A Moral Emergency: Michael Gurian's New Book Challenges Parents and Society

"After almost two decades of my working with boys and young men—in classrooms, in prisons, in community agencies, and in my therapy practice—my fear for them grows," writes Michael Gurian, in his new book, The Good Son—Shaping the Moral Development of Our Boys and Young Men.

"More and more they are in the obvious state of moral emergency that the media tracks through their stories of boys shooting up and placing bombs in schools, and of men shooting up workplaces. But there is the hidden emergency as well—the gradual decay in character education and emotional support systems for boys and young men."

In The Good Son, Gurian, a family therapist, tells of his own struggles as a boy. Born in 1958 to a family that moved around the world (his father worked for the Foreign Service), Gurian presented his parents "with a powerful emotional and moral puzzle," he said in an interview. "My parents were always on a spiritual quest," he says, embracing, over the years, Hindu, Bahai and Quaker faiths. Gurian has no problem with spiritual mixing and matching (today, he's both Jewish and Unitarian). "But in their parenting styles, they were vacillators. They'd be really structured with me for a while, and then they'd be permissive; they were always experimenting."

As he grew, Gurian's behavior worsened. Eventually, a doctor prescribed Ritalin, a drug prescribed for hyperactivity, which is now called Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD). Gurian thinks that, at least in his case, the drug did more harm than good. "My fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Kono, called my parents and said, 'We'd rather have the wild boy than the zombie.'"

Today, Gurian is troubled by the rise in such diagnoses and drug treatments.

In the U.S., approximately 3 million kids are on Ritalin—and 90 percent of them boys, he points out. Can this many boys really be biochemically imbalanced? Or is there something imbalanced about the way society deals with the biochemistry of boys?

As a therapist and best-selling author of books on boys, Gurian thinks it's the latter. "Our boys are in trouble," he says. "Some lack basic impulse control; others lack what we would call a conscience; others lack the ability to articulate right and wrong; others lack empathy; others simply can't get understanding from a culture that has come to fear even normal male behavior."

The evidence of crisis is stark. Per capita, more people in the U.S. commit violent acts than in any country not at war—and 90 percent of these violent acts are committed by males. Boys and young men make up 80 percent of drug-addicted alcoholic youth. Boys constitute the majority of children who are homeless, murdered, in foster care, neglected and institutionalized.

His reasons for this moral emergency? A misunderstanding of male biology and the "gradual decay in character education and emotional support systems for boys and young men."

The biology of boys
Here, in part, is Gurian's schema of boys. The amygdala, a primary aggression center of the brain, is larger in males than in females. "It is important to remember that aggression and violence are not the same thing," he cautions. Boys all over the world have larger amygdalas and show more daily physical aggression than girls, but in countries that focus more heavily on making sure children are raised to be nonviolent, aggression less frequently turns ugly.

The female brain produces more serotonin than the male. Serotonin pacifies and calms us. "In large part, because of their decreased level of serotonin, boys have less natural impulse control than girls," Gurian says. Even in utero, male fetuses kick more.

"Driven in part by the hormone progesterone, females are more likely to seek 'bonding outcomes' in the intricacies of relationship." Similarly, the dominant male hormone, testosterone, compels boys and men "toward increased sexual copulation and aggression. Males are more likely to seek a physically or intellectually competitive experiences" with less direct bonding with other people. Testosterone leads to both triumph and trouble. "Testosterone levels have been studied in both prison populations and CEOs of companies. In other words, the higher the testosterone level, the higher the likelihood the host will comb the corporate ladder quickly, but also the more likely he will turn violent and hurt others and the community," Gurian reports.

The male brain is more spatially oriented than the female's. "It is more of a 'hunting' brain, one that for millions of years oriented itself in the universe by somewhat lonely journeys through external space—the savannah, forest or desert—in which it pursued objects of prey ?. This 'externalization of experience' has profound moral consequences. 'Use your words,' we tell our girls and boys. It is often easier for girls."

The silence in which boys often suffer, he adds, "only perpetuates their moral fragility, since boys are ten times more likely than girls to act out their pain by being violent toward others."

Some critics charge Gurian with placing too much importance on biology. They say the jury is still out on testosterone. Gurian also opens himself to critics who contend that girls have traditionally been more neglected than boys by parents and society. But clearly, our boys are in trouble. Yet, Gurian charges, America is responding to this trouble in some dangerously wrongheaded ways. All 50 states now allow juveniles to be tried in adult criminal court, he says, and in some states, boys as young as eleven have been tried as adults. After these boys grow up in jail, what happens when they win parole?

Another modern approach to boy trouble is the use of Ritalin, often prescribed for ADHD. The prescribing of Ritalin has increased at least 600 percent in the past five years, yet it remains a misunderstood drug, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration. Most people believe methylphenidate (Ritalin's generic name) is a sedative. It is, however, " a central nervous system stimulant and shares many of the pharmacological effects of amphetamine, methamphetamine and cocaine," according to a 1995 DEA report.

Gurian believes society is relying too heavily on pharmaceuticals or incarceration, when what boys need is more understanding and moral guidance.

Nature and nurture
Certainly times have changed for boys, and for all of us.

In the space of a few decades, Americans have moved from a rural to an over-urbanized culture. In an agricultural society, or a time of exploration and settlement, today's troublemaking boys might have been prized for their strength, energy, and quickness. Even the 1950s, most families still had some kind of agricultural connection, and children had access to nature. Could some of the troublesome behavior of American boys be related to this trend?

Probably, says Gurian. "Our brains are set up for an agrarian, nature-oriented existence that came into focus 5,000 years ago," he says. "Neurologically, human beings haven't caught up with today's over-stimulating environment. The brain is strong and flexible, so 70 to 80 percent of kids adapt fairly well, but the rest don't." He points to the success of some so-called nature therapy programs. "Getting kids out in nature can make a difference," he says. "We know this anecdotally, and can't prove it yet. But it makes sense."

However, most of what must be done for boys, realistically, must take place in the home and in schools, as well as in other institutions. "Boys get unfairly labeled as morally defective, hyperactive, undisciplined, or 'problem children,' when quite often the problem is not with the boys but with the families, extended families, or social environments, which do not understand their specific needs as human beings and as boys," says Gurian. "Family closeness is the best way through which to raise moral, well-disciplined and happy children."

Much of what works for parenting boys can work for girls, he emphasizes. "Boys and girls want to be good, but boys more often need direct guidance in learning .... what 'good' means ... Boys want and need more structure, discipline, guidance and training than our present families and culture give them." Our sons need "to know who the leaders are. We must carry the confidence—and support other caregivers in developing the confidence—to be strong models of moral and parental authority."

Boys need to see their daily lives as paths toward the accomplishment of a mission. "Because this sense of mission is so important to them, we will provide our son with developmentally appropriate duties, even as small as picking up a spoon he drops."

Gurian makes a powerful case for the seriousness of our main job, especially eloquent last line of The Good Son, which reminds parents that we "are the earth" from which our children grow.

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Richard Louv is Senior Editor of Connect for Kids, a columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune, and the author of The Web of Life: Weaving the Values that Sustain Us. (Conari Press)