My name is Giorgio, and today I will be writing a piece on why I believe coaching boys at an early age is not only a wonderful addition to their lives but an absolute necessity when preparing them for adolescence.
I’m in my first year coaching here at Mind Station, and it certainly is scratching an itch I’ve held for a long time. Growing up for me was a very turbulent time. And my personal story is a familiar one: “Couple with unresolved trauma have baby. Though Couple obtain financial freedom, Family still experience high levels of conflict without constructive resolution. Child mimics behavior, developing coping mechanisms to deal with conflict. A lack of awareness means Parents and Teachers are unable to spot signs of a struggling child. Child feels alienated and develops more coping mechanisms. Rinse and repeat.”
Simply put, it’s “The knock-on effect of unresolved issues.” With my mother, it was fairly obvious where her shortcomings lay as she struggled to control her emotions (albeit an Italian and passionate person). Unfortunately, this resulted in a lot of confidence and organizational problems. With my father, it was a little bit trickier as he is the picture of a fully functioning man, running his own company and moving with a smile and a spring in his step. However, he wasn’t great at communicating and often dealt with feelings of discomfort or anxiety by increasing his productivity, leaving me often wondering where he was and him overworked.
I won’t bore you with too much more of my personal story, but what I will say is that we had the perfect set-up on paper. Two beautifully loving individuals started a family with the money to do it, and we still ran into problems. These issues affected me, and it took me a heck of a long time to figure out how to manage them.
As a result, when I started growing up, I spotted these same problems everywhere. People struggling to deal with their own emotions. People not putting themselves in the positions they should be in. People playing it safe. People shying away. People reluctant to believe they have the ability to do what they want and fix things themselves. If I could draw our attention back to boys specifically, I saw friendship groups not being able to support one another. I saw bullying, one-upmanship, kids taking the easy route to chastise and “banter” their way through the day instead of fronting up and showing how they felt. This was personally very difficult to deal with. This toxic energy spread across schools like wildfire. A huge reluctance to show any vulnerability. Without the understanding of an alternative route, we continued to involve ourselves in unsupportive situations. Sometimes it would work, and you’d laugh your way till the day ended. Other days you’d be the butt of the joke and fall flat without answers or the ability to communicate what was going on.
I saw, and continue to see, coping mechanisms everywhere. The more obvious addictions like drinking, smoking, eating, and gaming. And then the slightly more elusive emotional addictions like complaining, avoiding, lusting, and victim blaming.
Another huge reason I believe coaching young lads is so important is to help them with their romantic relationships. The start of relationships with significant partners is where I really saw a lot of unresolved childhood problems come to the surface for a lot of my friends. Some would struggle to stay together, some would struggle to move apart. It sounds awfully poetic, but a lot of these scenarios lead to abusive behavior and toxic relationships.
I used to get very upset by it all as a youth. I didn’t know how to navigate my social groups. I couldn’t set boundaries, I had incredibly low self-esteem, and I didn’t know what to do with my feelings towards my parents. As I’ve grown older, I’ve developed the foresight to realize—can you blame them? A society without the correct education. A society without the correct tools to manage these situations. What are we to do without the knowledge? It took me around 15 years to steady the ship of ignorance. I finally feel like I have a grip on my mind and body, but if I look back, I yearned for this information sooner. This is why we’ve developed as coaches, offering solutions to these very problems by educating and equipping our youth and parents with tools to manage themselves and each other.
The most beautiful moment I’ve come to has been coming to terms with what it must have been like for them to raise a family without any education surrounding any of these topics. To have moved away from feeling like a victim and blaming them for my shortcomings and accepting them both again as people has been one of my biggest achievements. A similar thing has happened with my friendship groups. Once on the brink of exit, I’ve now been able to develop the understanding to see where they were coming from. To become aware that not everyone can support you in the way that you need, and that’s okay. By developing the ability to set boundaries, you can still develop healthy relationships that allow you both to flourish and support one another without someone falling flat.
I urge the reader not to leave it till later to teach your child the tools they need to manage themselves. Don’t leave their future up to chance. Before children navigate through rigid schooling systems and parental influences, there’s a crucial phase where the human mind is ripe for growth. If not correctly taught, many individuals grapple with issues stemming from childhood traumas, hindering their progress for years. Be Smart. Be Proactive. Be Mindful.
Author: Giorgio Durham, Founder of OK SO Coaching
Website: https://www.ok-so.org/
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