Parent Forum – Bookshelf

This book celebrates ‘real’ men and explores what’s needed to raise one. The authors are clinical psychologists whose work with boys and men gives them a unique perspective. It boils down to this: human beings have all kinds of emotional reactions to what happens to them. Because boys in our culture are too often short-changed when it comes to receiving a good emotional “education,” they suffer. They don’t have the vocabulary or the practice expressing themselves in the language of feelings. They don’t have male role models that display ready access to the full range of human emotions. (“Macho-men/superheroes/Sports SuperStars” show their “power” in physical strength, cutthroat competition, and aggression.)

Our boys grow up with this distorted view of “manhood” and then hit the rocky road of adolescence. That’s when they (and their emotionally illiterate peers) are trapped and get into trouble. They don’t know how to give voice to their internal (emotional) life except in the only way their “boy culture” allows… through aggression (verbal and physical). 95% of all homicides in this country are committed by men. Boys are about twice as likely to die by their own hand as girls. This book is revolutionary in its understanding of boys and the solutions it offers to the parents and teachers who love them.

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