Raising Emotionally Healthy Boys: David Thomas

Developmental theorists would say most girls finish adolescence somewhere around 19 to 20, and they would say for boys it's 22 to 25. Welcome to Family Life Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Shelby Abbott, and your hosts are Dave and Ann Wilson.

You can find us at familylifetoday.com or on the Family Life app. This is Family Life Today. So I'm sitting here with the mom of boys. You are, I think, the greatest mother of boys. Of course, I might be a little biased. I think you're very biased. But no, I mean, you're fantastic as a mom of boys. It's easy to say that looking back, you know, because when I was in the midst of it, I felt like I was failing miserably.

I'm just telling you, I'm just your husband, and I'm not biased at all. But I mean, even this weekend watching you with our grandsons, you walk in and light up a boy's life. You understand boys like I've never seen. And so I've got one question for you, because we're going to talk about raising boys today, emotionally healthy boys. What would you say is the most important advice you could give a mom or a dad? I mean, the first thought, this is crazy, that comes to my mind is embrace the physical chaos.

That's the first thing. It feels like chaos with little boys because they just don't sit very often, and they're physical, and they're loud. And so as a mom, if you're trying to get a house that's quiet and in order, you're going to be super frustrated, because it's pretty chaotic with little boys in a good way, and it can be really draining physically. Yeah, after spending a weekend with three grandsons and a granddaughter, my head is still banging around in my head. It's like my skull is just like, the whole weekend was awesome, but it was chaotic.

But we've got the expert in the studio. You're not a boy mom, you're a boy dad, and a father of a daughter as well. But David Thomas, first time ever, I think, on Family Life. I am so grateful to be here with the two of you. And I'm going to say, I'm not married to your amazing wife, but I will say, I get everything you're saying. From the time we've spent together, it makes sense to me why you would have said what you just said. And that's been my experience so far with you, a really intentional mother of boys.

It's been fun to hear you tell stories. You're so nice. That means a lot. Thank you. You can tell already you're a counselor. You can just tell the way you...

He's empathetic. You have been encouraging to us. Tell our listeners what you do every single day of your life and for how many years? Twenty-five years now. Twenty-five years.

Yes. I have been the director of family counseling at an amazing place in Nashville, Tennessee, called Daystar Counseling Ministries. And I work with an incredible team, the majority of whom are human, but we have five therapy dogs on staff. So I work with great canines and humans. And the whole focus for us is the pediatric population. So we work just with kids, adolescents, and families.

That's our whole focus. And I have long said and always believe, if you go to work every day and you get to hang out with kids and dogs, what a great gig. I have a really good day job. And out of that work, I have written some books and had some incredible opportunities just to travel around the country and talk about different aspects of parenting and super grateful those opportunities led me to be with the two of you today and sharing conversations.

So thank you for having me. The book we're going to talk about today, Raising Emotionally Strong Boys, Tools Your Son Can Build On For Life. I got to tell you, David, when I picked this up, and again, I'm a boy dad. You know, I wish I'd had daughters.

We didn't have any. And now we have daughter-in-laws and granddaughters, which is awesome and amazing. And let's just let our listeners know that David had twin boys. We had a shocking journey in that my firstborn, as you shared, was a girl. And then we went to our ultrasound for our second pregnancy. We got pregnant a year later. And we were incredibly grateful and went for the ultrasound, as you do, and walked in the door and said to the technician, OK, we're really old school. We don't want to know what we're having. We didn't know my daughter was a girl till the day she was born.

So make a note in the chart, but don't tell us. And you all, I can still remember where I was standing in that room as the technician looked up, and she said, I see two heads. And I remember thinking, why are you smiling if the baby has two heads? Like, nothing about that looked or sounded right to me.

I was genuinely that shocked. We have no history of multiples. My wife had not gained extra weight.

Her counts weren't different. Here we are at the ultrasound midway through finding this out for the first time and knowing that multiples always come early. So I said to the technician at that point, OK, actually change of plans.

We do need to know since we're so far behind. I'm going to lay down next to my wife and then you tell us what we're having. Did you?

Yes, I laid down on the bed next to her in the middle of this ultrasound. And she said, two boys. We are still recovering from that news 20 years later. So father of a daughter and twin sons who, I don't know if the two of you would say this has been true in your life, but I would sure for me, like those three human beings have been the greatest teachers of my life. Like I've had some incredible teachers and mentors in my life that I'm thankful for, but I have learned more from being a student of those three people than I have in any other relationship. Isn't that one Dan Allender's book? Yes, How Children Raise Parents. I love that book.

