This is a question that often arises; how can we normalise non-religious, meaningful connection to the self, to the other, to nature, personal awareness, integrity, accountability, passion…? How do we help catch the fiery energy of adolescence and help young people to harness it for personal and moral development from the inside out? Without an enforced ‘you will / you must…’

I have yet to meet a young person who actually wants to be a young git!

A three way approach is needed to influence long term change; what I call Bottom up, Top down and Middle out.

Bottom up – we need community-led mentoring groups, that create their own unique mentoring approach whilst working with Journeyman’s central hub in order to be safe, well run, compliant and have good governance. These mentoring circles will be run by local groups of volunteers who show up for the teenagers in a structured way, whilst having the freedom to respond in the moment to the needs of the group and whatever issues/discussion points come up. These groups are not curriculum driven and have no outcomes other than to support the boys to develop a healthy sense of self, support them to make positive life choices and develop emotional literacy. .

Top Down – by affecting social policy, we can work to influence improved outcomes for children and young people in relation to their wellbeing. For example, we support campaigning to incorporate awareness and leadership programmes for every child as a core curriculum requirement in schools (see the Youth Leadership Trust, the Education Endowment Fund).Having Ofsted wanting evidence of young people engaged in circle time with adults, developing emotional intelligence and self-awareness, and marking stages of life through transition events would be a great step forward. This pushes against the inertia of business as usual, which is given a shove up the backside through regulation.

Middle Out – working with parents and carers, plus service providers, schools and colleges, supporting them to up their game and extend the spectrum of outcomes they work towards . Some schools are now posting meaningful outcomes alongside their Ofsted reports, in relation to well-being, happiness, inclusivity, social engagement, creativity and so on.

Sometimes we blame ‘them’, the authorities, for our own narrow, fearful behaviour. In my previous job as a Facilities Manager at a Steiner School, my school department was audited and when Ofsted came to our school it was praised for its healthy risk taking (iron ore smelting using clay and charcoal in the woods, fire jumping festivals, building projects, performing parts of plays in process, school trip in Scotland – deserted island survival). I was thanked by the inspector for allowing her to help me succeed in my part of the inspection. The school was praised for its healthy culture, social cohesion and healthy risk taking. We also successfully fought off the move to make computing in nursery school s compulsory, which has benefitted many young children.

This is where I learnt we need to ‘dance with the devil’, and that by working in partnership with authorities, you can become more efficient and robust as an organisation. . By entering the belly of the beast we effect more social change than staying on the outside being better than them. To do this, capacity needs to grow, and what better way than through increasing the numbers of local, grassroots mentoring groups?

So, are you called to play your part? And are you prepared to take the risk to go through what it will take, no matter what is fate throws up at you, so that you can embrace your destiny, and ‘dare to be great?’ Will you be the adult that made some small difference to a young person, and reap the rewards for them, yourself and our culture?

“Fate is the mistake that was meant to happen. It’s the accident that was no accident. I was a studious kid but also a troublemaker. My aunt asked what I was interested in, and I said, “History.” So she went to a bookstore — she may have been the first person in my family ever to go to a bookstore — and bought me a history book. As I was tearing off the wrapping paper, she said, “Oh, I got the wrong book. It’s a mistake. I’ll take it back.” But I saw Pegasus, the winged horse, flying across the cover and said, “No! I want this book.” It was Mythology, by Edith Hamilton, the first book I ever owned and the beginning of my understanding the world through a mythological point of view. There it was by mistake, by accident, by fate, on my thirteenth birthday: the book I needed to have.”

Michael Meade

Journeyman UK is a mentoring charity, dedicated to supporting boys aged 13 to 17 to discover their unique potential and apply their gifts in service to themselves, each other and their community at large.

Part 4 of 5….The men who step up to support teenage boys within a group mentoring circle create a supportive space where the boys can express feelings safely and freely. We share our journeys together and connect across the generations. As the men, we are not free to use the space to explore our own challenges, but to simply be authentically willing to share our stories as much as listen to theirs. Maybe a boy says he is having trouble with his mum. A mentor will likely ask if anyone else is having trouble with their mum. Most boys and men put up a hand. The boy sees he is not alone, and might say – ‘but you’re really old, how can you be having trouble with your mum’. We all laugh, and reinforce that we will all always have issues, and you are going to be okay – you can get through this just as we all continue to get through no matter how old we are.

