Unleashing Boys’ Energy and Understanding Their Emotions – David Thomas

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Unleashing Boys’ Energy and Understanding Their Emotions

Guest:David Thomas

From the series:Raising Emotionally Strong Boys (Day 1 of 2)

Air date:June 5, 2025

David:Research has long told us—I think will always tell us—the two biggest mistakes we make in discipline as parents are too much talk and too much emotion.

Ann:Welcome to FamilyLife Today, where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I’m Ann Wilson.

Dave:And I’m Dave Wilson. And you can find us at FamilyLifeToday.com.

Ann:This is FamilyLife Today.

So we’re eating one summer night—our boys were ten, eight and five—and I wanted to get done with dinner so I could go mow the grass because I love mowing the grass.

Dave:Did you hear that, ladies? My wife loves to mow the grass. Guys would get all over me that “You let your wife mow”—she loves it.

Ann:I love doing it. But while our kids were eating, all the neighborhood boys would hang out at our house. So I go out to mow and I’m kind of watching this group of five boys underneath the tree house that you had built, and there’s all this spare wood underneath and so—

Dave:A very safe environment for boys.

Ann:I’m watching them as I’m mowing. I’m pushing this mower, and I can see that they’re taking this wood and they’re going 1, 2, 3, and then they would try to break this piece of wood across their foreheads.

Dave:Like a two by four—

Ann:Yes.

Dave:—two by six, I think.

Ann:Yes. They’re cheering for each other and I’m like, “What is happening right now?” They’re laughing. They’re all into this—and these boys range from maybe 12 to 8—and so I keep watching and all of a sudden, this kid, Mike, he’s 12 years old and he takes this piece of wood, and he tries to break it over his forehead. All of a sudden, I see this blood just trickling down his face, so I turn off the mower and I said, “Guys, what are you doing?”

He goes, “Mrs. Wilson, this is amazing. Are you seeing what Mike just did?” I said, “Guys, he’s bleeding.” “I know, but he was the best at it.” And I said, “Mike, you need to go home, and I want you to make sure—I could tell that it wasn’t that bad, but it was bleeding. I said, “Make sure you tell your mom what you have been doing.” So they’re like, “Yeah, do it. Do it, Mike. Go tell your mom.”

And I just kept mowing, thinking, “This is the craziest thing.” If you would’ve told me as a young mom that this is what these boys would be doing, I was like, “Are you crazy? What kind of a child would try to do this?” And it would be some boys.

Dave:Welcome to the world of raising boys. And David Thomas is sitting over here. He’s a counselor, and I mean your specialty is sort of boys, isn’t it?

David:It is.

Dave:So David Thomas and—

David:And everything about the story is making sense to me.

Ann:Wait, is it really?

David:Yes. I remember the third trip to the ER with one of my boys I asked the triage nurse, “Can you get frequent flyer points like you do with an airline here?”

Ann:And David, we’re talking about your book Raising Emotionally Strong Boys, and you have twin boys, you have a daughter, but you really do specialize your therapy with boys. And why did you choose boys?

David:I have been asked before why I even wanted to do this work and then specifically with boys. And if I were to think back over the trajectory of my own life, I think in a lot of ways as I connect dots, I can see evidence of where I maybe always knew I was supposed to do this work.

I remember being a kid in elementary school and sitting on the playground and people would tell me things and I would think, I don’t know that you’re telling your other friends these things. And I became a camp counselor when I was in college, and I seemed to always get tapped on the shoulder by my friends who had trouble getting the homesick kids to bed at night. They just wouldn’t stop crying. They’d be like, “Hey, can you come help for a minute? You’re kind of a kid whisper in that way.”

I would end up going on long hikes with groups of kids and walking beside the kid whose parents had just divorced. So it did feel natural to me to be in those spaces. I would end up on airplanes and people would kind of tell me their life story and I think all that was God’s preparing me in some ways to do the work that I do.

Dave:God made you to do this.

David:I believe He did. I really do.

Dave:I mean that’s so beautiful to hear that. Even at lunch I’m like, man, you are such an empathetic, caring, tender soul. It’s a beautiful thing.

