That produces a ton of confidence, and I said… And then here’s what you do when you don’t know. You don’t fake it, you ask people who are better than you, and then you compliment them, and then they feel confident in themselves because they’re teaching you and they’re endeared to you, so… Now we did so much stuff on all the practical sort of like archetype stuff of how to be in the world.

When I asked my son today, he turns 22 this next week, I said, “Okay man, we’re a couple of years out for this. You’re a junior in college now. What’s your number one takeaway?” And he said, “The number one takeaway is the mental framework that I can figure out and handle anything.” And I was like, “Touch down, mate, that’s it.” If you can get that kind of internal confidence in a young man’s heart where he feels like he can face the challenges of life, that just felt like such a win for me.

Brett McKay: Oh, so just… You’d mentioned some of these roles. You had lover, so you talk about, okay, how can I be… How can I get along with women? How can I attract a mate? I think a lot of boys, they’re interested in that ’cause they just feel awkward. A leader, you had that.

Jon Tyson: Yep.

Brett McKay: I guess if you’re going back to union archetypes, to be the king, that would be the…

Jon Tyson: Yeah totally. Yes.

Brett McKay: Go ahead.

Jon Tyson: Yeah, the leader, the warrior, the brother, the wise man. There’s probably a few more you can put in there, but these… I try to sort of put these in things I felt my son from my tradition needed. And so one of it was a faith one, which is being a disciple, one was understanding women, one was about how to have the influence in the world through leadership, how to get the fire, there’s so much. In many ways, we’re driven by two forces, hope and hate, we’re driven by what we want to happen, and the thing that’s stopping it, the threat against the thing that’s stopping it. That’s what the warrior energy is, it’s like going after the thing you want, and then fighting off the thing that’s a threat to that. Then the power of friendships. Male friendships are so awkward, particularly that age, social media has definitely complicated it. But how do you be a faithful brother to somebody else, how do you stay the course, how do you build long-term friendships?

And I’m so grateful for that. My son did a gap year and in that gap year, he just got a crew, and because of some of the stuff we’ve talked about, they now do an annual reunion, so they’re three years removed, a couple of them have gone on and gotten married, but every year they’ve got this little tribe that gets together to mark the milestones of their life and just talk about the joys and sorrows they have been through the previous year. So it’s been a real joy to see him build a little brotherhood. And then how do you be a wise man? And the world’s filled with fools, it’s filled with pain, regret, lack of certainty, confusion, and how do you navigate some of the complexities of life? So we spent a lot of time talking about what is wisdom, what is the wisdom tradition? And how do you learn to grow in wisdom? The book of Proverbs talks about five kinds of fools, and there’s five ways of being foolish in the world and there’s five kinds of wisdom to overcome the five fools. So we spend time talking through that, that sort of stuff.

Brett McKay: One idea that I really liked and I’m gonna swipe from you, I’m gonna use it with my own kids is the life arc interview.

Jon Tyson: Yeah.

Brett McKay: What is that? And what did your son get out of them?

Jon Tyson: Well, the life arc interview is basically saying life is a series of seasons, it’s a series of stages, and without a sense of knowing what stage you’re in, what season you’re in, life can just feel very long and very painful and very, very confusing. But if you realize that hey, there’s certain things you gotta get right, certain things to look out for, certain things to avoid at these various stages, you’re gonna go in with your eyes wide open. And so it’s sort of a stage orientation. When you’re a freshman at college, they do a campus orientation, they do a freshman orientation and they’re basically trying to say to you, open your eyes, and here is how to navigate this well. So I wanted my son to go through life and figure out what to do with each decade or each stage of life. So to sit down with someone and basically ask, hey, what did you most enjoy about this stage and why? What are three or four of your favorite memories from this stage, what are the biggest regrets you had in this particular stage of your life? If you could do it again, what would you do differently? What do I have to get right? What do I… What must I absolutely avoid?

And then you begin to get a bit of an arc of what life is, and so one of the great challenges with young people today is they want the lifestyle in their 20s that their parents worked for in their 40s. And so if you say, hey man your 20s are not for wealth accumulation, as much as they are about vocational experimentation and understanding yourself, you’re gonna put some relief valves from the pressure of success and confusion. And then hopefully they’ve gotta have their own chronology, their friends got their own journey to walk, their own challenges and their own pace that they have to navigate, but then at least get some sense about like, “Here’s the territory,” if you go on any journey, at some point, you’re gonna break the journey down into stages. Hey, there’s a mountainous stage, there’s a flat stage, there’s a hot stage, there’s a stop here, see this. We do this on all trips in life, why don’t we do it for life itself? So that was my vision to sort of break that down and send him out talking to people older than him who have navigated this with some measure of skill, so he can get their accumulated wisdom and have an idea of where to go from there.

Brett McKay: Yeah, when I read that, I was thinking, man, I need to do this for my kid, like get… Or find an 18-year-old or a 20-year-old who’s just on it, who was a great kid, had a great teenage part of their life, and to be also to have my son just talked to him, what did you do? I was… I’m thinking when… If when I was a kid, when I was like 12, 13 and I got to rub shoulders with some really cool 18 year old that has a big impact.

Jon Tyson: 100%. And, you know, it’s amazing you’re actually helping form that 18 year old because you’re gonna make him sort of like codify what he’s learned. He’s gonna realize, hey, “I’m 18, but I’ve learned a lot.” So that’s gonna be a gift to him as well. And that’ll be something they could pass on to someone else, people… You do the best… You learn your lessons best when you teach it to other people. So yeah, I’m definitely grateful to be a part of a community that is multigenerational and living in the middle of New York City. My son’s growing up in Manhattan for 17 years before he left home. And… So for him, you know, he was surrounded by some like very, very accomplished people, but also people with a lot of pain, like, you know, unhealthy ambition and lack of focus. And so like, yeah, that being surrounded by a multigenerational community was a real gift. I encourage everybody to try and find that… This I think is… This sort of multigenerational long term thinking doesn’t happen in our world at large. And this is definitely something that I think kids will appreciate.

Brett McKay: So you mentioned your son took a Gap Year. Was this part of the initiation process?

Jon Tyson: 100%. 100%. All of these traditions, like when James Hollis talks about this, he says that all traditions have this thing called the ordeal. And the ordeal was to send the young man out into the world to see whether or not he has internalized and taken on the lessons that have been given to him from the community. And again, various traditions have done this. Some communities have a mission that they go on, they send people off. I grew up in Australia very, very common to do a Gap Year which is basically debaucherous hitchhiking across parts of Europe. Here’s what my vision was. I was like, “Okay, I’ve put a lot of content and a lot of experiences in my son, and college is such a formative experience.” I mean, it just swallows you whole. And I was like, I need to give him a little bit of space before he just rushes headlong into college to sort of see the kind of man he has become away from me where he could test it in the real world. So I also had a goal I wanna know, like I’m surrounded by a lot of wealth in Manhattan where he grew up and a lot of privilege. And I was like, “I wanna irreparably break my son’s heart for the global poor.” I want him to see that the privilege is growing in the disparity in the world. I want him to feel the pain of that gap, and I want him to be exposed to other places in other cultures.

So he’s not just like, “An American only in terms of his worldview and his thinking”. So he did a nine month trip. He went to a Swaziland, he went to Guatemala. He went all over the place and has since traveled all over the place. And he came back. And I gotta tell you, he was a different kid. He was like being being with a few friends. Like I said, “He built this little brotherhood, this little tribe and stuff that like so… ” The biggest example my son and I don’t say this to to sort of put him down. He’s actually a remarkable young man. But like he was a whiner. He would just complain. He just would just complain. And it was like such an unattractive quality to just complain. And, you know, I’d have my wife’s daughters come over and talk like how attractive… Like a little panel. So, like, here’s five women and here’s my son interviewing these five women on the panel. And I’d say, like, you know, do you think… What do you think about men who complain? They’re like, oh, it’s so unattractive. But even that these like attractive young women in their twenties on this little panel that my wife had formed, not none of that worked. But he comes back from this trip. My son is like, Yes, sir on it, sir kinda kid. And I’m like, “Where did this come from?” He said, “Dad, two weeks in, I realized I was a whiny, complaining child and I had a mirror amongst my peers of how unattractive it was.”

And I was like, “I do not want to be that guy.” And to this day, my son just like owns it and solves it. That that never would have happened with all of my years of effort, I couldn’t get that done. He gets in the world, sees the world, that sort of stuff is formed in him. He also just came back from… He just did another three month trip that he went on and he was in Turkey for that trip. And again he came back and I was like, “The maturity that was developed by getting out of his regular life in context was massive.” So I’m a big believer, you know, one bad year of college can undo 18 years of good parenting. And so I think there’s a lot of wisdom in having a liminal space where they can go through the world and sort of figure it out. So, yeah, that’s… That Was the vision for that. And he was willing to do it, interestingly enough, like my daughter did not want to do that. So that was something I had to sort of cast some vision for, for my son. He was worried like, hey, “All my friends are going to college, I’m gonna get left behind.” And we processed that. And eventually he came over and realized, “Hey, this probably be good for me.”

Brett McKay: So part of this Gap Year, we’re getting to the end, right? This is the ordeal.

Jon Tyson: Yes. Six years.

Brett McKay: Six years. He goes through his ordeal, he passes it changes him. This mission accomplished. You have this capstone ceremony. How did you cap this journey off into manhood with your son?

Jon Tyson: Well, one of the things I realized by talking… So, I said, “There’s quite a few sort of different groups and different organizations that will facilitate a Gap Year.” I think it’s becoming more and more popular. And one of the things in my research about sort of the comedown from the high of the Gap Year is that they didn’t debrief him too well.

So I said, “I’m gonna to do the Camino de Santiago.” Which is a 500 mile hike across Spain. And it took us 33 days to do it. I said, “We’re just gonna walk 500 miles.” There’s nothing to do but talk and we’re just gonna debrief this journey together. We’re gonna debrief the Gap Year. What happened in him? What did he learn? We’re gonna debrief all the content we went through. So I did like a series of questions every day. So to recap, in the six year journey, just trying to again, deep in coding reinforcement and then we just had a ton of fun.

And at the end of the 33 days, you come to the city, and there’s this big cathedral, it’s actually like, it’s overwhelming. You weep, if you talk about it, it’s such a profound experience, and you come into this cathedral of the city, and then it’s another 80 kilometer walk or so where you end in this village called Finisterre.

And you know the idea of a pilgrimage was you’re leaving something behind. And our idea for this pilgrimage was his leaving his childhood behind, so we end up in the city called… This little town Finisterre, and we go to this cove on a beach, and I’ve got all these letters from these men who’ve been journeying with him spoken into his life, men he respects, and I take him down on this beach and I’m like, “May I wanna tell you right now, man, this is well done, you have passed every test, you have earned this for the rest of your life, you need to know in your heart you are a man. You’re a blessed man.” In the Christian tradition, there’s a scene in the life of Jesus where he is baptized at the start of the gospels, and a voice from Heaven says, “This is my beloved son, who I love, in him I’m well pleased.” And because Jesus knew He was beloved at the start of his ministry, he had the courage and security in His identity to heal the sick, confront hypocrisy, fight off evil forces in his confrontation with the devil, so he was blessed to…

His sense of identity enabled him to overcome, and I wanted to say to my son, “You have my blessing, you are moving through the world, a blessed man, and you can overcome anything because you have what it takes within you.” So anyway, so he runs into the ocean like he did when he was 13, but now he’s 19. And he comes out and I do this big booming voice, like my god voice or whatever, and I’m just like, “Who is this man emerging from the ocean? Behold this is my son.” And then he comes out and we just cry, it’s a super, super powerful and emotional moment, and it was just. It was a blessing ceremony, and we both have a tattoo on our arms, the only tattoo I have, he’s got a few more, but it’s of our journey together to my inner arm, it’s the route of that Camino that ends in this little bay, this little cove where we did this journey, and that’s it. He left his childhood behind. So if you were to ask my son, how do you know you’re a man? He will say, “I died to childhood psychology, I went on a journey, I’ve learned the archetypes, I’ve made the shifts, I’ve done the ordeal. I’ve been blessed by my Father, I know I’m a man because I’ve earned it.” Bingo what a gift. So that was such a definitive moment that was six years in the making. So it wasn’t just the moment itself, it was marking a journey that he had been through that we had sort of done together, and a really, really significant a real gift to be a part of.

Brett McKay: That’s really powerful. See you have a daughter?

Jon Tyson: Yes, yes, I have a daughter, 19. She’s in… Studying Nursing in university.

Brett McKay: Well, have you and your wife done anything similar with her?

Jon Tyson: We did. It’s a little different, my wife played sort of the primary role in the formation of my daughter, so she’s got a whole thing she did, you know starting when she hit puberty and walked her through her teenage years. In her senior year, she came to me and she said, “Dad like I want you to just give me a year of your best development into adulthood.” So I did a thing with her that I just, I’m a bit of a branding guy, I’m a bit of a program guy so I created this thing for her called 50 pieces of my heart, 50 key deposits every dad has to make in his daughter’s life before she leaves home. So I did 50 weeks, and it was like a little daily check-in, and then one dinner a week where we talked about like the 50 most important things I wanted her to know about life and… Yeah, so we did that for a year. Sadly, her senior year was in COVID, and my daughter loves beauty, like my son loved the challenge, so on the Camino, when we’re walking 500 miles, it’s a heat wave, we’ve got blisters that are almost down to the bone, we lost 20 pounds, it was like a wild ordeal, my daughter loves beauty.

So one of the only countries that was open in COVID was Iceland, and so we did a ring road together, we rented a car and we drove around the country of Iceland, and I sort of created this experience for her recapping these important things and just like filling her heart with beauty. It was framed by a Frederick Buechner quote. Buechner ‘s obviously a very, very prolific, gifted author. And the quote says, “Here is the world, beautiful and terrible things will happen. Do not be afraid.” And so our whole year was based around beauty and terror, like the terror of life and the beauty of life, and not being afraid to enter into it, and so that Iceland trip was an immersion in beauty and again, that was like a really powerful time, so very very different relationship with her. My daughter is a very feminine in the traditional sense, and wonderful, wonderful young woman, she’s a helper, very kind studying Nursing and so. But my wife will have to write the book of what she did with her, I was just intentional in my relationship with her, but really did a strong year with her to sort of close out her adolescence and not to send her off.

I tell you a very, very, very, very moving moment about the importance of seizing time, I was the last person to drop her at college, my wife left the day before and I had one bone to stay with her, and after 18 years of meeting with her, every week this really intense year. We spent an hour together every day for a year, and at the end of it, we had our final dinner, and I’m walking back to my car and she’s walking to her dorm so we have this one last hug, and she hugs me and she will not let go. And she says, “Dad, I need more time. I need more time with you, I don’t have the wisdom, I don’t have everything, I need you, I need more time.” And I was like, “Sweet girl, you’ve got what it takes. This is in you. You’re gonna be fine. I’m still with you. And I walked off in tears. But I was like, Oh, those words, I need more time. I was like, that was the thing. I was like, “Gosh, our kids had gone before we know it,” and so a lot of times people say, “Jon, this sounds pretty intense,” and listen man, I am a busy man in the middle of New York City, I got a lot on my plate, lot of responsibilities, lot of stuff I handle, so it was a real sacrifice to take the time to do this for my kids, but now that they’re both gone…

If I had my time again, I’d go harder, I’d sacrifice more. Those days like I just entrusted into the hands of God and say, “Hey, I did what I could, I did this with love, I did my best and I’m gonna have to trust Him and them.” But I tell you, I’d go harder again. So it probably yeah, maybe someone’s listening to this and they’re like, “Oh my gosh, this sounds like a lot.” Yeah, it is a lot, but it’s worth it. Absolutely worth it.