Yeah, he was on the speaker team with Family Life Weekend. Remember, he's just amazing. I think, though, what you said, David, is true. I used to think, I can't wait that God has chosen me to be their parents because I'm going to instill this knowledge and this wealth of spiritual maturity to my children. And then I got along the road and I thought, oh, this isn't about my kids changing them as much as this whole process is changing me. It's making me see my flaws. It's making me see my weaknesses.

It's making me depend on God. And so having boys and having had a girl first, were they different? Oh, my goodness.

Were they different? And not even just having a girl, but a firstborn girl. And that is not to say that every firstborn girl meets the criteria of firstborn, but it is to say a lot do, which is to mean my daughter, like a lot of firstborn girls, she's conscientious. She's a rule follower.

I could run down a long list of things that are true about her that stayed true that were not as true. In fact, you know, maybe my best example of this would be when she was a senior in high school and she was in the middle of applying for scholarships to college, applying to college, applying for scholarships. She would come home repeatedly and say things to my wife and I like, hey, I just want to let you both know that I applied for this scholarship today.

I'll hear back in two weeks. Well, we didn't even know that scholarship existed. You know, we certainly didn't know the deadlines. She applied to more colleges than I knew. Like we sat down with a college counselor and I was like, oh, I actually wasn't aware she'd applied to that school as well because she was so on top of things on her game, had a spreadsheet, all those things. And I remember looking at my wife at one point and just saying, let's just enjoy this, okay, because it will not go down the same way next summer.

We may drag those two through the process. And my sons are amazing and they brought their incredible strengths to that process, but it looked different. As you both know, like it looks vastly different.

Their strengths are different and they were maybe even greater because of her firstbornness. I'll make up that word that may, has made the entire journey look different. The other thing we laugh about is we were given one of those kits at a baby shower when my daughter was born, you know, where you plug in the sockets and you lock the cabinet shut. And we moved in that process and we somehow forgot to put all those things up in the kitchen and in the socket, in the outlets. And we found it like a year later and I said to my wife, oh my goodness, we never even use this, how embarrassing.

But we didn't need it. She would find things on the floor and bring it to us. They would find things on the floor and put it in their mouth or up their nose, you know, so we couldn't lock down enough of the kitchen cabinets with those boys. And my daughter, just the way she operated in the world, it was such a different experience. So it was such a learning curve, not only to jump from boys to girls, but obviously one to three. You know, my daughter was not two when my sons were born, so we had three children under three. We had three in diapers. I was driving a Nissan Sentra. My wife was driving a Toyota Camry. We didn't even own a car big enough to put three car seats in. People would just come by our house and drop off diapers on the front porch and say, bless you.

We hope this is helpful in some way because we were overwhelmed with parenting three children under the age of two. Were you a therapist at that time? I was. And so you had tools going in.

In my head, I had those tools. Every therapist who's transparent and honest would say to you, all of what you know, and my wife's a teacher, she'd say the same. Like all of what works with other kids in terms of our vocations does not always work with your own. You get humbled in a remarkable way to learn that this book knowledge, this thing I'm communicating to parents doesn't always work exactly the way I'd like it to work in my own home. And so it's part of where they've been these great teachers of humbling me. And I think even allowing me, hopefully over the course of my work, to be present with parents in a different way, because I understand the reality that the three of us know that you can do so many of the right things and you can read all the right books and listen to the right podcast. And things just be really hard and things not go as planned.

And knowing that God is creating opportunity, as you beautifully said, for our growth, for our transformation as much as for our kids. Talk about, you know, as a therapist and as a dad, the differences between a daughter and a son. And I know they're unique to every, so there's generalities that don't cross over. You know that better than anybody. But there are differences. There are.

I mean, Anne just mentioned even the physicality. I have a sister and two brothers and all of us had boys. So my parents had 12 grandsons. So we would get together. Chaos.

To use your word. Yeah, beyond. I mean, things flying and you had to wear a helmet to walk to the family room. Some nephews get it.

It was crazy. And I'm not saying daughters don't do that as well, but there are differences. And you wrote about raising emotionally strong boys.

So I want to get there in a second. Why emotionally strong? Because a lot of people would think just raise strong boys. But talk a little bit about differences.

