Nurturing Our Sons And Grandsons

As grandmothers of a total of 8 grandsons, we are happy to bring Stephen James and David Thomas back for another day of questions and answers about their book, Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys. And to learn more about bonding with your grandchildren when they live far away, click on the title above to take you to our article, Create Meaningful Bonds with Your Grandchildren Across the Miles, which you will find on our website, www.HerMentorCenter.com.

NR: Both of you are fathers of girls and boys. How is parenting a boy different from parenting a girl?

SJ ">NR: What kinds of things can a father do to bond with his son and raise him to be emotionally mature?

SJ ">How to Hit a Curve Ball, Grill the Perfect Steak and Become a Real Man: Learning the Lessons our Fathers Never Taught Us. Unless we understand how our stories inform who we are as men, husbands, and fathers, we stand to make a number of significant mistakes with our own sons. So before a man starts making a list of things to "do" with his son, we'd encourage him to start with himself. That step doesn't involve his son at all, but is one of the most powerful ways to love and care for him.

That step gives way to the second step. In order for a father to raise an emotionally mature young man, he must be an emotionally healthy man himself. A boy desperately needs a dad who has an interior life. Our culture is flooded with emotionally stunted, emotionally damaged males. There's no shortage there. Men have a responsibility to lead their son's in living from their hearts. Women can't really teach boys how to do this. Mom's can invite it and encourage it, but the action of it must be modeled by a man.

Thirdly, we'd challenge dads to study his son in search of his boy's definition of enjoyment. That's different for every boy. We both have a set of twin boys. Two males with identical genetic ingredients and yet the outcome couldn't be any more different. These guys, born within minutes of one another, have different passions, different strengths, and different longings. And they experience enjoyment in some similar ways as well as some different ways. We are both on a long journey of discovering what that is. Just as soon as we get a handle on it, it can change just as his development does. So it's a long journey of studying these boys and pursuing their passions and their hearts.

NR: What mistakes have parents and educators made in their approach to rearing and training boys?

SJ">Wild Things we offer a number of different strategies for engaging and educating boys that better match their unique design. Boys learn through experience and physical repetition. They need consistent firm boundaries and loads of encouragement.

As far as school goes we speak a lot in the book that the compulsory model we use for schooling in the United States is generally well-suited to a girl's learning style. It's heavy on verbal and written expression, two particular areas of strength for most girls. It involves a good deal of sitting still for extended periods of time with mostly auditory instruction. These methods don't match a boy's way of learning or draw on his learning strengths.

NR: How did you come to the conclusions you discuss in Wild Things?

SJ "> Wild Things. We have learned so much from the males we've had the great honor of working with and hoped to bring their stories into this text. In addition to those, we are still learning so much from living with five of our wild things.

NR: Readers, you've gained some valuable advice. If you would like to learn more from these parenting experts about raising boys, you can order a copy of Wild Things through amazon.com. Thank you, Steven and David, for joining us here for the past two days.