The Boy Crisis: Why Our Boys Are Struggling and What We Can Do About It

by Warren Farrell

A child who learns that a boundary that’s been set is still negotiable develops manipulative negotiating skills. The child soon senses that if he or she doesn’t “win” right away, with enough persistence they can ultimately exhaust the parent and “win.” This second path is most frequently characterized by the exhausted mom finally yelling in frustration, “I said no!” The child then continues to press. The mom loses it and creates a punishment too big for the crime; then, feeling guilty, she fails to follow through on the anger-generated punishment, and in an effort to beg forgiveness, she bends over backward to please the child. The child soon detects exactly what worked to manipulate the mom into bending over backward and giving more than what was even asked for in the first place, and thus hones his or her art for the next iteration of the “cycle of the unenforced boundary.” The outcome? A disrespect for both boundaries and the parent who sets them. When the cycle of the unenforced boundary becomes a pattern, the result is a coercive relationship with the parent, and the child’s disrespect becomes contempt. Just as important, the child “gets rid” of the parent who enforces boundaries—sticking with the parent he or she can manipulate. The child has won, and therefore lost.