Transcript of Interview with Dr. Meg Meeker about Boys Should Be Boys. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com
Listen Now to the audio version of the show.
Boys Should Be Boys is available at The Catholic Company.
http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-books/1004807/Boys-Should-Be-Boys-7-Secrets-to-Raising-Healthy-Sons/
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Chris Cash: And today in the spotlight, we have Dr.Meg Meeker, author of excellent book although it’s not quite new anymore. It’s called Boys Should Be Boys which is the Seven Secrets to Raising Healthy Sons, an excellent followup to Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. And Meg, welcome to the show!
Dr. Meg Meeker: Well thanks for having me, Chris.
Chris Cash: Well, it was so much fun talking to you last time that I figured we just had to have you come back on and talk again and especially since we have not have covered the aspect of raising girls, what a great time to come on and talk about how to have some great boys too. Now, the first book was geared more to fathers and fathers’ relationship to their daughters. Does this take a similar approach to that or is it…are boys somewhat more attuned to both parents?
Dr. Meg Meeker: Well really, what I did in the book is it really deals specifically with one relationship with one parent, you know mother-to-son or father-to-son. I really wanted to write in general about boys, sort of highlight some of the stresses that boys are under, the challenges they face, kind of what’s going in general, and it’s interesting. I ended up writing the book because after I wrote Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, I realized that there were a lot of issues that men felt were not being addressed and I thought, well gee whiz, if men feel they’re not being addressed, I wonder if boys feel the same way and it kind of came out of my experience writing the book about boys, it came about because of my experience in talking with so many dads after Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters that I really wanted to deal with a lot of the boy issues in general.
Chris Cash: So what are the biggest issues that are facing our boys right now?
Dr. Meg Meeker: Well, I think a lot of things. First and foremost, I think my big concern with boys, young boys in particular is how they’re being targeted with a lot of the advertisement, a lot of video games because young boys are the heavy consumers of a lot of video games.
Chris Cash: At least the violent-type games as opposed to my daughters who want to raise ponies on their video games.
Dr. Meg Meeker: Oh exactly. There are no little kiddies or things like that or the little ponies but it really is a lot of the violent video games and there’s a lot of research we have now out on how these games affect boys psychologically, physically, the effects that they have on them ten years down the road. So I really want to address those issues. I also wanted to address the issue of the fact that I think that in general, over the past twenty years, girls have been the subject of a lot of study whereas boys necessarily haven’t been. I think they’ve kind of been slided a bit in that girls have gotten a lot of attention because of maybe a mother-daughter relationship, because of women’s issues and the state of health…
Chris Cash: Well my perception of the studying is that there’s this assumption that all the last 2000, 3000 years has been about boys studies so let’s focus on the girls now.
Dr. Meg Meeker: Right, right absolutely. And being in college, at a women’s college in the 1970s and that was the really the focus on girls and women’s studies was really taking off and very, very popular and I think in the past forty years, what I’ve seen is a bit of focus on boys at least for these past forty years has been a little bit lighter than the girls and I really wanted to just sort of pay attention and say, “Okay, what are boys dealing with, what’s going on, why the rise in autism, the ADHD?” And we just kind of delve into boys’ lives a bit and kind of put the spotlight back on them for a bit because I do think that balance is a good thing here.
Chris Cash: Now, I probably should have done this right at the beginning of the interview but just to kind of establish your credibility, you are a pediatrician and you have a practice with your husband, correct?
Dr. Meg Meeker: Yes and five other partners.
Chris Cash: So you’re writing, a lot of what you’re writing is from either medical journals or research that has been done as well as quite a bit of research that you’ve done on your own through your pediatric practice.
Dr. Meg Meeker: Exactly. I’ve been in practice almost 25 years and so I’ve seen a lot and I’ve heard a lot and I’ve listened a lot to boys and to parents, mothers and dads, and just watch sort of an evolution of change happen amongst boys particularly in elementary school. So I’ve watched them…I just love kids. I mean, kids is kind of what I do and studying them and watching them and so a lot of that was born out of my enjoyment of kids, my interest in kids, and then just a lot of my experience with kids also. What I’ve seen sort of shift in the focus and change in boys over the past 25 years is to sort of walk through my office doors as well.
