Raising Boys

When our son Nathan was much younger I scoured books and articles looking for the best advice I could find on raising boys. My childhood home was not a faith-filled home and I did not have a good model of fatherhood in my dad. So I read books and articles and asked a lot of questions! Recently some brothers in Christ have asked what I would recommend in this arena.

Check out the small book titled You Have What It Takes: What Every Father Needs to Know. The author writes:

Every boy wants to be a hero. He wants to be powerful, he wants to be dangerous, he wants to know ... Do I have what it takes? Conversely, every girl wants to believe that she is captivating and worth fighting for. She wants to know ... Am I lovely? Only you, Dad, can answer those questions. That makes you the most powerful man in your child's life. This booklet will show that You Have What It Takes.

I found an article by Marty Machowski helpful also. Marty serves as the executive pastor of Covenant Fellowship Church in Glen Mills, Pennsylvania. He is the author of God Made Boys and Girls: Helping Children Understand the Gift of Gender. He and his wife, Lois, have six children. He writes: Someone once told me, “When it comes to parenting, you get more of what you encourage.” I certainly wanted more of what I was seeing, and I wanted to affirm my son’s initiative and hard work as expressions of biblical manhood.... When I went up to my son and thanked him, he smiled. Joy filled his heart at my enthusiastic response, but I wanted him to know that his labors were also an expression of God’s purpose for all men. I wanted to make that the focus of my encouragement. “Noah, what you did today is not what a boy does — it is what a man does,” I said. From Boys Should be Boys

Have you ever wondered how to capture your child’s heart? Carl Laferton suggests that we wrap truth in story.

“Dad, tell us what happened when you got married.”

“Mom, can you tell me how I was born?”

Have you noticed that kids want to know not merely that something happened, but how it happened? They love to hear accounts of events that for them are in the distant past, and of which they have little or no memory, but that they know are fundamental to who they are.

And so, I do not simply tell them, “Your mom and I married on August 20, 2005.” No, I tell them the details of the church, the guests, the dress, the vows, the bit where I cried, and so on.

“True stories bring true propositions to life, lodge them in our hearts, and engage our affections.” Read the rest of the article

Bringing Up Boys is touted as “sensible advice and caring encouragement on raising boys from the nation’s most trusted parenting authority, Dr. James Dobson. With so much confusion about the role of men in our society, it’s no wonder so many parents and teachers are asking questions about how to bring up boys. Why are so many boys in crisis? What qualities should we be trying to instill in young males? Our culture has vilified masculinity and, as a result, an entire generation of boys is growing up without a clear idea of what it means to be a man. In the runaway bestseller Bringing Up Boys, Dr. Dobson draws from his experience as a child psychologist and family counselor, as well as extensive research, to offer advice and encouragement based on a firm foundation of biblical principles.