Helping Boys Overcome Laziness

True freedom is self-dominion. As a boy grows into a man, one common obstacle is the tendency to laziness. In this article, we consider the source of laziness, its abetting habits, and its remedy.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau begins his famous 1762 work of political philosophy, The Social Contract, with the observation that “man is born free but everywhere is in chains.” The problem with Rousseau’s poetic observation is that it is false. Perhaps if the Geneva-born thinker had not abandoned his five children, he would not have developed such a false idea.

Children are, in fact, born unfree; they must grow into their freedom. Of course, children have the ability to choose, but they are unfree insofar as they have not yet acquired the requisite knowledge and self-dominion to choose well—in a way that leads to their flourishing.

Photo by insung yoon on Unsplash

In my experience, boys face three kinds of challenges as they grow into free men:

1. Challenges that arise from personal characteristics;

2. Challenges that arise from cultural influences;

3. Challenges that arise from personal decisions.

The first bucket consists of challenges that arise due to the temperament or personal disposition of a boy. Everyone has certain inborn tendencies, some of which are good and others of which need to be shaped and directed. For example, one boy may be naturally gregarious and unafraid to say what he thinks but lack the empathy and foresight to consider how his words affect others. And another boy may be quite thoughtful but care too much about what others think of him. Each has natural strengths and each has natural weaknesses that need shaping.

Challenges from cultural influences arise when the general environment surrounding a boy is not conducive to virtue. Times Square, with its bright billboards that frenetically grab one’s attention and pull it toward often-unsavory images, is an icon of an environment that challenges one’s growth in freedom.

Finally, challenges due to personal choices consist of difficulties that are the result of a prior decision. Think of the way poor choices lead to bad habits and, at the extreme, bad habits lead to shackling addictions.

In the category of personal characteristics, three stand out as particularly common in boys:

1. Laziness

2. Obstinacy

3. Insincerity

Because these three obstacles prevent mentoring from being effective, it is crucial that parents and mentors help boys address them head on.

In this article, I will focus on the first of these challenges, laziness. Helping your son to conquer the tendency toward laziness is fundamental for his growth. Unless he consistently overcomes the gravitational pull to comfort-seeking, developing a personal growth plan is useless.

Defining Laziness

Laziness is an unwillingness to perform a task, perform it well, or perform it in a timely manner.

A boy is lazy when is unwilling, meaning: he could in principle complete a task but opts for comfort and the easy path instead of the task at hand. For example, he might be capable of earning good grades if he applied effort to his studies, but instead he settles for an easier path. The problem is not that he lacks the capacity or skill but that he lacks the motivation and perseverance.

A boy is lazy when he is unwilling to perform, which could involve accomplishing a simple material task, such as getting out of bed on time or cleaning his room; an intellectual action, such as concentrating on reading a book; or a more subtle moral act, such as thinking about how his words may affect another.

Giving into Laziness

Slouching on a couch is an evident manifestation of laziness, but it is not the only one. There are various ways in which boys commonly give in to laziness. Some are more apparent, others less so. The most obvious way a boy gives into laziness is by not doing something at all. Perhaps he chooses to not try out for a team or take a challenging class and does so not because of a prudential calculation but because these activities take more effort than he is willing to expend.

Another way a boy may give into laziness is by delaying a task. He may even hide his procrastination from himself (and you) by doing a laundry list of other less important tasks that keep him from accomplishing what he ought to do now. Think how easy it can be to fill out time going through emails, appearing productive to others, instead of diving into a matter that is full of challenges. How busy we can make ourselves when we have something important but difficult to do.

A less obvious form of laziness occurs when a boy claims to lack the ability to do something well. Some boys, for whom certain activities come easily, struggle to persevere when they encounter something that for them takes more effort. In such cases they may excuse poor work by claiming a lack of talent.

Counteracting Laziness

“Ninety-nine percent of success in life,” Woody Allen reminds us, “is showing up.” One hundred percent of success in life is overcoming laziness, for the tendency arises for everyone at various points in their lives.

