The Purpose of Boys: Helping Our Sons Find Meaning, Significance, and Direction in Their Lives | Date: 28 April 2011, 06:34
|
The Purpose of Boys: Helping Our Sons Find Meaning, Significance, and Direction in Their Lives
By Michael Gurian
* Publisher: Jossey-Bass
* Number Of Pages: 272
* Publication Date: 2009-04-06
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0470243376
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780470243374
Product Description:
Praise for The Purpose of boys
"Michael Gurian is America's most passionate advocate for boys. In The Purpose of Boys, Gurian creates a rich reading experience and a clear recipe for helping boys to find purpose in their lives."
—Michael Thompson, Ph.D., author, It's a Boy!, and coauthor, Raising Cain
"The Purpose of Boys offers insightful solutions to the problems of so many millennial boys who are failing to launch into productive adulthood."
—Judith Kleinfeld, Ph.D., director of the Boys Project and professor of psychology, University of Alaska
"There is no one who understands the development of boys better than Michael Gurian. In this insightful new book, Gurian offers useful advice about how to help boys succeed in the key challenge of today's world, finding purpose in life."
—William Damon, Ph.D., professor of education, Stanford University, and author, The Path to Purpose and The Moral Child
"The Purpose of Boys provides a clear, research-based view on the significance of fully committing ourselves to the important task of raising our sons. It gives us a useful, applicable set of tools and strategies to do so."
—Harold S. Koplewicz, M.D., founder and director, NYU Child Study Center
"The Purpose of Boys is a wake-up call for parents, teachers, counselors, and mentors. This book assembles invaluable insights and resources, especially mentoring resources that will assist in the transition of boys to men and eventually help propel them into a purpose-driven life."
—Robert Haley, former president, 100 Black Men of Atlanta
"Upon reading Michael Gurian's new book, The Purpose of Boys, I asked my eight-year-old son, Evan, what he anticipated about the future. He said, 'Being awesome.' I then asked him what he most feared about the future. He said, 'Not being awesome.' This book changed the way I think about my son and his future, and even more important, how he thinks about his future. This is a great book."
—Tracey J. Shors, Ph.D., department of psychology and neuroscience, Rutgers University
Summary: Excellent Read and Reference
Rating: 5
This truly is one awesome book.
If you bought a very expensive car you would not dream of driving it before reading its manual.
Well if you have a priceless soul in a male body and mind, this is the book that should come in the box.
Id highly recommend this for single moms who love their sons but are rather clueless about young male hardware and software.
People working in institutions such as schools and group homes
and anyone who gives a damn about the young males in their lives.
Summary: What does it mean to be a boy or a man?
Rating: 4
This is a really excellent book which purports to address america's current "boy problem". Why is it that so many young boys are on Ritalin? why so many fewer boys end up completing college than girls of a similar socioeconomic status? why it appears that boys do less well in school from an early age?
What's interesting about Gurian's analysis is he doesn't simply engage in blaming -- he doesn't blame schools or teachers or the media. rather, he asks us to think a bit deeper, asking whether the role of boys and men as well as the meaning attached to being a man has changed as a result of our industrialized society. He yearns for a return to an earlier era where there were clearly defined roles, expectations and rites of passage for young boys. and yet, he's not sexist. he doesn't necessarily seek to reimpose outdated gender roles, but rather to help boys and men find a sense of purpose in life today. This work incorporates many practical suggestions for activities that parents can carry out with boys, as well as addressing the importance of mentors. this would be a useful read for any parent or school administrator.
Summary: A MUST
Rating: 5
As an educator and mother of a now 35 year old son, my one wish is..."If only I had the book earlier." Michael's style and relating of premises to the hear and now, realistically portrays what is important to the raising and educating our boys...a purpose for all of us. Segments of today's society can find a true purpose as they explore the words between the covers. I hope that others will gain the insights I have in their roles as parents, grandparents and extended family members.
Summary: A must buy if you have a son
Rating: 5
I saw this book advertised in my husbands adult scouting magazine. That same evening, my son who is now 10, was upset about something from school that day and stated, "I just don't know what my purpose is". Hello! I ordered it that night and am so happy I did. Anyone with a son needs to read this book. Mr. Gurian is a very inciteful, qualified writer. His ideas are right on. As close as I am to my son, I'm still his mom and a female and will never fully understand all that goes on in the male psychy. My husband is looking forward to reading it next. Great book and a huge benefit.
Summary: Helpful for this mother of 5-year-old boy as I look to his future
Rating: 4
I've heard praise for Michael Gurian's books about boys, specifically the The Wonder of Boys, but I've never taken the time to read any of them until now. I love a good subtitle, and this one sums up the book's content quite well: Helping Our Sons Find Meaning, Significance, and Direction in Their Lives.
Michael Gurian's writing is accessible. He gives practical examples as well as the facts and figures to bolster his assertions, when needed.
Here are just a few notes of things that were new to me or helpful. Of course, to find out what they mean or how or why to use this information, you'll have to read the book:
* Helping adolsecent boys channel and discipline their energy
* Stress and boys (boys fight or flight, girls tend and befriend)
* Value of legacy -- name, namesake, family history
* Fostering healthy independence
* Why getting other trusted adults is so important in your son's life
* Why work is so valuable to a boy's development
* Training him to deal with his sexual purpose
* The role of electronic media in a boys' life
Each chapter ends with "questions of purpose" that can be used to begin a real conversation with your son. These are helpful, but I also wish that there were some concrete bullet points at the end of each chapter as well. "To help your son handle stress healthily make sure you are doing these three things NOW." But I suppose that raising up a child in the way he should go isn't that simple, is it?
This book focuses on guiding your son through adolescence, but the mindset and motivations that it teaches are philosophies that should be adopted even with your younger son. So, as my son is entering a new phase in his life (starting Kindergarten in the fall), I am glad to have read it now, as I'm first thinking about some of these topics that I never really brought gender roles into at all. This is even more relevant for me since the experience that I'm drawing on lies in parenting a girl. We all know that each child is different, but Gurian's research points to the fact that inherently boys are different from girls and because of that, there are unique strategies that should be addressed.
|
DISCLAIMER:
This site does not store The Purpose of Boys: Helping Our Sons Find Meaning, Significance, and Direction in Their Lives on its server. We only index and link to The Purpose of Boys: Helping Our Sons Find Meaning, Significance, and Direction in Their Lives provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete The Purpose of Boys: Helping Our Sons Find Meaning, Significance, and Direction in Their Lives if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.
|
 |
|
Comments (0)
All
