I'm a school wellness director and strength & conditioning coach of teenage boys. Every week I share honest thoughts for parents who want to use their son's new interest in fitness as a vehicle to build sustainable wellness skills, but don't know what to do or how to do it. I use research from education, exercise science, and adolescent development, along with my own creative storytelling twists, to highlight my belief that every boy needs a wellness-focused strength coach for his physical, mental, and emotional growth.
AI can now build your teenage son's wellness routine, but there’s a major problem…
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Last week, Meta announced Muse, a personal AI agent described as a tool that handles everyday tasks on your behalf. The tasks you don’t want to do, but have to do. And according to Axios, it will also fill out permission slips for school field trips. The two-minute task every middle schooler has been responsible for since they invented field trips. I have been teaching middle school boys for nearly twenty years and in that time I have watched the number of preteens and early teenagers who struggle with basic executive functioning increase significantly. These include planning ahead, time management, doing simple tasks, and complex problem solving skills. Having these executive functioning skills are the foundational “academic” pieces to long-term health and right now is a vital window he has for building these skills. A 2024 systematic review published in PubMed, analyzing over 231,000 children across nine countries, found that daily exposure to digital technology is negatively associated with executive functioning in children and adolescents, particularly in the areas of planning, working memory, and self-regulation. Those in education have been saying this for years and I’m glad we are finally being heard…just not by Meta. Don't get me wrong, AI is a helpful tool that I use. But are all these tools actually going to help your teenager build the health, wellness, or fitness skills needed to take care of himself in the long-term? I’d argue no. Executive functioning skills are hard to build because they require the slow, frustrating process of trial and error. A fifteen-year-old boy does not fail to sleep earlier, eat breakfast, or exercise consistently because he lacks information. He fails and gradually figures it out because building those habits is deeply personal and emotional. Maybe he sees his classmate try a workout or maybe a teacher or coach mentioned the importance of protein. He may adjust, question, and rebuild his wellness practices because different seasons of life and experiences cause changes to one’s habits and routines. That process of adjusting, questioning, and rebuilding one’s wellness routines is executive functioning. My suggestion for parents trying to instill these health, wellness, or fitness skills in their teenage son is to let him think things through. Let him sit with it, let him try something, and let him be wrong. And the next time your son complains that he can't sleep, or that he has no energy, or that he doesn't know what to eat before a workout, resist the urge to hand him a solution. Ask him what he thinks is going on and come up with a solution together…or with a strength coach. Be well, Coach Steve Kiely M.Ed, CSCS |
WELLNESS & FITNESS FOR TEENAGE BOYS
I'm a school wellness director and strength & conditioning coach of teenage boys. Every week I share honest thoughts for parents who want to use their son's new interest in fitness as a vehicle to build sustainable wellness skills, but don't know what to do or how to do it. I use research from education, exercise science, and adolescent development, along with my own creative storytelling twists, to highlight my belief that every boy needs a wellness-focused strength coach for his physical, mental, and emotional growth.
Picture the ride home after dropping your son off at college. The car is quiet, and your husband is gripping the wheel. “He played baseball year-round all through high school,” he says, “so let’s hope he learned how to stay in shape.” You nod, but you’re not thinking about baseball. Will he be healthy? Can he physically take care of himself? You watch the road and wonder what his health will look like by Thanksgiving. Parents are nervous, frustrated, or frankly scared that their son isn’t...
Teenage boys today are physically weaker, less mobile and less aerobically fit than they were a generation ago. Additionally, they are sleeping less and continue to not eat breakfast. This isn’t good news from the CDC and definitely isn’t good news for parents of teenage boys. In my own experience, I’ve noticed that many of the teenage boys I initially meet to train as their strength coach lack basic general fitness; their grip strength gives out quick, their core cannot stabilize a simple...
It's a scene that plays out in gyms across the country every fall. A dad hears that the new guy running the weight room played Division I football, maybe he even went pro. He's strong, confident, and motivational. The dad shakes his hand, watches him move some serious weight, and thinks: "This is exactly who I want training my son." It's a completely understandable conclusion, but it's misguided. Not because he isn't a good person or a great role model, but because playing a sport at an elite...