The Balcony (Visitor #7): Featuring Munib Rezaie

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Today our guest writer is Munib Rezaie
(who has also previously been featured in this newsletter - The Coffee Chat (#80))

Munib is a father of two boys and a longtime educator who spent more than a decade inside K–12 schools as a teacher, counselor, and principal.

He was often the person boys were sent to after something went wrong … a fight, an outburst, a kid who had gone quiet or shut down. Sitting with them one-on-one, he began to see that what looked like “bad behavior” was often something else entirely: boys struggling to name what they were feeling, or to know what to do with emotions they had never been given much permission to express.

Those experiences led Munib to a bigger question: What are boys learning about what it means to be a man, and who gets to help them make sense of those messages?

With a PhD in Communication and a master’s in School Counseling, Munib now builds the curriculum, groups, and conversations that help boys think critically about masculinity and have a greater say in who they become … before their peers, screens, and algorithms do it for them!

You can learn more about all his wonderful projects on Raising Better Men

What you will read below is an essay penned by Munib for his organization Raising Better Men repurposed and shared for Decks and Diapers

While Munib primarily writes from the vantage point of answering two important questions - Why are boys struggling, and how do we raise better men? - I think this piece offers language and tactics that can help us connect with our kids regardless of their gender or life stage.

And, as someone who spends a lot of time thinking about workplaces and the humans within them, I also found myself thinking about how much of this applies to the adults in our lives, whether in our personal relationships or our professional ones!

There is so much power in the simple phrases Munib shares here: small shifts in how we respond that can create more space for people to feel seen, understood, and ultimately, to show up as more of themselves.

I love how practical this piece is, and I’m so grateful that Munib was generous enough to share these with all of you wonderful readers.

This phrase signals genuine curiosity rather than alarm, and it invites the child to keep talking. When kids sense that what they’ve said is about to get them in trouble, they shut down. This phrase signals the opposite. It says: I’m not reacting, I’m listening; I can handle your thoughts and feelings; and your thoughts and feelings are important to me. It also buys you some time if you need to think through what you’re going to say and want to avoid a knee-jerk reaction.

Many kids operate from a deep fear of judgment and shame. There are some interesting ways in which gendered norms play into these feelings, so that boys and girls might carry distinct fears for shame. Boys, for example, might worry about appearing weak; while girls might be inappropriately burdened with the responsibility of other people’s feelings. This phrase attempts to disarm that reflex. It separates your presence from the threat of punishment and repositions you as someone who is trying to understand, not punish.

This one does some important work, particularly when speaking with a child who said something that was inappropriate or harmful in some way; maybe a sexist joke, a condescending remark, etc. It’s a way to model naming our own reaction without centering it. You’re not saying “that was wrong.” You’re not shutting it down. You’re saying: your words have impacted me, and I’d like to share it with you, if that’s okay. That kind of relational honesty is exactly what we’re trying to teach. And while they may not understand exactly why their words were problematic, they can understand how it negatively affected you.

Admitting that you don’t have an immediate answer can feel counterintuitive for a lot of adults. We’re supposed to know things. But when you say this to a child, what they hear is: you can bring hard things to me and I won’t pretend to have it figured out. That can be an enormous gift. It normalizes not knowing - making it easier for them to also understand that they don’t have to have all the answers - and keeps the door wide open for the next conversation. There’s a lot of power in simply naming the thing you’re thinking.

Generally speaking, we are not great at being in touch with our emotions - boys even more so. Too many of us have stories about a time in our childhood when we were shamed or shut down by an adult for expressing an emotion that wasn’t considered appropriate for whatever reason. This kind of shame response can have long-term consequences on kids who learn that it is not okay to express certain feelings. Instead, they channel those feelings and energies into whatever emotions they can, possibly resulting in aggressive tantrums, refusal to cooperate; really anything that might give them back some semblance of control. This phrase creates a gentle opening to go underneath the surface emotion. It doesn’t demand vulnerability, but lets them know it’s safe to go there with you if and when they’re ready.

This one calls for some vulnerability from you, and honesty about your own journey. It helps remove the adult-as-authority dynamic entirely. You’re not correcting them from a place of superiority. You’re walking alongside them and sharing something from your own experience.

But fair warning: only use this phrase if it’s true. Kids can tell when adults are performing solidarity. If you genuinely held a similar view at some point and worked through it, this phrase can open an extraordinary conversation. If you didn’t, a different phrase will probably serve better.

Use a phrase like this instead of saying “it’s okay” when a child is upset about something. It’s all too easy to fall into the trap of telling kids who are genuinely upset, angry, or frustrated about something that “it’s okay,” or “it’s not that big a deal,” “don’t worry about it,” “you’ll get over it,” and so on. All of those phrases dismiss the child’s feelings, minimizes their concerns, and sends the message that you can’t handle their feelings. But I think you’d agree that no one has ever gotten over anything because someone told them to “get over it.” It just doesn’t happen. On the contrary, a phrase that simply acknowledges their feeling in the moment assures them that they are understood, that there is nothing inherently wrong about their feeling, and that they have permission to feel it fully. Conversations about whether or not the intensity of the feeling matched the severity of the situation can come later.

Rather than solving the problem for the child, you’re inviting them to solve it themselves, with you present as a sounding board. It builds agency, it builds problem-solving skills, and it communicates that you trust them to think things through. That trust, communicated consistently over time, is one of the most powerful things a parent or caregiver can offer.

Empathy is a skill that has to be practiced. This question does something simple but profound: it invites a child to temporarily step outside of their own perspective and occupy someone else’s. It doesn’t accuse them, it doesn’t tell them they’re wrong. It simply asks them to consider something they may not have considered. I’ve worked with students who genuinely struggle answering a question like this, which makes it that much more important to provide them with opportunities to practice this kind of perspective-taking.

The work happens in the conversation. Not in having the right answers. You don’t need to have this figured out to show up. What kids need more than a parent who knows everything is a parent who stays in it with them, who doesn’t disappear when the conversation gets hard. It lets them know it’s ok to not have all the answers, that you might never have some of the answers, but that there is still value in moving your understanding forward.

What I’ve learned after years of this work is that children don’t need the adults in their lives to be perfect. They need them to be present. They need to know that when they bring something uncomfortable to you, you’ll stay in the room.

Because if you don’t, someone else might and you may not like what they end up teaching them.

A final note on what all ten of these phrases have in common: none of them judge, none of them shame, and none of them rush toward a conclusion. They stay open. They lean in on the relationship. They communicate that the child’s thoughts and feelings matter, which is ultimately what keeps the doors open for future communication.

And an open door is everything.

The Coffee Chats and Open Tabs will be back in the next edition.

If you find yourself with a little extra time, maybe you use it to go through the archives and rediscover an old conversation I had shared.

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Disclaimer: All views expressed are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer