21st Century Boys: How Modern Life Can Drive Them off the Rails and How to Get Them Back on Track [Paperback]

For anyone who's read around current child development and parenting there'll be nothing startling in Sue Palmer's look at boys but what she has here is a good overview of what is happening and how we might be able to change some of the negative effects on boys in the 21st century.

Palmer's fixes include warm and firm parenting in the first 3 years with little or no childcare. No formal learning before the age of 7 with an emphasis on free play in kindergartens instead. No tv in the first 3 years with limited screen time after that and a tightening up on the marketing to children through all forms of media. Good mentoring in the teenage years from strong male figures. Ready access to outdoor physical activity for boys of all ages.

Like Biddolph's Raising Boys she sees the key influences on boys early years as being the mother, with fathers and then other male role models taking over in later childhood and then teens. This isn't to negate the place of either parent at any stage though but working with the natural inclinations of boys.

As a feminist I'd say she's harsh at times on feminists but over all her suggestions and research is what many would describe as good old common sense.

I'd like to send this book to all policy makers and politicians in the hope that some changes can happen.

I'm a Health and Safety Consultant and the father of three children and three step children. Four of my kids are boys. At last a book which clearly explains why boys in particular must be allowed to take risks. The irrational fears of modern parents are reducing our boys to screen infatuated zombies or anti-social louts. Read this book, think about what it says, take courage and help our sons to grow into strong, life filled, compassionate, loving, caring, real Men and not old boys.

In many ways reading '21st Century Boys' makes for a a sad indictment of society with chapter headings such as 'The Fragile male', 'Battery-reared boys', and 'Lost boys'. Evidence strongly suggests that a contemporary technological market-based economy can interact with general male characteristics to lead boys off the rails. In arresting boys 'healthy' natures, environmental factors are attributable to an increase in developmental disorders. The Triple A rated phenomena (not the financial variety) of Aspergers, Attention Deficit and Anti-sociality (labels easily banded about however uncertain the link between genetics and culture) increasingly point to ill-effects at the heart of child rearing. Sue Palmer, a respected authority on child development in the modern world attempts to tell it as it is. She finds the childhood condition for many young souls growing up in the UK no small matter for change, and offers a radical alternative in educational policy.

A highly persuasive piece of research that is used to contextualise her work draws significantly on Simon Baron-Cohen's two types of learning: Systematic-Type (Material World) and Empathetic-Type (Social World) - cheekily paraphrased as smart-arsedness and kindness!

The four composite profiles of disconnected boys that are adopted for illustration purposes are based on children the author has met or heard described by teachers and parents. They seem distinctly lacking in healthy E-typeness: meet Dylan (5 yrs), a live-wire that gets into fights and continual mischief. Meet Ozzy (8.5 yrs) a little professor who cannot relate to his peers. Meet Leo (14 yrs) a gang imitator (or initiator - he's been in enough trouble with the police). Meet Kevin (16 yrs) who comes from a comfortable, successful background, but is not blossoming as was intended, gradually withdrawing into a virtual world with black painted walls. What is posited is that healthy learning experiences are not generally 'caught' by 'firm and warm' handling from parents and an 'adult alliance' - whose collaborative effort are in short supply. Instead, young men-to-be, before the age of 7, are misconstrued emotionally in fear of mollycoddling. Then they are over-taught (or systemised) at too earlier an age, and more insidiously, over-indulged by 'over-cool' marketeers, leaking soul along the way.

However nurture only tells one tale of the story, and it is in boys natural withdrawel into themselves (stemming from their hard-wired Cro-magnon brain) that parental frustrations and received wisdom have been misunderstood. Scientific evidence shows that because of the effects of high foetal testosterone, boys are slightly less well equipped to join in the dance of communication, which has implications for attachment and the bond of love - they are more face-to-face demanding. Mothers therefore have to work harder in facilitating the psychological conditions boys need to contribute to the social fabric, i.e being able to take each others point of view into account, rather than looking after number one. It is not helped that parents are equally fragile and less well supported for the task of parent-hood today, making a screen-based culture an easy temptation (techno-creep).

There is some hope in readdressing the balance of empathy and systemathy. Age-old themes of finding a durable manhood at a time when boys exhibit high-energy risk taking are explored. A comparison is drawn between two 14-yr old boys who hit the headlines on the same day: one who single-handedly sailed across the Atlantic with mentor a mile or so behind, the other, the youngest child in the UK ever to be given an ASBO. 'Boys need quests to pursue, codes to live by and mentors to guide them...' is anachronistically spelled out. They also need to know 'who is in charge, what the rules are, and whether they are fair'. Like pack animals it seems, once a respectful dominance is established boys learn to fall into line. Reactionary stuff indeed after the radicalism and utopianism of earlier chapters..

I am not so much looking forward to the sequel - 21st Century Girls, but building up to it. Mr Hilton's Big Society anyone?