Well, I think one is the very thing you're pointing to, which is just so wise to highlight on the front side. Just their energy is different. You know, we know that early on girls have advanced abilities to regulate themselves differently than boys. And it's why, to the great point you made a little bit earlier, they have more physicality to who they are as people in this world and even to their emotional experience.

That's something I talk about in the book. That research would tell us that toddler age boys are more prone to, in a classroom, biting, hitting, kicking, screaming, throwing. It's that need for release that exists in him that is different for a lot of girls. It's why a lot of adolescent boys are prone to punching holes in drywall. I don't hear that story about girls as often. It's not to say it can't happen, but it is to say that energy, that physicality, that intensity is something that we have to work to create. In the book I call it healthy outward movement. Otherwise it will come out, but it may not be healthy. Or boys will turn inward on themselves.

And neither of those is a helpful, healthy direction. So to your great question, I think it starts with just understanding their energy and then kind of placing that in the context of their emotionality. And the other thing that I would say is pediatricians would report that at 16 to 18 month well visits, most girls are saying around 100 words.

Most boys are saying around 30. So if her general vocabulary is larger, it makes sense that her emotional vocabulary would be larger as well. So we're going to have to labor longer with boys to help them develop a more full, expansive emotional vocabulary. So I love that you asked that question right out of the gate because it simply means we always want to be thinking about these unique, God-given strengths that exist that make their hardwiring different. Or we could simply miss a lot of opportunities. We could simply place expectations on our sons that aren't helpful for them. So can I throw out one last one?

Sure. Developmental theorists would say most girls finish adolescence somewhere around 19 to 20. And they would say for boys, it's 22 to 25. That's significant. You know why Ann's laughing right now? Because she married me at 22. I know that laugh was like, I married an adolescent.

Absolutely. And it was sort of like I was not mature yet. I'm laughing, though, because we had one of our sons say that I don't think I was emotionally mature until I was 25. Like for him to say that now as a 30-some-year-old, he's like, I don't think I even knew who I was. And it felt like he said my wife knew exactly who she was and how to respond emotionally.

And I love his transparency. And I think a lot of adult males can't say that. And your reality was my reality. I was 24 when we got engaged, 25 when I got married. And I remember my wife came to a class I teach on boy development at one point, and I shared that reality that I just shared.

And on the drive home, I'm like, sweetheart, you married an adolescent. She said, I know. It was no surprise to her. They knew long before we did.

Long before we did, absolutely. And so I think if we are embracing that kind of wisdom and knowing that to be true, God designed us to finish out adolescence in different times, then it allows us to accurately place the finish line at 25 for boys. Now, he might get there a little bit earlier, but somewhere in that 22 to 25 space, as opposed to, you know, I think we launch boys out into the world sometimes around 17, 18, 19 saying go be a grown up. And he could have a good eight years of adolescence left. And so it's where, you know, in some previous work I've written on boys, I talk about how intentional I want to encourage parents to be with the summers of a boy's college years. Like, I think there's so much learning that happens in the classroom between 18 and 22. But I think the summers of those years, I want boys working. I want them doing internships and practicums and missions experiences where there is so much growth and learning happening to honor their development and all of the growth that still needs to be taking place in that time that I think is as pivotal as whatever kind of learning is happening in the classroom as well.

Wow, that's really wise. And you want them doing those kind of things in the summer versus what? Nothing, which is where I think a lot of boys, sadly, this day and age more than ever are going to land. I have the section in the new book about how often I sit with boys who are like, I just want to chill summer.

And if I drill down on that, I know what that always means. Like, I don't want a bedtime. I don't want a wake time. I don't want any expectations. I don't want any chores. I don't want a summer job. I don't want a schedule. I want unlimited screen time.

There's a lot of ways that I think boys would define a chill summer. Because they aren't self-actualized enough to structure that time well for themselves, they need us to help them structure it. And again, honoring development, my sons need that differently than my daughter needed that.

You know, they're 20. And where she was at 20 looked very different because I understand development than where they are right now. And all of the ways that I think that might help us think, for example, you know, I sit with a lot of families who would say to me, David, I think my son might benefit from a gap year.