It is in these circles where the men get to find value and worth, and see value and worth in the teenagers. It is a great antidote to becoming what Nick Clements calls an old git. It helps us stay connected to the young vibrant part of ourselves, and not take ourselves too seriously. In Nick’s book The New Ages of Men, he describes the major transitions (initiations) we go through from birth to death.

By consciously modelling our journey and sharing this with the teenagers they soak up a culture of mature, connected men in a lifelong process. We say to the men who staff the rites of passage and mentor the boys, ‘You need to be getting more out of this than you are putting in’. It’s about creating communities where the men feel a sense of belonging, where they can build long term trust in other men, where they can develop new skills that can serve them in their personal lives. We also ask ‘Who are we to initiate boys anyway?’ In truth, they initiate themselves; we are there to provide the safe, loving conditions where that may happen. In fact, who are we not to show up for the boys and provide the conditions where they can initiate themselves? Who are we not to stand by the next generation as they navigate towards adulthood?

In the mentoring circles we aspire to refrain from FRAPPing – Fixing, Rescuing, Advising, Projecting and Processing. We aspire to LAAMBing – Listening, Admiring, Accepting, Modelling and Blessing. Each circle may be attended by between 4 and 8 men and up to 12 boys.

During a session, the majority of time will be spent discussing areas such as relationships or peer pressure. Practical activities and games also feature, and we meet around a fire, every two weeks, out in nature. At present we are actively working with boys in Stroud, with emergent groups in Bristol and Totnes.

We follow a year long program, created by Boys to Men, that incorporates the annual rites of passage experience. This is a powerful weekend event that grounds the separation from childhood, and marks the boy’s onward journey from adolescence towards manhood. We also run more informal camps.

Meanwhile, we the men involved will be travelling our journey towards maturity and elder-hood. Supporting the next generation is probably one of the best ways to achieve that because of the trials and rewards this gives us.

‘Many traditional cultures believe that the true elders stay young at heart because they remain close to the dreams they had when they were young. In modern culture people try to change their outer appearance to look younger, but the role of the elder is to go deep inside, to stay in touch with the eternal as well as the sage in one’s heart. Aging is a biological process that happens to everyone. Everybody gets older, but not everybody gets to be an elder. Becoming an elder involves a lifelong awakening to and reflection upon the story embedded in one’s soul.’

Michael Meade

To read part five of this article see: How can we make this work ‘normal’? 

Journeyman UK is a mentoring charity, dedicated to supporting boys aged 13 to 17 to discover their unique potential and apply their gifts in service to themselves, each other and their community at large.

Part 3 of 5……For me, putting the horse before the cart means that we give the most attention to the adults around the teenagers, rather than the teenagers themselves. We need to ensure that adults have the tools and support to understand their own behaviours, needs and motivations, and to model mature communication, the safe expression of vulnerability and conflict resolution techniques.

When we show up and commit to dealing with our patterns of wounding and unhealthy behaviours, and to building healthy relationships with others the rewards can be great. By entering into the fray we get to be better men, better husbands / partners, better fathers / carers, better people. Stronger, more compassionate men, creating a stronger community for our children to grow up into. As Jung stated:

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

That’s the deal. There are many stories which show this; just try a search for the Native American story ‘Jumping Mouse’, have a read and ask yourself;

If you hear the great river will you go to find its calling far away from the safe village? Will you cross the plains with the buffalo’s hoofs thundering around your tiny body? Will you pay the price to help wolf remember who he is (you are)? Will you climb the mountain and, after becoming blind in service to a greater cause, face certain death? To be reborn anew and greater, to fly high in the sky as an eagle?

As Polly Higgins (End Ecocide in Europe), book is called ‘I Dare you to be Great’, knowing that it won’t happen easily, without pain, or without suffering. If we don’t, can we live with the worse pain and suffering of not fulfilling what we dream of or what we long for? The pain of being trapped in our wounds anew each day, never to find release from suffering?

I suggest it is less painful and more rewarding to face through our unconsciousness and become free from the suffering we create in ourselves and our lives. How does that happen then? I suppose for all of us, we have to at some point get over ourselves!

On one occasion, I was staffing a men’s initiation, and I shared a painful father issue with one of the event leaders. He turned to me and said: ‘There are three words that mostly fix issues like this’. I looked at him expectantly. ‘Do you want to hear them?’ he asked. I nodded. ‘Get over it.’ He checked my reaction, saw it had landed, and, with perfect timing, wandered off!

