Series Note
This article is based on Episode 3 of a three-part Army and Navy Academy podcast series featuring Academy President Barry Shreiar and bestselling author and educational consultant Dr. Michael Gurian, founder of the Gurian Institute.
In Episode 3, they turn their focus to parenting, resilience, and what happens when good intentions slide into helicopter parenting. Building on the brain science and school-based strategies discussed in Episodes 1 and 2, this conversation explores how parents can raise boys who are both emotionally supported and truly prepared for life.
We encourage you to watch, listen to, and read all three episodes as a complete guide to boys’ education, mental health, and resilience.
At a Glance: Key Takeaways
- Past generations often practiced “parenting toward resilience,” giving children more space to solve problems and learn from challenges.
- Today’s helicopter parenting can unintentionally slow brain growth, limit independence, and reduce boys’ confidence in their own abilities.
- True empathy includes both comfort and challenge, not just “Are you okay” but also “Get up, get up, we need you.”
- Boys’ and girls’ brains process stress and empathy differently, so boys especially need active, movement-oriented, responsibility-rich opportunities to grow.
- Bi-strategic parenting, where parents share values but use different nurturing styles, gives the brain the variety it needs to mature.
- Army and Navy Academy builds resilience into daily life through structure, responsibility, mentorship, and a culture that expects boys to get back up and try again.
Introduction: Why Resilience Matters So Much Right Now
Many parents today feel caught in a tension. They want to protect their sons from harm, disappointment, and pain. At the same time, they worry that the world their boys will face as adults is demanding, fast-moving, and unforgiving.
In this final episode of a three-part series, Army and Navy Academy President Barry Shreiar asks Dr. Michael Gurian to help parents navigate that tension. How do we raise boys who are both emotionally supported and genuinely resilient? How do we stay involved without hovering? How do we help them fall, get back up, and keep going?
Dr. Gurian describes a cultural shift across the last several decades, from what he calls “parenting toward resilience” to what we now often describe as helicopter parenting. The intention is love. The outcome, too often, is fragility.
He argues that parents, educators, and schools can reclaim a healthier middle ground, one rooted in brain science, clear expectations, and deep respect for what boys are capable of becoming.
From “Go Out and Play” to Helicopter Parenting
Gurian begins with his own childhood as a baby boomer born in 1958.
- Enter the neighborhood, park, or field with friends
- Initiate social connections, solve conflicts, manage boredom, and logistics largely on their own
- Come home at the agreed time, having navigated their day largely without adult direction
Today, many parents feel they cannot simply send their children out for 12 unsupervised hours, and in many communities, that is wise. But the underlying principle still matters.
Parenting toward resilience means:
- Letting boys wrestle with age-appropriate problems
- Allowing them to experience discomfort and frustration
- Resisting the urge to step in at every sign of struggle
By contrast, helicopter parenting keeps adults constantly present and intervening.
The heart is in the right place, but the brain doesn’t get what it needs.
What Helicopter Parenting Does to the Developing Brain
When adults solve every small problem for a child, they are not just shaping habits. They are literally shaping the brain’s wiring.
Gurian explains that resilience is built only one way.
Every time a boy:
- Figures out how to fix a broken toy
- Resolves a disagreement on the playground
- Goes back to a difficult homework problem and finishes it himself
His brain is building pathways related to:
- Problem solving
- Frustration tolerance
- Initiative and follow-through
- Confidence in his own competence
When parents step in too quickly, they take those repetitions away. The child feels cared for, but his internal sense of “I can handle this” never fully develops.
The Spoon Story: A Simple Picture of a Big Idea
To illustrate this, Gurian uses a simple, memorable example.
“The child is two years old in a high chair and drops the spoon. In the present generation, we are inclined to bend down, pick up the spoon, and put it back on the tray. What if we didn’t? What if we unclipped the highchair tray, told the child to get down and pick up the spoon, and then get back up?”
- Physically climb down and back up
- Take responsibility for the dropped spoon
- Connect the action (dropping) with the consequence (more work)
- Experience the satisfaction of fixing the problem himself
When a parent repeatedly picks up the spoon, they are not intending to take something away. They simply want to help. But as Academy President Shreiar observes, there is a real cost.
He reflects on conversations with parents:
“If you don’t let boys just figure it out, you are taking something from them. You don’t mean to. By saying, ‘I will pick up the spoon for you,’ you think you are helping. But what you are doing is stripping them of this opportunity to grow, to learn, to find their way.”
Rethinking Empathy: “Do You Need a Band Aid” and “Get Up, Get Up, We Need You”
One reason helicopter parenting is so common is that our culture has narrowed its definition of empathy.
Today, many parents believe empathy always sounds like:
- “Are you okay?”
- “Do you need a Band-Aid?”
- “You can sit this one out.”
Those responses can be loving and appropriate, especially when a child is genuinely hurt or overwhelmed, but Gurian notes that there is another form of empathy that is just as important.
“Kids are playing street hockey. A boy falls down. One person comes over and says, ‘Are you okay? Can I help you?’ which is great. The other one comes by, sees he is not seriously hurt, and says, ‘Get up, get up, we need you.’ Those are two different ways of empathizing. We should never give up ‘Do you need a Band Aid?’ but we should equally be using ‘Get up, get up, we need you.’”
That second response tells the child:
- You matter to this group.
- We believe you can handle this.
- You belong here, even after you fall.
