arrested several times for theft, his older brother was charged with rape, and his sister was convicted of drugs. My son also got into trouble with the police, and I felt that Dillon's influence was dangerous for him. AND тогда я сказала: «Никакого Диллона!» Alex was not supposed to date Dillon, and Dillon was no longer allowed to visit us. We have been alone since Alex's father left us, leaving a three year old son. We always agreed with him easily and solved all problems together. But this time it was different. Alex didn't say a word to me, but I knew it was a declaration of war on his part.
Over the next few months, Alex hardly spoke to me, came home late at night, did not do his homework, and stopped doing his chores around the house. I finally found a counselor who truly understood teenage boys. He advised me to look for something good (positive) in Alex's relationship with Dillon. When I asked Alex why he was so insistent on meeting Dillon, my son replied: “Because we are friends, mom. We take care of each other." Консультант помог мне понять, что на самом деле Алекс этим не хотел задеть me. I began to look for a way that would allow me to accept the existence of Dillon in Alex's life. The consultant offered to allow Dillon to come to our house on the condition that Alex would not see him anywhere else, except during the lessons. I sat at home with two boys and behaved affably towards Dillon, because they behaved quite decently, did not violate the rules established in our house: they did not smoke, did not drink, the music, however, they listened to loud, but not deafening, they had lessons done, and they left the room in perfect order. Since then, everything has been going well, and we again talk to Alex as before.
Pat, mother of fifteen-year-old Alex
Boys need to be seen. Very often, parents are drawn into disputes and power struggles with their teenage sons because they cannot see beyond their strange appearance. We let green hair, nose rings and tattered jeans drown out what our sons are trying to tell us. “I don’t have green hair because I wanted to piss off my father,” says fourteen-year-old Abe. - I painted them to feel at home among the guys with whom I like to communicate. And he just can't understand it."

Until recently, every conversation between Abe and his father ended almost in a fight. The father couldn't or didn't want to hear what Abe wanted to say to him, because that green hair just pissed him off. In psychotherapy sessions, Abe and his father managed to sort out their feelings and come to an understanding, and the father agreed to stop swearing because of the hair color. To further improve the relationship between them, Abe's father, a computer specialist, invited his son along on a business trip to the Fortune 500 company. Abe was very interested in this idea, because he is just as interested in computers as his father. At his father's urging, Abe agreed to hide his hair under his hat. But, to his father's surprise, on the night before the trip, Abe dyed his hair brown. Он сказал: «When father отступил, я подумал: „Ах! What a deal! This is unpleasant for my father, and I can change my color back to green at any time. After all, I always wanted to work with computers, so I decided to fit myself a little bit into his world, because it would be easier for both of us. I have another tube of fluorescent greens, just in case.”

The son needs his parents to see who he really is, and not just their hopes for what he should be. Pushing the boy to the life we ​​ourselves would like to live, but could not live, we devastate his soul. Tom, now in his 40s and already a father himself, recalls how, at the age of ten, he wanted to become a farmer like his father. But he didn't want to hear about it. He demanded that I go to college and get an engineering degree. I did it and was an engineer for twenty years. But my heart still reaches out to grow plants and educate animals.

Have you guessed what I want to do when I retire?

Internal control system

According to Waldorf High School and College educator Betty Staley, in her deeply emotional book on adolescents, Between Form and Freedom, adolescent development includes two stages, "denial" and "affirmation." In early adolescence, teenagers oppose themselves to everything, and Staley compares this to the “no” statements of children in the third year of life. In the last years of adolescence, boys begin to perceive the outside world as confirmation that they have their place in it, in the same way that four- and five-year-olds accept life with their joyful “yes!”.

In adolescence, from thirteen to fifteen or sixteen years old, boys want to look at the world through rose-colored glasses. They hope to see the beauty and perfection of the world, and not its ugliness, injustice, human shortcomings. The reality of life plunges them into confusion, doubts and deprives them of illusions. Feelings of anger, resentment, despair and depression can develop into cynicism. ANDз-за этого цинизма подростки бывают до жестокости точны в описании несправедливостей, которые они видят, и в борьбе против них.

D: Most often, attacks, verbal and even physical, by sons who feel the right to criticize, reproach, test everything and everyone, especially authorities, are subjected to mothers. When I counsel boys with mothers, I have to spend a lot of time explaining to sons why they scare their mothers so much. Not every boy believes me right away. ANDм все еще кажется, что они дети, которых мать может взять и наказать. They are unaware that their male power can frighten some women. When I explain to teenagers that their passion and anger are a threat to their mother, most boys are shocked to the core and try to avoid such clashes in the future. A mother involved in the difficult situation of such communication with her son can avoid escalating conflict if she makes him understand what exactly she hears in his words (for more on this, see the section on positive attitude) and what impact his words and actions have on her.

I asked Berry how the meeting of his political science club went. He chuckled and said that the organizers were a bunch of idiots. I asked him not to speak like that about the teachers, he literally flared up before our eyes. Потом он в течение двадцати минут громко читал мне лекцию о расистах и о лицемерии всех взрослых, включая и me. I was stunned by the intensity of his anger and the harshness of his words. I agreed with him that some adults are racist and often hypocritical. I also told him how sorry I was that he dumped all the adults in one heap. He calmed down a little, we were able to talk with him about how strong my own beliefs are. and his father's views are different from those that made him so angry. I felt relieved when he became calmer. I have never seen him in such a state. I didn't even know he could be like that.
Jim, mother of fifteen-year-old Berry
Parents are often surprised by the strength of a boy's emotions. Edward, the father of fourteen-year-old Ed Jr., described his and his wife's reaction this way: “Everything is calm in the room where we sit; our son comes in and BOOM! - a shock wave rolls. He comes out, we look at each other and think where this hurricane came from. For a mother, often the only way to avoid a fight with her son is to physically leave the scene. The time has come for the father or another man who enjoys authority over the boy to take the fire upon himself. The presence of a father can calm a son's anger or, on the contrary, increase it. But one way or another, the father will be able to show the boy an example of the effective use of male fury.

It is very important here to distinguish between male rage and rage. According to Shepherd Bliss, a well-known educator and leader of the men's movement, "fury" (fury) is a good word. “He has a mythological connotation,” he says, “something like the Furies, who were the three goddesses of revenge in Greek mythology. It was a powerful female force. But there is also a powerful male force. Too often, women and our culture interpret it as a threat and turn it into a rage. Suppressed fury, like rage, is expressed by men either in violence or in passivity. Director John Singleton realized this and in his film "Boyz & the Hood" named the protagonist "Furious". If male rage is allowed, socialized and finds an outlet for the good of the whole society, it becomes creative energy. In former times, the way out was in physical labor - chopping wood, mowing, dragging water. Modern fathers have a special role to play in the lives of their sons and refer them to appropriate teenage organizations such as the Boy Scouts. They should involve the boys in the rigors of hiking, climbing trees or sports such as long distance running, volleyball, football.”

We once heard a story about modern methods of initiation and we want to offer it to you as a positive example of fathers channeling the male frenzy of their sons. The boys