Brett McKay: Well, let’s say you guys listening to this is like, “Well, maybe I just… I can’t do everything. This is awesome, what you do is awesome.” Then maybe some guys just don’t have the bandwidth, creativity, etcetera. What would you say? Okay, just to get the ball rolling, ’cause I think oftentimes once you get the ball rolling, you pick up steam and you start adding to it. What are a few practices that you would think could help that?

Jon Tyson: I would say this, consistency is more important than intensity. I would say, it’s like if you wanna lose weight, yeah, you can do a liquid fast for 30 days and then intermittent fast and then eat one meal a day. And you’ll probably do that for six weeks and put all the weight back on. Or you can cut out soda for three months, and then you can cut out soda, and then you can cut out dessert. It’s just like it’s what can you do consistently? That’s what has the formative power. You gotta find like every kid that is different, you’ve gotta find that tension of like, is this actually making a difference in their life or not, and how much does each kid need in what season after that? I would say this, let me give you a larger principle rather than a specific because that’s so personal. I think the number one goal is to build and maintain an emotional bond, that is the whole thing.

Because if that bond is there in the relationship, you can pass anything through that bond. That bond can handle any teenage rebellion, that bond can handle any hard conversation, but if that bond is not there, it is very, very hard to reinsert yourself because it just sounds like moralizing or lecturing. To me it would be like whatever it takes to build that bond. You might do something as simple as I know on your website you’ve got a list of quotes, you might just do something as simple of like sit down and create a ritual where you read one quote a day about a thing. Or maybe it’s like one night a week. But whatever it is that keeps that bond alive that’s the most important factor, and then play the long game, put a date on your calendar and work backwards and just say, “Okay, here’s what I’m gonna do from now till then. And then I’ll also say two other thoughts.

Number one, something is better than nothing. Do what you can do, don’t be overwhelmed by what you can’t do. Something is better than nothing. And then secondly, if your kids are gone and maybe you’re sitting here with a sense of regret, I would just say to you, it’s never too late. You just don’t know the power of a father or a mentor’s heart moving towards a kid with repentance and with hope. They just like I’ve got so many stories. Part of what I do is I lead the faith community in New York, and over the past almost 20 years, thousands and thousands of stories of impossible relational reconciliations. When you’re willing to move with forgiveness and humility. So don’t give up hope, set your heart and move towards your kids slowly in love and you just… You’d be amazed at the blessing they ache for, the relationship they ache for, and the power of restoration if you do it with humility and consistency.

Brett McKay: Well, Jon, this has been a fantastic conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

Jon Tyson: I’ve got a course on this, it’s at primalpath.co. That’s dot C-O. And on there there’s a link for a weekly email. Every week I send out like a short thought for dads and men about how to navigate the complexity of being a man in the modern world. You can sign up for that, absolutely free. And then if you go to Amazon and just look at The Intentional Father, you’ll see that that book is there available in all formats.

Brett McKay: Fantastic. Well, Jon Tyson, thanks for your time, it’s been a pleasure.

Jon Tyson: Okay, cheers mate, thank you.

Brett McKay: My guest here was Jon Tyson. He’s the author of the book, The Intentional Father. It’s available on amazon.com. You can find more information about his work at primalpath.co. Also check out our show notes at aom.is/passage where you can find links to resources where we delve deeper into this topic.

Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Make sure to check out our website at artofmanliness.com where you find our podcast archives as well as thousands of articles written over the years about pretty much anything you’d think of. And if you’d like to enjoy ad free episodes of the AOM podcast, you can do so on Stitcher premium. Head over to stitcherpremium.com, sign up, use code manliness and check out for a free month trial. Once you’re signed up, download the Stitcher app on Android or iOS and you can start enjoying ad free episodes of the AOM podcast. And if you haven’t done so already, I’d appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify, it helps out a lot. And if you’ve done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member who you think would get something out. As always, thank you for the continued support.

Until next time, this is Brett McKay. Reminding you all listening to the podcast to put what you’ve heard into action.

The post Podcast #810: How to Turn a Boy Into a Man appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

A recent survey by the National Assessment of Educational Progress found that reading for pleasure among kids is at an all-time low. 

The decline is, no surprise here, likely attributed to the increased use of screens.

It’s likely that these non-reading children will become non-reading adults.

I don’t want my kids to be those kids who don’t read for pleasure and then go on to become adults who don’t read for pleasure either.

I want them to be readers. 

Reading not only enhances a child’s academic performance and cognitive development, but even more important, to me at least, reading is simply one of life’s most enriching and edifying activities. Reading has had a huge impact on my own life. I’ve had my world expanded by reading. I’ve been entertained for hours by reading. I’ve made friends thanks to reading. I’ve even made a career out of reading.

I want my kids to experience that same life-affirming power of reading.

It seems like they’re — fingers crossed — on their way to becoming lifelong readers. Both Gus and Scout have their noses in a book before they go to sleep at night. When we go on long road trips, they willfully mix shorter sessions of screen time with longer stretches of reading. One of my favorite sounds is Gus laughing out loud at something he’s reading in a book. 

If you’re looking for some advice on how to raise a reader, here’s what’s seemed to work for us so far in nudging along the reading habit in our kids:

Keep a well-stocked home library. When I read the biographies of eminent men who were voracious readers (which interestingly enough, nearly all were — there’s definitely a correlation between reading and success), so many of them talk about growing up in households that were filled with books.

It’s not just that keeping a home library allows your kid access to lots of books (while they hypothetically could pull a book off our shelves, my children have yet to do so — they have their own taste in literature), it’s that the library acts as a potent signal that reading is important to you as parents, and is important in your family culture. And it’s a reminder that tons and tons of knowledge exists in the world — more than they might imagine trodding the familiar, well-worn courses carved by their digital surfing habits — and it’s all there for the discovering and taking!

While you could build a digital library of books, this is one of the many reasons concrete, paperbound copies are really superior. Your Kindle app is never going to act as a continual pique to your kids’ curiosity. 

Of course, a home library isn’t going to have a big effect, if its books are merely decorative, and your kids never see you actually opening them. So:

Be a reader yourself. Your kids are always watching you. They’re more likely to do what you do than do what you say. So set an example for them and be a reader yourself. Let your kids catch you reading.

I’m grateful to my parents for many things, but one thing I’m especially thankful for is their example of being readers. Growing up, I always saw both of my parents with their noses in books. They made it seem like reading was a normal part of life — just something you do. They never lectured my siblings and me to read, but we all followed their lead and read ourselves. 

Read out loud to them when they’re little (and beyond). Just because your kids are too young to read themselves, doesn’t mean you can’t start inculcating the reading habit in them. Read out loud to your kids when they’re little. It will set a pattern for them that reading is just a normal part of life’s routine. Like brushing your teeth.

Even when your kids are old enough to read on their own, keep reading aloud to them. It’s a great way to spend time with your kids, and it reinforces the idea that reading is just something you do in your family. We’ve been reading out loud to our kids since they were tykes. We’re now reading chapter books to them before they go to bed. It’s been a chance for Kate and me to expose our kids to books that we enjoyed ourselves as children (and to discover new books we missed when we were growing up). 

Let your kids read what they want. Some well-intentioned parents have this idea that if their kids are going to be readers, then they’re only going to read the Great Books or only the classics of children’s literature. So they put their kids on some reading program and make their children slog through books they have no interest in. 

That’s a great way to turn your kids into non-readers. If you go that route, you’re turning reading into something like eating your lima beans or taking medicine. Not something you want to do, but something you should do. Yuck! 

Instead, let your kids read whatever they want. Well, not whatever they want. I don’t recommend letting a nine-year-old read Devil in a Blue Dress (though I do recommend reading that and other hard-boiled detective novels when you’re an adult). But let them read whatever they want . . . that’s age-appropriate. You want them to learn to enjoy reading. As professor of literature Alan Jacobs puts it, let your kids read based on Whim.

This hands-off approach means your kids may read some lowbrow books for a while. Gus went through, and Scout is still in the midst of, the little kid graphic novel phase. Think Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Captain Underpants, Big Nate, etc. Are these books that I would personally pick out for my children? No. But they enjoyed reading these books, so we let them read them. Gus eventually emerged into straight text chapter books, and Scout is getting there too.

Your kids have the rest of their lives to read the Great Books. Your primary focus as a parent is to make reading something your kids enjoy doing so that when they get old enough to read the Iliad, they’ll actually want to read it.

Get them a library card. Most libraries allow your kids to get a library card when they’re fairly young. Get your kid one and take them to the library frequently. Free books! The idea here again is to make books a regular part of life. 

Buy your kids books with abandon. While we took our kids to the library a lot when they were little, as they’ve gotten older and developed the ability to read on their own, we more often take them to the bookstore and let them pick out books that we then buy for them.

Not because we’re spendthrifts, mind you, but because there are a few reasons I think buying books for your kids is a good idea.

There seems to be something about buying a book for your kids that gets them more pumped to read it. I’m guessing it’s the dopamine that comes with buying stuff. I’ve noticed that my kids are more likely to jump into a book that we’ve bought them than a book they check out at the library.

Buying books also helps your children build their own home library. Our kids often enjoy reading the same book twice (or more). 

Additionally, the fact that we buy books for our kids, while making them use their own allowance money to purchase things like toys and video games, makes books seem less like a special treat indulgence, and more like the other basic necessities we fund like clothes and food.

By my lights, books are a real bargain, especially children’s books. A new children’s paperback costs just $10 (or less!) and will give your kids hours of entertainment, all sorts of cognitive, emotional, and academic benefits, and another nudge along the path to becoming lifelong readers.

The post How to Raise a Reader appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

In Finland, children don’t start formal schooling until age seven, aren’t subject to standardized testing, and always get at least one hour of physical activity a day, broken into 15-minute free-play breaks every hour, which take place outside no matter the weather. Finnish parents and teachers espouse mantras like, “Let children be children,” “The children must play,” and “The work of a child is to play.” Yet despite this emphasis on play, Finnish students still achieve enviable academic outcomes, and grow up to become some of the happiest adults on earth.

My guest today says that the Finnish model of education and parenting, with its heavy emphasis on play, is worth replicating in other countries. His name is Pasi Sahlberg and he’s a Finnish educator and researcher currently living in Australia, as well as the co-author, along with William Doyle, of the book Let the Children Play: How More Play Will Save Our Schools and Help Children Thrive. Pasi begins our conversation by sharing what the data says as to how much less kids are playing today than they did in the past, and the factors that have led to this decrease both at school and at home. We discuss the fact that even the play kids do now engage in is more structured and adult-directed, even sometimes involving something called a “recess coach,” and how this has led to the sad phenomenon of children who no longer know how to play on their own. We then discuss what is lost when kids don’t play enough, from a decline in physical and mental confidence to a decrease in creativity. We end our conversation with the elements of healthy play that educators and parents who want to revive it can look to incorporate in their children’s lives.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• AoM Podcast #300: How to Raise Free-Range Kids
• AoM Podcast #532: How to Create a Neighborhood Where Kids Play Outside
• AoM Podcast #599: The Science of Physical Intelligence
• AoM Podcast #320: The ADHD Explosion
• AoM series on the causes and solutions to overprotective parenting
• Sunday Fireside: Is It Safer to Be Cautious Than Brave?
• Sunday Fireside: The Secure Base Philosophy of Parenting
• The LEGO Foundation’s research on the state of children’s play

Connect with Pasi

• Pasi’s Website

Listen to the Podcast! (And don’t forget to leave us a review!)

Listen to the episode on a separate page.

Download this episode.

Subscribe to the podcast in the media player of your choice.

Listen ad-free on Stitcher Premium; get a free month when you use code “manliness” at checkout.

Podcast Sponsors

Click here to see a full list of our podcast sponsors.

Read the Transcript!

If you appreciate the full text transcript, please consider donating to AoM. It will help cover the costs of transcription and allow others to enjoy it as well. Thank you!

Brett McKay: Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast. In Finland, children don’t start formal schooling until age seven, aren’t subject to standardized testing, and always get at least one hour of physical activity a day, broken into 15-minute free-play breaks every hour, which take place outside no matter the weather. Finnish parents and teachers espouse mantras like, “Let children be children,” “The children must play,” and “The work of a child is to play.” Yet despite this emphasis on play, Finnish students still achieve enviable academic outcomes, and grow up to become some of the happiest adults on earth.

My guest today says that the Finnish model of education and parenting, with its heavy emphasis on play, is worth replicating in other countries. His name is Pasi Sahlberg, and he’s a Finnish educator and researcher currently living in Australia, as well as the co-author, along with William Doyle, of the book, Let the Children Play: How More Play Will Save Our Schools and Help Children Thrive. Pasi begins our conversation by sharing what the data says as to how much less kids are playing today than they did in the past, and the factors that have led to this decrease both at school and at home. We then discuss the fact that even when kids do play today, it’s often more structured and adult-directed, even sometimes involving something called a “recess coach,” and how this has led to the sad phenomenon of children who no longer know how to play on their own. We then discuss what is lost when kids don’t play enough, from a decline in physical and mental confidence to a decrease in creativity. We end our conversation with the elements of healthy play that educators and parents who want to revive it can look to incorporate in their children’s lives. After the show’s over, check out our show notes at aom.is/play.

Alright, Pasi Sahlberg, welcome to the show.

Pasi Sahlberg: Thanks, Brett. Good to be with you.

Brett McKay: So we got this book, Let the Children Play, and it’s all about encouraging parents and teachers to let kids play, which is… It’s weird that you have to have a book to tell, “Hey, kids play”, which is this thing that all mammals do.

Pasi Sahlberg: Yeah.

Brett McKay: And it’s just sort of natural. So let’s talk about the state of play in the west, particularly in the United States. And I think you can say generally in the west, ’cause it’s sort of… It’s been spreading. You make the case that children in the US are playing much, much less than children a generation ago. Do we have any numbers on this? Do we know how much children played, say, the start of the 20th century compared to how much play they’re getting now?

Pasi Sahlberg: Yeah, the first piece of evidence that we need to mention here is the kind of bold facts that come from parents, and we have been asking the same question in the United States or my colleagues have there… I speak to you now in Australia, we’ve done recently the similar type of study and service here, asking parents, particularly mothers, that if you look at your own children today, how much do they spend time playing outdoors and inside the house compared to what you did when you were that age, which is kind of an interesting question to compare yourself, your own experience to what you see in your own children. And in the United States, North America, and here it’s exactly the same. It’s about 90% of parents respond that if they compare their own play experiences when they were kids, that they used to play much more, often significantly more than their children. This of course, is not a kind of a scientific proof of declining of playtime, but it’s an interesting indication.

