If You Know or Have a Boy

If you have a boy - whether it's a grown man or a little guy you are raising - then you need to read Raising Boys in a New Kind of World by Michael Reist.

My mom gave me a copy of this teacher's book for Mother's Day and by the time I read a chapter, not only was I hooked, but it gave me several ah-ha moments, both for dealing and understanding my son and my husband. It also made me a fan of same-sex schools.

I am only a quarter into the book, but some fascinating details:
- Boys are a year and a half developmentally behind girls.
- Most boys are thimble listeners, which becomes a problem when their mothers - or their teachers - are not and saturate them with information. The boy stops listening and misbehaves.
- Boys do not like eye contact. So telling your boy  to look you in the eye to ensure he is listening actually causes your boy not to listen.
- Boys like space. Boys who are "disruptive" should actually sit in a horseshoe shape at school so they can look into space in the middle and should near a door or window.
- Boys like to move. So when you are talking with your son, or a teacher is talking to a boy student, allow the boy to walk around and not look at you. They are listening, they just need to do so in a different way.
- Boys have a fight or flee response, which is why when women are angry and want to talk it out, men will retreat. So it's actually best to leave our men alone after a fight and let them have cooling off period.
- Boys zone out where nothing is said or thought for periods of time. (He mentioned women, on the other hand, go to sleep with a problem and wake up with a solution.)
- Men like lists and are not able to multi-task. Women know this, of course, but we often forget it when dealing with the boys in our lives. The author mentioned that the Internet was created for men and likely by men. With the Internet you can only do one thing at a time. Even drop-down menus only allow for one task at a time. He said if a woman invented the Internet, you likely would have multiple screens up at once, doing multiple things.

Visit www.michaelreist.ca/books/raising-boys-in-a-new-kind-of-world for information about the book and its author.