The Purpose of Boys E-Book

Michael Gurian

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Ratgeber
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 405

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

The final and conclusive book in the groundbreaking series on boys and their development In this climax to his series of landmark books about boys, Michael Gurian offers a powerful new program to help us give our sons a core purpose-a program based on building morality, character, career goals, the ability to form intimate relationships, selflessness, personal and community responsibility, and an accelerated process of developmental maturity. Gurian reveals how important purpose is for the success and happiness of boys and explains how a boy's core personality, nature, and genetic predisposition functions to create both strengths and weaknesses in their journey towards maturity. * Includes an innovative program for support and interventions according to the unique needs, weaknesses, and strengths of each individual young man. * This book is the follow-up to Gurian's bestselling The Minds of Boys * Draws on the latest science and field research on how boys develop neurologically * Gurian explores the unique issues boys must confront, and shows how their strategy for moral development and success in life is predicated on their nature and genetic predispositions.

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

PREVIOUS BOOKS BY MICHAEL GURIAN

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

Acknowledgements

Epigraph

Introduction

Competing Purposes

What Is the Purpose of Boys?

We Who Care for Boys and Men

PART I - Understanding the Purpose of Boys

Chapter 1 - The Loss of Purpose in American Boyhood

Why Parents Want to Provide Purpose for Boys

Moving Forward with New Vision

Chapter 2 - How Little Boys Develop Their Sense of Purpose

The Empathy of Boys

Brain Differences Between Boys and Girls

How Boys and Girls Need Purpose Differently

Your Little Boy’s Need to Save the World

Asking the Deep Questions of Boys

Chapter 3 - How Adolescent Boys Seek Their Purpose in Life

The Young Seeker Among the Primitive and the Civilized

How Adolescent Boys and Girls Seek and Develop Purpose Differently

What Motivates Different Boys

Helping Our Sons Seek Respect in Adolescence

Moving Forward with a Map in Hand

Chapter 4 - Son, You Are My Hero

The Heroic Son

The Story of Joseph

The Story Ends, for Now

PART 2 - Helping Our Sons Find Their Purpose in Life

Chapter 5 - Creating Families of Purpose for Boys

Creating a Three-Family System: The Parent-Led Team

The Development of a Boy’s Sense of Destiny in the Family System

The Ten Values Tool

The Value of Teaching Sexual Purpose

Helping Our Sons Find Purposeful Work

Helping Boys Find Purpose in Their Media Use

A Boy’s Search for Freedom

Chapter 6 - Creating Communities of Purpose for Boys

The Loss of Communities of Purpose for Boys

What the Community Can Do for Our Sons

Forming Purposeful Communities for African American Boys

Changing Helping Professions to Focus on Boys’ Needs

Enjoying Communities of Purpose with Boys

Chapter 7 - Changing Schools Toward Relevance and Purpose for Boys

How Boys Are Struggling for Purpose in School

Fixing the Mismatch Between Schools and the Purpose of Boys

Investing in Schools of Purpose

Chapter 8 - Creating and Providing Rites of Passage for Your Son

Guiding a Son Through Male Adolescence

Developing Your Own Rite-of-Passage Programs

The “Here I Am” Rite-of-Passage Program

The Power of Purposeful Men

EPILOGUE: COMING TOGETHER TO ADVOCATE FOR BOYS

NOTES AND RESOURCES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

APPENDIX: RITE-OF-PASSAGE PROGRAMS

THE GURIAN INSTITUTE

THE AUTHOR

INDEX

PREVIOUS BOOKS BY MICHAEL GURIAN

PARENTING

Nurture the Nature: Understanding and Supporting Your Child’s

Unique Core Personality

The Wonder of Children

(previously published as The Soul of the Child)

The Wonder of Girls

The Wonder of Boys

A Fine Young Man

The Good Son

What Stories Does My Son Need?

(with Terry Trueman)

PSYCHOLOGY

What Could He Be Thinking?

Love’s Journey

Mothers, Sons and Lovers

The Prince and the King

EDUCATION

The Minds of Boys (with Kathy Stevens)

Boys and Girls Learn Differently!: A Guide for Teachers and Parents

(with Patricia Henley and Terry Trueman)

The Boys and Girls Learn Differently Action Guide for Teachers

(with Arlette C. Ballew)

Strategies for Teaching Boys and Girls—Elementary Level:

A Workbook for Educators

Strategies for Teaching Boys and Girls—Secondary Level: A Workbook for Educators Successful Single Sex Classrooms: A Practical Guide for Teaching Boys and Girls Differently (with Kathy Stevens and Peggy Daniels)

BUSINESS-CORPORATE

Leadership and the Sexes: Using Gender Science to Create Success in Business

(with Barbara Annis)

The Leading Partners Workbook (with Katherine Coles and Kathy Stevens)

FOR YOUNG ADULTS

Understanding Guys

From Boys to Men

FICTION AND POETRY

The Miracle

An American Mystic

The Odyssey of Telemachus

Emptying

As the Swans Gather

BY THE GURIAN INSTITUTE

It’s a Baby Boy! (with Adrian Goldberg and Stacie Bering)

It’s a Baby Girl! (with Adrian Goldberg and Stacie Bering)

Copyright © 2009 by Michael Gurian. All rights reserved.