But you’re asking for numbers, and I know if we go back in history, now looking at the United States, people often refer the 1960s as a golden era, or decade of many things, freedoms and civil rights and many other things. But that was also the time when recess and play in the US, particularly primary school, elementary school, was considered as part of the formal good education. So you were a good school if you were giving your children enough time to play, not just under the supervision of teacher and adult, but just play with other kids in the schoolyard. So until the 1980s, and now we come to the numbers here, it was a common practice in the US schools, and it was a common practice almost anywhere else, that the schools typically had about three or four, 10 to 20-minute recess breaks every day throughout the schooling. When we came to 1990s in the United States, and now we come to the kind of a part where there’s… The data and evidence is a little bit more mixed because they are not exact numbers, it’s hard to get the exact numbers, but some indication that in the early 1990s, almost all of the school districts in the United States reported that they have a practice of recess in their schools or that they have the policy in place. So this was in the 1990s, so we’re talking about 30 years ago.

Now, what has happened ever since, and this is where the story gets interesting, depends a little bit what type of data or surveys or research you look at, but in the beginning of the 2000s, around 2005, there’s one survey, a larger survey that indicates that 57% of US districts or school systems had recess, so it had declined significantly in about 15 years. Five years later, about 10 years ago, 2010-11, 40% of the school districts in the US reported that they have a policy of recess and play in school in place, but only about 20% were implementing that policy according to their own information. In 2016, we are coming closer of the situation today, only 16% of the US states required recess in primary schools, and now the situation is that… We know that about 40% of the school districts in the US have either significantly reduced or completely eliminated the recess in their schools. So that’s what we… So we see this evolution of coming from the kind of an ideal situation where recess and play were considered as a normal part of education and learning in school, to the situation where it’s becoming a kind of a very rare thing. But now we’re talking about the United States.

Now, I don’t know if you wanna hear any good news, but the good news now is that there has been a recent turnaround in many states. Many US states have begun to understand that this has been the wrong thing to do, and they have gradually introduced legislation and regulations that will actually mandate that the school should have at least 20 minutes every day for recess, some states have done it more. So we have seen… During the last 50 years, we have seen this kind of a curve of seeing recess and play almost disappearing from schools to now then gradually, luckily coming back.

Brett McKay: What was driving the decrease of recess in primary school?

Pasi Sahlberg: Well, if you’re an experienced teacher or principal listening to this conversation here, you know the answer immediately, because you see that something happened in the 1990s and particularly in the 2000s, in the beginning of this century, that probably has something to do with this decline. And in the 1990s, if you’re an American teacher or principal, you’ll remember the 1990s was the time when the standardization began to take place in the schools, meaning that all the schools were expected to follow the similar standards and expectations, and then came the ways of standardized assessments and tests that were used to check whether these standards were met. And these were not the standards for play, or recess, or creativity, or arts or social sciences, they’re mostly standards for mathematics and reading and science.

So the more of the education systems in the United States began to get standardized and the more the schools began to be held accountable for those standards, using these standardized tests, particularly following the No Child Left Behind legislation in early 2000s, the kind of a less focus and opportunities there has been on recess and play. And so that’s… Obviously, we can prove exactly that there is a kind of a causal link between those two things, but it’s very clear that the more schools are seeing education as a high stakes game that they need to play in order to survive and keep things moving, the less focus there has been on those things that have been considered as less significant for these stakes.

Then there’s another issue. I think that this is kind of a strictly educational reform movement issue that is probably explaining this, but then there’s another one that is simply the safety thing, that there are schools… I remember in my time… I spent about almost 10 years living in the United States, and I saw tens or hundreds of schools, and I was always kind of surprised about the safety concerns that were increasingly there, particularly whenever there was these horrible incidences of violence in the schools that the school gates were closed and locked and all the kids were kept inside. And I think that in some places, some districts or schools, and particularly the urban area schools that they kind of learn to live with this fear and danger and thought that we’d rather keep kids indoors during the school days in case something happens. So there are those two kinds of a major things that have really negatively affected the time that kids have for themselves in the school for play and do other things, and this implementation of recess policies overall.

Brett McKay: And you also talk about even when schools do have recess, you gave an example of this in the book, it’s the nature of it has changed. So when I grew up, recess was… The teacher’s like, “Just get out of here, go play, jump on whatever, do whatever you wanna do. It’s free play.” There was one school you highlighted where there was a coach, there was a recess coach, and you’re like, “Well, it’s a gym class,” and he’s like, “No, no, this is a recess. I’m the recess coach.”

Pasi Sahlberg: Yeah, yeah, that’s the… That’s not only the US phenomenon, and I think this is something that my co-author Will Doyle saw in New York, that he saw a lot of kids playing in a schoolyard, but not as they normally do, if they have the recess and play freely, do whatever they want to do but there was an adult there that was called Coach, recess coach, that was doing all kinds of activities, often physical activities. And for us, it looked more like a typical gym class that was just taken outside of the schoolhouse, and that’s… But I must say that here in Australia, I live in Sydney, and it’s a very common thing here as well, that after school, when children sometimes need to stay in the school a little bit longer after the school hours that rather than allowing them to play and self-organize and figure out what to do with the other kids, that they have these almost like a teachers or coaches there to make sure that everybody has something to do.

And in most cases, I think the reason is also that they, the parents and the schools, they want to… They kind of think that kids are safe when there’s an adult watching over and asking them what to do. I think this… The William’s story in this book is also interesting because I think the coach there responds to him that… When William is asking that, why do you just don’t let them play and watch over, and the response is that there are so many kids now who don’t know anymore how to play that they haven’t been experiences as a kind of a free self-directed play that much that they would know what to do, and that’s a kind of a sad part of the story.

Brett McKay: It is a part of the story. Okay, so in schools, there’s less recess. What’s driving that? It’s hard to say, but the hunch is whenever the increase in standardized testing in the United States, the pressure on faculty for the students to do well on those tests cause them to spend less time on recess, more time in the classroom, getting ready for the test. And also the safety is an issue, parents just being worried about that. That was a factor. But besides decreasing recess, you also talk about just in the classroom, play has been reduced. You talk about in the ’60s, even in the ’50s, pedagogy in the United States, really for primary age students, it was very play-based. Can you give us an idea of what that looked like and then what does school look like now without play?

Pasi Sahlberg: Yeah, I think it’s more about… Mostly about understanding what the play is all about, and that’s something that is often kind of a narrowly understood by many… Particularly parents, not so much of teachers. I think all the teachers understand it. But for example here, when I asked parents about play, the very common view still is that play is something you do when you’ve done all the serious stuff.

If they look at their parents or adults, they say that, play is something you do when you’ve done your work, or when you completed your work. And this is unfortunately how play is often still used in schools. It’s almost like an award that you are given if you’ve done your homework, if you’ve been successful in school, if you’ve done well in a test, that you are awarded a little bit of extra time to play. Unfortunately, sometimes you are also punished by that. If you’re not a good boy in school that you don’t… When the others are having their 20 minutes to play, you don’t do that. But I think that in a… Kind of a good school, for me, the play manifests itself in a way that is seen as it was in the 1960s, in the US schools as you described, as a normal, natural part of the way of life for young children. And it’s seen also as an integral element of good learning, that this is how children naturally learn, particularly when we’re looking at the young children, how the children learn about themselves and learn about the world is primarily through play, different types of play activities.

And so if the school is kind of a well designed and well thought around this idea of learning through play and having play as an important element, it should be there everywhere, and not just that we give children little playtime when they have done the serious work, but that the play would also enter into the classroom and these teaching and learning situations whenever that is kind of sensible. I’m not saying that the school should be play all the time, but it should be designed in a way that the kids would also learn to understand that play is actually an important way of them to learn about the world and learn about other people and learn about themselves.

Brett McKay: Well, I think back in my own early childhood education, the memory is very foggy, so this is like the ’80s. So kindergarten, first grade, second grade. I remember there being a lot of play, like you’d sing songs and clap your hands, you’re singing the ABCs, that’s playing. It didn’t feel like it was work. Dressing up, there’s like a dress-up section, I remember in kindergarten, you dress like a policeman, or a doctor, or whatever.

Pasi Sahlberg: Yeah.

Brett McKay: And like math, it’s a lot of just like you’re playing with blocks and you’re counting and… But now I guess it’s… The push is, we have to get kids at an early age… There’s a pressure, I guess, and parents are worried about this too, it’s like, “Well, I gotta have my kindergartener doing math as soon as possible ’cause we gotta get ready for them to do well on the SAT in 18 years, and I need my five-year-old to know how to read because the earlier they read, they’re gonna do better on these standardized tests.” And so there’s this pressure to… That’s another pressure. Taking play, in order to do that, you have to sort of have this drill mentality with your teaching. But you’ve highlight research that this concern that parents have, or teachers have about making sure your kid can do all this stuff, math, reading really early, it doesn’t really do much for them.

Pasi Sahlberg: No, there’s no evidence that would support this argument that you made, if you learned to read younger, that you will do better in school and life in general. Or, let alone that the younger you learn to read, the better you will do in school. That’s not the case, not even mathematics. And I think all of these correlations between the academic abilities that are learned younger and how they correlate or explain your success or failure later on, have no kind of research, evidence-based, so we should not believe in these things. The good example I often… When I think about the US schools, I often say that, “Go and see what the parents in the places like Silicon Valley do with their children, what type of schools they go. They often go to this alternative pedagogy, Montessori and Steiner Schools, where there’s a lot of play and music, and hanging around. Learning in your own pace and own ways, rather than insist that kids learn to do these things earlier on.”

 So I think that parents need to be very careful and mindful with that. I think what is predicting success in school and life much more than this early learning of academic stuff is to learn to understand who you are and learn to value your own capacities, and skills, and curiosity that you have. And this is exactly where the play comes into the picture, let alone the other kind of non-academic skills, like social skills, with being able to be with other kids and solving problems collectively in a sandbox. That often is a kind of interesting thing to follow. And also the physical development of yourself, that you grow up healthy and happy. So those things are often much more important for children, young kids than at what age do they learn to read or write.

Brett McKay: We’re gonna take a quick break for a word from our sponsors.

 And now back to the show. So okay, there’s less play in school, what about when kids are out of school? I guess it is kind of harder to figure out if they’re playing less, ’cause you can’t look at recess data. But I guess the data we have is you ask parents or mothers, “What are your kids doing out of school?” and I guess kids aren’t really playing that much.

Pasi Sahlberg: Yeah, there’s a lot of evidence that indicates to that type of conclusion, that children are playing less today than they did even 10, 20 years ago. And as you say, the research is quite difficult to find that would show this entirely. You know LEGO Foundation is one of those that is kind of both doing and coordinating research on play around the world, and they often look at the state of play globally, and their conclusions from different countries around the world have been exactly the same. Interestingly, in one of the most recent state of play reports by LEGO Foundation, they realized that 20% of children, themselves, in these surveys report that they are too busy to play, that they would love to play, but they have too many things to do. And I don’t know how the 5-year-old can say that “I would love to play, but I’m too busy,” other than being busy because of the things that they are asked to do by the school. But I think, Brett, there’s an important factor that is often linked to this conversation about children playing less when they’re not in the school, when they’re spending their time at home. And its the very rapidly growing time that very young children, from early on, that they spend with technology.

And it’s not at all uncommon in the US that you have a tween, somebody who’s a 10-year-old who spends six, seven, eight hours every day with an iPad or gadget or smartphone or computer at home, and it’s obvious that if somebody… All of a sudden, if the kids are spending hours and hours every day on something new that they didn’t use to do, that this time is away from something else. Often it’s away from sleep, that they sleep a little bit less than they should, but in most cases, this time that you see kids spending with their digital gadgets, it’s often… Often this time is away from them being outdoors, playing basketball or games with their friends or just playing indoors their own way. But as I said, this an area where we have much less of a solid evidence and data to say anything exactly.

Brett McKay: Yeah, I think it’s a lot of antidote. I think everyone understands that the kids are spending a lot of time on screens more, and I think the other issue too, it’s keeping kids away from play, which is… Just sort of traditional play, open range, free range, kid-directed. So a lot of kids are just in organized events, whether they’re playing sports, or doing piano, or they’re, I don’t know, Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, whatever that is, that’s a lot of their time is being spent doing that.

Pasi Sahlberg: Yeah, yeah, and this is one of those trends that we have seen, certainly here in Australia, and in the United States, and many countries in Europe, as well as… It’s the time that children have spent on what is called play is now much more kind of a controlled and directed by the coach, somebody, a coach or music teacher, or somebody who is leading the stuff rather than seeing children outdoors, leading their own learning and play, and that is the… It’s not necessarily a seriously bad thing, but it’s a significant change of the children’s experience that they have had before when they have been playing by themselves. And the condition that is missing in this kind of a new form of playing where it’s much more supervised and controlled by adults is that the children have much less opportunities to experience that they are in control of something. And that’s, for me as a father of two boys here, is an extremely important thing that I give my children opportunities to experience what it means to have a control of your own… Your own doings for a while, every day.

And at the same time, if you look at the typical in the city… Here, for example, here in Sydney, they have very very few moments and opportunities to have this experience that… How does it feel to have this kind of a sense of controlling your own life and doing it for a while, and that’s such an important skill to learn, to take this responsibility and understand what happens, but we still give our children less and less opportunities to do that. So that’s why I’m so much favoring this free outdoor play as the… I often call it the highest order of play, that when parents ask me here, “So what should I do with my kids to really make sure that they get the most of the benefits of play time?” I say just take them outdoors and step aside, just let them find a way to do these things, because that’s where the likelihood that these miracles would happen is the highest.

Brett McKay: Well, I’d like to talk about the consequences of this lack of play, and I think this is a good segue, you’re talking about this… What play does. When kids are doing self-directed play, they’re training their executive function, they’re in that really vital period in their life when they’re in their childhood years and going into their adolescents, they need to learn that skill of making decisions on their own. And like you said that there’s kids they… Who don’t even know how to play, they can’t even do that. So if there’s a kid who doesn’t know how to play, what’s he gonna be like when he’s 20-30 and he has to make big important decisions on his own? That’s sad. I don’t wanna… I just think about that. There’s a kid who doesn’t know how to play, it’s like an adult that won’t be able to make decisions on their own very well.

Pasi Sahlberg: Yeah, yeah, that’s right. And this is really good news for parents and teachers as well, who often feel that it’s difficult to teach my children or my students how to play, or it’s difficult to make sure that they get all these benefits, but it’s actually very easy because as I said earlier, that the easiest thing to do is just to give these children the freedom to play and exercise this kind of a sense of being in control and step aside and just see that… You know what happens, and often people come with the comments like, but there’s a hazard there, there’s kind of risk of getting hurt and even more. And of course, it’s a responsibility of us parents and teachers to make sure that all these kind of serious risks are somehow controlled. And that’s why I think it’s important that we parents don’t provide all the kind of a safety that is possible for kids when they are… For example, when they’re playing in the forest, or outside, or in the park, but we make sure that all the necessary safety measures will be considered so that they don’t seriously hurt themselves. But that’s exactly… If we don’t ever have our children in a situation where they have to consider risks or think about whether they get hurt if they do something, how do they learn to live their lives that is full of these hazards and risks around them if they haven’t learned that in the younger age?

And when we were working on this literature on playbook, we went to see some of these risky play schools and the risky playgrounds and parks here in Sydney. And it’s the same story we hear all the time from these people who are running these places, is that the kids actually experience much less incidences of accidents or harm because they are allowed to consider themselves what is a safe way to play or use this place, that often when we adults, when we do this and we give these kids a list of things that they must not do in this playground or in this camp, that they don’t think about this risk anymore. They try to remember all these rules that we have given them, but they don’t actively think about what they mean, why this is not allowed, compared to the situation where they should just be left alone and think about… Consider yourself what it’s safe here, and that’s why this free play outdoors is so important.