Ann:I want to pour my heart out, don’t you?

Dave:Yeah, and especially boys need that. It’s almost the opposite of what our cultural says: boys are strong or tough; they don’t need—it’s the opposite. Because we’re strong and tough and a lot of times that’s a cover for pain and hurting in our life—

David:Yes, it is.

Dave:—they need some way to help them grow emotionally strong—the title of your book. So today we thought we’d throw some questions at you.

Ann:And we might not—

Dave:—like we’ve got a counselor in the office with us.

Ann:Yes, and we may not be able to get to all your questions, but you do have a podcast with Sissy Goff who’s been in our show before, who’s amazing.

David:She’s remarkable.

Ann:Share a little bit what you and Sissy do.

David:Well, she is something extraordinary in this world; grateful that Sissy and I have been friends and worked together for over 25 years now. And we started this podcast years ago where we wanted to take a lot of what we were learning just sitting in our offices, being with kids and adolescents and families day in and day out and bring that learning to that platform. And so we’ve been doing this for several years. We’re learning all along the way and love having those conversations.

My favorite thing that we do is what I’m having the great privilege to do with the two of you right now, which is just to have conversations with other folks. So we started third season in having guests on where we would just ask them questions about what they’re learning from this unique journey of parenting. And so it’s been a real gift. It’s called Raising Boys and Girls.

We’ve got a season devoted to ages and stages of development and one that is connected to a book that we co-authored called Are My Kids on Track, which is for emotional, social and spiritual milestones that we want to see kids moving toward. And so really, really grateful for that platform and the opportunity to get to have some rich conversations with folks.

Ann:It’s so good. I know that Sissy Goff’s book has helped my granddaughter and it’s so rich, and then our son who has four kids said, “Have you guys had David Thomas on?” We’re like, “We want to,” because we’ve all benefited so much from what you’ve written, David. So let’s get into the questions.

Dave:I mean, here’s one, I’d start with what Ann said earlier. If you’re a young mom or you have young kids, maybe you’re an older mom or dad and you really are trying to understand this boy thing about that physicality, like taking a piece of wood and banging it in your forehead, that makes no sense. It’s like—and especially if you’ve maybe grown up with sisters or only raised daughters—you may think there’s something wrong with the kid, and there could be, but often it’s just a boy.

Ann:Which I have had young moms come up to me and say, “There’s something wrong with my child.” And I said, “Really?” I’ll totally pray for you. What’s happening?” And she’ll say, “I’m an only child and I have these two sons that are barely 12 months apart and all they do is hit, they punch, they run, they’re loud, they’re dirty, and there’s something wrong with them.” And I remember saying “It never hurts to get help and to get a second opinion, but it kind of sounds like they’re just boys.” Is that what you would say?

David:I love that you’re saying that. I don’t think we can say enough of that to moms, and I sit daily, weekly, with moms who didn’t grow up with brothers—so either only had sisters or were only children—who would say, “This creature feels like a foreign entity to me. I just don’t understand so much about what’s going on.” And it’s why the very first book I wrote on boys was a book called Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys. And I just break down five stages of development and I talk about what’s going on in each stage and what he needs from the adults in his life.

And I would say the greatest compliment I have ever received from writing that book is how many parents have come up to me at events or in the airport, different places, and just said, “I had no idea he was this normal until I read that book.” I’m so thankful for that feedback because I think particularly for moms and especially again, if you didn’t grow up without any brothers, it feels anything but normal.

I think what instinctively will happen in those moments is that we can over parent or over discipline or set unrealistic expectations out of, again, what we know and what’s familiar. I mean, we’re creatures of habit. We always will be falling back when we’re not even aware it’s happening on what we know and what’s familiar. And if boys aren’t familiar, if you didn’t have brothers, then it makes sense to the story you started with that you would be thinking “Something’s wrong.”

Opposed to—it fascinates me—all the stories I hear from parents of things saying, “I would never have operated that way in the world, but that made sense to him in that moment.” And so I would say that could be a good starting point. You don’t have to get my book but just get some content that allows you to understand more about development; to keep from that tendency of over-parenting, over disciplining or setting unrealistic expectations.

