Guiding an Obstinate Boy without Crushing His Spirit

The following essay first appeared as an article in Alvaro de Vicente’s Substack publication, Men in the Making. For more articles like this one, you can visit his page here. Subscribe to the publication to stay up-to-date on Alvaro’s writing.

In my last essay, I wrote about how parents and teachers can help boys overcome laziness. As I mentioned there, laziness is one of the three most common tendencies that prevent boys from accepting guidance from parents and mentors. Because laziness renders any growth strategy futile, developing fortitude—the virtue that counters this vice—is foundational for a boy’s growth in true freedom. 

Besides laziness, I mentioned two other common tendencies that prevent parenting and mentoring from being effective: obstinacy and insincerity. In this article, I will focus on obstinacy. 

Though boys of any age can be obstinate, teenage boys have a particular tendency to obstinance. As many parents know well, during the teenage years, boys develop a growing desire for independence. This desire for self-reliance often manifests in stubbornly resisting parental suggestions. As neuroscientists have discovered, this tendency is especially strong in boys because their brain chemistry primes them to defend the territory of their perceived autonomy. So by biological instinct, a boy’s first reaction to his parents’ advice is often negative; it is as though his parents cannot do anything right. Helping boys shape their desire for independence in healthy ways, therefore, is challenging but crucial. 

Defining Obstinacy

Obstinacy is unreasonable perseverance. It is determination when determination is detrimental to one’s true good. An obstinate boy is unreasonable due to a lack of prudence. He is determined due to his desire to follow his own plan—often out of a sense of pride. 

Lacking prudence involves two problems: 

1. Having the wrong goal; 
2. Having the wrong means or process for attaining the right goal.

The prudent man, on the other hand, both aims for what is good and pursues what he aims for in a way that will lead to it. A particular goal is good if it is aligned with one’s overall goal to flourish as a human being—which ultimately means to love. The process for attaining a goal is good if it is well suited to efficiently and effectively attain the goal without undue negative side effects. 

An example of prudence is a boy who decides to follow a rigorous training program—including both strength and conditioning, and sport-specific drills—in order to become a great soccer player. His particular goal—to become a great soccer player—is good, or at least can be good, since it contributes to his physical growth as well as his growth in many virtues. The means are well suited to the goal since they involve the strength and conditioning necessary to be a good athlete in general, as well as the specific drills necessary to be a good soccer player in particular. 

Perseverance, or fortitude, is faithfulness to a goal that one has set for oneself. It is the virtue that disposes one to stick with a commitment even when doing so is difficult. For example, that boy who wants to be a great soccer player has perseverance when he continues to follow his training plan during the summer, even after the initial attraction of a new goal and routine has faded.

A boy can be obstinate, however, in two ways: 

1. Being faithful to a goal that is not aligned with his true good; 
2. Being faithful to a process that is not conducive to a good goal.

What Can Parents Do?

Before trying to solve the problem, I encourage you to recognize what is good in an obstinate boy. Though maybe infuriating at times, it is important to see that hidden in his obstinacy are, in fact, the seeds of virtue. In the first place, the fact that he has goals is good. It means that he is thinking about his future and beginning to develop a sense of what he is called to in life. Second, an obstinate boy has at least the modicum of a plan to achieve his goals; this is also very good, as it means he is exercising his practical intellect. Finally, the fact that he is obstinate is a sign that he is strong-willed and faithful—which, again, is itself good, even if only partially so. 

Recognizing that seeds of virtue lie buried in his obstinacy will help you devise a solution to the problem that does not undermine the good already present. Indeed, the solution to obstinacy should avoid crushing the boy’s spirit and, instead, seek to artfully redirect his efforts. Before correcting him, praise and encourage his determination. And, if it is good, praise and encourage his goal. 

Having praised what is good, the key to helping an obstinate boy is to thoughtfully suggest—not demand or insist upon—a different, better process for attaining his goal. Obstinacy cannot be tackled head-on, as doing so will likely only exacerbate the problem. Boys, especially as they enter the teenage years, tend to resist being told what to do. Their burgeoning desire for independence makes them sensitive to any perceived threat to their freedom, especially when that comes from their parents. Obstinacy, rather, has to be circumvented. Indeed, the best approach to obstinacy is one that leaves a boy unaware you were even trying to manage it. 

Here is where the value of mentors in a boy’s life becomes particularly apparent. Though an obstinate boy may struggle to listen to his parents, I have found that he will listen to a mentor he finds credible. That is, he will be open to receiving advice from someone he believes:

1. Knows about his goals (for example, a good coach, or a teacher he finds particularly knowledgeable);
2. Wants to help him.  

In the absence of mentors, a tactful way for a parent to help an obstinate boy is to direct his attention to others—fellow peers, heroes of his, and the like—who have succeeded in attaining the goal their son desires, and to encourage him to find out how they did it. This, however, can be tricky: the boy could easily misunderstand it as a criticism of his ability compared to his peers. Being thoughtful about the manner in which you point to others, therefore, is crucial.

A final thought: if your attempts to help an obstinate boy prove excessively frustrating, you may want to check your own parenting goals and strategies. Frustration, after all, could be a sign of one’s own obstinacy: either the aim is wrong or the means are off. Maybe your implicit goal is to make him do a very specific thing that you have determined is the best thing for him. Maybe your strategy involves telling him over and over again what he must do. Your goal may be objectively good, and your words may well be true, but don’t  forget: your goal is to help your son discover for himself what God wants of him, and develop the prudence necessary to pursue that goal of his own initiative. You are not the director; you are the acting coach.