Fortitude is the virtue that counteracts laziness. Fortitude guards the will against being withdrawn from a good through fear of pain. It is the virtue that disposes one to pursue a difficult good and persevere in the attainment of it. In order to grow in fortitude, then, three things are necessary:

1. The boy needs to see the difficulty as good;

2. The boy needs to understand the path to pursuing the good;

3. The boy needs to be motivated to start and committed to attaining the good.

It is not enough for a parent or teacher to understand that some task or activity would be good for a boy. The boy needs to recognize for himself that the task is good, that it will play a role in him becoming the man he wants to be and accomplishing the goals he hopes to achieve. Until he sees something as good, it will be impossible for him to do it, as the will pursues only what is presented to it as good. Thus, he needs to see why prayer, studying, working out, and living a schedule are good.

From the perspective of a parent or teacher, it is necessary to learn how to present the good in an attractive manner. Doing this involves understanding the psychology of the boy and becoming a good marketer. In other words, presenting the good attractively requires that we know what this boy wants and know how to communicate the goal in a way that is meaningful to him. Though every boy is attracted to the good, not all see the good in the same way. Parents and teachers need to present the good in such a way that he will see it as attractive; they need to speak his language.

Once a boy sees the goal and is attracted to it, he needs to lay out the process to obtain the goal. Without a plan, an attractive goal turns into an unattainable peak. The process should be simple, clear, and practically doable. The boy should be able to visualize himself working through the process. In other words, he must be able to do it and he must be able to see himself doing it for the plan to be helpful. The plan needs to work for him, not for you. It is worth spending a considerable amount of time helping a boy devise for himself a plan that he is excited about. It does not matter if you are excited about a plan if he is not equally excited. Indeed, if you are excited and he is not, then he will likely be frustrated now—and you in a week.

Once the boy is attracted to the goal and has a doable plan for attaining it, motivation will naturally follow. How often is laziness the result of not clearly seeing the point of an activity or not having a practicable plan for performing it? A boy may periodically need sparks of motivation to get going. In motivating a boy, love is stronger than hatred. In my experience, boys respond more readily to the call for excellence than to the fear of disaster. Neuroscience, by the way, confirms this intuition.

The final keystone to growing in fortitude, and the toughest part, is finishing well. “To begin is easy,” wrote St. Josemaría, “to persevere is sanctity.” Using C. S. Lewis’s formulation, the transition from dreamy aspiration to laborious doing is the real growth point in this whole process. It is where the testing point of growth, where the idea of fortitude, becomes reality. When the boy finds himself in the middle of the process, he will likely need periodic support and encouragement. In most cases, encouragement will come in the form of praising the little, partial accomplishments along the way, reminding him to look back at the path he has already traversed, or helping him not to lose sight of the mountain peak that got him climbing in the first place. Always, encouragement should be filled with a sense of hope—even when setbacks arise.

The Good News

Though laziness presents a common temptation, the good news is that boys, even young boys, respond quickly to the ideal of fortitude. Even the word itself has a manly sound to it. Though a boy may feel at times that performing some task impinges on his freedom, he will soon see that the freedom to do whatever he happens to feel like doing pales in comparison to the freedom of becoming what, deep down, he desires to become: a man. Even if this costs him something—effort, discomfort, pain—he will come to see that his laziness is really the result of overestimating the difficulty. What it costs to grow in fortitude is less than it may at first glance appear. And what is gained is worth far more than what is spent.

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Upcoming Opportunities at The Heights Forum

We have many exciting opportunities coming up this summer and beyond. Here are a few events that may be of interest:

• June 16-20, 2025: Teaching Essentials Workshop, a week-long deep dive into pedagogy, led by two veteran Heights teachers, Austin Hatch and Tom Steenson.

• November 13-15, 2025: Convivium, the Forum’s flagship event and the only conference in the world designed specifically for teaching men.

• Spring 2026: Teaching Boys Workshop, a workshop focused on teaching boys according to their nature. More details to come, but the workshop will blend lectures, seminars, and classroom observations.