Chris Cash: Now, one thing that you just touched on a minute ago that kind of strikes a strong chord, at least with me personally is you mentioned the rise of autism and ADHD and a lot of these diseases that our young boys and girls are being diagnosed with. It seems like in much greater numbers right now and one thing that I’ve dealt with personally, my son, I have one son and three daughters at the moment, but my son was initially thought of as ADHD but we had a very wise doctor who said, “You know what? I always test my ADHD diagnosis as for sleep disorders.” And we actually found that he had a sleep disorder that was causing a lot of the defiant behavior because he was just so tired, he couldn’t deal with anything.
Dr. Meg Meeker: What a great pediatrician you have! That’s really terrific because in many, many, many offices around the country, he would have ended up on a stimulant medication which in a way might have made the problem worse.
Chris Cash: So can you talk a little bit about this kind of medicalization of boy behavior?
Dr. Meg Meeker: Oh, it’s a great term. It’s a great word for a lot of what’s going on. I think that a lot of different things are going on with boys and I have definitely seen sort of a shift in behavior of boys and it’s very, very intriguing to me. We’ve always had…well, first of all, when it comes to attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, the ADHD, in general, boys tend to be more hyperactive. There’s a much larger percentage of boys that fall into the hyperactive category than the girls do so they certainly can have the attention difficulty and the hyperactivity but a whole lot of bouncy boys come our way. Just really, really bouncy, inattentive boys and I’ve been intrigued in this over the years. Why is this and where is it all coming from? I think that first and foremost, I think that there are many boys with ADHD who are misdiagnosed like your son. I think that many other things can mimic ADHD. For instance, mild depression in boys can mimic ADHD, a learning disorder, dyslexia, inability to read, difficulty with math or any kind of certain subjects maybe because of a boy’s immature brain, maybe a real learning disorder can mimic ADHD. For instance, a boy who can’t read or a boy who’s having real difficulty in school isn’t going to sit still and keep trying to pay attention to the work in front of him. He’s going to want to get up and sharpen his pencil, go to the bathroom, and so on and so forth. So I think, first and foremost, there’s a lot of misdiagnosis going on out there.
Secondly, I think that a bit of the hyperactivity in boys stems from the fact that in many instances, boys are spending a lot more time indoors than they ever have in the past. I think that you think about the amount of time a lot of boys sit and play games, watch television, are on in internet, and this, I think can really make boys hyperactive because they need to be outside doing things, running off a lot of steam just to really sort of boil it down. And I don’t think that boys are getting the opportunities that they had in the past to just sort of to play and to run around and exercise. Phys Ed is really decreased in a lot of schools, the amount of time that’s given to it or the amount of activity the boys are allowed to have. So I think there are a lot of different things that are sort of causing boys to sort of feel pressure from the outside and just too intense on the inside and there’s a lot sort of dwelling up inside of them. The third factor is I think that we as a culture have become a bit more intolerant of boys and boy behavior and the…
Chris Cash: The male oppressor…
Dr. Meg Meeker: Really! If you look at a lot of elementary schools, the predominance of teachers are women and not men and I think that women in general have some difficulty understanding sort of what makes boys tick and I think that the bottom line is a lot of teachers want young boys who are in the second, third grade to sort of sit down, behave, and color in the lines and their time at recess is cut down, their Phys Ed is cut down, and it’s just a lot harder for boys. Not just from a physical standpoint but intellectually and cognitively, many boys are a lot slower to develop in the elementary school years than girls and they just have a harder time staying on task than they did in years past. And then I think, finally, a lot of the structure at home has fallen by the wayside because of dual working couples and families and I think that boys in general tend to better with self-imposed order in the home than girls do because it’s just sort of not necessarily their nature at a young age to impose order. So I think a lot of different things coming together are making for sort of a recipe for disaster for a number of boys who are just really having difficulty. There are certainly boys who have real bonafide ADHD and they need some type of medication in addition to some kind of help as far as refocusing and a structured plan on how to do that but certainly I think what we do as pediatricians who have too little time with children in our practice because of the pressures we face, you know, is we’re overmedicating a number of boys who either are misdiagnosed or who have ADHD that really could be better handled other ways other than just medication. And so, I think that the bottom line is that we need to pay really much closer attention to what’s going on with our boys and not so quickly sort of stamp them with ADHD. Oh, he needs some Concerta or some Adderall and we’ll just sort of tone him down a bit and life will be pretty good. So it’s kind of become a muddy picture.
Chris Cash: Okay well, we’re going to take a short break to hear from our sponsor right now but when we come back, we’re going to talk more with Dr. Meg Meeker about Boys Should Be Boys and maybe we’ll have a chance to delve into some of the suggestions and solutions that Dr. Meeker has for us in dealing with these issues. This is the Catholic Spotlight.