Brett McKay: That reminds me of something. We’ve had guests on the podcast, psychologists who are specializing embodied cognition, and they talk about old people who fall, and they said one of the reasons why you see old people fall more is ’cause as you get older, you tend to choose environments that are less complex, so you’re gonna avoid stairs or curbs or being outdoors where there’s a lot of complexity in the environment, and basically your body and mind forget how to navigate that, and so when you do encounter a crack or a step, you don’t know what to do and you trip and you fall, and that cause a lot of problems. They said it’s happening to children too, ’cause kids are not spending time in outdoors, this really complex environments, and they don’t learn how to navigate different… Their body and mind can’t… They don’t develop like they should, and so you’re seeing kids, they fall down more, and you’re showing kids who play in dangerous areas, they actually are less prone to trips and falls ’cause they know how to navigate those complex environments.

Pasi Sahlberg: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And this is the good way to further develop your executive functions that you mentioned, and that’s why many of the pediatricians, for example, in the United States, the American Academy of Pediatricians is so… Kind of are strongly encouraging parents and schools to make sure that children have time to free play outdoors, because it’s a good way to develop these functions exactly, as you mentioned, that people… For example, when the kids are in the playground and they have to pay attention to different things simultaneously, like they might be walking without their shoes somewhere and where there are kind of a risky things that they have to look at the situation where they are in and think about where they’re going and all these other things that is so important to develop these abilities. But if you’re always walking holding somebody’s hand and people are removing all these things for you, then you need to… You cannot really experience these things. And again, this goes back to this… The importance of free outdoor play and the power it can have on your overall growth and development.

Brett McKay: Alright, so outdoor play or the lack of outdoor play, free play, can hinder executive function development, it can hinder mind-body development. Let’s go back to grades in school. One of the reasons why we’re… Kids are playing less in schools or doing less recess is that teachers thought, “Well, this will improve academic performance.” Has that panned out?

Pasi Sahlberg: Yeah, again, kind of a strictly speaking, this is a question that is very hard, it’s hard to prove that less play would be the reason why the academic results have not improved, or actually they have gone down a little bit. But in the big picture, and we may take a look at the United States as a whole, but let’s take it the whole globe, just for the sake of curiosity here and as this thing that when the children are playing less than they used to. Let’s say 20 years ago, and also that the quality of this play has probably declined what has happened to the academic learning outcomes, and as you said that this has often been excused to play less is to have more time to learn these all important core academic skills. But the kind of a bold conclusion in this global scene is that the students are not learning better or more than they did 20 years ago. In many places, the quality of learning outcomes, the academic learning, has been declining. For example, in the OECD countries that you see, the wealthiest part of the world, the United States, and Finland, and Australia are part of that, students are…

Students quality of learning outcomes has been declining during the 20 years. And of course, at the same time, the time that they spend playing at home or in school has also been declined, but we cannot prove that there would be a kind of a causal connection between these two things. So it’s hard to argue anything about this, but I think the important question here is as well that what is this declining play time or play deprivation, as it sometimes called? What is it doing to children, is it good or bad? And as we write in the book that there’s ample of evidence showing that when we take the play away from children’s lives, whether it’s in the school, or at home, or degrees that that can have a serious consequences to their… Particularly their mental wellbeing and health, but also physical development that we see all kinds of… And I think the United States is a good example of this, that how the health of young children has been declining, particularly now the mental health because of the lack of opportunities to play.

So this is a kind of a conversation that is going on. If I want to have evidence from anybody to this question, I would definitely turn into the children’s medical doctors, pediatricians, to ask their opinion and their view on this, and they are very clear about what happens when the kids are not playing enough, and in turn, what the kind of a healthy and high quality play can do for children.

Brett McKay: So grades have been declining, we can’t prove… It’s hard to prove that the lack of play is a causal factor. But when you talk to teachers who have been teaching for 30 years, and they start off where it was very play-based, the kid’s got a lot of recess, and they got moved to that period where they had to like… Less recess ’cause they gotta focus on the test, they would note that it got harder to teach, particularly younger kids, because the kids they’d… Kids are kids. They wanna move around, they’ve got the short attention spans, they’ve got a lot of energy, and by not letting them play, they just got harder and harder to corral them, make them focus on learning multiplication tables when they’re six years old.

Pasi Sahlberg: Yeah, that’s true. But it’s not necessarily just play. I think the teachers are right when they say this, but there are many other forms that are close to play, like physical activity, for example, that has been equally declining in many schools in the United States that the children don’t have daily physical activity as they should compared to the schools in Finland where the regulation… The national regulation basically is that every child must have at least one hour of physical activity, not the physical education but physical activity every day. And this is something that has been declining in the US schools.

Physical activity and play are… In many cases, it’s the same thing, but it can also have different different forms. So I think this movement in general, that the kids… If we keep children inside the classroom, staying on their seats and focus on stuff that the teacher is giving them, it’s no wonder that teachers see more and more children who are not able to concentrate. We often say that half an hour, 30 minutes is about the maximum time that a primary school student can concentrate on practically anything that requires a kind of a serious intellectual effort to understand or do something, and then they need to have a break to move around. And of course, the play is the easiest thing to do that just to let the children play a little bit or do something, but the physical exercise, physical activity is equally important. So we need to have… We need to have both of those certainly.

Brett McKay: And then another connection is mental health issue, you talked about there could be a connection with the lack of play or physical activity in schools contributing to… You’re seeing this increase in numbers of children being diagnosed with ADHD. And it could be… We’ve actually had a psychologist on this talking about… There was probably… And it’s probably gotten… He said… Maybe it’s gotten better, but there has been an over… ADHD has been over diagnosed.

Pasi Sahlberg: Yes.

Brett McKay: And the argument is that the reason why it’s been over-diagnosed is you have kids who, they’re required to focus on learning math, or reading, or science for long periods of time without any physical activity. They can’t do it, and so the teacher’s like, “Well, you go see the counselor” and the counselor is like, “Well, maybe it is ADHD” and they go to the doctor and then the kids on Ritalin or Adderall.

Pasi Sahlberg: Yeah, yeah, that’s true. Actually, in the book, we have a story about my own… My older son here, who was young when we lived in the United States, and there was American psychologist who were spending one morning with my wife when I was in a meeting at the same time, and the psychologist came back to me, after this morning session, looking really serious, and her question to me was that you didn’t know that your son has an ADHD and he was less than three that time. But this point that’s… When we look at the children, it depends on what type of experience or culture we have behind us, because for us, of course, as parents, when we look at our own son, who is… He’s a wild kid, like many young boys are that he cannot stand still, he wants to climb trees and collect plants and ants and those things, rather than sit and listen to boring stories of the adults, but in some other places, this is considered as a kind of a disturbing factor. And I must say… It’s just like you said it, I think that ADHD, in the United is highly, highly kinda over-diagnosed.

I’m not saying that they wouldn’t be individuals there who would need this. And I’m also belonged to those who believe that if only we would be giving children more opportunities to play and do the things that they want to do, that we would probably have less… Less of these cases where we really need to consider the kind of medical treatment for the kids.

Brett McKay: Another consequence, potential consequence of lack of play that I was intrigued by and also worried about, is there may be affecting… The lack of play is causing a decrease in creativity. What’s there? What does the research say there, and what do you think is going on?

Pasi Sahlberg: Yeah, I think it’s a similar trend that we see in the overall school achievements among kids that there are… There’re some studies that indicate that the creativity overall has been in decline during the last 20 years. Again, it’s a difficult… Creativity is even harder to measure than learning in general, but some indications say that creativity has been in decline. But again, it’s a difficult to prove that this would be directly linked to the declining time of play or experiences that children have, particular free outdoor play. So we cannot really speculate too much on that. But again, I think what we can say is that if you’re really concerned about the state of creativity among young people, then the one thing you can do is to ask yourself, are we allowing these children to experience free, unstructured play enough where they’re a good experience and exercise and further develop their imagination, curiosity and creativity?

So rather than wait for the evidence that would indicate that, I think it’s better to start action and try to make sure that the kids would continue to have these experiences over time. The other interesting thing is that, again, and there’s probably more research on that front, that is creativity as such seem to decrease also when the children are growing older. Sometimes people say that the more time you spend in school and learning in school, the less creative you will become, because you kind of learn to do things as they should be done in the school rather than figure out yourself, different things. But there is this trend. I think it’s equally important that the… When the kids are growing older, and this has been there for probably forever, so it’s not anything new that more the children are spending time in a school environment and exposed to teaching and learning as it is, the less creative they seem to become, at least their own kind of a sense of creativity declines.

And then there’s this other trend, is more like a over time, like evolution, what happens… What has happened during the last 20 years. And that’s why we need to do something about it, and if you wanna do something about it, just make sure that your students and children have enough time to exercise and develop these important elements of creativity that you can do equally, whether in school and also at home.

Brett McKay: So parents who are listening to this are like, “Okay, play is important, I wanna get my kid playing more.” Is there… I’m sure you’ve researched this, what does healthy play look like? What other factors that we know is like, “Well, if these factors are there, then this is good play?” Or should parents get really hung up on that?

Pasi Sahlberg: It’s a great question, and I think… My advice to parents who are listening to this, and are curious about their own children’s play or current children’s play is to really… At first, ask that, “What do I understand? How do I define play? What is play to me? And because that’s something that needs to be figured out first, but then, again, when we’re working on the Let The Children Play book, this was one of those hardest questions that we had in trying to basically answer the question that you were asking that, “What makes a good play?” So we were identifying some elements that, again, parents or teachers can consider, when they are thinking about how they want their children to play, whether it’s indoors or outdoors. And one of those important aspects is… And indicator or factors is the… What we call self-directedness, which means that the kids should be allowed to take a lead, and lead the way when they’re playing, rather than somebody telling them what to do or giving them the rules and regulations.

Sometimes this is good as well, but in a higher order play, this self-directed action and activity is a good one. And then the other thing is that I think the children should… When they’re playing, that they should really feel that they do it because they want to do it themselves, that they are not playing because their mother or father asked them to do or they’re not playing because the recess coach is asking or expecting them to do something like this. I think the play also has to have a positive emotion, that it has to be… The kids have to feel more of this positive emotions, joy and happiness, than they feel a negative excitement or fear, sometimes belong to the play as well. And then I think another important part that parents can also consider when they’re thinking about the children’s play is the… To what extent this activity will engage them in using their imagination? How much the children feel that they’re curious about things that they’re doing, whether it’s a play or something else? Because the curiosity and using… Actively using your imagination, are the key things for this creative action and creative thinking to take place.

So these are some of those things that… We describe this in detail in the book, those people who are interested in different qualities or different levels of play. And particularly if you want to make sure that your child, when she or he is playing, is really getting a good experience, that these are some of those questions that you can ask and make sure that they are included in this process of play well.

Brett McKay: Well, Pasi, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work?

Pasi Sahlberg: Well, you can come and see me here in Down Under in Australia, happy to see anybody who is traveling this way, at some point when the borders are open. But I have my own website, it’s called pasisahlberg.com, where I try to keep all my work-related things. And obviously I invite everybody to read our book, Let The Children Play, that has… It’s like a longer story written for… Particularly for North American parents and teachers to have these conversations that we have been having here this morning. But take a read of the book, and if you like it, let me know. If you have any questions, I’m very happy to have a chat.

Brett McKay: Alright. Pasi Sahlberg, nice time. It’s been a pleasure.

Pasi Sahlberg: Thank you, Brett.

Brett McKay: Well, my guest here is Pasi Sahlberg. He’s the author of the book, Let The Children Play. It’s available on Amazon.com and book stores everywhere. You can find more information about his work at his website, pasisahlberg.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is/play, where you can find links to resources, where we delve deeper into this topic.

Well, that wraps up another edition of The AOM podcast. Make sure to check our website at artofmanliness.com, where you can find our podcast archives, where there’s thousand of articles written over the years about pretty much anything you can think of. And if you’d like to enjoy ad free episodes of The AOM podcast, you can do so on Stitcher Premium. Head over to stitcherpremium.com, sign up, use code “manliness” at check out for a free month trial. Once you’re signed up, download the Stitcher app on Android or iOS, and you can start enjoying ad free episodes of The AOM podcast. And if you haven’t done so already, I’d appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review on Apple podcast or Stitcher. It helps out a lot. And if you’ve done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing the show with a friend or family member, who you think would get something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time, it’s Brett McKay, reminding you to not only listen to The AOM podcast, but put what you’ve heard into action.

The post Podcast #749: Let the Children Play! appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

With our archives now 3,500+ articles deep, we’ve decided to republish a classic piece each Sunday to help our newer readers discover some of the best, evergreen gems from the past. This article was originally published in October 2015.

You’re in a public place — say a restaurant or a doctor’s waiting room — and it’s taking longer to get your food or have your name called than you expected. Your toddler is starting to get restless. And cranky. Real cranky. She’s whining and teetering on the edge of a crying fit, and the other folks around you are glancing over with irritated, disapproving looks.

You don’t have any toys or books on you, making it extremely tempting to just shove your smartphone into your tyke’s pudgy little hands to instantly shut off the waterworks.

But, the idea that you should turn to your phone whenever you feel unhappy or bored is not exactly the kind of lesson you want to teach her; you want her to grow up to be able to entertain herself, absent a technological device. So you think about busting out some pen and paper games like hangman or tic-tac-toe, but she’s preliterate and only understands strategy in terms of figuring out how to poop so no one sees her.

What to do?

Well, with a few completely accoutrement-free games in your metaphorical back pocket, you can easily improvise some entertainments that’ll keep your little one happy and engaged before her chicken nuggets finally arrive. Here are 9 fun, brain-boosting ideas to keep on deck; some work better depending on age and ability, many can be modified to meet your toddler’s level of cognition (which is right around that of a golden retriever), and some will be equally enjoyed by the preschooler set on up. Experiment and see what captures your kiddo’s attention.

1. Name That Tune

Hum a familiar song (“Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” “Old McDonald,” etc.), and see if your child can identity and name it.

2. What’s Missing?

This is a great one to do at the table at a restaurant. Take a few objects — a fork, spoon, and sugar packet, for example — and tell your kid to take a careful look at the collection. Then cover the items with a napkin, and remove one of the items without him being able to see which one (lift the end of the napkin nearest you for cover as you withdraw the item). Now remove the napkin altogether, and ask your child to name which item is missing.

3. Who Am I?

Pick an animal, and then let your kid ask questions to try to get at your identity. E.g., “Do you roar?” “Do you live somewhere cold or hot?” “Are you furry?”

4. Touch Something That Is…

Ask your child if he can touch something that is X color. “Can you touch something that is red?” “Can you touch something blue?” He can touch anything within his reach — the table, his clothes, your clothes, etc. If it’s someplace where he can walk around without bothering other people, you can make the game mobile.

5. Shape Hunt

Ask your kid if she can see anything in her environment with a certain shape. “What do you see that’s a circle?” “What do you see that’s a triangle?”