I did indeed get over my Dad not being the Dad that I had needed, but accepted he was the Dad I got. We became closer at the end of his life, and it was a beautiful peaceful death with his family around him. Even now he is dead, I feel him at my back as a stronger presence than in his alive life.

Of course, dealing with our childhood wounds requires huge amounts of self-compassion, it often involves ongoing counselling and therapeutic support, as well as the need for patient, loving support from those around us. My point is that it’s healthy for us to get to a place where we decide these wounds will not hold us back in life any longer, where we take responsibility for who we are and how we behave in the world, and where we recognise our role in being of service to our communities and the wider whole.

To read part four of this article see: group mentoring circles for teenage boys 

Journeyman UK is a mentoring charity, dedicated to supporting boys aged 13 to 17 to discover their unique potential and apply their gifts in service to themselves, each other and their community at large.

Part 2 of 5….When the parents in my son’s class started talking about holding a rites of passage for boys, I asked if anyone had been initiated themselves, and sought to discover the skills and experience we had between us to create a meaningful event to mark the boys’ journeys towards adulthood. . There was little response, and, aside from a couple of the boys’ being confirmed within the Christian faith, the discussions came to nothing.

Around this time, an international mentoring and rites of passage organisation for adolescent boys, the Boys to Men Mentoring Network, was brought to the UK (later to be called ‘Journeyman UK’). This created a possibility to give my son what I never experienced – yet what I believe to be an essential part of helping boys (and girls) to become emotionally mature, resilient, accountable and confident adults. I was inspired to become a Journeyman mentor myself and to play a major role in the development and implementation of the organisation’s structure.

The charity runs group mentoring circles in a community setting every two weeks and an annual rite of passage event. It also delivers a unique training course that re-connects men to their own teenage experiences.

By experiencing this training, I was able to become clearer on some of the difficulties I had been dragging around since that age. The course helped me to reflect on how best to support adolescent boys and to understand what to do if difficult emotions from my own teenage years came to the surface. This involved approaches like not trying to rescue the boys from experiencing challenging emotions, and not giving them unsolicited advice. The main thing I got was to reconnect with my own teenage experience, which meant I could be around my own children and other teenagers in a clearer better way.

Our own adolescence is more often than not full of stories of pain, loneliness, fear, violence, abuse, sadness, being cut down, self-harm, drugs and alcohol, being bullied or being the bully. Experiences that led to so much suffering. No wonder we don’t want to be around teenagers as adults. All that past pain is triggered and then projected onto those kids out there now. And many experiences of wonder and great fruitfulness can become obscured and need bringing into the light of awareness.

Sadly the wounding that many adults experienced in childhood is often passed on to their children. We isolate them, are violent towards them, abuse them, cut them down, blame them, belittle them, don’t big them up, bully them and feel bullied by them. As a parent I lived through what was described by Alice Miller’s ‘For your own good’. I treated my own son as I had been, violently in family and culture, and those very words ‘it’s for your own good’ or ‘he needs to be taught a lesson’ were used. This caused a lot of upset in my home and my wife was angry with the way I treated my son…and so the cycle continued. The chain-breaking antidote? To own it, to face into what had happened to me and to decide wholeheartedly that it stops here, with me and the way I choose to be as a Father. With support from my men’s group and others this has been possible.

As for my daughter and wife, well …that’s another story; let’s say I faced into the long history of misogyny and sexual messed-up-ness that was pickled into my core from a working class northern background. I discovered SLAA, co-dependency, boundaries, shadow work, Byron Katie, women’s work, and more.

I had always had strong female partners and I treated my daughter accordingly, encouraging her to enjoy carpentry, be practical (‘you are a builder’s daughter!’) and to be physical as much as playing with dolls…..which she also did! . As she got older we had many robust scraps, where I passed on my martial arts skills, and encouraged her to be powerful and self-reliant. Equally, having a Steiner education enabled my son to learn how to knit, sing, act and do free running, staff fighting, arts and crafts. Both did maths and science, ethics and moral studies. Maybe my mum was an early feminist; she reckoned her three sons should cook and clean as much as her daughter, I figured likewise.

So our problem is not the boys, or the girls …..It’s us!

To read part three of this article see: leading by example.

 Journeyman UK is a mentoring charity, dedicated to supporting boys aged 13 to 17 to discover their unique potential and apply their gifts in service to themselves, each other and their community at large.