You know, I think it could be helpful for him to do some work for a year before he goes to college and have a better understanding of the value of money, a better understanding of the value of education, so many things. And that's not a right decision for every boy. But I'm not surprised when it's a right decision for more boys than girls. I don't sit with as many parents of girls who would see evidence. That's not to say girls don't benefit from that. There are some who do. But again, if we are really looking at all of what's true about growth and development and these differences we're discussing, I think it would mean we would make some different decisions on behalf of the amazing sons that we love to honor development. Yeah. Well, let's talk emotionally strong because, I mean, even in your titles, I picked up your book. I'm like, what does that look like?

How does that work? I remember I've shared this here before. You know, I had three sons.

Steve, who started the church, we started church together, had three daughters. I can't believe you're sharing this. Oh, this is fascinating.

They were- Fascinating or bad? Yeah, we'll see. And maybe it'll get edited out. And Steve knows this story. But they were visiting and we're jumping in our minivan. And I remember two of their daughters, probably middle school age, would you say? No, they're elementary for sure.

Elementary, like 10, 11 years old probably, 9, 10, 11. They start talking about who wants to sit in the captain's seats behind me. I'm in the driver's seat getting ready to drive out of our driveway. And they're arguing about, I want the seat, no, I want the seat. And they just keep going back and forth. And there's this conversation going on that I'm sitting there like, I want to get going. And I get frustrated.

And I'm embarrassed to say this. I literally turn around, Dave, and I go, just punch her in the arm and take the seat. Because I had never in my life heard two boys communicate.

They just pushed each other out of the way and grabbed the seat. And that's how life went. This is why God gave us sons, not daughters. Well, there's two questions there. One is, there's a sense that they were more emotionally healthy than boys were at that time.

And I'm setting you up for a later question. Here's a dad who's not emotionally healthy. How is an immature, emotionally unhealthy dad going to raise emotionally healthy boys or daughters? We'll say that one.

But talk about this. What do you mean by emotionally strong? Help us as parents understand. That's what we're trying to do.

So what's that look like? If I were going to give the Cliff Notes version of what I think emotional strength is, it would be this. I think it's a boy's ability, it's a male's ability to name and navigate his experience.

So to understand what I'm feeling and what to do with it. And as simple as that sounds, the three of us know we're living in a world where I would argue the higher percentage of males don't know how to name and navigate their experience. I 100% agree. When you said that, I'm like, most men, even now, 40, 50, 60 years old, I think it's really different. I'm not saying I know if women can or not, but I know as a guy, that's not easy.

It's not. And I think it's a part of why adult men in this world lead some of the scariest statistics that are out there. We as males lead the stats for infidelity, internet pornography, substance abuse, and suicide. And if you think about just those four, the common denominator being it is a male's attempt to try to numb out or avoid whatever it is that he's feeling. I can't name it. I can't navigate it.

So I want to figure out how to shut it down in some way. And it's why, interestingly enough, the stats are higher for girls, adolescent females, and adult women to struggle with anxiety and depression, and yet more males die by suicide. And it's connected to that reality of we don't know how to recognize the struggle and we don't know how to ask well for help.

I came across this fascinating data as I was doing the research for this book. Even on the number of women who go every year, adult women who go every year for their well visit with their doctor versus men. It's like we just don't attend our health, our physical health, our emotional health, often our spiritual health.

We don't know how to ask for help when we're struggling in any of those categories. Whereas you as women, generally speaking, do. And even the way you do relationship, I have a whole section in the book on the strength of connection, the way you build relationships, the ways you are transparent often in relationship. And again, hear me say there are women who don't know how to do that well and there are men who do.

But generally speaking, I come across more men who don't. You know, in 25 years of doing this work, I commonly sit with families, unfortunately, who are in the middle of one of those categories I named, husbands who've been unfaithful in their marriage, husbands who are in the throes of addiction. And I've, for over two decades, sat in the residual of what that looks like on marriages and on kids. And this book felt connected to that old quote Desmond Tutu said, you know, at some point we've got to just stop fishing people out of the river and we need to go upstream and figure out why they're falling in.

And that, for me, was really the passion of this book. Like, I want to, on my watch, just say that I knew to do everything I could possibly think to do to be a preventionist in this work. You know, I spent a lot of my days as an interventionist, you know, helping families on the other side of these struggles. And it's like, OK, how much more could I be talking about what we could be doing with boys on the front side of development and be doing with adolescent boys in the middle of development and be doing with adult men even farther down the road in development to be developing in these ways to change those statistics? I laugh about this.

