Boyhood
A friend was just heartbroken, "My preteen son was visibly upset after children's choir last night. When I probed, he said he didn't like his class any more and he wanted to quit. After probing even more, he said, fighting back tears, that when he went to sit down, the kids told him that he…
Kids these days are so over-programmed it's ridiculous. They go to this camp and that one, moms run them to classes and clubs. When we were kids we made our own fun and it really was fun! Here are some of the things we used to do that you can suggest to your children when…
A reader asks, "When do you step in when boys are wrestling? My 10 & 8 year old boys are constantly in some form of a challenge on the trampoline, in the yard, on the lake, in the house, etc." The way boys are always wrestling can be pretty frustrating, especially for moms. It's hard…
Boys will be boys, they say, which is usually an excuse for any sort of foolishness short of downright criminality. It should come as no surprise when a young man begins to notice that young women are different in ways that seem interesting rather than irritating. There's nothing wrong in that – God created the…
A mom with several boys asked us, “How do you handle the constant ganging-up on each other?” (more…)
A reader asks, "I have a question I'd appreciate being posted anonymously, please. My 12-year-old son came to me with this: he would like permission to use some "stronger" words to use on certain occasions. He had some good friends who use words like "cr-p"and "dang", and he says he feels left out when all…
Video games are wildly popular among young men - the Pew Research Center found that 84% of teenage boys play video games on a computer, game console, or portable device, and one survey found that 60% of daily gamers spend an hour or more every day. Two-thirds of teenage gamers say they play games with "considerable…
Pamela asked on our page, "I have three crazy....er...highly spirited boys. They don't seem to hear me or take me seriously until I yell, they've been disciplined for it and everything. We're out in public a lot more now so I'm most concerned about them getting out of hand in the parking lot. How do…
Does your Sunday morning faith go to work with you on Monday? Maybe in our quiet moments we plan how we'll respond if we end up like the apostles in Acts 5:29 - “We ought to obey God rather than man.” But most days, the question is simpler – and sometimes more challenging: Am I working like…
People sometimes ask how we came to write and speak about raising boys. The answer is easy - we have six of them. “Six boys!” the people at the checkout line say in mock horror. "Yes!" we say, and smile warmly. “Well, better you than me,” they conclude, shaking their heads. To be fair, not everyone…