What Really Matters When Raising Boys: Consent, Peer Pressure & Doing the Right Thing

We spend too much time making sure our boys know the right answer, and not enough time helping them build the emotional skills to act on it when the stakes are high.

“Should you respect someone’s no?” Yes.
“Should you speak up when something bad is happening?” Yes.

Our kids can ace that test.

Now add rejection. Add wanting to belong. Add: “If I say something, my friends might turn on me.”

Knowing the right answer isn’t the same as being able to act on it when the moment gets hard.

In this episode, a special recording of a live event with the Good Inside community in response to recent headlines about sexual assault, Dr. Becky shares three emotional skills we can start building in our boys today. These aren’t everything - sexual violence is not an individual parenting problem, and it won’t have an individual parenting solution. But these aren't nothing, either. They're some things we can do now, long before the stakes get higher.

Read Dr. Becky’s notes on this episode on the Good Inside blog.

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