Ann:What are some tips that you would give parents with this physicality, especially in the winter when you’re living up north and it’s snowy and cold.

Dave:You live in Nashville; you don’t know about the winter.

Ann:You don’t know this. They can’t be outside and so you feel like you’re going crazy.

David:You would.

Dave:And we sometimes, we’d literally take them out and say, “We’re running a hundred yards.” And I’d run with them just to get all that out. And you mentioned in your book about the space.

David:Yes.

Dave:Which I’d never heard that term before, so that’s another way.

David:Yes, absolutely. In fact, I would say both of the things you’ve just said, I want you to lean into, and figuring out, how can I do that if the weather is not agreeable? We don’t have the extremes that you all are describing in Nashville, but we have a lot of rain in the spring to where it’s just challenging. And I remember going to the mall that’s closest to our house and I would just run them around the top of the mall, and I’d create a scavenger hunt out of the stores so that there would be this release.

I say in Wild Things, in some ways, we’ve got to treat it identically to how we would imagine training a puppy that you come home and has been kenneled for a long period of time. You know if you let that dog out and you don’t go straight outside, he’s going to pee on the floor and tear something apart or both.

And I think boys are a lot that way. We’ve got to create enough outlets for release. It’s why my wife and I laugh when our boys were little, and we had to fly on a plane to see her parents out of state, our running joke was, “We don’t board the plane unless everyone is sweaty.” We were running laps in the airport. We would find some space where they could climb, run, move in a way or else it was going to be a torturous two hours on that plane and so I think there is wisdom.

And to the concept of the space, I talk about it as an opportunity for a boy to release the physicality of his emotion. So he doesn’t just have energy in terms of his personhood. He has a lot of energy and intensity in terms of his emotional experience. And so I recommend creating a space. This could be the corner of a rec room or a mudroom or your garage and fill that with tactile and movement-based objects.

So for example, when my sons were toddlers, we had a Bozo bop-it. I don’t know if anybody remembers that. It was inflatable with sand in the bottom and you could pop it, and it would bounce right back up. And when they would start to have big emotions, I would say, “I can tell you’re having big feelings. Let’s go to the space.” And they could punch that Bozo bop-it.

Now, I know there is a mom listening right now that is saying in her head, or maybe out loud in hearing me say that “No, I don’t want to train him to be a puncher or a hitter.” And what I want you to hear me say—please hear me say this—that need for release is instinctive. It’s part of how God hardwired him. So you aren’t training him to be a hitter. You are creating healthy outward movement.

With kids 12 and under, they are, in terms of their cognitive development, in what we call concrete thinking, so the world is very black and white. So what this would look like in the space would be I could put an oversized pillow, and I could say “You can punch a pillow, but you cannot punch your sister. You can scream at a pillow, but you cannot scream at mom. You can throw a pillow down, the pillow’s not hurt, but you shove a person down and they are.” Do you see the concrete opportunity I’m creating in that?

Otherwise, the mistake I think we make with boys is saying things like this: “Stop being so angry,” “Quit shoving,” “Stop hitting.” We’re saying what not to do, but we’re not saying what to do. So that would be the equivalent of me getting on the airplane—to that example I shared—without giving my boys a release and saying, “Quit squirming,” “Sit down,” constantly. It’s like I didn’t give him a release. Of course, it’s hard to sit still. I didn’t give you a healthier option of how to move that anger, how to move that frustration, how to move that disappointment in a healthier direction.

Ann:Is there at some point where then you’re trying to get them to tell you what they’re feeling?

David:Yes.

Ann:When does that happen?

David:So all of it happens in the same experience. I have a section in the new book that I call “The ABCs of Emotional Development” and it’s naming, breathing, which we can come back to, and coping. So coping would be a lot of those strategies that we put in the space. But I talk about with boys, we often have to reverse that equation, so we got to do coping first, get the energy out, then some breathing to finish settling my brain and body, and then naming the feelings.