Chris Cash: And we’re back on the Catholic Spotlight with Dr. Meg Meeker. We’re talking about Boys Should Be Boys, The Seven Secrets to Raising Healthy Sons. So Dr. Meeker, when we’re talking about this over-medicalization of boys and helping them to deal with the pressures of having to sit still and in some senses having to learn to behave more like girls, what are some of your suggestions in how to help boys through this?
Dr. Meg Meeker: Well, one of the things that I’m a real strong advocate at and it’s really not hard for parents to do but make sure, it’s a very, very simple thing but make sure that boys are spending enough time outside. Now why do I say outside and not inside? Why can’t boys play inside? They can, the problem is, boys are very visual people. They’re very visual learners, they’re attracted to things that move. We know that from looking at studies between infant girls and infant boys and boys, if they’re inside and they’re romping around and playing, they’re going to gravitate towards the television and want to start a video game. If they’re outside, they can’t do that. Make them be outside. They’ve got to be in trees, they’ve got to be upside down, they’ve got to have sort of room. They need change in temperature. So to make sure if you leave in a safe enough area that boys spend enough time outside so that they can really explore, they can use their imagination. It’s extremely important for boys that they have woods that they can play in, all the better. It’s just a tremendous release of emotional energy, creative energy, and certainly physical energy. So you got to make sure the boys spend enough time outside.
Chris Cash: And also, that gets them away from having to be told over and over, “Don’t put your light saber out in the house.”
Dr. Meg Meeker: Exactly. How many times, I just sort of cringe but I hear mothers say, “Don’t run in the house. Don’t jump over the couch. Take the ball, don’t kick the ball.” Boys inside the house hear a lot of don’ts and they just need to be outside where they can do and it’s really important. For instance, one of the trends that I’ve seen in teachers who are frustrated with boys wanted the penalties, the way they penalize them in school or reprimand them is to make them stay inside for recess, if they’re too bouncy in class, up and down too much, you lose your recess time. Worst thing you can do with a boy is to take away his recess time. He’s going to behave a lot better in the afternoon if he’s been out for recess but you’re getting a really cold temperature like in Northern Michigan where I live, it’s really, really good for boys. So that’s really important. Secondly, try to really monitor very closely the amount of sit down time that boys have with their video games and those are really important too not just because it’s not good for boys to sit down. Certainly it is. Some parents say, “Well, you know, it helps my son focus.” And in fact, it really doesn’t because (a) it’s easier for boys to sit and look at something that’s moving and jumping and exploding and racing cars. That doesn’t take a lot of concentration. What does take a lot of concentration is looking at black words on a white piece of paper inside of a book. That really trains the concentration a lot better than video games or television does because when you think about it, yeah boys are sitting but the images on the screen are changing in nanoseconds and there’s constant motion and constant movement. So in a way, it’s more distracting the boys than actually helping them concentrate I think. Another reason to really limit the amount of time they’re on video games is because young boys are the target audience for those who create them and lace a lot of their stuff with a lot of violence which we know in too heavy a dose in boys at a young age, it does lead to much more aggressive behavior in their 20s and also they lace them with a lot of sex that boys just obviously are going to want to watch when they’re 11, 12, 13 years old. But this is really very harmful to them and their growth of a healthy sexuality as they move to the teen years. Some things like that just sort of saying, “Okay, an hour an day or an hour-and-a-half a day or equal time in front of the television to reading, things like that.” But unfortunately, a lot of times, the television and video games end up being sort of babysitter for boys by exhausted parents and I know what exhausted parenting is all about. But it’s really important to just really limit that with our boys and that makes a huge difference in their behavior, in their ability to focus and concentrate and just please make sure that boys are outside. It’s simple, simple things like that we forget about, make a huge difference in the development and the behavior of boys and the overall happiness of boys on a day-to-day basis.
Chris Cash: One problem that I personally am running up against with my son is he comes from school and then he’s got homework that he has to do and then by the time his homework is done, it’s suppertime then it’s time to get ready for bed and he has to have a little earlier bedtime than some other children his age just because of his sleeping difficulties.
Dr. Meg Meeker: Right.
Chris Cash: So we don’t even have any area in his schedule to send him outside and just romp around.
