By knowing these stages, you will be prepared and more relaxed about what is coming next and how to deal with it.
In the third chapter, we’ll examine the effects of hormones on boys’ behaviour, and how to help boys ride these powerful waves of development. Everyone knows about hormones, but when do they actually come into action, and what do they do? Why are thirteen-year-olds often dopey and fourteen-year-olds so argumentative? And how do you handle this with understanding and maintain your sense of humour?
In Chapter 4 we’ll show how a new kind of boy is emerging in the twenty-first century who can show his emotions, cry without being ashamed and communicate clearly and well. A boy with backbone and heart, able to step away from the old toxic and unhappy forms of masculinity and be loving and close.
Next comes the vital place of fathers, and how to get it right even if your own father wasn’t all that great. Most men, it seems, want to improve on the way their fathers were, but don’t always know how. The fatherhood revolution is one of the most positive developments of the past thirty years. If you are a single mum reading this, we will also tell you what you can do to ensure your son has good men in his life.
Then come some stories and clues about mothers and sons. Mothers need to be confident and proactive with their boys, helping them to feel OK around the opposite sex. A mum is a ‘practice girlfriend’, and she teaches a boy how to get along happily with women. Whether she knows it or not, she is setting the pattern for all his future relationships.
Next we’ll talk about boys and sex, since this is a vital area that can make their lives happy or miserable, depending on how it’s handled.
Then – since school is where boys spend half their childhoods, there’s a chapter on how schools can be dramatically improved. We will also help you decide which teachers and which school will best help your boy.
To round things off, we’ll tackle sport, which can be hazardous to boys’ bodies and souls – though when it’s done right it can be so good for them. Boys need sport, so we need sport to get its act together.
And lastly, we’ll discuss the ways in which the whole community can support boys turning into men – because parents can’t do this without help. Parents need to be making choices even when their boys are still little babies, to ensure other adults are there for the boys as they navigate their teens. You need a circle of friends and an extended family to help a boy make it to adulthood unharmed. Interested? Mystified? Then it’s time to begin.
Boys can be just great. We can make them so. Understanding is the key.
© Daisy Daisy/Shutterstock.com
Chapter 2
Have you ever browsed through a family photo collection and seen photos of a boy growing up, from babyhood right through to manhood? If you have, you’ll know that boys don’t grow up in a smooth way. They go in surges – looking the same for a while, then suddenly appearing to change overnight. And that’s only on the outside. On the inside, great changes are happening, too. But developing maturity and character aren’t as automatic as physical development; a boy can get stuck. Everyone knows at least one man who is large in body but small in mind or soul, who hasn’t developed as a mature person. Such men are everywhere – they might be a prime minister, a president or a tycoon, but you look at them and think, Yep, still a boy. And not a very nice one …
Boys don’t grow up well if you don’t help them. You can’t just shovel in cereal, provide clean T-shirts, and have them one day wake up as a man! A certain programme has to be followed. The trick is to understand what is needed – and when.
Luckily, boys have been around for a very long time. Every society in the world has encountered the challenge of raising boys, and has come up with solutions. The three stages of boyhood are timeless and universal. Native Americans, Kalahari bushmen and Inuit hunters all knew about these stages. When I talk about them to parents they say, ‘That’s right!’ because the stages match their experience.
The Three Stages at a Glance
1 © Keisuke N/Shutterstock.com
2 The first stage of boyhood is from birth to six, the span of time when – in most families – the boy primarily belongs to his mother. He is ‘her’ boy, even though his father may play a very big role, too. The aim at this age is to give strong love and security and to ‘switch a boy on’ to life as a warm and welcoming experience.© Lopolo/Shutterstock.com
3 The second stage includes the years from six to fourteen – when the boy, out of his own internal drives, starts wanting to learn to be a man and looks more and more to his father for interest and activity (although his mother remains very involved, and the wider world is beckoning, too). The purpose of this stage is to build competence and skill while also developing kindness and playfulness – you help him to become a balanced person. This is the age when a boy becomes happy and secure about being male.© Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com
4 Finally, the years from fourteen to adult – when the boy needs input from male mentors if he is to complete the journey to being fully grown-up. Mum and Dad step back a little, but they must organise some good mentors in their son’s life; if not, he will have to rely on an ill-equipped peer group for his sense of self. The aim is for your son to learn skills, responsibility and self-respect by joining more and more with the adult community.
These stages do not indicate a sudden or sharp shift from one parent to another. It’s not like the mum stage, the dad stage and the mentor stage. For instance, an involved dad can do a huge amount from birth onwards, or even take the role a mother usually has if need be. And a mother doesn’t quit when a boy reaches six – quite the opposite. The stages indicate a shift in emphasis: the father ‘comes to the fore’ more from six to thirteen, and the importance of mentors increases from fourteen onwards. In a sense, it’s about adding new ingredients at each stage.
The three stages help us know what to do. For example, we know that fathers of boys from six to fourteen must not be just busy workaholics, or absent themselves emotionally or physically from the family. If they do, this will certainly damage their sons. (Yet most fathers of the twentieth century did just that – as many of us can remember from our own childhood.)
The stages tell us that we must look for extra help from the community when our sons are in their mid-teens – the role that used to be taken by extended family members (uncles and grandfathers) or by the tradesman–apprentice relationship. Too often, teenagers move outwards into the big world but no one is there to catch them, and they spend their teens and early adulthood in a dangerous halfway stage, with only peers to depend on.
It’s a fair bet that many problems with boys’ behaviour – poor school motivation, depression, young men getting into trouble with the law (drink-driving, fights, crime, etc.) – have escalated because we haven’t known about these stages and provided the right human ingredients at the right times.
The stages are so important that we must look at each of them in more detail and decide how to respond. That’s what we’ll do now.
From Birth to Six: The Gentle Years