Ann:That makes way more sense.

David:It does. And I think we shove a feelings chart, which I’m a real advocate of a feelings chart. I talk about it all through the book. But we do that when a boy’s amped up with all that intensity and physicality and then he yells, “I don’t know what I’m feeling. I’m just angry.”

Ann:I’ve done that exact same. And that’s what they do. They’re so amped up, like, “Are you mad?” “Tell me what you’re feeling.” And they just think they’re yelling at me, “I don’t even care.”

David:Yes. Which is why using that story I told a little bit earlier with my boys when they were little, “I can tell you’re having big feelings,” but notice I didn’t get them to try and name them. “Let’s go to the space.” The whole focus was just on releasing the intensity, which is really regulation. I talk a lot about that. In fact, if there were one theme in this new book, that would be one of the primary themes is helping kids regulate their emotions, which is all the way back to, as we’ve been talking together over these rich conversations, naming and navigating. Regulation is the navigating part. It’s figuring out the, what to do with the emotions.

And we got to start there often with boys, the release of the intensity or the physicality, and then we can get to the naming. So even there, when I talk about naming and navigating, often we’re going to do the navigating first and the naming second. Because what’s happening, if I were to just real briefly talk about what’s going on in the brain, is that when any of us becomes emotionally charged, what happens is that blood flow moves from the front of our brain to the back—from our frontal lobes, which help us manage our emotions and think rationally, to the back of our brain, to the amygdala; that fight, flight or freeze part. And we try to talk to kids when they’re in fight, flight or freeze.

We even try to discipline kids often when they’re in fight, flight or freeze. And discipline is designed for teaching. It’s not designed for punishment, and so if we want kids to make connections to figure out, “Okay, I don’t need to do this again because I’m going to get in trouble if I repeat this behavior,” if they’re thinking brain, it’s not even online, if they can’t think rationally or manage their emotions, it’s wasted breath.

And then the other hurdle that comes into existence is often when our kids get amped up, we match that intensity, and we get amped up. So then we’ve got two people who don’t have their thinking brain online, who can’t think rationally or manage their emotions, trying to have a thoughtful conversation together. That’s a train wreck, right there waiting to happen. It is why research has long told us—I think will always tell us—the two biggest mistakes we make in discipline as parents are too much talk and too much emotion. The two biggest mistakes we make in discipline as parents, too much talk and too much emotion.

So think about it. We are going into discipline in a dysregulated state and expecting a dysregulated person to make good connections about what they shouldn’t do later. So the primary objective, back to what I talked about, needs to be coping first, breathing second, naming last. And the breathing part in the book, I call it combat breathing with boys. Sissy calls it square breathing in her office with girls, but I have to dress it up to get boys a little more bought in. And that is actually something I learned. I’ve done a lot of work with navy seals and army rangers and is a required skill. They’ve told me they have to demonstrate.

So think about it. These are folks who’ve got to be able to think rationally and manage their emotions. They are in life-or-death situations. So if they don’t have skills and strategies in place that allow them to calm their brains and bodies, they can’t save lives. They can’t do the work they need to do. So combat breathing, something that lowers my heart rate, settles my brain and body, moves that blood flow from the back to the front, is a required skill. And I can get more boys and adolescent males bought in when they think, “Okay, if you’re teaching me something Navy SEALS and Army Rangers have to do, I’m in.”

Ann:So you’ve taken them to a place where they’ve gotten their emotions out, they’re hitting something, they can yell, whatever. Now you’re taking them to this breathing exercise. Walk us through; what’s that look like?

David:So we teach it by having kids trace a square on their leg. The tracing of the square is actually a grounding technique.

Dave:Sissy taught us that.

Ann:Sissy did this. I thought “This is so good.”

David:Isn’t it amazing? And what it also does is it helps kids get the pace and rhythm of breathing. Because there’s a tendency when we’re amped up to breathe too fast, which won’t slow my heart right down, which won’t move that blood flow from the back to the front.