Published by Jossey-BassA Wiley Imprint989 Market Street, San Francisco, CA 94103-1741—www.josseybass.com

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Readers should be aware that Internet Web sites offered as citations and/or sources for further information may have changed or disappeared between the time this was written and when it is read. Readers should be aware that some of the anecdotes in this book, including some gathered from media reports, are composites of two or more comments or stories that needed to be shortened for narrative flow. In no cases have meanings been changed, and none involved statistics. In some cases, names have been changed.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Gurian, Michael.

The purpose of boys : helping our sons find meaning, significance, and direction in their lives / Michael Gurian.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eISBN : 978-0-470-46070-2

1. Boys—United States. 2. Parent and child—United States. 3. Achievement motivation in boys—United States. I. Title.

HQ775.G823 2009

155.43’20973—dc22

2008045993

HB Printing

For:

Gail, Gabrielle, and Davita,my first family

Kathy Stevens, Alan Rinzler,and everyone in my second family

All the boys, parents, teachers, and others who make upan ever-expanding third family for all the sons of our world

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book grows from the inspiration and work of many people, both professional and personal. Alan Rinzler, my editor, has joined me for almost two decades in writing efforts that seek to help families and our culture understand our children. He is an editor and also a friend, and I thank him for his devotion to this work.

At Jossey-Bass and John Wiley, Alan is surrounded by a wonderful group of publishers and staff. Many thanks to Debra Hunter, Paul Foster, Jennifer Wenzel, Carol Hartland, Nana K. Twumasi, Andrea Flint, Donna Cohn, and all of you who care so much about families and the cultural changes we are all involved in.

A big thank-you also to Candice Fuhrman, my advocate and agent, who has shepherded this and so many other worthy projects through the publishing process.

Many thanks also to Kathy Stevens, Kelley King, Don Stevens, Daniel Amen, MD, Fran Spielhagen, PhD, Judith Kleinfeld, PhD, Tom Mortenson, PhD, the board of the Boys Project, Lori Ames, Robert Haley, the 100 Black Men Organization of Atlanta, and so many other professionals who care about the purpose of boys.

My deep thanks to the moms, dads, grandparents, and other family members who have shared their wisdom and stories, both through my family therapy practice and through public dialogues.

My thanks also to my brother Phil, whose Web and research talents provide magic from the Internet. He can locate things I couldn’t even dream of finding!

My thanks to the Gurian Institute’s certified trainers and associates, who have shared their stories with me so that I could share them with you. Our training institute (www.gurianinstitute.com) has had the honor of working in thousands of schools and communities in the United States and abroad because individuals, professionals, and caring institutions have helped us to do so.

This book is the result of twenty-five years of research, both scholarly and wisdom-of-practice, and of listening to what others are doing and thinking about boys. Our sons’ lives today represent one of the largest cultural shifts in human history. My thanks to all of you who, through your generous actions, care for the purpose of boys.

Epigraph

Purpose: aim, intention, determination; by design; to put before oneself something to be done or accomplished

—AMERICAN COLLEGE DICTIONARY

INTRODUCTION: WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE, SON?

What do you want me to be? I want to be somebody! I just want to be somebody!

—WORDS OF A THIRD-GRADE BOY, REPEATED TO ME BY SUSAN TRAVERS, HIS TEACHER

MY FATHER-IN-LAW, DEAN REID, NOW GRAY-HAIRED, thin, eighty-five, and a man of few words, was twenty-two, blond-haired, and full of vigor when he flew B-12 bombers over an embattled Europe in 1943. Shot down in Germany, he ejected from his pilot seat, saw that his crew was dead, and limped north toward Norway. Captured by Nazi infantry before he could make it back to freedom, he lived out the rest of World War II in Nazi POW camps near Marburg and Nuremburg.

After his liberation in 1945, he returned to Nebraska, and to his sweetheart, Margaret. During their five decades of marriage, he didn’t speak more than a few words to her about his wartime experiences. When I met my wife, Gail, the third child of Margaret and Dean Reid, she told me her father had been shot down in World War II, but “He just doesn’t discuss it.” Indeed, during the first decade of our marriage, he did not.

But in 1997, when Dean was seventy-four, his mind and heart opened. The film Saving Private Ryan affected him deeply, and he decided to show his family, including his wife, children, and grandchildren, journals and notes from his time in the war. He recalled how it felt to be the pilot so young, so powerless to save his comrades. He also recalled how committed he felt, when he was liberated from the POW camp and came home, to “being a man.”

“A guy had to figure out pretty quick how to become a man, or he wouldn’t survive,” Dean said. “When I got home, I didn’t think too much: I just got to work and raised a family. It’s what everyone had fought and died for.”

What was it in Saving Private Ryan that triggered Dean to look back at his war experiences and share his wisdom? It was many things, he told me, especially what happens at the end of the film, when Captain Miller (Tom Hanks), who has been a mentor to young private Ryan (Matt Damon), dies after a battle on a bridge. His right hand trembling, his eyes closing, Miller whispers to Ryan his last words of wisdom: “Earn this.” Ryan hears the whisper amid the storms of noises around him, watches Miller die, then stands up.