A mom I met a couple of weeks ago, I wrote a workbook for elementary-aged boys to go with this book Raising Emotionally Strong Boys, and it's called Strong and Smart. And the mom said to me, she said, David, I bought your workbook for my seven-year-old son, but I'm mostly using it with my 37-year-old husband. And I'm like, and that's fair.

That is fair. You use it with whatever age male is in your household because the thing that I say in the front of the book and then I want folks to hear me say so strongly right now is that it's never too late. It's never too late. It turns out you can teach an old dog new tricks. It turns out we can learn new things. And I have another seven-year-old boy who's doing the workbook with his grandfather. And when he told me that story, you all almost wept. Like the thought of a little seven-year-old boy doing this with his grandfather in his 60s and that they're learning these things together, it overwhelms me.

It overwhelms me on so many levels. One, I think about what that grandfather's last seasons of marriage might look like differently if he could name and navigate his experience. Two, the gift of this little boy getting to sit front row to one of the adult men he trusts the most in this world doing this work in front of him. I just think that's what I hope can happen for so many dads is that they can allow the boys they love to be sitting front row and watching what it looks like to learn new skills and how that impacts relationships. Oh, we have so much more to talk about.

We do. But David, I wish I had had this book with our young boys, don't you, Dave? Oh yeah. And Dave, I thought this was so humble of you to say, I wasn't an emotionally strong man. Like that's so humble of you to even say that.

Can we detract that from the broadcast? No. No, it's definitely true. And the sad thing is I didn't know it. And I think most men and women, if you're there, you don't know it when you're in it. And like what you just said, I'm in my sixties and I'm like, you know what?

It's not over. I can continue to grow emotionally strong, even with grown men now who are my sons and daughter-in-laws. And I hope that's an encouragement to any man and mom.

Listen right now, but wherever you are, what you just said, David, it's like you're still alive. You can grow. And you may need to go back and say, I'm sorry to your sons who are grown men now, which I've had to do and say, I didn't know what I didn't know.

Yes. And I didn't do it with malice intent, but I failed in many ways and I'm sorry. And can we go forward from here? And hopefully there's a forgiveness there and you can move forward.

Yeah, I love what Dave was talking about there at the end. It's never too late to change and ask the Spirit of God to be that change agent in your life. You know, you might be thinking, it's impossible for me to change. I've been stuck in a rut for way too long. I've been stuck in a rut for way too long. It's never too late to change and ask the Spirit of God to be that change agent in your life. You know, you might be thinking, it's impossible for me to change. I've been stuck in a rut for way too long. I've been doing the things I've been doing for way too long. But don't believe that lie. If you have God's Spirit inside of you, you have the power that raised Christ from the dead. And trust me, you can change.

Just have the posture of God have mercy on me, a sinner. I'm Shelby Abbott, and you've been listening to David Ann Wilson with David Thomas on Family Life Today. David has written a book called Raising Emotionally Strong Boys, Tools Your Son Can Build On for Life. This is a great book that sheds light on really just common emotional struggles, including anger, anxiety, and depression that can be so prevalent in boys. He goes after it.

He tackles it. And as you just heard, he has lots of great God-centered solutions for us. You can pick up a copy at familylifetoday.com, or you could give us a call at 800-358-6329. Again, that number is 800, F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. You know, one of the things that I have struggled with as a dad is being able to teach my kids lessons but also have fun at the same time. You know, when you try to sneak a little bit of spinach into their fruit smoothie so they don't actually even know what you're doing?

Well, you can do that with this new resource called Ferret Flush. It's a fun card game that you can play with your family that will teach them important life skills and emotionally healthy skills. But you'll do it in a fun way, and you can do that as a family.

So that game, along with the Family Life Art of Parenting course, which is a video course to help you learn how to instill character, discipline, great relationships, and healthy identity with your kids. Both of those resources are going to be our thank you to you when you partner with us financially here at Family Life. You can go online to familylifetoday.com and make your donation, or again, you can give us a call at 800-358-6329. That's 800-F as in family, L as in life, and then the word today. Or feel free to drop your donation in the mail to us.

Our address is Family Life, 100 Lakehart Drive, Orlando, Florida, 32832. Now coming up tomorrow, David and Wilson are back again with David Thomas. He's going to talk to us about the oh so tricky topic of conversation related to gender dynamics. Raising boys and raising girls is a very different thing, and he'll unpack that for us. On behalf of David and Wilson, I'm Shelby Abbott. We'll see you back next time for another edition of Family Life Today.