In fact, I had a little seven-year-old boy, came into my office for his first appointment and he said, “My mom listens to your podcast all the time. And she says you talk a lot about breathing. I want you to know I’ve tried it, and it doesn’t help me.” And I said, “Well, that is really interesting because everybody I teach it to says that it does help. Why don’t you show me how you’re doing it?” And he went [panting]. I said, “Okay, that’s labor and delivery breathing. You don’t need that ever, your whole life. So I’m going to teach you a different kind called combat breathing, which is much slower. And that drawing of the square helps get that slower down.

So we’re going to breathe in on one leg, breathe out on the second, breathe in on the third, breathe out on the fourth, and we’re going to pause for four seconds in each. And so that drawing of the square is a grounding technique that automatically is going to do some settling. That slow, deep breathing—I think it’s amazing. I love teaching this to kids. At least 20 seconds of deep breathing will begin to reset the amygdala. Isn’t it amazing God made our bodies in that way? That something as simple as breathing could start to slow down my heart rate.

I wear the Apple® watch, and I’ll have kids in my office watch it. “Alright, I want you to look at my heart rate right now. Do you think it’s going to go up or go down when you and I breathe together? Kids always know it’s going to go down. At least 20 seconds will begin the reset. If I double that to 40, twice the benefit. If I triple it to 60 seconds, one minute of deep breathing, will do a lot of work in terms of settling, so that coping breathing, then I can do the naming part.

Ann:What’s that look like?

David:So I think that’s when we do introduce the feelings chart. And anybody listening, if you don’t have one on hand, I would strongly recommend you do. I want you to do it for two reasons. And you can download one off our website. We’ve got them on our website Raisingboysandgirls.com. You can get one there.

But the purpose there is this. Any of you listening who have kindergartners or first graders, think about how your kids’ classroom—I know anyone listening, whatever city, whatever state, somewhere in that space are of the letters of the alphabet. Why do we have the letters of the alphabet up in those early learning spaces? Because we know as kids are learning letters, when they can see the letters, it strengthens the connection. Using a feelings chart is the same way. If I’m pointing to the expression, naming the feeling even for kids who can’t even read, it’s going to strengthen that connection.

The second reason I’d recommend families have a feelings chart around is that I think it is a great prompt for us as adults just to remember to fold in more emotional vocabulary into our daily lives. I’m going to challenge any parent listening, when you are sitting around the dinner table and we’re asking each other those common questions like, “Hey, how was your day?” I don’t want anyone listening, going forward, to say “It was fine.”

Dave:Not allowed.

David:Not allowed. Fine is an acronym for feelings in need of expression. That’s what fine is. And so—

Dave:Say that again. That’s good.

David:Feelings in need of expression, that’s what fine is. And I want you to replace that with “You know what? I felt embarrassed today. I had to give a presentation to the board of directors, and I didn’t feel prepared.” “I felt sad today. I think I said something that hurt a friend, or a coworker’s feelings and I want to circle back and check in on them.” I want kids to get to hear that kind of reporting.

Ann:And from parents.

David:From parents, from the grown-ups they trust the most in this world. And if I were to think back to the earlier question you asked, just thinking about moms of young kids listening, to that point, I want to challenge—and this is true for moms and dads—I want you to think about narrating your experience—that’s what I call it in the book—as often as possible. Now, obviously in an age-appropriate way.

But part of going back to our earlier episode about how men were socialized. We were taught that you don’t name experiences and therefore kids won’t be affected by it. So a lot of adults grew up with alcoholics in their family and no one talked about this person who drank too much, raged, sometimes threw things, and then we all pretended like it wasn’t happening. We were all experiencing something when that happened, but no one gave it a name. We know now we should have named those experiences. So when we narrate our experiences in age-appropriate ways, it helps kids build emotional strength.

We had a great tragedy in our city of Nashville recently with the Nashville shooting. My kids are away at college, and they all called home struggling with it in their own ways because they knew folks connected. The head of school was a dear friend of ours who I love, and I was even, with my 20 something year old, narrating my experience of just saying, “We went to Catherine’s service today. I just wept because I miss her so much. I can’t believe this has happened.” And “Here’s what I’m doing to figure out how to take steps forward.” Do you see how that’s naming and navigating with kids? That’s what narrating our experience could look like.