6. I Spy

Classic entertainment that’s good for the slightly older kid who’s able to process the idea behind this guessing game. Pick an object both you and your kid can see, and then say, “I spy something, and it’s ____.” If your child has a basic understanding of the alphabet and a modest vocabulary, fill in the blank with a letter. “I spy something, and it begins with the letter C.” It can help to sound it out: “Ca-Ca-Ca.” For the preliterate set who knows only their colors or shapes, substitute those categories instead. You can also describe the object’s properties: “I spy something, and it’s rough and scaly/smooth and shiny.”

7. What Is Different?

You do need a pencil and paper for this, but that shouldn’t be a problem since like all great men in history, you’ve adopted the habit of carrying a pocket notebook with you. Divide a piece of paper into a quadrant. In three squares, draw the same shapes/pictures/pattern. In the fourth square, draw something different. So for example, you could draw dogs in three of the squares and a cat in the fourth, or a triangle in three of the squares, and a diamond in another. Have your kid point to the panel that differs from the rest. The more advanced your child, the harder you can make it; try doing 5 circles in three of the squares, and 6 in the fourth, or different patterns like XXOOXX in three squares, and XXOXX in the fourth.

8. Simple Riddles

Come up with easy riddles for your child to solve. For example: “I have four legs and am covered in fluffy white wool. What am I?” or “I’m shaped like a circle, I have two hands, and numbers all around me. What am I?”

You can find a whole treasury of riddles for kids of all ages here.

9. Hidden in the Hand

Let your kid see your open, empty hands. Then put an object like a coin in one of your hands and close both of them. Put your hands behind your back and switch the object back and forth between them. Bring your closed hands back in front of you, and ask your child to guess which one is holding the object.

Ideas found in The Everything Toddler Activities Book

The post 9 Ways to Entertain Your Toddler Without Using a Smartphone appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

Parents have long had to figure out when to let their kids pass through certain “firsts” and milestones as they grow up. First time walking to the bus stop by themselves. First time riding their bike to a convenience store on their own. Getting a job. Getting a driver’s license.  

In each case, the parent must decide whether in granting a new privilege, the child is ready to take on the responsibility that goes with it. They must weigh whether the risks that are attendant to the new freedom are worth the benefits the child will gain. With the exception of getting a driver’s license, no external entities set a definitive age for when an appropriate balance of these factors is typically reached. Parents just have to use their practical wisdom, and wing it.

The improvised nature of these kinds of decisions is particularly acute when it comes to dealing with an issue that didn’t even exist when many of today’s parents were growing up: when a kid should get their first smartphone.

What’s the Right Age to Get a Kid Their First Smartphone?

When to allow a young adult to get their first smartphone is a fraught question. On the one hand, there is research that links the amount of time a person spends online with higher rates of depression and anxiety, and every adult knows how much distraction their own phones create — and they’re not even as socially attuned and connected as their kids! 

On the other hand, having a smartphone can be crucial for allowing young adults to socialize with their friends these days (and for facilitating schoolwork and extracurriculars as well). Cutting them off from those opportunities to integrate with their peers may cause the very depression a smartphone-withholding parent is trying to prevent.  

The average age at which a child gets their own smartphone these days is ten. But is that actually a good age for parents to introduce this kind of powerful technology into their children’s lives? Is there a best age to introduce a smartphone that allows kids to take advantage of its connection-building benefits, while mitigating its potentially negative effects?

While answering this question isn’t a science, we wondered how folks who have spent a ton of time thinking about the impact that digital technology has had on human minds and culture would weigh in on it. (Bill Gates, for one, didn’t allow his three children to have smartphones until each was 14 years old). We thus reached out to three tech thinkers to see what they had to say:

Dr. Larry D. Rosen is a professor emeritus of psychology, and the co-author of The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World. You can listen to our podcast interview with his co-author on that book, Adam Gazzaley, here.

“I used to say that 12 or so was the magic age when kids discovered social media and communicated virtually with their friends. Now, however, with the pandemic as well as the increasing use by preteens, I say that 10 or 11 is fine if the child is missing out on socializing.

However, I am adamantly opposed to just giving a child a phone with no limits or boundaries. It should be clear from the start that the phone belongs to the parents and that the child gets the privilege of using it as long as it is used appropriately. This means lots of discussion between parents and the child to find those boundaries. One clear boundary is no phone before homework is done. Another is setting a time limit on phone use and only allowing adding new apps with the parent’s permission.” 

Dr. Adam Alter is a professor of marketing and psychology and the author of Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. You can listen to our podcast interview with Adam about Irresistible here. 

“The sweet spot is allowing your kids to use screens as late as possible — but not so late that your decision to withhold puts them in a difficult position socially. It’s a tough line to walk. I don’t think there’s a single age that works equally well for everyone, but I wouldn’t let my kids use screens until they’re old enough to have a reasoned conversation about the major issues: when and how much screen time is appropriate; why we don’t use screens without limits; what to watch out for (bullying, abuse, etc.); which platforms are okay and which ones aren’t (which should obviously evolve as kids age. I don’t think many kids are mature enough to handle the stresses of screens until their mid-teens, though very few kids start using social media platforms that late.”

Cal Newport is a computer science professor and the author of seven books, including Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. You can listen to our podcast interview with Cal about Digital Minimalism here. 

“I lean toward waiting until at least 16 years old to give teenagers unrestricted access to smartphones. In the interim, feature phones can be used to support their ability to text with family and friends. The evidence around the harmful effects of giving a hyper-social and volatile adolescent brain unrestricted access to brain hacking services like social media and video games is worrisome. In most cases, it’s easier to work on solving the social issues surrounding having no smartphone at that age than it is to solve the issues caused by having one.”

It’s often said in these kinds of discussions that there isn’t a “right” age for a kid to get their first smartphone, that it will depend more on the kid’s individual level of maturity than a set chronological number. And while that may be true for landing on a gradient within a range, we’d argue it isn’t true for setting a minimum age. Parents should have an idea of a hard line before which they will not allow their children’s minds and lives (and the life of the family as a whole) to dramatically change. Because, make no mistake about it, the introduction of a smartphone into your child’s life will greatly alter it. Their head will be increasingly buried in their phone, with less of it facing towards you and the outside world in general. 

So while no writer or professor can tell you the right age to introduce a smartphone to your child, all would be well served to keep the caveats and considerations that were raised above in mind: Start with a “dumbphone” that only allows for things like calls and texts, and see how your kid handles it. When you do let them segue to a smartphone, have thoughtful conversations about the lifelong repercussions of what they share online (“Never share anything you wouldn’t want broadcast to the entire world”). Be emphatic about the importance of balancing digital communication with the in-person kind, demonstrating the value of face-to-face interactions both in your words, and even more importantly, in your example. Set clear boundaries for when your child can (after homework is done) and can’t (at the dinner table) use their phone. Some parents even draw up more formal “contracts” delineating such guidelines (and the consequences for violating them). 

To get a driver’s license, the law sets a minimum age and requirements which include taking classes that involve both “book work” and hands-on instruction; often, the adolescent must first obtain a “learner’s permit,” which sets limitations on when and how they can drive, and requires an experienced driver to ride along in the passenger seat. While operating a vehicle does come with serious physical dangers, using a smartphone carries its own set of pitfalls. As such, earning the privilege of the latter milestone, should be premised on completing just as much education and mentoring as the former.

The post What’s the Right Age to Get a Kid Their First Smartphone? 3 Tech Thinkers Weigh In appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

Winston Churchill once said of his only son: “I love Randolph, but I don’t like him.” It’s a sentiment many a parent with a tumultuous relationship with one of their children can relate to, and well describes both how Winston felt about Randolph, and how Randolph felt about his father.

My guest today details Winston and Randolph’s incredibly close and yet terribly complex and combustible relationship in his book, Churchill & Son. His name is Josh Ireland, and we begin our discussion with how Winston’s own harsh and neglectful father influenced his decision to be a much more involved and ultimately indulgent family man, and the way he spoiled a son who was already inclined towards appalling behavior. Josh describes the manner in which Winston and Randolph both bonded and fought, and the effect the trouble Randolph caused had on the relationship between Winston and his wife. We then get into how World War II, and the way Winston may have encouraged Randolph’s wife to cheat on him with an American diplomat, affected Randolph’s relationship with his father for the worse. Josh explains the outsized expectations Winston had for Randolph, the points at which father and son respectively realized they’d never be fulfilled, and the lesson to be taken from their story about the cost of parents imposing their own dreams on their children. We end our conversation by discussing why it is that the children of great leaders rarely turn out well themselves, for, as Randolph himself observed, “Nothing grows in the shadow of a great oak tree.”

If reading this in an email, click the title of the post to listen to the show.

Show Highlights

• Why was Josh interested in tackling the relationship between Winston and Randolph 
• What was Churchill’s relationship with his father like?
• Why did Churchill still revere his father in spit of the terrible treatment?
• How that terrible childhood impacted the future leader’s abilities and ambition 
• Where is Churchill at in life when he marries and has children?
• What was Winston like a father? 
• Why was the relationship between Winston and Randolph so fraught?
• What about Clementine, Randolph’s mother? What was their relationship like?
• How WWII impacted Churchill’s relations with his kids 
• Why did the PM decide he needed Randolph by his side?
• Randolph’s first wife, Pamela, and how Winston took advantage of them
• What happened after the war?  
• What did Josh learn about fatherhood from studying this relationship?

Resources/Articles/People Mentioned in Podcast

• Rogue Heroes by Ben Macintyre
• How Churchill (and London) Survived the Blitz of 1940
• The Audacious Life of Winston Churchill
• The Making of Winston Churchill
• The Winston Churchill School of Adulthood
• Chartwell
• Stalin’s Daughter

Listen to the Podcast! (And don’t forget to leave us a review!)

Listen to the episode on a separate page.

Download this episode.

Subscribe to the podcast in the media player of your choice.

Listen ad-free on Stitcher Premium; get a free month when you use code “manliness” at checkout.

Podcast Sponsors

Click here to see a full list of our podcast sponsors.

Read the Transcript

If you appreciate the full text transcript, please consider donating to AoM. It will help cover the costs of transcription and allow other to enjoy it. Thank you!

Brett McKay: Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of The Art of Manliness Podcast. Winston Churchill once said of his only son, “I love Randolph, but I don’t like him.” It’s a sentiment many a parent with tumultuous relationship with one of their children can relate to and well describes both how Winston felt about Randolph and how Randolph felt about his father. My guest today details Winston and Randolph’s incredibly close and yet terribly complex and combustible relationship in his new book, Churchill & Son. His name is Josh Ireland and we begin our discussion with how Winston’s own harsh and neglectful father influenced his own decision to be a much more involved and ultimately, indulging family man and the way he spoiled his son who was already inclined towards appalling behavior. Josh describes the manner in which Winston and Randolph both bonded and fought, and the effect the trouble Randolph caused had on the relation between Winston and his wife.

We then get into how World War II and the way Winston may have encouraged Randolph’s wife to cheat on him with an American diplomat affected Randolph’s relationship with his father for the worst. Josh explains the outsized expectation Winston had for Randolph and the points at which father and son respectively realized they’d never be fulfilled and the lesson to be taken from the story about the cost of parents imposing their own dreams on their children. We end our conversation by discussing why it is that the children of great leaders rarely turn out well themselves for, as Randolph himself observed, “Nothing grows in the shadow of a great oak tree.” After the show’s over, check out our show notes at aom.is/churchillandson.

[music]

Brett McKay:  Alright, Josh Ireland, welcome to the show.

Josh Ireland: Thanks, and well, really pleased to be on.

Brett McKay:  So you got a new biography out about Winston Churchill, but this isn’t just any other regular Winston Churchill biography, where you look at the entirety of his life. You focus in on his relationship with his firstborn son, Randolph Churchill. Curious, what kick-started your project in looking at and writing a biography of this father-son relationship? 

Josh Ireland: It’s quite weird. I can pinpoint exactly where I was and when. I was on holiday and I was reading Ben Macintyre’s really good book about the early days of Britain’s SAS, and right in the middle of that narrative, suddenly, Randolph, who’s Winston son, makes this extraordinary cameo right in the middle of the desert with these tough soldiers. Suddenly, this fat, drunk, angry, clever, brute and damaged man strides in and he steals the show for a few pages and then disappears off. And that got me thinking. I realized that I knew nothing about this man. I’m barely aware that Winston had a son. And then the more I read about Randolph, the more I realized that it was really strange that for all the many biographies of Winston, Randolph barely appears, when actually, if you look at how Winston felt about him, Randolph was the absolute center of his life. And that made me realized that it was a different way of looking at Winston, a different way of understanding him as maybe as a more human, more emotional, more vulnerable figure. And the other thing I was really interested in was, what it’s like to grow up with a man who is regarded as the greatest person in history, what effect that has on you, how you ever kind of build a life in that really long and punishing shadow.

Brett McKay:  Well, I hope we can see in this conversation, it was… Their relationship was fraught. That’s an understatement, I think.

Josh Ireland: [chuckle] Yeah.

Brett McKay: But I think to understand Churchill’s relationship with his son, Randolph, you really have to understand Churchill’s relationship with his own father, who’s also named Randolph, Lord Randolph. Can you tell us about Lord Randolph, what was he like? And then we can talk about his relationship with his son, Winston Churchill.

Josh Ireland: Well, Lord Randolph’s one of the most interesting and controversial, and strange figures in the 19th century. He was son of a duke and he basically revolutionized the Conservative Party, dragging them into the Modern Age. And just as he was about to take power himself, he takes this extraordinary gamble which backfires and just throws him out of power. Outside of his political life, he led an extravagant existence. He spent wildly. He and his wife, Jennie, were plunged into profound debt and even alongside that, he was suffering from this progressive brain disease, which people at the time felt was probably syphilis, but now seems to be something unidentified but which has a lot of the same symptoms. So his brain was rotting, his body was rotting, even as he was stepping away from the political limelight. But all of this busyness and all this danger and all of this excitement left no space at all for his two children, and that meant that Winston was this very sensitive, shy child, who was desperate for attention from a father who barely seemed to notice him.

And so there’s all these terrible scenes where Lord Randolph goes to address a political meeting in Brighton, where his son was at school and he didn’t even bother to cross the road to say hello to his son. He barely knew what country his son was in, he couldn’t tell you how old his son was. And whenever Winston tried to form any kind of bond with him, he’d have this horrible rebuke where his father basically told him that he was worthless, would never gonna amount to anything, and that he was almost ashamed to have him as a son, which had a massive and a long-lasting effect on… Psychological impact on Winston.

Brett McKay: And some of the letters are just brutal, where he’s writing to his father and his father just dresses him down, and Randolph was like, “You’re pathetic. You’re never going to amount to much.”

Josh Ireland: [laughter] It’s… I just can’t imagine any father talking to their child like that. To do it once is pretty bad, but he did it repeatedly. Even the last letter, he writes to him just before he dies, he’s just saying, “You’re never gonna amount to anything. You’re a failure, you’re pathetic, you’re stupid, you’re worthless.” He said, “You’re gonna become a degenerate. You’re gonna degenerate into a shabby, unhappy, and futile existence.” And Winston got that letter and he never saw his father again. They were almost the last words he ever heard from his father.

Brett McKay: And what’s so shocking about this, despite being treated so poorly by his father, Churchill, he still deeply admired and loved his father. What was going on there? Can you… Can you figure…. Did you figure out why Churchill had this romantic ideal of his father, even though his father… And the reality his father was nowhere near that ideal? 

