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“Strength is built through recovery, not through struggle.”
“You do not want a son with a broken will. You want a son with a disciplined will.”
“You’re not just raising a kid. You are forging a man.”
Raising Men is a podcast about parenting, masculinity, and the lifelong journey of raising sons—and ourselves—to be men of courage, character, and purpose. Hosted by Shaun Dawson, each episode features real conversations with parents, leaders, and thinkers redefining what it means to raising men in today’s world.
Shaun (00:01.164)
Welcome back to Raising Men. I'm your host, Shaun Dawson. This is the place where we stop guessing and start being intentional about the boys that we're turning into men who can lead the world with integrity, strength, and excellence. Today we're going to dive into a Q &A session based on the messages that we've received. And we're gonna use the collective wisdom
the guests that we've had on the show, from retired Navy SEALs to child psychologists and veteran fathers who've walked through the fire and come out the other side to address those questions. So let's get into it. Now our first question comes from a listener who's feeling a little bit of heat from their social circle. They write, my friends tell me to toughen up my young son so he isn't a crybaby.
he seems so sensitive. Is the strong stoic silent male model actually natural or are we forcing it? Okay so first of all before I even get to the question I should mention that stoicism, the philosophy, is way different than stoicism used in this context in the common parlance. stoicism, the philosophy, is about
focusing on what you can control and by living your life according to intentional virtues, specifically the stoic virtues, are courage, wisdom, temperance, and justice. It's a really, really powerful way to guide your life, but the way that it is used in common parlance, like in this question, it simply just means shutting down your emotions. And this is an important distinction, and it's not healthy.
So let's get to the question at hand. I think that this is a massive point of confusion in our culture. We think that toughness is something that you can impose from the outside in, like through coldness. But as Steve Biddle pointed out in our February episode, the biology actually tells a different story. Steve shared research with us showing that
Shaun (02:27.104)
Infant boys are often more emotionally fragile than girls are. They take longer to soothe their nervous systems, are more reactive to stress, and they actually need more physical affection and emotional anchoring in those first few years than girls do. So if we ignore those needs in the name of toughening them up, we're not building a warrior.
We're building a boy who feels abandoned by his primary protectors. And there's the stoic issue. In our April 1st episode, Beyond the Battlefield, retired Navy SEAL, Eric Davis, talked about how traditional models of masculinity aren't broken. They just haven't evolved for the modern world. He argues that a man's role
is to use his passions to fulfill his purposes. So if a boy is taught that being a man means shutting down every emotion, he loses the very passions that he needs to fuel his purpose later in life. Another guest, Ryan Walton, added a tactical layer to this in our March 18th episode. Ryan...
noticed that many men coast through life because they've learned to numb their emotions in order to avoid pain. He argues that true emotional control isn't about silence, it's about the strength to face what you're avoiding. It's like the boxer that I was talking about. So to our listener,
No, the silent stoic model isn't a natural way. Your son's sensitivity can be a sign of a high performance engine that just isn't perfectly calibrated yet, hasn't learned how to shift gears. And it's your job to help him learn to funnel that energy into something productive. Instead of thinking about it like toughening him up with coldness.
Shaun (04:54.456)
Think about using what Eric Davis called intentional discomfort. Lead him into challenges. Let him scrape a knee. Let him try hard things. But you need to be the secure base that he returns to when he's feeling uneasy. Strength is built through recovery, not through struggle. It's like going to the gym.
and doing a bench press, you get stronger not because you're benching 700 pounds, you get stronger because of the recovery that happens after you do that. All right, let's move on to question two.
My four-year-old is incredibly defiant. It feels like a constant power struggle. How do I break his will without breaking his spirit? Okay, first of all, let's take a deep breath. You're not losing. You are in the middle of a leadership test. Now, I want you to point to Devin Koontzman's episode, From Chaos to Calm.
because she hits on a really, really important fundamental truth, which is that the spirit of play trumps the spirit of coercion every single time. When we try to break a boy's will, often we're just involved in a battle of egos. Devin explains that defiance at age four is usually just a boy
trying to test his agency. Remember, we talked about the kids, they either want connection or they want independence. And often they want both of those things at the same time, which is impossible. They're opposite sides of the same coin. So if when your boy is trying to test his agency and you meet it with raw power, you teach him that might makes right, which just sets you up.
