Rebels with a Cause
NYC-PIA Interview with Dr. Niobe Way
"It isn't the rebels who cause the troubles of the world, it's the troubles of the world that cause the rebel.” – Carl Ogilsby
May 6, 2025
by Himani Dixit, MD
Parents in Action board members, Charles Harkless and Oscar Bleetstein, recently had the opportunity to interview Dr. Niobe Way, internationally recognized Professor of Developmental Psychology at NYU. For over four decades, Dr. Way has conducted in-depth research on the emotional development of our young people and on how our culture shapes our children, our families, and our society. This conversation centers around her latest book, Rebels with a Cause: Reimagining Boys, Ourselves, and Our Culture.
Our education of young people, says Dr. Way, has to pull out their full humanity. Both the hard and soft skills-especially the skill to build connections. Connection is created when we feel seen and heard by each other. In this discussion, Dr. Way addresses what boys need to connect. The “cause” in Rebels with a Cause, she says, is to care. Young people are asking us to care – care about them, care about each other, and care about any damage we have done as adults by only focusing on one half of ourselves. We have to create a culture that cares.
These are just a few of the topics and themes NYC-PIA and Dr. Way addressed in their discussion. You can watch the complete interview below.
Oscar Bleetstein (OB): Why does your work focus on boys and what have you learned as a result?
Niobe Way (NW): As I started counseling boys in the late 80s, I realized that boys spoke extensively about friendships. In my studies and in larger society, there is an assumption that boys don’t want the kind of friendship intimacy that girls want. As I started learning more about boys and friendships, I noticed four themes that emerged:
- In early adolescence, the desire for deep friendships in which boys could be vulnerable and wouldn’t be laughed at.
- There was a self-awareness that friendships were explicitly linked to their mental health.
- In late adolescence, this shifted into a crisis of connection where stereotypical boy behavior prevented them from forming or keeping close friendships with other boys.
- The cultural pressures of male friendships not being associated with being homosexual.
Charles Harkless (CH): During adolescence from the ages of 12-18, when exactly did this shift start to take place?
NW: As the boys grew physically into manhood, this shift happened when their bodies were changing and there were pressures to “man up.” There was a fear of looking weak or soft. The rates of suicide in boys ages 15-17 is three to five times that of girls, and is partially impacted by this crisis of connection.
CH: What is the role of social media in this shift?
NW: The reason why we are getting worse is because we are not seeing it as a cultural problem, we are seeing it as an individual problem. It’s a sense of, “Yes, you can express your feelings to a certain degree, but when it comes to business, we need to be focusing on the hard side of ourselves.” Empathy, sensitivity, and curiosity about others is not as valued in boy culture.
OB: How can parents engage and make a difference?
NW: We tell ourselves that what we mostly want is autonomy and identity, but what my research has shown is that what we want most is to love and be loved. We are fundamentally social animals, and we should be focused on nurturing relationships. Parents need to focus more on teaching children how to build healthy relationships rather than getting into the right college. That has to be the top priority.
We have natural relational intelligence and skill that has to be nurtured, or we begin to lose it. Questions such as “What can I learn about myself through you?” and vice versa (seeing yourself in the other) are crucial. Emotional intelligence is understanding what is happening within yourself, but relational intelligence is understanding what is happening with the other person and between two people.
In a study in college kids, the majority of kids stated that they want to “be seen as they see themselves, rather than how they are stereotyped to be.” People want to be seen as a real person rather than a stereotype.
In practical terms, this can translate as asking your kids who they follow on TikTok and why, or why they are posting something on Instagram, but in a nonjudgmental way. Be curious about their curiosity. You have to engage with them on their level, and not interrogate them on things we want to know.
OB: What is the role of the school vs the parents?
NW: We’ve learned from The Listening Project that fostering a child’s hard and soft sides helps them with academics. For example, writing. When they are better able to understand themselves and others, they are better able to express those ideas in their writing. We see dramatic improvements in writing, even when we haven’t directly worked on their writing.
You can’t start from a place of seeing the child as broken and needing to be fixed. We have to create spaces where people can share what they know, and be open to learning things that they don’t know. This applies to school and at home.
At home, this could look like being open to what you can learn from your child, not just what you can teach them.
CH: Can you tell us more about the “thin and thick stories” you talk about in your book?
NW: Some of our narrative around boys vs girl behavior has been stereotyped into thinking is masculine behavior and feeling is feminine behavior, which is a very thin story. You can’t use gender thinking and feeling because all human beings do both. All humans have a need to love and be loved.
Our education of young people has to pull out their full humanity. Schools are a perfect place to nurture soft skills. Listening with curiosity is a meta-cognitive skill, because I have to understand what you are saying and try to reconcile it with my own understanding. Teaching interpersonal curiosity (not just intellectual curiosity) leads to better outcomes in math, writing, and other concrete subjects.
We need a revolution in interpersonal curiosity, which is defined by our interest in each others’ thoughts and feelings.
OB: Where are we today in our schools with regards to hard and soft skills?
NW: There is a global crisis of connection where we are deeply disconnected from our humanity. Modern culture only values the hard side of ourselves. If we are disconnected from our own humanity, we cannot see the humanity in someone else. That’s what we are currently seeing in our partisan divides–we are not able to see the humanity of somebody that sees differently than you.
CH: How do we create that space, openness, and support in the classroom?
NW: We emphasize learning from each other by listening with curiosity. Practicing relational intelligence is key in academic settings also.
OB: Do you think the kids of today will be better parents than we were?
NW: There’s not an easy answer to that, because our generation of parents have not given enough autonomy to our children. However, I do think they are more aware of the problem than our generation was. They want the connection that our generation seems to have missed.
That being said, they are more afraid to take risks or do things that they perceive might not make them money because of a fear of failing – so it’s mixed.