Stand tall and hold your head up high.

When I was young and things went wrong — when I messed up, drifted off course, felt overwhelmed, or got knocked down — I always went to my dad. He never rushed. He never filled the silence. He’d listen, let the dust settle, and then give me the same line every time:

“Son, get back up. Stand tall and hold your head up high.”

Long before I understood psychology or posture, those words became a way of moving through the world. Straighten the spine. Lift the head. Pull the shoulders back. Look a person in the eye. Offer a firm handshake. Carry yourself with intent. A quiet declaration that says: I’m here. I’m responsible. I mean what I say.

Those cues shaped me before I even realised they were lessons. They taught me that how you carry yourself changes how you feel. Structure steadies the mind. A clear gaze strengthens the nervous system. Showing up properly builds respect — for yourself first, and then for others.

Boys today are growing up without many of these anchors, and the patterns are showing. A rise in anxiety. A rise in detachment. Boys drifting in identity, falling behind in education, struggling with purpose, withdrawing into silence. And the hardest truth of all: suicide is now the leading cause of death for boys aged fifteen to nineteen.

Behind every statistic is a young man who doesn’t feel seen, guided, or grounded.

The digital world has intensified the drift. Parents obsess over physical safety — bike helmets, elbow pads, life jackets — yet leave a child’s inner world unsecured. We protect them on the pavement, then hand them a smartphone at ten and allow the online world to shape their instincts and values. Boys especially absorb hours of chaotic, unfiltered ideas about what it means to be a man, with no grounded adult presence to counterbalance it. Morally underfed. Digitally stuffed. Overwhelmed.

And with that comes the erosion of ordinary challenge. A world of taps and swipes presents flawless solutions with no friction. Many boys now reach adolescence without meaningful failure. Asking someone out, being turned down, fumbling through a job, learning through consequence — these once-ordinary rites have thinned out. Screens offer a life without risk, and in that frictionless world, confidence quietly dissolves.

Layered on top is the absence of steady male presence. Not dangerous men. Not hostile men. Simply absent men. Fathers stretched thin or living elsewhere. Coaches and mentors who hesitate, unsure of their place in a culture quick to judge them. Older men who once guided now stepping back, wary of missteps or misunderstanding. So boys try to decode adulthood alone, without the grounding presence they need most.

And that matters. Because boys who feel unseen don’t stop searching for bearings — they simply find them in darker corners.

Raising my own sons has made all of this painfully clear. I let them fail. Not because I don’t care, but because failure is the furnace where confidence is made. When my fifteen-year-old kept turning up late for the school bus, I didn’t lecture him. One morning, I let the bus leave. I handed him his phone and said, “Sort it. Your money. Your day.” He hasn’t been late since.

Their screen time is earned through movement. If they want an hour online, they earn it through training. They take breaks from devices to reconnect with real conversations, real people, and the awkwardness that belongs to actual social life. They have their gang of boys — and they look out for each other. This weekend they were in Abu Dhabi together, saw Travis Scott, got dragged up on stage, danced, lived it. Raw, messy, real. Everything a screen can’t teach.

They order their own food. They speak to people in the street. They take responsibility. It’s the small things that build the deep things.

They have structure. They have expectations. They have a father who shows up. A mother who’s fierce and focused. An older sister who challenges them, sharpens them, refuses to let them coast. Because boys don’t become grounded, capable young men by accident. They grow through presence, boundaries, guidance, movement, and consistent expectation. Masculinity isn’t inherited — it’s practised.

And a lot of the time things go wrong. They mess up, drift off course, feel overwhelmed, or got knocked down. But they always come back to me, I listen. And when the noise settles I say:

“Son, get back up. Stand tall and hold your head up high.”