Shaun (07:08.184)
for pain and struggles down the road. So instead, Devin suggests channeling that energy through play and clear boundaries. And that will preserve his spirit while teaching him how to operate within a healthy system. Eric Davis touched on this too. He took this a step further using a seal mindset. And what he calls it, calls it respecting your kid's respect.
Eric, he talks about how we often demand respect for our kids without earning it, without leading them. So if your four-year-old is defiant, he might be reacting to what Eric calls bad leadership, inconsistent rules, or a lack of a clear mission. Something to think about. Eric suggests developing immediate action drills for your family.
So he models it after SEAL training. Just like in SEAL training, these are pre-rehearsed responses to common stressors. So instead of a power struggle, what you have is a procedure. When the defiance hits, you don't break them, you reset the drill and get them to start over. So you don't want, remember, this is the most important thing. You do not want a son with a broken will.
You want a son with a disciplined will. As Ryan Walton said in his episode, the struggle is a gift. Don't steal it from your kids. So let him wrestle with the boundary, but don't make it a fight to the death. Enforce the boundary, but make it a training session.
Okay, finally, we have question three.
Shaun (09:07.854)
And I think this is a vital question of conversation for so many people in our raising men community. Question is, I'm a single mom raising a boy. Can a surrogate father like a coach actually fill the gap of a biological dad? Okay, so this is a question of a power of a father. And we have to be honest, a father, or at least a strong male figure, has...
impacts on a boy that are really, really hard to overstate. In fact, a lot of the issues that come up with boys that are raised in households that are divorced often, I think, come down to the lack of a strong, healthy male role model. In our conversation with Lieutenant General Mark Hurtland,
We discussed what it means to lead when you aren't the one in the room every day. Hurdling went to war and he had to figure out how to father his sons from all the way across the world. And the general, he talked about a general manager role, the person who provides the vision and the standards even if they're not there doing the daily drills. So to the single moms listening,
You're the general manager of your son's masculine development. Now, while a coach or a mentor can't replace a father's DNA, they can provide rites of passage. They can provide modeling that can help your sons recognize what it means to be a good, strong, healthy man.
and they can provide the dad-shaped leadership that boys absolutely crave. Eric Davis mentioned this in his episode, that he wrote his book called Raising Men specifically because he realized that many, many men grow up with a dad-shaped whole. He found that mentors who lead with clarity, purpose, and who lead from the front,
Shaun (11:36.59)
can bridge that gap. The key, as another guest, Emily Houston, pointed out, is to find mentors who are navigating the modern world with integrity. Let me say that again. Find mentors who are navigating.
with integrity. You're not just looking for someone to teach him how to hit a baseball. You're looking for someone to model how a man comports himself, how he treats women, how he treats service staff, how he handles failure, and how he deals with it with uncomfortable truths. Does he speak up or stay silent?
Does he even recognize when things aren't right? So can a surrogate fill the gap? Yes, no question, absolutely, 100%. But try to be intentional about it. Steve Bidolf, whom we talked about earlier, he noted that boys go through a mentor phase starting around age 14, and they start to look outside the home.
for their identity. So, scout those surrogate leaders now. Start cultivating them. Get them into your son's lives. And you'll be giving him a roadmap to manhood that is far better than him trying to find it on a screen or in a peer group. That is a real recipe. That's just throwing him into the jungle and hoping that he's gonna survive.
and maybe it'll work out, but if you're intentional about it, you can pretty much guarantee that it'll work out. Okay, so I hope that these answers give you some tactical ground to stand on. I want to thank our virtual guest panel today. We've got Steve Biddulph, Eric Davis, Ryan Walton, Devin Kuntzman, and Lieutenant General Mark Hertling If any of these answers hit home.
Shaun (14:00.27)
highly encourage you to go back and listen to their full episodes. There is so much more tactical gold in these conversations than I could ever fit into these 15 minutes or so. Please like and subscribe and reach out. I absolutely love hearing from you. If you have questions, please submit them to podcastatraising.men. Now remember, you're not just raising a kid. You are forging.
man. It's hard. It's messy. Sometimes it feels like you're starting from zero every single morning. But keep it up. Keep showing up. Keep being intentional. Respect their respect, as Eric Davis says. Channel their will and never underestimate the power of a solid, healthy male role model. My name is Shawn Dawson and this
raising men and remember you are a great parent.