It is not a lack of empathy. It is a different expression of care, one that emphasizes:
- Competence, not just comfort
- Belonging through contribution, not just protection
- Resilience as part of love
Gurian puts it simply:
For boys, who often experience emotion through action, this form of empathy can be especially powerful.
The Male and Female Brain: Why Boys Need Active, Challenge-Based Support
In earlier episodes, Gurian explains how boys’ and girls’ brains are wired somewhat differently. Those differences also shape how they respond to stress and to someone else’s pain.
He notes that when a girl sees someone hurt, her brain is often flooded with:
- Oxytocin, a bonding chemical that drives connection
- Mirror neuron activity in the insula, helping her feel what the other person feels
She is naturally drawn toward direct, verbal empathy.
By contrast, when a boy sees stress or someone fall, his brain is more likely to respond with:
- A rise in testosterone, which prepares him for action
- Fewer mirror neurons, which means he does not always feel the other person’s emotions in the same direct way
So while some boys will respond with “Are you okay?” many will instinctively express empathy through action and challenge.
Gurian calls this “aggression nurturance.” It is not violence. It is the kind of active, energy-filled care that sounds like:
- “Get up, we need you.”
- “Come on, you can do this.”
- “Try again, I will run it with you.”
He is clear that both forms of nurturing are needed:
“We do not actually want the brain to have ten people constantly picking up the spoon. We want variety. One person picks up the spoon sometimes, another person says, ‘You pick up your own spoon.’ The brain matures through many ways of nurturing.”
Bi-Strategic Parenting: Different Styles, Shared Values
Many parents have been told they must be “consistent” in everything. Gurian believes this is partly true and partly misleading.
- Values such as safety, respect, honesty, and love should be consistent.
- Parenting style, however, can and should vary.
He describes what he calls “bi-strategic parenting.” In many families:
- One parent may lean more naturally toward direct empathy nurturance, offering comfort, words, and emotional support.
- Another may lean more toward aggression nurturance, offering challenge, high expectations, and “Get up, we need you” energy.
Both are useful, and both are often rooted in real brain differences between men and women. Gurian stresses that parents do not need to match styles to be effective. The goal is to:
- Agree on core values.
- Accept that different adults will express those values in different nurturing styles.
Resist the urge to criticize every difference in approach.
- The core family at home
- The extended family of mentors, relatives, and close friends
- The institutional family of schools, teams, faith communities, and programs like Army and Navy Academy
When all three are aligned on building resilience, boys have a far better chance of growing into strong, caring men.
Reclaiming Words Like “Tough” and “Be a Man”
In the latter part of the conversation, Barry and Michael address something that often makes parents uneasy. Can we still talk to boys about being “tough” or “being a man”?
Gurian believes those phrases can and should be reclaimed in healthy ways.
At Army and Navy Academy, toughness is reframed as:
- Staying in the game when things are hard
- Owning your responsibilities
- Taking care of those around you
- Asking for help when you truly need it, then getting back up and leading again
When parents explain clearly what they mean by “tough” or “be a man,” boys can receive those messages as invitations to mature character, not as pressure to suppress their humanity.
How Army and Navy Academy Builds Resilience into Daily Life
Throughout the episode, Academy President Shreiar connects these ideas to daily life at Army and Navy Academy. The Academy’s mission, “forging virtuous young men for life,” depends on a clear, practical commitment to resilience building.
He offers several examples of how that looks on campus:
- Cadets are responsible for their uniforms, laundry, and personal organization. “You take your clothes to the laundry, you go get your clothing, you are going to wear your uniform properly.”
- Expectations are high, and no one else will quietly fix things for them. “There are times you have to do things, and you are going to do them right. Nobody else is going to be there for you to do those things.”
- At the same time, they are never alone. “When you need help, the peers around you are there for you. The structure around you is there for you, and you have to learn how to reach out appropriately.”
In this environment, resilience is not a slogan. It is woven into:
- Morning formations and inspections
- Academic routines and homework expectations
- Leadership roles in companies and platoons
- Athletics, JROTC, and co-curricular programs
Boys are challenged to:
- Do hard things when they are tired
- Take corrective feedback without collapsing
- Try again after failure
- Support one another through shared struggle
As Shreiar notes, many parents find their boys are more emotionally open in this all-boys, mission-driven environment than they were in co-ed settings. They feel understood, and that understanding gives them the courage to stretch.
Final Takeaways for Parents and Educators
- Resilience is not a personality trait that boys either have or do not have. It is a set of brain pathways built through repeated experiences of challenge, recovery, and support.
- Helicopter parenting, even when motivated by love, can unintentionally slow that growth by solving too many problems for boys.
- True empathy includes both comfort and challenge, not just “Are you okay” but also “Get up, get up, we need you.”
- Boys’ brains often respond best to active, responsibility-rich experiences of resilience, where they must pick up their own “spoons” and rejoin the game.
- Bi-strategic parenting, where adults share values but differ in style, gives boys a richer, more effective environment for growth.
- At Army and Navy Academy, resilience is built into daily life through structure, responsibility, mentorship, and a culture that expects boys to fall, get back up, and become men of character.
If you are a parent, educator, or student wondering how to help boys grow more resilient, this episode with Dr. Gurian offers practical language and clear next steps. Episodes 1 and 2 deepen the picture with brain science and boy-friendly school strategies, and together, the series reflects what Army and Navy Academy strives to do every day for the boys entrusted to our care.