I had a dad of an eight-year-old daughter who told me that his daughter came home one Wednesday night from church, and she had learned this song at church about worry. He was driving to work the next day, and he got a text he saw at a stoplight that was some big hurdles he was going to be walking into at work. And this man owns his own company.

He said, “I could feel my heart rate increasing in the car. And I looked in the rearview mirror at this little girl I love and thought about her teaching us the song about worry last night. And I said, “Sweetheart, will you teach me that song about worry one more time? I think I’m going to need that today.”

And his very intuitive eight-year-old daughter said, “What are you worried about, Dad?” And he said, “You remember during Covid how I shared with you that I can’t get all the products I need for my company so I can get the things I want to make for my customers. I think it’s happening again, and I feel worried about that.” And so she taught him the song again. She got out of the car, and he said, “I love you.” She walked back up to the window and she said, “Dad, I’m going to pray for you today about your work worries and I want you to sing that song back to yourself three times.” Isn’t that incredible?

Ann:It makes me cry. It’s the best. I can’t imagine if my dad had done that and showed that vulnerability and emotion, as a child I’m drawn to that, and it’s a modeling. The modeling piece is like “Now I know how to deal with my emotions when they’re really strong or hurting or when I’m worried.” That’s beautiful.

David:Isn’t that beautiful? And it’s such a picture of naming and navigating. “This is what it looks like to feel worry as a grownup, which we all will. That’s normal. And what you taught me last night is going to help me navigate it. So teach me that song again so I can do that back today.”

So it could be as simple as that. And I want any parent listening to hear me saying, my guess is that whole conversation between that dad and daughter lasted about three minutes. So I’m not assigning you extra work. I want you to use what’s right in front of you. I want you to just have these conversations at the dinner table, but knowing that this is landing on the kids we love, and when they can sit front row to the grownups, they trust the most in this world, naming and navigating, it’s the best tool for helping them build emotional strength.

Ann:Ooh, we’re going to start that.

Dave:Here’s my encouragement to the dad and mom. As I listen to you, David, it’s like everything you said, and even as I read your book about how to raise emotionally strong boys, I thought, “Wow, this isn’t for the boys as much as it is for me as a dad and for moms.” But even listening to Ann talk about her dad, who I knew well and loved—he became my dad. He was my high school coach—he never knew how to process emotions. He grew up in that generation you weren’t even supposed to. It’s like you’re weak if you admit that, but here’s the beauty. His daughter’s doing it.

David:Yes.

Dave:His son-in-law’s doing it.

David:Yes.

Dave:And so often we think, I didn’t get it, so I can’t pass it on. Guess what? You can change the legacy with knowledge and understanding and humbleness to say, “God, please change me so that I can pass this on to my kids.” That’s hopeful. It’s like, yeah, don’t be the victim and say, “Well, I didn’t get it, so I guess it’s just going to be, I’m going to pass on what I didn’t get.” No, no, no. I can start right now and say what I didn’t get. I’m going to find. I’m going to name it. I’m going to navigate it and I’m going to raise boys that are doing that someday themselves. And they are.

Ann:This is FamilyLife Today. And we’re Ann and Dave Wilson, and we’ve been talking with David Thomas.

Dave:The best, the best.

Ann:I was so encouraged by your ending. I thought that was so good.

Dave:Well, the reason I say David Thomas is the best is he’s inspiring. I mean, his book, Raising Emotionally Strong Boys is what I tried to do for 40 years.

Ann:It’s so funny because I just gave one of our sons his workbook that goes along with that. That’s so good. And just really practical.

Dave:Yeah. And let me tell you, if you don’t have this book, go get it. Wherever you buy your books, it’s called Raising Emotionally Strong Boys. I would say I wish I would’ve had it when I was 30 years old, raising our little toddlers at that time.

Ann:Well, it’s for six- to twelve-year-olds. That’s what the age group, the span that they say, and so I think people are going to love it. And we’re going to continue our conversation with David tomorrow. So see you then.

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