Real Boys Workbook: The Definitive Guide to Understanding and Interacting with Boys of All Ages - Softcover

Pollack, William; Cushman, Kathleen

 
9780375755262: Real Boys Workbook: The Definitive Guide to Understanding and Interacting with Boys of All Ages
Softcover
ISBN 10: 0375755268 ISBN 13: 9780375755262
Verlag: Random House Publishing Group, 2001

Inhaltsangabe

The Real Boys' Workbook is a unique, instructive workbook, full of advice, exercises, and stories to help parents, professionals, and boys themselves understand boys—and how to make life with them better. How to listen to boys, talk and be with them, exercises to teach you new ways to handle situations, and strategies for coping with problems (drug and alcohol abuse, gender identity, depression, bullies) are addressed, as readers are encouraged to respond to questions and situations, to learn how to think about boys with new understanding, and to react more creatively. Through writing down responses in the workbook, using the charts and summaries, and taking part in the provocative question-and-answer sections, you will gain insight into boys and their problems and be better able to be with them in effective and powerful ways.

Die Inhaltsangabe kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

William S. Pollack, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, is an assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, director of the Center for Men at McLean Hospital, and a founding member and fellow of the American Psychological Association's Society for the Psychological Study of Men and Masculinity.

Kathleen Cushman, Ed.D., co-authored Schooling for the Real World and Circus Dreams: The Making of a Circus Artist, which won the American Library Association's Notable Book Award.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

The Real Boys' Workbook is a unique, instructive workbook, full of advice, exercises, and stories to help parents, professionals, and boys themselves understand boys--and how to make life with them better. How to listen to boys, talk and be with them, exercises to teach you new ways to handle situations, and strategies for coping with problems (drug and alcohol abuse, gender identity, depression, bullies) are addressed, as readers are encouraged to respond to questions and situations, to learn how to think about boys with new understanding, and to react more creatively. Through writing down responses in the workbook, using the charts and summaries, and taking part in the provocative question-and-answer sections, you will gain insight into boys and their problems and be better able to be with them in effective and powerful ways.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Chapter 1
Some Dos and Don'ts with Boys

Shaming and How to Avoid It * Talking and Listening to Boys * How to Tell When Something's Wrong

* Life with Boys: Adult Survival Strategies

"I treated my two kids exactly the same," said Marianne. "But by the time my little boy was three years old, he acted so different from his older sister at that age!" Her daughter, Evie, always loved playing in a corner with a friend, "pretending" complex stories that they made up as they went along. Her son Gregory's play relationships, on the other hand, didn't seem to go any farther than knocking down towers of blocks and running around the house screaming like wild men.

As Gregory got older, Marianne said, the differences between her children only became more pronounced. "I always swore that my son would be an exception, but I've learned my lesson," she laughed. "You know that rhyme about what little girls and little boys are made of? Well, at seven, Gregory's pretty much all nails and puppy-dog tails. He'd rather wrestle on the rug with his dad than talk to me about his problems at school. I know he needs my support just as much as Evie does, but it's so much easier for me to relate to Evie! I think I end up letting Gregory fend for himself more than I should."

Boys are different from girls-partly because their biology is different, but more often because we unwittingly treat them differently from their earliest infancy in what we have described as the Boy Code. (See pages xxi-xxii.) Although there are important exceptions, as a group they tend to be more action-oriented, more confrontive, less quick to communicate verbally and more likely to hide their feelings of tenderness, hurt, or shame.

Of course, boys are different from one another, too, as are girls. In fact, many girls share traits with some of the boys described in this book, or some boys may act in the same way girls might act. But as things stand right now in our culture, these patterns describe the ways many boys in fact behave and feel.

It's normal that the boys in our lives often present us with problems we may not know how to handle. But there's also something very wrong. Our culture has developed a rigid code of behavior for boys-the Boy Code. If we fall into line with it and enforce it, we lose out on the pleasure of close connections with our boys, and they lose their own crucial rudder through life.

The world we live in expects our boys to prematurely disconnect from other people and from their own feelings, in order to "stand on their own two feet." And even if we aren't the ones enforcing the unspoken rules, boys hear them everywhere-on television and on the playground, in school and at camp.