Josh Ireland: I think it was psychologically essential for him. I think he retreated into a fantasy, where he believed that his father would have grown to love and admire and respect him. And everything he did, really, right through the course of his life, was part of this dialogue with his father, trying to persuade his father’s ghost that he was worthy of the affection that he hadn’t been given 30, 40, 60 years beforehand. There’s this extraordinary short story that Winston writes in the last years of his life where he imagines his father returning to him, and it’s just that… He said could never stop talking to his father or thinking about his father. And I think he just needed to believe that his father would ultimately have grown to love and respect him. And so he had that fantasy and lived it out throughout the entire existence.

Brett McKay: And do you think Churchill’s, his terrible relationship with his dad, do you think that helped him become the Winston Churchill that led England during World War II? 

Josh Ireland: Yeah, undoubtedly. I think that damage that was wrought on him, eventually that drove his ambition and it drove his sense of purpose, and it made him go further and harder than I think he would have otherwise. That’s what instilled in him, that ferocious work ethic, that burning desire to prove himself. So it’s grim irony that Britain’s survival in 1940 was all dependent on the bullying, cruel behavior of a man, 60 years beforehand.

Brett McKay: And I think, wasn’t it Randolph that wrote… Or it might’ve been Winston, something like “most great men”… He even thought about this. “Most great men they had a really bad childhood.”

Josh Ireland: Yeah, and that’s Winston entire line, yeah. He really thought it was essential as part of this growth of a great man, to be subjected to that kind of brutality as a young person, which is what makes his own attempts to mold his own son seem almost perverse in that he took exactly the different… Exactly the opposite approach.

Brett McKay: Let’s talk about his son. So Churchill had a terrible relationship with his father. He gets married and at what point in his life did he become a father? Where was he at in his political career? 

Josh Ireland: He was in his mid-30s when he finally marries. He meets a woman called Clementine Hosier, who comes from a similarly damaged emotional background and they quite quickly have kids. They have a daughter, Diana, a year after they get married and then Randolph follows a couple of years later. And their marriage coincides with the moment that Winston’s political career really begins to take off. He becomes the youngest member of Cabinet for 50 years. Initially, he’s President of the Board of Trade, which isn’t a particularly significant role, but it’s still important. Then he becomes Home Secretary and then after that, becomes Lord of the Admiralty, which makes him one of the three most powerful men in the entire British Empire at the time. So he’s really flying by the time he actually becomes a father.

Brett McKay: Alright, and so he named his son after his father, Randolph. And as you said, Churchill had this really terrible relationship with his own father. He decided from the get-go that he would do things entirely different with his kids, particularly with Randolph. Where there was scorn, Churchill would heap praise. So how did that… What did that look like? How did Churchill give Randolph the praise and approbation that he craved himself as a child from his own father? 

Josh Ireland: Yeah, Winston was very self-consciously, a very, very different parent to how his own father had been. For one thing, he was just much more present. I’m not sure Lord Randolph ever went into his children’s nursery. He certainly never gave any of his kids a bath. And when Winston was around… And it should be said, Winston had this incredibly busy, extravagant social life and his work dominated his existence, but when he could be there for his children, he was this intense, vigorous, charismatic presence. He loved all of his children and he was unashamedly affectionate, but it was Randolph that he adored more than any of the others. And I think from an early age, all of Randolph’s sisters knew that their brother was the favorite, and Winston showed that in lots of ways. He fed Randolph oysters from the table. When Randolph grew older, he would be encouraged to come and sit with prime ministers and great other political figures, and Winston would wave his cigars at David Lloyd George or Herbert Asquith and tell him to shut up and let his son speak.

And from a very early age, Winston encouraged Randolph to believe that he would become a great man, that he would probably become a prime minister or some other great figure. He praised him. He told him how clever he was, how beautiful he was, how funny he was. And whenever anyone else tried to discipline Randolph, Winston would step in and protect him. There were never any consequences, no matter what Randolph did, and Randolph was an appallingly mischievous child. Winston defended him and would just say that it was high spirits or a sign of his cleverness.

Brett McKay: Well, let’s talk about him being an appalling child. So he was a terror from the get-go. And we talked about some of the stuff that he did as a kid that were just crazy, but Churchill’s like, “Yeah, that’s… He’s just a clever boy.”

[laughter]

Josh Ireland: Yeah, the same [0:11:53.5] ____ etch. He was just… He must have just been… He was uncontrollable, really. He used to phone up the government departments, pretending to be his own father. He’d impersonate his voice. There was one day when David Lloyd George who was, at the time, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, came to visit the church, it was at a country house, and Randolph urinated on him from an upstairs window. It’s just extraordinary.

There was… No nurse maid stayed employed by the Churchills more than a couple of months, ’cause usually they’d be broken by this demonic child. And he was charming and he was funny, but he was… There was no one… Nobody could stop him from doing whatever he wanted.

Brett McKay: Yeah, the story with the nannies… He’d run them off, they would pack their bags. They would be chanting at the stairs, “Nanny’s leaving! Nanny’s leaving!” And you’re like, “What in the… “

Josh Ireland: I know, and it’s just, it’s funny on one level and then also just horrifying to think what all these poor teenage girls must have gone through. This big country house, suddenly this blonde, angelic demon starts yelling at them, and there’s no one that would protect them from him.

Brett McKay: Yeah, like you said, during this time, Churchill really didn’t do anything about it.

Josh Ireland: No. I mean, if anything, he encouraged it. I think he saw it as a sign of his son’s vitality. A big part of Winston’s own myth was that as a child, he’d been the naughtiest boy at Harrow, that he’d been stupid at school, that no one had thought he would make anything of himself, that he was forever getting into fights, that he was forever getting into arguments. And the same was true of Randolph. So, when Randolph fought with people at school, or when Randolph’s teachers tried to remonstrate with either Randolph or Winston, Winston would just laugh. And I think Randolph was self-consciously imitating his father. He knew that legend about Winston as the naughty child. I think he saw it as an important part of being a Churchill, as a way of demonstrating that as a Churchill, you didn’t follow other people’s rules.

Brett McKay: And do you think… Yeah, Randolph was a terror from the get-go. Do you think there was an inborn temperament that contributed to that? Or was it… Do you think it was primarily driven by Churchill’s overindulgence? 

Josh Ireland: It’s difficult… I think there’s something innate there. There’s lots of talk about streak of Churchill madness that goes from Lord Randolph to Winston to Randolph. There are generations of Churchills that have suffered from this malady. I think there’s probably some truth to that, and I think, clearly whatever was there, planted there by nature, was encouraged by Winston’s own behavior. He created a perfect environment for that, that bad behavior to grow.

Brett McKay: Alright. So when Randolph was a boy, he was peeing on prominent politicians, [chuckle] but then as he’s gotten to a young man, the problems just got bigger. What was he like, high school, and then in early on, in his own launching off into adulthood? What problems did Randolph create for Churchill? 

Josh Ireland: I think he… I think the thing about Randolph is that all of Winston’s faults are present in him. But they appear in a grander, more extravagant form. So, Winston was barely out of debt right through his life but could just about keep on top of it. Whereas Randolph ran up unbelievable amounts of debts by spending money he just didn’t have. He’d buy diamonds for girlfriends or friends. He’d turn up, when he was still a student, he’d turn up at Winston’s house in a chauffeur-driven Bentley. He bought flowers, he bought drink. When he stayed in a hotel, he’d stay in the master suite. And all of this went alongside like a ferocious appetite for drink and sex, and eating.

There are extraordinary descriptions of him, his eyes growing as he saw a pork chop being brought to the table. And he argued with everyone. He never stopped talking when he was at Eton, the high school. There were other people that actually threw him out of a window to see if he would stop talking. And they lobbed him out of the first floor of the window, saw him crash to the ground and he just carried on talking. But mostly, it was arguments. He was arrogant, he was clever, and he thought he knew better than anyone else, and was never afraid of speaking up, which is a really admirable quality sometimes, but clearly could get him into a lot of trouble.

Brett McKay: And this is also when you start seeing what people described as rows, bloody rows between Winston and Randolph. What kind of arguments would they get in, were… Basically it would be like yelling matches essentially? 

Josh Ireland: Yeah, the two men loved each other. They really deeply loved each other. And I think that love meant… All that affection, all that emotion, meant that most of the time, they were like a adoring couple. They’d tell each other how wonderful they were. They’d spend weekends in each other’s company. They’d go on holiday together, they’d go drinking together. They’d eat in restaurants together, they’d plot together, they’d go hunting together. But that close proximity also meant that when things went wrong, that it was so charged that they went really, really wrong. Randolph couldn’t control himself when he lost his temper. He’d throw chairs, he’d storm, and Winston had exactly the same faults. And often, the arguments they had were over tiny things. They were perceived slights. They were like tumultuous, romantic relationship.

They could be jealous of each other, they could be jealous of… They could be disapproving of each other’s behavior, and then Winston was brilliant at bringing them back together. He valued his son’s friendship and his son’s love, and couldn’t bear the idea that anything could stand in the way. So, after a huge argument, Winston would invariably be found going to Cartier’s to buy a new bracelet or watch for his son to try and make up. But there were times when their arguments were so fierce, that Clementine, Winston’s wife and Randolph’s mother, refused to be in the same room as them. It must have been terrifying to see. They’re both big men, they both drank a lot, they both had loud voices, they were both very sure of themselves and they didn’t care what anyone else thought about them.

Brett McKay: Speaking of Clementine, this was another… This added to the tension between… With Churchill and Randolph because Clementine was extremely protective of Winston Churchill. She even said that like, “My whole life now”, once they got married, “Is devoted to Churchill, Winston and his career.” And Randolph got in the way of that. And Clementine, she kinda… She didn’t really like her son… Not the nicest way… She didn’t like Randolph at all. What was that relationship like between Randolph and Clementine? 

Josh Ireland: Yeah, I think Randolph resented his mom… Mother for pouring everything she had into his father and there was very little left over for the other children. And I don’t think he ever forgave her for that. And as far as Clementine was concerned, I think she saw Randolph as the incarnation of all the worst parts for her husband. She admired Winston immensely, but she also knew that he was susceptible to extravagance and gambling and drinking, and that she thought Randolph was a bad influence when his father would just have a strange way of looking at the world. And I think also she was deeply jealous of him because Winston, especially in Randolph’s early years, clearly privileged him over anybody else including her. She thought that she was at the center of his life and then as Randolph enters his twenties, she realizes that she’s been pushed to its edges and I think she found that very hard, and so they were in… In a sense, they were in constant competition for Winston’s affection and love and attention and that meant that their relationship was incredibly uneasy, suspicious and very, very fraught.

Brett McKay: Did it affect Clementine’s and Winston’s marriage? Was there tension there because of Randolph? 

Josh Ireland: Yeah, I mean, I think for a long time because Winston was so uninterested in what was going on in anyone else’s head or heart apart from his own, I think he didn’t notice but as time went on, I think it became maybe the only significant argument that he and Clementine ever had, that they… This was the one thing in their marriage that threatened to push them apart because then they had this long successful bond for upwards of 50 years, but Randolph was the only thing that ever came between them because Clementine felt that Randolph could potentially be the end of Winston, that Randolph could be the reason that Winston wouldn’t go on to achieve all of his dreams and she did everything she could to try and to protect Winston from his son, was Winston was obsessed with Randolph. He wanted to spend as much time as he could with him, he wanted to do everything he could to help Randolph, and so those two views would… They couldn’t really would be reconciled.

Brett McKay: So, what’s interesting too, you note in the book when Churchill was in his wilderness years, when he was basically out of power, a pariah, this was before World War II, this was when his relationship with Randolph got really, really close. Randolph became a confidant, they spent a lot of time together ’cause Churchill didn’t have much going on but then World War II starts, Churchill is made Prime Minister. How does their.. The relationship between him and Randolph change with the start of World War II? 

Josh Ireland: So I think it changes almost overnight after Winston becomes Prime Minister, that they have been accustomed to phoning each other all the time and writing letters and spending huge amounts of time in each other’s company, and in a sense although Winston had been a Cabinet Minister, there was a… You could see that in the wilderness years that maybe his career was coming to an end and it must have felt to Randolph as if the future was his, and then suddenly Winston becomes Prime Minister, he’s surrounded by the whole apparatus of government. He doesn’t have time to think about his son because Britain’s in the greatest power that it has been maybe for almost 1000 years and so Randolph finds himself very abruptly pushed to the margins of his father’s life and he finds it very, very difficult to adjust to that new status because he used to be able to just walk into his father’s room and to start talking and now there were secretaries in his way or generals or chiefs of staff, and I don’t think he ever… Their relationship really ever recovered from that.

Brett McKay: Yeah, the way you describe it, I can see it’s been really hard for Randolph. There was instances where he wanted to see his father but Churchill’s private secretaries wouldn’t let him and wrote these patronizing letters like…

Josh Ireland: Yeah, exactly.

Brett McKay: “Be a good boy and leave your father alone.”

Josh Ireland: Exactly, which is… It must have been devastating to Randolph because one of the other things that when Winston becomes Prime Minister, he very quickly assembles a new government and he gives appointments to a lot of the people that had stayed loyal to him right through the wilderness years, but also to the people that had been responsible for his time in the wilderness, that, the conservative hierarchy. Winston was very, very quick to forgive the people that he knew would be necessary to help win the war and Randolph couldn’t bear that, he couldn’t bear that he’d been excluded, that his loyalty hadn’t been rewarded, and he couldn’t bear that the things that had made him so useful and necessary to his father, his pugnacity, his willingness to pick fights, his bravery, his recklessness, all of that was the last thing in the world that his father needed. 

His father needed someone calm and steady like Clementine, and Randolph didn’t help his case, he got… He’d get drunk and lose important maps when he parked outside Downing Street or he’d… All of the stories come back to Randolph being drunk and shouting at his father, he’d berate him about strategy over dinner. I don’t think he could ever adjust to the fact that he was no longer an important person, he wasn’t a partner of his father, he was just the Prime Minister’s son, and that doesn’t carry any weight.

Brett McKay: Yeah, these arguments, he would do it in front of the generals and Randolph would actually… He had no regard for hierarchy, military hierarchy when he was in his father’s presence and he’d just dress down generals and say, “You’re doing your strategy wrong,” and accuse people of cowardice.

[chuckle]

Josh Ireland: I mean it’s bold and it’s brave and it’s funny, and I’m sure a lot of those generals were really pompous and at the time the war was going really badly, so their strategy was probably wrong, whether Randolph knew any better is open to question but… Yeah I just think he couldn’t find a way of being useful to his father and so he just let go, he didn’t have any control. He wasn’t able to control himself, he wasn’t able to reconcile himself to the fact that he was this spare part now. And I think the thing he found intensely frustrating, and I think it’s impossible not to feel sympathy for him, was that Randolph knew that Winston revered bravery above everything, almost any other quality. And he was desperate to be able to get to the front line to fight, to show how brave he was and to secure his father’s admiration, but Winston was never willing to let him do that. He would say that if Randolph were killed, he wouldn’t be able to carry on as Prime Minister, so he found one way or another to stop him from going to the front. So Randolph was just a staff officer, kicking his heels, unable to contribute anything meaningful, unable to do anything that would make you stand out, and he became angry and bitter, and he took it out on the only person that he knew to do, and that was his father.

