All children need clear, unequivocal rules. They need structure. They thrive on firm guidance and fair discipline from the adults in their lives. But boys need these things even more than girls do. The Josephson Institute of Ethics conducts surveys on the moral attitudes of young people. Girls routinely far outperform boys in every measure of honesty and self-control. As part of the 2010 Report Card on the Ethics of American Youth, Josephson researchers polled a sample of more than forty thousand high school students. They found that significantly more boys “agree” or “strongly agree” with the following statements: • “A person has to lie or cheat sometimes in order to succeed” (47.4 percent of males versus 29.8 percent of females).1 • “It’s not cheating if everyone’s doing it” (19.1 percent of males, 9.8 percent of females).2 • “It’s sometimes okay to hit or threaten a person who makes me angry” (36.7 percent of males, 19.1 percent of females).3 The American Psychiatric Association defines a “conduct disorder”
