International Men’s Day 2025: Rethinking Strength by Teaching Boys Sensitivity
For decades, boys around the world have grown up with a tightly defined script of what it means to be a strong man. The expectations begin early, often communicated long before boys have the language to question them. Strength, they are told, is about physical grit. It’s about the ability to suppress emotion, to stay composed at all times, to take charge, and to hide anything that could be interpreted as weakness. Variations of the phrase “boys don’t cry” echo across cultures, homes, and generations, becoming an almost invisible rulebook that shapes how young boys learn to move through the world.
Yet as conversations around mental health widen and evolve, experts are urging us to interrogate these long-held assumptions. Is the traditional definition of strength truly serving boys? And what if a fuller, healthier understanding of strength includes the very qualities long dismissed as “soft” — sensitivity, emotional awareness, and vulnerability?
According to counseling psychologists, including those who work extensively with boys and men, sensitivity is not the opposite of strength but an extension of it. Sensitivity, they argue, is not fragility. It is the capacity to communicate with empathy, to respect differences, to express disagreement without aggression, and to remain grounded in one’s own emotional reality. In other words, sensitivity is a blend of emotional depth and social intelligence — skills that become invaluable in adulthood but are rarely cultivated in boys from an early age.
The challenge is that many boys internalize a narrow vision of manhood before they even enter adolescence. When boys repeatedly hear that toughness means silence, or that emotional expression signals weakness, they learn to disconnect from parts of themselves. What they are not told is that suppressing emotions doesn’t eliminate them — it only buries them. Over time, this can lead to emotional numbness, difficulty forming meaningful connections, and a persistent belief that their inner world is something to be concealed rather than understood.
The foundation for emotional balance begins at home, long before boys are aware of the cultural forces shaping them. Parents and primary caregivers become the earliest models for how emotions are handled: whether feelings are acknowledged or dismissed, whether conflict is met with communication or avoidance, and whether vulnerability is seen as something to respect or something to hide. Children, especially young boys, are highly sensitive to both verbal and non-verbal cues — tone, body language, facial expressions. These quiet signals help shape their definition of which ends and motions are “acceptable” and which ones are not.
What many boys never hear is that feeling deeply is part of being human.
Reframing sensitivity as a strength requires more than telling boys to “open up.” It requires adults to model what healthy emotional expression looks like. Instead of urging them to “be strong” in moments of distress, parents can use language that normalizes emotion: “It’s okay to feel upset,” or “I can see why this made you angry.” These simple statements acknowledge the emotion, validate the experience, and create space for conversation. Over time, this approach teaches boys that emotions don’t make them weak — they make them aware.
Many men who struggle with emotional expression as adults often trace this difficulty back to childhood moments when their feelings were brushed aside. Repeated dismissals teach boys that their inner experiences are inconvenient, unimportant, or unworthy of attention. Even as society becomes more open about mental health, these early messages can be hard to unlearn.
Still, change is possible — and meaningful. When boys are permitted to articulate fear, disappointment, confusion, or sadness, they begin to build the skills necessary for resilience. Emotional autonomy — the ability to recognize one’s feelings and respond to them in healthy ways — grows gradually, but it can be transformative.
This International Men’s Day encourages a timely reminder: strength is not measured solely by how well boys can endure, stay silent, or “power through.” True strength includes the courage to be honest about one’s emotions, the willingness to be vulnerable, and the capacity to connect with others with compassion.
Teaching boys that sensitivity is not a liability but a form of strength could play a powerful role in shaping a future generation of emotionally healthier men — and a society that values empathy as much as endurance.