Brett McKay: And his father also, during the war would find excuses for his son to meet him somewhere, when Churchill was flying somewhere in the theater of war. He would somehow figure, “Oh I need Randolph here for whatever reason,” and Randolph would show up and I mean… What do you think was going on… Why do you think Churchill felt like he needed Randolph by his side? 

Josh Ireland: I think Randolph was probably the most disruptive presence in Winston’s life. He caused trouble, he caused arguments, he got drunk, he picked fights, but he also understood him in a way that I think nobody else did. They had spent so much time that they kind of inhabited almost the same mental space. They had talked about the same moments from the past, they had gone through so much together already, they shared so many of the same opinions and views on the world, they liked to drink and they liked to gamble. And I think Winston found his son’s company a huge support, which is something that I don’t think anyone around him ever quite understood or appreciated. I think they, all they saw was this whirlwind who was gonna come in and break apart their carefully laid plans, but actually I think there was… Randolph actually was essential to his father’s well-being and his ability to relax in a way that enabled him to prosecute the war so relentlessly and so effectively. He needed that outlet and Randolph was that outlet.

Josh Ireland:And Randolph understood that Winston would want to start the day in bed in silk and dressing gown, smoking and drinking and for Randolph that was absolutely normal, whereas for tightly buttoned civil servants, it was intolerable. And was just more sympathetic, and I think probably right through Randolph’s life he gave his father the affection and unstinting admiration that Lord Randolph had never given Winston. And when Winston needed that, that’s when he picked the phone up and said, “Send me my son.”

Brett McKay: So something that added some more complication between the relationship between Churchill and Randolph, was Randolph got married to his first wife, Pamela. This is kind of an interesting thing ’cause it also, there was implications it had effect on the war a bit. So can you tell us about Randolph’s relationship with his first wife Pamela, and Pamela’s relationship with Churchill? 

Josh Ireland: Yeah, the marriage should have been a really good thing. Randolph knew that two things would please his father once the war broke out. One was that he would fight with distinction and bravery, and two that he would find someone he could marry and produce an heir. Winston was absolutely obsessed with the idea of creating a dynasty of Churchills. So, absolutely central to that was the idea that Randolph should produce a son of his own. So Randolph wasted absolutely no time, almost within the weeks of war being declared, he proposed to, I think, seven women and all of them said no. Including, he was having an affair with two women at the time, both of whom said no. And then found seven unsuspecting debutantes who also said no. I think his reputation preceded him. And then finally he found someone who did say yes. Pamela was from another aristocratic background, maybe a tiny bit more provincial than the Churchill’s, and I think she was desperate to escape promised to be for her a boring, routine existence in the backwaters of England. For her, the Churchills was a passport into this exciting, gilded, glamorous political world.

Josh Ireland: So they married, a few months later, she gave birth to a child, Winston, and on the face of it everything was quite happy. Pamela and Winston got on incredibly well. She was brilliant at anticipating his moods, she soothed him when he was overwatch during the most tense times in the war, and he adored the fact that she had produced another heir. Unfortunately, all of the faults that have made Randolph a difficult son also made him an appalling husband, and when his own son was being born, he was in bed with the wife of another man, had to be summoned back from London at 4:00 in the morning, and he carried on drinking, he carried on cheating on her, he carried on gambling. And so it all came to a head when finally, he got posted to the Middle East and on the ship on the way over, he managed to lose their entire… I think he lost maybe four years’ worth of salary and then sent her a pathetic note saying, “I made a bit of a mistake. Do you think you could sort it out?” Which I think was the moment when I think she felt as if their marriage came to an end.

And that coincided with the arrival of Averell Harriman in the United Kingdom, he was President Roosevelt’s special emissary to Churchill. He was the person that would determine how much support the States, which still hadn’t entered the war, would provide Britain, which was looking increasingly beleaguered and alone, and war that was beginning to look unwinnable, and there was an immediate spark of attraction between Averell and Pamela. And Winston I think, recognized that that relationship had a value to him, that having someone who was so close to the man, who was in turn so close to President Roosevelt, might help him achieve his war aims, whether by persuading Roosevelt to send more men and ships…. Or more ships and munitions and supplies or just having someone who could engage in pillow talk, who could find out what the Americans were thinking. I don’t think for a second he initiated the relationship, but I think he knew it was happening and I think he encouraged it. He certainly never showed any sign of disapproving of the fact that his daughter-in-law was sleeping with another man.

Brett McKay: And what complicated the relationship even more is that Randolph and Averell, they became pretty good friends while Harriman was having an affair with Randolph’s wife.

Josh Ireland: Yeah, I think they were enchanted with each other. I think they had a great time. Randolph was stationed out in the Middle East at the time and Averell made a tour of Egypt and they spent hours in each other’s company. They went on boat trips. They went to restaurants. Randolph unwisely told Averell about all the affairs he was having in the Middle East, which I don’t know whether maybe that made it easier for Averell when he got home, but he seemed pretty comfortable in that deception. And I don’t think Randolph ever particularly… I don’t think he ever really blamed Averell for it, what had happened. I think he thought… He saw himself as a man of the world. He thought it was beneath for men to argue about women. What he resented, what he bitterly resented and what caused the wound that would probably never ever heal was his sense that his father had betrayed him. That was something he couldn’t bear.

Brett McKay: Yeah. So yeah, Randolph and Pamela end up getting divorced, and you make the case that that really harmed the relationship between Churchill and Randolph, ’cause Randolph just, for the rest of his life, pretty much felt that Churchill was responsible for it, like he knew about it and he took Pamela’s side or his side.

Josh Ireland: Yeah, I think he always felt as if… Not only did Winston condone that relationship and I think Randolph would have accused him of actually being the person behind it. Randolph, I think he just, he couldn’t ever get over it. Even years later, when Winston was this frail, old, weak person sitting on Aristotle Onassis’s yacht, Randolph would still be berating him. He’d be screaming in his face. It was something that cut Randolph deeply and no matter how many times he tried to heal that wound, he could never quite staunch the blood. It would still have the capacity to hurt him decades later.

Brett McKay: And the thing that amazed me as I was reading, particularly during the war years, their relationship was that, okay, Churchill, he’s leading in World War II. But at the same… That’s a big undertaking, but at the same time, he’s got all this family drama going on. I’m just like, how is this guy doing this? How is he dealing with his son yelling at him, his wife being mad at him because he’s forgiving his son, he’s got this daughter-in-law… How did this guy do that without keeling over from a heart attack? I think most people would have just died.

Josh Ireland: I think one of the interesting things is a lot of the times, his biggest flare-ups with Randolph happened around the time of greatest tension in the war. So the terrible arguments they had after Randolph found out that Pamela had been cheating on him came just as the Japanese were rampaging through Asia in late 1941, early 1942. And there’s an appalling row they have in the summer of 1944, just after D-Day, when, although things were going pretty well, there was still a lot up in the air. So it’s difficult to know whether there was something in the atmosphere which threw them against each other even more aggressively. But yeah, I think it is extraordinary that amidst all of that chaos, Winston is still focused. I think that was one of his great gifts, and then he had this ability to sleep when he needed to. I think the best thing he did was to send Randolph to Yugoslavia as much as he could to get him out of the way. And I think he recognized the value of sleeping and eating and drinking and having time to do things that weren’t anything to do with the war, but I don’t think having your son screaming at you or your wife not talking to you is a recipe for functioning well at work normally, and even especially if you are running a war effort.

So yeah, it is extraordinary that in the days after D-Day, when you would have thought that all of his attention should have been focused on what was happening in Normandy or other parts or the far east, and he was thinking about his son. He was writing letters to his son. At precisely this time, Randolph was writing to his mother, begging Clementine to tell Winston to stop interfering in his marriage that he couldn’t help himself. As I said, he was obsessed by his son.

Brett McKay: So the war ended. Did their relationship get any better after the war? 

Josh Ireland: I think the thing about their relationship before the war was that whether they were up or down, whether they were screaming at each other or hugging each other, their relationship was just unmistakably exuberantly alive. It was so living and so energetic, and that quality disappears completely after the war. I think that Winston, as I said, had always needed that love and affection that Randolph gave him, and he needed it during the wilderness years more than he ever had before. He was subject to so much criticism, so much ostracism, that he needed that support that Randolph gave him.

And then after the war, he’s this hero across the whole world. He goes into restaurants and people start cheering him. He goes into a French cafe and doesn’t have to pay for a drink, and he’s showered with money and awards and praise, and so he doesn’t need that from Randolph anymore. And I think also something essentially breaks during the war. It’s the distance that him becoming Prime Minister creates and also all the ferocious bloody rows they have together. And I think for a long time, Winston liked the energy that Randolph provided. He liked the banter and he liked the aggression, and he liked the arguments, and that’s what he thrived off. And then I think after the war, he was exhausted, and the last thing he wanted was that son bustling into his room, telling him what to do.

And you could see that although I don’t think they ever lost their love for each other or their capacity for affection, I think they stopped liking each other, and that’s heartbreaking. Winston starts spending time with his son-in-law, Christopher Soames, much more than he ever would his own son. He started almost shunning him. If you look at the visitor books at Chartwell, where Randolph had been a constant visitor before the war, he barely comes at all in comparison after it.

And there’s this really… There’s all these very sad story… This one terribly sad story, Randolph, on one of the rare visits he does make, he sees that his father has this wonderful collection of Mark Twain’s… I think signed by Mark Twain, that he just left molding in a cupboard. So he asks his father if he could have them and Winston doesn’t really say anything. And then that night, it starts raining. Randolph is just having a walk after dark, and then he sees his father clad in a raincoat, carrying a towering pile of Mark Twain books, off to go and hide them from his son. It feels symbolic of where their relationship was after the war.

Brett McKay: We’ve been talking about, earlier on, since Randolph was a boy, Churchill had these aspirations that he would be a great man, be prime minister even and kind of create this Churchillian Dynasty, and Winston believed it and then Randolph believed it. Was there a point where both of them eventually resigned themselves to the fact that Randolph wouldn’t amount to much? 

Josh Ireland:Yeah, I think Winston realized sooner than Randolph. I think Winston knew, as soon as the war has over. Randolph had been in Parliament for five years over the course of the war and then lost his seat in the 1945 election, which was the last time he would ever be in Parliament and I think Winston knew then. I think Winston knew that his son’s flaws were too deep and his anger was too great and he drank too much, he caused too many arguments. He’d fallen out with almost everyone in the Conservative Party’s hierarchy.

Randolph, I think, held onto that dream for longer. I think he felt that all it needed was for his father to disappear from the scene, whether that was to die or to walk away. I think he thought that as long as his father occupied a central place in British politics then there would never be space for him, which I think was true, but I think it also allowed him to believe that what happened to him wasn’t his own fault and that at some point, everything that he thought would happen would magically appear.

And the sad thing is that actually, it’s only when he lets go of that dream in the late ’50s that he actually begins to approach something like happiness. I think when he realizes that that pressure has been lifted, that he doesn’t need to think about that anymore, then he can begin to enjoy life for what it is rather than for what his father says it should be.

Brett McKay: Yeah, you talk about it… I think a big moment for Randolph with his relationship with his father… There was all this distance between them after the war. Randolph’s dream, since he was a boy was to write Winston’s biography. And he never asked his father to do it ’cause he’d think that’d be presumptuous, but eventually Churchill asked Randolph to write his biography. What did that mean to Randolph and how did that change the relationship? 

Josh Ireland: I think it meant everything to him. It was a sign Winston did, in fact, believe in him and value him. And I think it, more than that, it offered his life a purpose that it hadn’t had before. It allowed him to have a part in shaping his father’s legend, the memory of his father, and it allowed him to become closer to him because he was given all these incredible documents from his father’s life. He was able to go and talk to people who’d been significant figures in Winston’s life. And I think that whole process allowed him to re-acquaint himself with a man that he’d loved so hard and so long for so many years. He would say it was the only worthwhile thing he did, and I think it brought him a happiness that had eluded him for decades.

Brett McKay: It’s like a happy melancholy because, alright, so he had these aspirations to be a great man, ’cause his father basically told him that he’d be a great man. But it ended up… He did do something great. There’s this quote, I’ll read it, that you quote him, he says… About the biography. He says, “It’s a monument to my father and I’ll have left something worthwhile, something worthy of me. I’ve never done that before. It’s nice to leave something behind that someone will remember.” So he did this great thing, but it was about his father. It wasn’t even him.

Josh Ireland: Nothing is ever purely his own. Everything he has always comes from his father in some way, that he can never really claim to have achieved anything on his own merits, which I think is crushing when you look back at your life and you think that. I think for anyone, I think you want to feel as if you’ve established your own identity or you earn everything that’s come your way. And for all the people, I think poured scorn on Randolph for always taking money from his father or taking advantage of Winston’s connections, I think he would have been so much happier if he’d have been given a clearer run at life, if he’d have been left to his own devices. He would say that everything good he did, people would say, “Oh, that’s only because of his father” and anything bad he did, they’d say, “Oh, how terrible for the old man.”

He was just locked in this golden cage and it’s no wonder that he began to resent it, because I think clearly, anyone who’s the child of a great person, that you’re forever trying to be judged on your merits, that you want to be compared to yourself, you don’t want to just be always compared in relation to what your father or mother or sister or brother may have done many years ago. And then you’re… And I think more than anyone, Randolph was trapped in there.

Brett McKay: As you wrote this book and looked at their relationship, did you get any takeaways about lessons on the father-son dynamic that are universal to all father and sons? 

Josh Ireland:I mean, yes. So about a month after I finished the first draft, my wife had a baby, so it was one of those things that… It was a girl, but I think it was one of those things that really focuses your mind, you think about it. You’re much more alert to all those things than maybe you would have been otherwise. And I think one of the things that people criticize Winston for most is that sense that he over-indulged Randolph, that he left him spoiled. But I think it’s difficult to reproach someone for loving their child too much, I think much more damaging was the way he imposed his own ambitions and his own values on Randolph. He never even considered whether Randolph might want to do something other than become a politician or he never really wondered whether Randolph wanted the life that Winston was pushing upon him.

 And I think that’s one thing I think, that you… No matter how much you might want something for your child, you have to let them find their own way, you can’t force them into something that you… Just because it’s important to you, it may not be important to your own child, and I think… I don’t think he can help this, but his personality was so strong, so he was so charismatic and so so powerful that I think Randolph, he couldn’t ever see himself outside of his father’s eyes. I think his own self-worth was entirely dependent on how his father was treating him on a given moment. I don’t think he ever had an independent sense of self.

So I don’t know quite how that translates into a universal rule for parenting, but I think what Winston could never respect was someone else wanting something other than the life Winston had wanted for himself, but at the same time, he was affectionate and generous. And I think the thing that is most admirable was his constant ability to forgive no matter what Randolph did, he always forgave him.

Brett McKay: And do you think it’s possible for someone to do world-altering work, great work that will be remembered for the ages and be a good father, or is that you had to choose one or the other? 

