Why Every Teenage Boy Needs a Positive Role Model

For teenage boys, influence often works less through what we say and more through who they get to watch. I spent six months working with young men in youth corrections. The boys I worked with changed when they were around someone they genuinely respected and wanted to be like. The research on adolescent boys says exactly the same thing.

Boys learn by watching, not by being told.

Decades ago, psychologist Albert Bandura showed that much of how we learn comes from observing and modelling others, especially when we relate and look up to them. For a teenage boy, a role model who feels familiar but is a few steps further down the path he’s on can land harder than any conversation.

And the effect is real. Research shows that young people who can name just one supportive, non-parent adult in their lives do better across school, behaviour, and mental health. For boys specifically, psychologist and author Jean Rhodes has found that male role models help with something crucial at this age: working out who they are and who they want to become.

Connection comes through doing, not talking.

One of the most reassuring findings, and something I saw first-hand, is that boys often bond best side by side rather than face to face. Rhodes’ research shows male mentoring relationships tend to thrive through shared activity and fun rather than deep emotional conversation. Some of my most meaningful moments with the young men I worked with came over a game of Uno or playing table tennis, not a heart-to-heart. The connection came first. Everything else followed.

You don’t need to find a perfect stranger. Look at who’s already there.

Rhodes calls one of the most effective approaches “teaching boys to fish”; — helping them draw closer to the good men already in their world rather than waiting for a formal mentor to appear. An uncle, a coach, a grandfather, a family friend. Boys often listen to a trusted adult who isn’t their parent in a way they simply can’t with mum or dad, and that’s completely normal.

So a few gentle things you can do:

 Notice the good men already around him and make room for those relationships to grow.

 Lean into shared activity — sport, music, fishing, building something. Connection tends to follow.

 Model it yourself, imperfectly. Boys learn as much from watching how you handle stress and mistakes as from anything you tell them.

 Stay curious about who’s filling the gap online. If the positive voices in his life go quiet, the online ones get louder.

The Takeaway:

For teenage boys, connection comes before correction, and showing almost always beats telling. A positive role model — someone your son can look at and think I could be like that — is one of the most protective influences in his development. And it’s something we can be deliberate about, rather than leaving to chance.

So this week, think about the good men already in your son’s life. Is there one worth drawing a little closer? Sometimes it starts with something as simple as making space for the right person to show up.

If you’d like support building resilience and strong connections in your teenager’s life, the team at The Resilience Centre is here to help.

References

Rhodes, J. E. (2024). Mentoring relationships in the lives of boys and young men. The
ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 716(1), 141–155.
https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162261431696