Dr. Meg Meeker: Right, well that is hard and I hope that at least during the day, he’s got some good Phys Ed time or sports time or athletics or something like that. Time to just sort of wind down and kick around a soccer ball or hit a baseball or something like that but that really is a concern sort of and again, to the over-scheduling of boys, it’s very, very common…
Chris Cash: And this need the schools have to send home extra homework for them to do at home especially when he’s got kind of these sleep issues that slow him down…
Dr. Meg Meeker: Exactly and some of it’s very age-inappropriate. Some young boys particularly since boys tend to, in general, be later bloomers than girls, it’s much harder for them to handle and his day is just too sort of micromanaged by outside people and I think that it’s important that there’s a chronic pattern in a boy’s life to sort of talk to the teachers and say, “I appreciate that you’re really this enthusiastic about your teaching and you know there’s homework and you take your subjects more seriously but the problem is we feel strongly we need some family time here and he needs some down time and he’s not getting it. We can make sure on the weekends that he gets some down time just to play, that the television’s off. He’s outside or he’s playing with his sisters. I don’t know. I have the same family structure you do. I have one son and three girls and it’s very interesting, isn’t it?
Chris Cash: Yeah, it is. I meet many people who say, “He’s such a calm boy.” Because he spends so much time with the girls.
Dr. Meg Meeker: My son’s quite affectionate because he just gets doted on. He’s the youngest of our four boys and I’ll tell you, our oldest daughter is getting married and my son is excited to have a brother or a brother-in-law just because when he comes around us, my son just lights up. They go out and they…my son-in-law is 25 years old and the minute he walks in the door, they’ve got this remote control vehicles that they go outside and they spend hours flying helicopters, airplanes, race cars in the driveway. It’s terrific but boys need play time. They have to have play time and I’ve even seen grown men who have to have their time where they’re away from the demands of the day, the homework, the work, schedules, whatever, where they’re just sort of using creative fun play energy. It’s got to be factored in to a boy of any age’s life and I think if he isn’t getting it during the week, at least on the weekends to make sure that the poor kid has some time to not even do just his football practice or soccer practice but just play, just play time.
It’s so extremely important particularly for boys and it takes them a little longer to kind of revved up into a game and then once they get going, they’ve got to have the opportunity, just sort of let it roll for a bit. I write a lot in the book about boys playing in the woods and boys are really into war games. I know that a lot of parents don’t like that. They fear that the child’s going to be violent. In fact, it’s a great way for boys to sort of work out their frustrations, anxieties about different roles and they get to be alpha male or maybe they’re going to be the beta male. It depends on the day and they kind of work through just a lot of different issues that they might be feeling inside that they can’t articulate but it’s very, very important for boys to have that play time so talk to teachers and if teachers really are hesitant to let up during the week time, make sure they get to factor it in at least during the weekends.
Chris Cash: Well, we’ve spent most of this time talking about younger boys. Is there anything that you want to address or bring up with dealing with teenage boys?
Dr. Meg Meeker: Sure. I love teenage boys. Unfortunately, they get a huge bad rap and one of the biggest mistakes, I think that parents can make is sort of assuming that teenage boys are always going to be up to no good. Now, it’s sort of easy to say sitting here. I’m living with a 17-year-old boy right now and I understand but I think that teenage boys (a) are more sensitive. Many of them are far more sensitive than they want to let on and things do hurt them. They think about things. They want to talk about things, maybe not to mom at that exact moment but they do have important things to say. They like to be listened to and I think that one of the things that I hear over and over for them is this frustration that people think they’re always going to mess up around the next corner. I think there are a lot of pressures on teen boys to behave in bad ways certainly but it doesn’t mean I think that when we start to communicate with our boys assuming the worst and assuming that they’re going to be bad kids, it’s sort of like a self-fulfilled prophecy. Ultimately, they will fall if we always assume they’re getting ready to do that. So I think it’s really important to talk to boys, assuming the best and not the worst, and that changes our tone of voice. I think we need to listen to them more and we need to treat them like they’re thinking, feeling creatures and they’re not just sort of mindless kids that are ready to get in trouble all the time and I think that even if we change our attitude about them a bit, it will change the way we interact with them and I think it will tend to start to bring out better in boys rather than the worse in boys. That’s what I hear boys telling me a lot.
Chris Cash: Well, we’re running out of time today so were there any closing thoughts that you wanted to leave us with, aside from pick up the book, it’s full of a lot more awesome information.