But as caring adults-like Marianne-we can find ways to connect with our boys and give them the support they need to negotiate the hurdles of growing up. We can understand boys' developmental process, and know what a boy needs at each stage. We can listen and talk to boys without shaming them. We can create family rituals and school and sports programs that foster connection, trust, and supportive relationships. Knowing the difference between action and aggression, we can search for ways to encourage the positive and productive expressions of a boy's energy.

Most of all, we can discover ways to relate to a boy so that he isn't left to "fend for himself," as Marianne put it. This chapter will introduce some key concepts in the Real Boys approach, along with some practical exercises to make those ideas work effectively for parents and teachers.

SHAMING AND HOW TO AVOID IT

"Should I worry that my little boy, Franklin, seems to need me so much?" asked Harriet. "He's afraid of the dark, and even with the light on, he cries at bedtime. I have to sit in his room until he falls asleep." At four, Franklin clings to his mother when she leaves him at day care, when she introduces him to friends, and even when he goes to visit his father on weekends. "My sister told him he'd better stop acting like a baby, or they'll gang up on him when he gets to kindergarten."

In her heart, Harriet said, she feels that Franklin really does need her right now. "This has been a tough year for him, with his father leaving," she said. "He'll grow up in his own time." But she worried that her sister might be right. "Am I setting him up to be the one everybody picks on?" she asked.

Harriet's sister is only trying to help: She doesn't want to see people looking down on her nephew. But her words may echo in Franklin's ears in the years ahead, making him ashamed of his normal need for loving shelter and emotional support in times of trouble. At the scary times in his life, he might think he needs to take on a stance of bravado. He might feel shame about his true feelings of vulnerability and sensitivity, and may learn to shut them out altogether.

As she talked through the situation, Harriet became more certain that Franklin's fears at bedtime and other times of separation, or his anxiety around strangers, were a reaction to his father's recent departure. "If his father can just leave," she asked, "how does he know his momma won't leave, too?" She decided to keep giving Franklin what her instinct told her he needed-"plenty of hugs and love whenever he wants it."

Think about the boys in your life. Looking through the "Dos" in the above list, can you think of situations where you could put these ideas into action? Describe one of them here:

TALKING AND LISTENING TO BOYS:

ACTION TALK AND TIMED SILENCE

As boys move away from their closest caregivers and into the world, they'll be under tremendous pressure to conform to the Boy Code. They'll be desperately afraid to look babyish on the playground, to look dumb (or too smart) in the classroom, to look inept on the playing field, to look awkward on a date-in short, to make any wrong step that would humiliate or shame them in the eyes of others.

We adults can give boys safe ways to express their real feelings as they take these important and scary steps toward independence. We can spend time with them daily, simply joining them in activities they enjoy. We can share our own stories, opening the way to listening with empathy to theirs. By staying connected to our boys, we can help them stay connected to their own true selves.

Action Talk: How to Talk to a Boy

Many parents and teachers worry about how to get boys to talk to them at all. "His sister is always ready to hang out with me and gab," said one mother. "But my boy's always on the go. Even if I can get him to sit for a minute, I can tell he'd really rather be doing something else."

But "doing something else" can actually provide just the opportunity this mother is looking for. Many boys feel more comfortable expressing their feelings of closeness and affection through actions rather than words. He may not actually speak the words "I love you," but you'll see his face light up when you invite him to help check out a problem under the hood of your car.

Once you join a boy in doing something, you'll find that the two of you establish a comfort level that leads naturally to better communication. If he has something else to focus on as he talks, he can protect himself from shame he might experience as he shares his worries and fears. This kind of "action talk" provides a potent technique for breaking through the mask that boys so often wear.

Here are just a few examples of "action talk":

Most days, when he gets home from work, Bob goes out in the driveway to shoot hoops with his ten-year-old son, Curtis. "The exercise feels...

„Über diesen Titel“ kann sich auf eine andere Ausgabe dieses Titels beziehen.

Verlag
Random House Publishing Group
Erscheinungsdatum
2001
Sprache
Englisch
ISBN 10 
0375755268
ISBN 13 
9780375755262
Einband
Taschenbuch
Auflage
1
Anzahl der Seiten
400
Kontakt zum Hersteller
Nicht verfügbar
Verantwortliche Person
preigu
mail@preigu.de

Lengericher Landstr. 19
Osnabrück
49078
Deutschland