Cultivating Emotional Awareness and Empathy in Boys and Young Men

It hurts my heart to hear the harder stories of men’s boyhood: the loneliness, sadness, and anger. What interferes with the healthy emotional development of boys isn’t necessarily experiencing these feelings at some points. Rather, it’s the silence with which they experienced these emotions. Directly and indirectly, boys are socialized to keep their emotional lives private.

I wouldn’t be a therapist if I didn’t try to understand a client’s childhood to some degree. In this post (WIP), I’ll be looking into early factors that shape the psychological development of men, the impact of boyhood on manhood, and how parents can help boys and teens grow into kind, empathetic and emotionally connected adults.