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A review by sde
Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of Boys by Michael Thompson, Dan Kindlon
3.0
This is an older book that I had avoided reading because the title and the book jacket made it sound kind of new agey/touchy-feely. It really wasn't at all. It is written by two psychologists who have worked with teen boys for a long time and thought that the fact that boys didn't understand their emotions was causing them a lot of trouble.
Much of what they wrote in the book was spot on. I especially appreciated one of the early chapters that discussed the cruelty of boys. So often I have heard people say that girls are so much meaner than boys. My experiences with my classmates, my brothers, and my son have not proven that to be true, but I thought I must have a unique experience. Seems I have not; it's just that adults tend to overlook or ignore what can be extreme cruelty among boys. This is one among many reasons why boys can't identify their feelings - the adults around them don't acknowledge them.
My complaint about this book is that there is too much description and not enough explication of what we can do to alleviate the boy problems the book describes.
Much of what they wrote in the book was spot on. I especially appreciated one of the early chapters that discussed the cruelty of boys. So often I have heard people say that girls are so much meaner than boys. My experiences with my classmates, my brothers, and my son have not proven that to be true, but I thought I must have a unique experience. Seems I have not; it's just that adults tend to overlook or ignore what can be extreme cruelty among boys. This is one among many reasons why boys can't identify their feelings - the adults around them don't acknowledge them.
My complaint about this book is that there is too much description and not enough explication of what we can do to alleviate the boy problems the book describes.