Opinion: Rethinking the ‘Boys’ Crisis’

“The real issue is that there are too few systems and spaces intentionally created for them to engage, learn, and grow. The crisis is not boys. The crisis is belonging.”

Headlines about “teen takeovers” keep surfacing in New York and cities across the U.S. In the first day of classes this year in Brooklyn, large crowds of teens rushed the Barclays Center and the Atlantic Terminal Mall, prompting many city and community leaders to call for more after-school programs. Last spring in Chicago, the city was forced to renew curfews and warnings as large youth gatherings were organized online. 

Commentators cite falling test scores, rising loneliness, and these kinds of viral clips of crowding downtown streets as proof that teens—and especially boys and young men—are angry, detached, and in decline.

But that framing misses the mark. Boys are not inherently in crisis, they are responding to one. The real issue is that there are too few systems and spaces intentionally created for them to engage, learn, and grow. The crisis is not boys. The crisis is belonging.

When institutions fail to offer developmentally attuned “third spaces” with caring adults, boys don’t simply retreat into apathy. They go looking for community on their own. Sociologist Ray Oldenburg described “third places” as the informal, low-barrier environments outside home and school where people form connection and identity.

Those spaces have largely vanished, replaced by screens, commercial venues, or programs that prioritize structure over self-expression. Cities need accessible, teen-affirming environments that don’t require spending money, scoring points, or earning entry.

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Research confirms that connection is a protective factor, one of the strongest predictors of lifelong health and well-being. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, school connectedness has lasting effects on physical and mental health. Youth who feel connected at school are less likely to engage in risky sexual behavior, misuse substances, experience violence, or struggle with mental health challenges in adulthood. In other words, belonging isn’t sentimental; it’s essential.

The CDC also notes that structured opportunities for interaction, like physical education, recess, and group activities, teach conflict resolution, empathy, and cooperation. These “practice grounds” give boys space to develop respect, resilience, and self-control. When we eliminate or underfund them, we remove the very conditions that help young people become emotionally literate adults.

Yet instead of investing in connection, we often double down on control; curfews, surveillance, and punitive systems that treat boys as threats rather than individuals seeking affirmation. That approach may suppress symptoms in the short term, but it does nothing to address the root cause: isolation.

This is where mentoring and intentional design can transform outcomes. Research from the American Journal of Community Psychology shows that youth mentoring programs produce measurable improvements when they focus on relationships over rules. Participants in Big Brothers Big Sisters, for example, were less likely to initiate substance use, skipped fewer days of school, and showed fewer violent incidents. The lesson is clear: when boys experience trust and continuity, their choices change.

In my more than three decades working with boys and young men, I’ve seen this play out every day. The most effective mentorship doesn’t come from rigid programs, it emerges organically in spaces built for belonging. It’s a brotherhood developed over time. Relationships that are reliable and endure before, during and after life’s celebrations, hardships, and milestones. Unforced connection that turns into powerful bonds we witness every day, like when a young alumnus in college visits his clubhouse just because he “misses his brothers.” True mentorship isn’t hierarchical; it’s interwoven. Peers, near-peers, and adults all reinforce the same message: you matter here.

Belonging is not something we can impose; it’s something we strategically design for. Boys rarely show up asking for guidance. They come for what excites them: basketball, robotics, music, etc., and stay because they find friendship, trust, and a sense of being known. When we fund and replicate spaces that make that possible, we replace alienation with purpose.

After years of watching boys grow into men, I’ve learned this: boys don’t need saving—they need seeing. If we respond to their need for belonging with empathy instead of alarm, connection instead of control, we can shift the story entirely.

The next time we see headlines about teens filling city streets, we might not see chaos—we might see a generation asking us, in the only language they have, to make room for them.

Stephen Tosh is the CEO and executive director of The Boys’ Club of New York.

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