"Raising a Son, 3rd Edition" - Don Elium & Jeanne Elium

"Raising a Son, 3rd Edition" - Don Elium & Jeanne Elium

My son, Atticus, has been having issues at daycare, somewhere along the lines of fighting and alpha male characteristics. So, as a tired single mom, I stumbled to Barnes and Noble to see if I could find any books to help a single mom deal with an aggressive son. Low and behold, I stumbled across this book. The first thing that caught my eye was the fact that the little boy's hand is down the back of his swim shorts. Yup, this looked like a book that might help me understand my own little boy and what goes on in that head of his.

 

I am on Chapter four out of thirteen, and the title is cleverly titled "How to Successfully Grow a Boy: The Cultural Force". I think I'm going to like this chapter. Anyway, this book has had some interesting points of view, some I agree with, some I don't. There are parts in the first four chapters that talk about how women in the workforce may have altered how boys and men react to their instinctual roles. I can understand the point of view, and some of it seems legitimate, but some of the statements are a little more than I agree with.

 

The parts that really interested me so far was the topic of high testosterone men and boys. These are the boys that are driven to be successful by their testosterone, while at the same time they are drawn to high-risk activities such as sky diving, riding motorcycles fast, and high-contact sports like boxing. In little boys, it is displayed in the ways of pretending to be Super Man and diving off of the roof, fighting with other little boys, and trying to jump off ramps with their bikes. If you know me personally, you can see why this interested me. That is Atticus in a nut shell. :P

 

All-in-all, this is a pretty interesting book for a mom of a son to read. It gets to seem a little like a text book and a self-help book wrapped in one at times, but other times the stories the two authors tell are great. It'll take me a while to get through this book, but I get the feeling it's going to be worth my time.