Six Ways To Keep The "Good" In Your Boy: Guiding Your Son From His Tweens To His Teens (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
Uh...where do I start? I am reading this book for a small group at church and although I am four chapters from finishing, I just can't read any more. First of all, she talks about her "research." Her sources that she cites are from popular media, abcnews.com, Newsweek and evangelical sources such as Focus on the Family. Hardly unbiased and scholarly. Some of her other resources appear to be from polls she conducted with women who regularly log on to her website...hmmm...these are the kind of resources one uses in high school to write a report. Not even a self respecting college student would use these as their primary sources.Another example of her "research" is in Chapter 1 on page 25 (didn't get very far into the book before I was screaming) The author states, and I quote "the first reason boys become bad is that the feminist movement has told us they are bad." She bases her belief on her readings from a book called Bringing up Boys by Michael Gurian. Hmmm....while I have not read that book, I'm guessing he is a traditional, conservative Christian. Which is fine, but not one I would go to as an expert on the feminist point of view. Her writing is very simple and there is not a lot of substance or details behind her ideas. Not impressed at all.I did continue to plug on reading the book and about the only good thing I got from it was to limit my sons' screen time to an hour a day and to let them choose how they use it. We do have limits on our boys' screen time but we have set a 30 min limit per device. However, including tv, they have four devices. I like the flat hour idea. There you have it. One nice thing to say. Sheesh...I'll be donating this book to the local used bookstore.i This is a great resource book. I didn't love the first part of the book, where the author rehashes the typical boy tips: how their brains are different, why they need to play outdoors more, you need to limit screen time, allow for quality time with dad, etc. I'd recommend you skim those chapters to get to the heart of the book, which is what the author is an expert on: preparing your tween for sexual purity. I learned a lot from these chapters, which cover body changes, aggressive girls, pornography, and sex. They contain contain explicit directions on when to introduce what topics, what to say and which parent should do the talking. Some of these early conversations need to happen around age 8-10, so I will be re-reading this again next year to make sure we are staying on target.If you have a girl, Dannah Gresh is the founder of the very popular "Secret Keeper Girl" movement and has an identical book like this for girls- "Six Ways to Keep the Little in your Girl".
What do You think about Six Ways To Keep The "Good" In Your Boy: Guiding Your Son From His Tweens To His Teens (2012)?
Great book with great insight! A must for parents raising boys!
—maryjayne530
Three stars for the first part, five for the second.
—antonio
Must read for Moms and Dads of boys.
—ImaginaryWolf