Josh Ireland: I mean it’s interesting, if you think about all the great, The Big Three, the summits between Stalin and FDR and Winston Churchill through the war, these three immensely powerful men, who as much as anyone in history have really changed the course of history. They really had… They were extraordinary giants of men. And all of them had incredibly unhappy children, there’s a brilliant biography of Svetlana Stalin, who had this weird life where she actually ends up in the States, and she was completely crushed by Stalin. All of FDR’s children were unhappy. Randolph’s sisters, one of them committed suicide. Another basically drank herself to death. And I think to go back to where we began, the idea that great men need to be damaged in their childhood to go and do great things, I think the dark side of that is that they… Because they are damaged, they are able to do great things, but they are damaged and damaged people generally end up damaging the people around them, whether they intend to or not. And so, I think it is very hard to imagine anyone who is the child of a great person ever having a happy or fulfilled life because there are very few examples of anyone that has managed that.

Brett McKay: The one thing I always think about too, is you look… Here in America, there’s these families that were dynasties like the Roosevelts, for example. So we’re talking about the Franklin Roosevelt side and the Theodore Roosevelt side. None of their kids… I mean, Theodore Roosevelt, Teddy, Theodore Roosevelt Jr was, he became a general in the army. The rest of the kids, they had unhappy lives too. So it was always like, man, should you even try to go for great things if it’s gonna destroy your family? I’d love to figure out someone who’s able to go through that Charybdis and Scylla, and navigate through it. I don’t know if it’s possible.

Josh Ireland: I remember when I was young, I worked with… I won’t say who it was, but I worked at a publishing house, and we published a memoir by a child of one of Britain’s prime ministers, and they were just one of the most unhappy people I’d ever met. And they spent their entire life wanting approval or attention from their parent and had never been given it. And I think I always had that in the back of my mind as I was writing this, that you’ll always… That you can’t have both things that I think… Logistically, if your parent is a significant politician, the demands on their time and attention are immense, but I think also, the people that go on to do those things are egotistical and ruthless and selfish, and that’s what enables them to get to the top, but it also means that they are [0:49:35.4] ____ parents.

Brett McKay: Well, Josh, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book and your work? 

Josh Ireland: Yes, so the book’s out in the States and in the UK, it’s published by Dutton, so it’s available everywhere, I’m sure.

Brett McKay: Well, Josh Ireland, thanks for your time. It’s been a pleasure.

Josh Ireland: Well, thanks so much, Brett, I really enjoyed that. Thank you.

Brett McKay: My guest here is Josh Ireland, he’s the author of the book, Churchill & Son. It’s available on Amazon.com and book stores everywhere, make sure to check out our show notes at aom.is/churchillandson, where you can find links to resources when you delve deeper into this topic.

[music]

Brett McKay:  Well, that wraps up another edition of The AOM Podcast, check out our website, artofmanliness.com, where you’ll find our podcast archives, as well as thousands of articles written over the years about pretty much anything you think of. And if you’d like to enjoy ad-free episodes of The AOM Podcast, you can do so on Stitcher Premium, head over to stitcherpremium.com, sign up, use code Manliness at check out for a free month trial. Once you’re signed up, download the Stitcher app on Android or iOS, and you can start enjoying ad-free episodes of The AOM Podcast.

And if you haven’t done so already, I’d appreciate if you take one minute to give us a review on Apple Podcast or Stitcher, it helps out a lot. And if you’ve done that already, thank you. Please consider sharing this show with a friend or a family member who you think will get something out of it. As always, thank you for your continued support, until next time, this is Brett McKay, reminding you to not only listen to The AOM Podcast, but put what you’ve heard into action.

The post Podcast #717: The Fraught, Relatable Relationship Between Winston Churchill and His Son appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

You’re cruising along with your family on a summer road trip and everyone is getting a little cranky. The air is stale, the drinks are stale too, and what’s needed is some sort of activity that everyone can agree on. Sure, each kid/parent could have their own device to waste away the hours, but it’s more fun to be able to engage with something together. That way the diversion can move from segregated consumption to common conversation. 

Landing on this shared entertainment is a tall task. Music is fine, but doesn’t pass the time very well, and it’s hard to get everyone to concur on a genre or station (Kidz Bop makes Mom and Dad want to gouge their eyes out). Playing various car-based games (20 questions, find all 50 license plates, ABC game, etc.) can be fun, but what to do when you’ve already cycled through them? 

Why not try a kid-oriented podcast? Along with the proliferation of podcasts for adults in recent years, the Kids and Family category has grown by leaps and bounds as well and can keep everyone entertained for extended periods of time (or simply on your daily commute to school). 

The key, and the hard part, is selecting something that the kids will find engaging, and Mom and Dad will find tolerable, and ideally even enjoyable.

With that curation criteria in mind, I listened to a ton of podcasts with my almost-six-year-old son, and together we decided on some top picks: The shows featured below are kid- and adult-tested, kid- and adult-approved. Most shows here are geared towards somewhat younger audiences — starting at about age five (which seems to be when kids can begin to follow an audio story) and going through the preteen years. Once your children turn into teenagers, all bets are off and you might start delving into non-kid programming. 

Almost all of these podcast hosts and creators have been in the audio production game for a long time. When you’re making something for kids, there needs to be that balanced constellation of traits: educational, entertaining, appropriate, and engaging (for just the right amount of time), typically with at least a little humor peppered in. It’s not easy to get it just right. 

While the following hit that sweet spot nicely, there are still many dozens of great options out there for kids’ podcasts; this list is but a jumping off point if you’re unsure of where to start. As with anything your children consume, it’s best to listen to an episode or two yourself to see if the tone and content match your family’s values, interests, and sensibilities. 

What If World 

There are a lot of storytelling podcasts out there. My favorite is What If World. What If World is a separate planet where anything can happen. Taking ridiculous questions from kids themselves — the more outlandish the better — Mr. Eric (aka creator Eric O’Keeffe) spins answers into a rollicking, often funny story that’s entertaining for kids and adults alike. 

What if parents went to school and kids went to work? What if puppies had laser eyes and could fly? What if unicorns and cars morphed together? What if every closet had a skeleton in it? 

Are these questions absurd? Of course. Are they perfect fodder for storytelling? Yes! 

What’s great about Mr. Eric, and what sets What If World apart from other storytelling shows, are the great sound effects and voices he creates for his characters. (JFKat, for instance, is a hilarious recurring cat character.) Though not part of the episodes themselves, Mr. Eric provides a take-home lesson on each episode’s webpage, which makes a handy jumping off point for further conversations with your kiddos. 

This show will also help your own storytelling chops as a parent — have your kids ask the silliest “what if” question they can conjure up and weave your own tale! 

Wow in the World

If you listen to any of NPR’s numerous podcasts, you’ve likely heard this one advertised. Wow in the World is hosted by Guy Raz (who also hosts How I Built This) and Mindy Thomas. Given that it’s an NPR show, the production value is among the best you’ll find in a kids’ show. The sound effects, funny dialogue, and science/technology explanations are top-notch. 

Weekly episodes explore some sort of idea or discovery in the STEM realm — sea shells, the whitest paint ever, how the brain registers pain. You get the idea. Each episode also provides a “WOW-sheet,” which is a printable activity that brings kids from the audio world to the real world. 

Included in the feed for this show is a weekly episode of Two Whats?! and a Wow!, which is a short quiz show that was created in response to the school closures of the last year. It’s interactive and very fun. There are also special weeks/episodes focused on a “tinker” project, which gives kids a short prompt for creating something at home and submitting their pictures/experiences to the hosts. 

In short, Wow in the World is a kids’ show with a lot of variety and is far more interactive than most. Sometimes the potty humor is a little much (there are a lot of jokes about farts), but every episode is entertaining for kids and adults alike. 

Be sure to take advantage of the categorized database of shows, which breaks them down by appropriate age level and topic. There are hundreds of episodes in the archives, so this is a rather useful tool. 

Smash Boom Best 

Smash Boom Best might just be the most fun show on this list. Geared towards kids and their families, it’s a simple debate show which argues the merits between two things: Bats vs owls. Castles vs caves. Invisibility vs flying. Mermaids vs bigfoot. Avengers vs Star Wars. 

Each episode features main host Molly Bloom, alongside a rotating cast of guests who serve as the two debaters, as well as the judge who decides a winner between them. Chefs, comedians, authors — they bring in a wide variety of fun, energetic people who get very passionate about the topic at hand. 

There are a few rounds of different styles of debate. The Declaration of Greatness sums up the history and awesomeness of the subject (followed by 30-second rebuttals). Then there’s a Micro Round, which is some sort of short, creative challenge that the debaters have prepared in advance — a persuasive sonnet, an exciting movie trailer, a letter to the editor, etc. After that is the Sneak Attack, in which they have to do basically the same thing, but without something pre-prepared. It ends with the Final Six, which requires debaters to sum up their argument in just six words. 

Beyond just the silly arguments, they get into real tips about debating, rebuttals, persuasiveness, and even logical fallacies! 

There are a few dozen episodes, averaging about 35 minutes long (there are extra episodes for paid supporters). So they’re a little longer than your standard kids’ show, but since the intent is for this to spur conversation/debate among children and their parents (and anyone else tagging along!), it’s not too hard keeping everyone on track, especially when broken into a couple listening sessions. 

The Past and the Curious

For history-loving kiddos out there, The Past and the Curious is a great show which presents dramatic first-person accounts of history’s unusual and unknown tales, featuring famous and not-so-famous names alike.  

Each episode is about 30 minutes long and features two stories around a theme: Women in flight, bears, “Great Moments in Communication!”, etc. The heavily researched, engaging stories are well-produced, often a little comedic/sarcastic, and provide great context as to why these narratives matter. That might sound a little heady, but my kiddo loves it and can often recite back to me an episode recap even a week or two after listening. Yes, the kid has a good memory, but it also shows how memorable the stories can be. 

Recent episode subjects include astronomer George Ellery Hale and the world’s largest telescope, Levi Strauss and his blue jeans, Willa Brown (the first black woman to earn a pilot’s license), the great limburger cheese war of 1935, and more. Even as an adult, you probably aren’t familiar with most of the stories and you’re guaranteed to learn something from each episode. 

New episodes come out monthly and there are 50+ in the archives to sate your appetite between installments. 

The Alien Adventures of Finn Caspian 

If you’re looking for a fictional story with recurring characters, Finn Caspian is a great sci-fi adventure show. 

Finn is an 8-year-old boy aboard an interplanetary space station. He and his friends are part of an “Explorers Troop,” sort of a space version of the Scouts. They explore planets, encounter aliens, and solve mysteries together. 

There’s no violence and just a little bit of suspense in this show that describes itself as “Scooby-Doo meets Buffy the Vampire Slayer in space.” The host does all the voices, which gives it a little bit of a homemade feel, but John Messinger does a great job describing what you’re “seeing” as you listen. The sound effects are quite good, too. It ends up really feeling like you’re in space. 

It’s a serialized story, which means that jumping in with the newest episode or randomly in the archives isn’t advised. Instead, start right at the beginning and go from there. There are well over 100 episodes by now, so you and the kids will stay entertained for a good long while. 

The post 5 Great Podcasts for Kids (That Are Enjoyable for Parents Too!) appeared first on The Art of Manliness.

We’ve talked in the past about the importance of young men having a rite of passage or initiation into manhood. Throughout time and across cultures, societies have developed rituals to help usher young men from adolescence to maturity — from dependence to independence.  

As has been noted by cultural anthropologists, rites of passage in the West have declined due to many factors, including suspicion of rituals and disintegration of communities. The resulting lack of transitions and pivot points may be a significant source of the ills plaguing men today. Without an initiatic experience into positive, grounded manhood, young men are left to be buffeted by the winds of anomie and nihilism. Instead of stepping into their roles and responsibilities, and gaining a sense of confidence, competence, and purpose, they feel stuck in limbo. Instead of being generative, their masculine energy becomes destructive.

Given the dearth of culturally-embedded rites of passage in the modern world, some fathers decide to create their own “DIY” coming-of-age challenges for their sons. But while this idea is very well-intentioned, fathers are in fact the wrong person for the job.

Why Fathers Shouldn’t Be the Ones Who Initiate Their Sons into Manhood

When we think about classic rites of passage, we often think of fathers initiating their sons into the mysteries of manhood.

But as Richard Rohr — a Franciscan friar who writes about male spirituality and leads rites of passage for men — notes in his book From Wild Man to Wise Man, in both mythology and in traditional cultures, it is rarely the father who directly guides the initiate. Instead, it’s an older male relative or friend of the father (or group of such relatives and friends) who takes the lead in coming-of-age rituals. 

Jesus went to John the Baptist, an older male relative, for initiation into his ministry. 

The poet Robert Bly notes that in the story of Iron John, it was the wild man, Iron John, that guided the young prince’s initiation into manhood, and not the prince’s father.

In the Odyssey, it wasn’t Odysseus who initiated his son Telemachus into manhood; Odysseus’ friend Mentor took on this task (it’s from this story that we get our English word “mentor”). Of course, Odysseus wasn’t available for the job, but the legend is also trading on an archetypal pattern that transcends the particular details of the poem.

You see this dynamic in modern stories too. English teacher John Keating and his students in Dead Poets Society; Obi-Wan Kenobi (and Yoda) and Luke Skywalker in Star Wars; Coach Eric Taylor and his players in Friday Night Lights; Mr. Miyagi and Daniel-san; great-uncles Hub and Garth and their nephew Walter in Secondhand Lions . . . in our cinematic tales, a boy gets mentored by someone other than his father, whether or not his father is around.

So too, in traditional real-life cultures all around the world, it was typically a boy’s uncles and relatives who taught him the secrets of manhood during his rite of passage.

Rohr argues that the relationship between a biological father and his son is too complex for the former to be the latter’s initiator. When a dad leads his son’s initiatic experience, his own identity and sense of self are on the line. This could result in a dad going too easy on his son or being overly harsh to ensure he passes the test. A father has too much invested to lead an initiation impartially.

And we have to remember that one part of an initiation into manhood is separation. A boy is trying to become less dependent and more independent. A father is likely wrapped up in his son’s sense of boyish self; he sees his son through the filter of having watched him grow from a baby. Becoming a man requires a boy to separate himself from that image and dynamic, and that requires separating himself from his father. But if Dad is the one leading the rite of passage, that process of separation could be stunted. 

Further, a son is so familiar with his father, that he may be less likely to listen to him and more comfortable pushing back against his counsel and challenges. Young people are more apt to take advice from adults who are at a bit of a distance, than they are from those who are closest.

In a rite of passage, it’s ideal for the father to remain in a nurturing role, while someone outside of the boy’s most intimate circle is the one who pushes him. The former provides the sense of security that actually gives him the confidence to heed the latter’s challenge to launch out.

At the very bottom of it, a third-party initiator allows for an initiation to occur without the father-son tension getting in the way.

If I look back at my own life, I can see this pattern. My dad was always there for me and set an example for me, but other adult men helped usher me into manhood. Football coaches, professors, and church leaders all played roles in various rites of passage along my developmental journey.

While a father might not be the one exclusively guiding his son’s initiation into manhood, this doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any role in facilitating a rite of passage experience. A dad’s job is to ensure that his son has plenty of opportunities to be mentored and initiated by other men. A father should focus on building a community of men around himself that can serve as a pool of potential initiators; every boy needs three families to grow up well! Surround yourself with the kind of men you’d want to help guide and teach your son. If you want to set up a structured ritual for your son’s transition into manhood, that’s awesome, but ask your male friends and relatives to get involved with it too. Both you and your son will get more out of the experience. 

The post Why Fathers Shouldn’t Initiate Their Sons Into Manhood appeared first on The Art of Manliness.