Dr. Meg Meeker: Thank you. I think that one of the things I would like to is I’d like to really…the reason I wrote the book is to put the spotlight back on boys for a while and say, “I think that in a lot of ways, they’re kind of falling by the wayside because over the past 30 years, we’ve been focusing so much more on girls. Boys tend to…college entrance is going down; high school graduation is going down in boys in general. I think they need more attention. I think they need more positive attention that we have been giving them and I think we need to again, to nurture their sensitivity a bit and also their faith is very important to boys and to not assume the worse but assume the good and kind of begin to change our attitude about boys and what they’re up to, giving them the benefit of the doubt and I think that that will really help sort of blossom boys rather than sort of squeeze them out of who God really created them to be.
Chris Cash: Just because you mentioned the faith aspect and since we’re a Catholic show and all, I figured we should at least take a minute to talk about this because a lot of times, boys are just kind of put out there. I mean, girls wear their faith or what faith they do have on her shirtsleeves whereas boys are much more reserved about what they believe and sharing that and being emotional about that. Do you want to talk just a little about how to help foster a healthy faith life for boys?
Dr. Meg Meeker: Sure, I think it’s extremely important if dad has a strong faith to model a strong faith in front of his son. Boys need to see what faith sort of with boots on their face and action looks like so that they could sort of adopt it as their own. What I have found is boys are far more interested in faith issues and a questioning about God, what God’s character is like, what the Mass means, why do we do this and what are the sacraments all about? And they will think about it and they will chew on it but they won’t necessarily want to talk about it. So it’s important (a) for parents to realize that a lot more is going on in his head and his heart than what meets the eye and to model a strong faith in front of them even if the boy doesn’t want to talk about it, he’s a terrific mimicker particularly of dad as he gets older, and boys particularly during the teen years want to know if a parent’s faith is real or if it’s all for show. And it’s much harder to pull the wool over their eyes so in a way, it’s kind of tough living with a teenager because parents in a way are really under scrutiny, under a microscope because boys are watching to sort figure things out because one thing that boys don’t want and they just don’t want to tolerate is inauthencity.
If someone isn’t authentic or real or their faith isn’t real, they just don’t want to have anything to do with it. So they’re wondering and they’re watching and if a boy doesn’t want to necessarily talk about it, it’s important for a parent to let your thoughts and feelings be known, not in a judgmental way but sort of say, “What does your…why do you like the Mass? Why is it important for families to stick together? Why do we believe? What is the character of God like?” Talk in very general terms if you want to begin with but just express your views and let your son know and invite his comments. And then when he does want to comment, don’t jump in and teach him change and sort of tweak to the left or tweak to the right but to let your son know that faith is very important to you, why it’s very important to you and that you do want to hear his feelings and views on things and then let them ride. Many times boys during the teen years in particular may want to stop going to church. They may want to say, “I’m not interested. That’s your thing. It’s not my thing.” Be patient, kind of ride with it but say, “You know, it’s a family we go to Mass. It’s just what we do. We respect that your faith is your own but this is what we do.” What I’ve seen is that when boys tend to sort of pull away, if you just sort of stay the course over the years, boys do gravitate back to what they have seen in their family is real and authentic. So just kind of be patient and ride with them during those difficult years and nine times out of ten, boys do come back to the safe of their family and that’s extremely stabilizing for them.
Chris Cash: Well thank you Dr. Meeker, your advice is always very useful and welcome. We really appreciate hearing from you and all you listeners out there, please do be sure to pick up a copy of Boys Should Be Boys, I think anybody who’s a parent of boys is going to benefit very strongly from this book as well as Dr. Meeker’s other book, Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters. Even if you’re not a dad, if you’ve got girls, this book is going to help you understand a lot of things about what’s going on in your girl’s life and please also go over and vote for us this week on podcastalley. Help us get our numbers, votes up there. If we can get some new audience, new people in, this is well, that’s pretty much it, I think. Thank you very much, Dr. Meeker.
Dr. Meg Meeker: Well thank you, Chris. It’s been a delight.
Chris Cash: All right. God bless.
Dr. Meg Meeker: Thank you.
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Transcript of Interview with Dr. Meg Meeker about Boys Should Be Boys. This interview and others like it can be found at http://www.catholicspotlight.com
Listen Now to the audio version of the show.
Boys Should Be Boys is available at The Catholic Company.
http://www.catholiccompany.com/catholic-books/1004807/Boys-Should-Be-Boys-7-Secrets-to-Raising-Healthy-Sons/